Hop Head Farms Tour

Our good friends (and fellow members) Jeff and Bonnie Steinman from Hop Head Farms are once again welcoming KLOB for a private tour of their operation in Hickory Corners.  The date will be this Sunday, August 31st starting at 10am.  It includes a walk through parts of our farm that may be muddy, depending on the weather.  Please be prepared with appropriate foot wear.  We ask that you please arrive early so they can show us around and then get back to their important work of harvesting some of the finest hops in the country!

Hop Head Farms is a working farm with the usual hazards of a farm operation.  Due to this, the tour is not suitable for pets or children.    

As a late addition, author Stan Hieronymus is planning on joing our group for the private tour.  You may know him from his books Brewing with Wheat, Brew Like a Monk and For the Love of Hops.  Feel free to bring copies of his book to be signed or just some good questions to pick his brain.

KLOB Roast 2014

As you should be aware, tickets are currently available for this year's Roast, which is our 20th!  The event will be held on September 20th (in place of our normal monthly meeting) at Coldbrook Park start at noon.  The price is $15 for members and $20 for non-members and includes entrance into the park, a fantastic catered BBQ meal by Sean Anderson Catering and a commemorative pint glass featuring this year's artwork.  All guests are welcome so feel free to invite friends, family, co-worker or anyone who enjoys good food and beer.  You can purchase your tickets at Tempo Vino Winery.

The pre-order period for T-shirts is now over but we will have a limit set of colors and sizes available for sale at the Roast for $15.

But most importantly, this event is about your beer!  Now is the perfect time to brew something special to share with all your fellow homebrewers.

http://www.klob.org/club-events/2014/klob-roast-2014

Kalamazoo Oktoberfest Beerfest

The club was approached by representatives from the Vine Neighborhood Association to be a part of their Oktoberfest event which will be held on Friday, October 3rd and Saturday, October 4th at the Arcadia Creek Festival Place.  They looking to have our club have a designated space for holding brewing demonstrations (similar to our Big Brew and Teach a Friend to Brew events held at Bell's) as well as serving our own homebrew to the public!  We would be part of the festivities held on Saturday, going from noon until the early evening.  This is a very exciting opportunity for both our club as well as our members to be able to share their love for hand-made craft beer.

If you were at this month's meeting you'll know that had a drawing for the 12 batches of beer we plan to serve at the event.  We are still looking for volunteers to conduct demonstrations during the day and serve beer.  If you would like to be involved, please contact us.

Bell's Homebrew Expo and Competition

Our good friends at Bell's are once again hosting an exciting gathering for all homebrewers in the area as well as suppliers and vendors with interesting and unique offerings.  KLOB will be one of those vendor and we will have our own table alongside the likes of Blichmann, BSG and others.  If you would like to help us during the day to meet and talk with homebrewers that are not yet members, please let us know.  Otherwise, this is a great opportunity to interact with other craft beer enthusiasts.

The Expo also coincides with the Bell's Homebrew Competition.  A limited number of brewers are given a free 5 gallon batch of wort made by the Bell's Eccentric Cafe staff that they can then take home and use to create the best beer they can imagine.  To enter the competition, bring back the finished product and the winning entry will get the chance to brew their recipe on their 10 bbl system and have it served at the Cafe.  KLOB has had amazing showings in the past including wins by members Geoff Groff and David Lyman.  We would love to see that tradition continue!

http://bellsbeer.com/eccentric-cafe/events-calendar/?select=1&pkeyEventID=5075

Private Online Classifieds

Many of you noticed when we recently revamped our website that we dropped seldom used forums.  However, the one purpose they did serve was allowing members the ability to post notices for equipment and supplies they were interested in buying or selling.  We have attempted to create a specific tool for that type of communication while also keeping it exclusively for our members.

http://www.klob.org/classifieds

You will need to log into the website with your username and password.  After that, you can browse the list of posts or submit your own.