The Northeast was hit with more wintery weather this week, which caused Colin Presby’s latest campaign stop to be cancelled. The Bruclear Homebrew Club was set to meet at Armstrong Ales, LLC in Phoenixville, PA, but the weather had other plans. Luckily, the next Berks County Homebrew Club meeting will still take place on Tuesday, February 11th at Canal Street Pub in Reading, PA.
This past Sunday, Colin spent some time in his teacher role educating beer lovers at the Goggleworksin Reading, PA about the craft of homebrewing. He started teaching homebrewing classes at the Goggleworks about a year and a half ago. Each season offers an Intro to Homebrewing course as well as different intermediate and advanced modules seasonally.
Upcoming special classes include Summer Wheat Beers and Stepping Up to All-Grain, but most recently he ran a very successful Barrel Ageing class. In that class options for “barrel ageing” homebrew were discussed, including oak chips, staves, spirals and small barrels.
Twenty gallons of imperial stout were brewed and aged in a 15 gallon Dad’s Hat Rye Whisky barrel. The remaining 5 gallons were split for secondary conditioning, half with Dad’s Hat soaked oak chips and half left untouched.
This presented a really neat comparison of actual barrel-aged, simulated barrel, and unmodified stout. As a follow-up, 15 gallons of Scotch Ale were brewed and the barrel was refilled. That beer is currently ageing and should be bottled in the next week or two.
Teaching at Goggleworks has given Colin great opportunities to work with other artists on projects that synergize with homebrewing. They have blown custom beer glasses in the hot glass shop and made ceramic beer mugs. Colin says, “I know it comes as no surprise, but the Goggleworks artists say good beer has inspired many works of art.”
If you have ideas or issues you’d like to discuss, or if you have connections with other homebrew clubs, be sure to contact Colin. Interested voters can contact Colin through the contact form on PresbyforAHA.com and on his Facebook page. He is also on Twitter and Instagram as @theRealPresby.
You can read more about the AHA Governing Committee and learn about the current members by clicking here. If you aren’t a member of the AHA, you can join by clicking here.
Voting runs from February 20th to March 31st so mark your calendars and remember to vote for Presby!
