Kris Blouch beat me to it, I was just going over this in my head, logged in and saw he was already asking. So Here it is, first Congrats to Kyle on running an excellent Coffee School and hooking us up with Dark Matter, that ran smoothly, the beers were great, good stuff all around. On to business. We need suggestions, volunteers/nominations.
1. What should the Cerveza School Series be????? Traditionally it has been a Hop School, just because a nice IPA is a great way to celebrate spring, I was thinking possibly a fruit school...exploring different methods to add fruit flavors to your beers...suggestions, lets hear 'em.
2. Who wants to run it?
3. Depending on #1 whom should we seek out for corporate sponsorship....
I think a fruit school is a good idea. That's fun and is in tune to spring and our experimental nature. I don't feel that for the IPA school, which is well-covered every day.
Maybe a chili beer school. It's tough because these beers can be palate destroying. But maybe a chili-beer flight, where different styles are heated to increasing levels, could work and be really fun. Like start with a slightly spicy-hot Wit, end with a hair-on-fire-hot Imperial Stout. People love to be tested on their heat tolerance.
Ok I think this isn't really how school works but I'm going to keep throwing out ideas that I think would be cool.
Water school, where you pair up and brew the same recipe as your partner -- one partner uses tap water, the other uses appropriate water additions.
Then we can be all nerdy and try both together and test how the hops pop more in one or the other, or how the bitterness is crisper in one and soapier in the other, or how the malt bill is discernable in one version but muddled in another.
And for guests that don't care about the school and just want to drink, well there's double the beer, and it'll all still be good.
http://tinfoilhatbrewery.com/
Another idea: brew whatever you want, but it has to be 5 SRM or less. So we'll get lots of nice crisp refreshing beers for spring/summer, but you get to taste a Czech Pils next to a Munich Helles next to a Witbier next to a Pale Ale.
They all look like Coors Light but aren't.
http://tinfoilhatbrewery.com/
Open it up to spice/herb/vegetable/fruit. Partner with local farmers market vendor. Pick 1, 2 or 6 base beers. Bar Nancy from joining so we can all look better :)
Water school is a thing reserved for the more nerdier full-level Brewer CHAOS crowd. It's a great idea, but not something the general party-goer is going to be interested in.
Fruit is cool.
Chiles would be cool and definitely fit the Cerveza theme.
We could still theoretically do Lager school!
I would also really, really like to do sour/funk school for an event far in the future :)
Just throwing out ideas!
I'm liking the fruit or chili ideas!! If anyone wants to do the May 'school', make these ideas more concrete!
A lager school would be a great way to showcase the club's awesome equipment not to mention styles that are not commonly represented at Chaos events.
If we wanted to do another version of Hop School, I'd be happy to work with John at Farmhouse Brewing to get it going.
Personally, I like both Rob's and Sean's ideas - lager or chili beer school. I'd be willing to help them organize either of them. One thought with the lager school, if we want to do this for Cerveza, we need to get going right now. People need to be brewing in a couple of weeks.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Just a thought - we can also book in advance - lager school can be announced soon (if decided) and planned for the summer party. That gives more than enough time to implement the school, get volunteers, and potentially block off/reserve the fermentation fridge as needed.
I like the idea of planning for the future as well. Before Mark Haar left we were beginning to plot a wild local yeast school...
Clone Cchool - pick your favorite beer and clone it. A cool way for people to try beers they otherwise couldn't get, like Pliny the Elder or Dark Lord or something like that
http://tinfoilhatbrewery.com/
How about this: Anyone who wants to host the school portion for Cerveza and BrewBQ put together a detailed plan, then present it to the club during the general membership meeting on March 6th. Then we can all vote during the meeting.
Does this sound like a good idea?
Kyle, if a lager school were in the cards, I think you are right; it make sense to plan it out more than one party's worth of time in advance. Perhaps this could also be discussed 3/6?
Hell, we could book through Harvest Fest if we like.
@Icehouse: sure. I could throw together my thoughts, but not sure if I'll take lead reigns on the school itself.
@Jeff: I call Harvest fest 2017: Locally "harvested" yeast and bacteria beer school. Boom. (This is mostly a joke. I think).
I like the presentation and voting at the meeting idea. I also like lager school and the yeast harvest.
I like the voting at meetings as well. It may entice more membership attendancel. It should be advertised that on such and such a date a vote will be held for the next 1,2 or 3 school events.
The emperor is not as forgiving as i am
Suggestion:
"Smash Beer" school.
Basic rules: agreed upon hop addition times (I vote 18, 5, and flameout). No more than 2 hops. This allows for a ton of experimentation without "muddying the water" too bad. And APA's will probably be popular at a party. Also these would be easy to make so we could possibly have a lot to sample.
My thoughts on:
Lager school: I'd love to do a lager school. Seriously; I'm working on my pilsners right now. It is a lot of work and planning though... and to be really candid, it'll be tough to hand out months of beer making to strangers... I'm still totally in though if others are.
Fruit school: These are fun and the spring is a great time. I've made a lot of these; and I'll be honest: they are very hard to control the end results. But I'm def. in if we want to do this.
Chili school: love the idea, but I worry we're treading on dangerous ground. Had a poblano dark IPA once that was balanced and tasted like chili's and chocolate and was awesome... but most other chili beers I've had are a mouthfull of pickled peppers. :p
I don't know if these should indeed be two, separate threads but there's another "Beer School!" thread going on at the same time as this. https://chaosbrewclub.net/forum/general-discussion/beer-school
Yeah, it's getting hard to follow both threads. Everyone, just contact Joe if you plan to propose a school idea for the upcoming parties at the March meeting.
It's possible to close comments on a forum thread. Should I shut them off here, with instructions to take it to the other thread?
OK, having caught up on that thread: yeah, the conversation is happening over there.
Commenting on this thread is now closed. Kindly visit the other related thread to continue discussion there.
(and if this is seen as an abuse of my admin-level privileges on the site, I will happily reverse it. Send me a note.)