April 1997, Volume 20, Issue 4

March Events

Business was kept brief at March’s meeting because of the afternoon tour at St. George Spirits.

Bob Jones announced the plans for the upcoming Walnut Creek BART Pub Crawl on April 26th. Details are in a subsequent article.

Mike Wood reported on the resources he found at a salvage yard specializing in stainless steel and aluminum. Alco Iron & Metal Co. is located at 1091 Doolittle Drive in San Leandro, 510-562-1107. Mike spotted several pieces that would be useful in homebrewery construction.

Continuing on with locating resources, Harry Graham purchased his hard-to-find 104-quart insulated cooler from Montgomery Wards. When adding perforated drain tubes, the cooler makes an excellent mash tun. Loaded with ice, it also makes an cooler. We’re still doing research on how the cooler knows whether to keep things warm or cold ...

John Pyles & Roger St. Denis were invited by Brewmaster to test and report on "The Brew House Pilsner" kit. This kit contains a box of measured, numbered ingredients and operational instructions. John & Roger will report their findings in April, and hopefully taste the results by May.

Harry & Kim toured Rock Bottom Brewpub at the Prune Yard in San Jose. Rock Bottom is a typical yuppie place like Gordon Biersch. The Ales were good; the food was good. However, Rock Bottom’s cask conditioned ale, which should have been clear, was served cloudy.

Bruce toured Wizard’s brewpub in San Leandro, and found that it was not among the top ten pubs to visit.

Charlie went to a brewpub in Salt Lake City within ear’s distance of the choir.

No beers were tasted since we were all anxious to tour St. George.