March, 2001 Prost!




				*March 2001* *Volume 24* *Number 2*

		*The San Andreas Malts' Newsletter* *Our 24th Year*
	INSIDE &OUT:		OYSTER TIME!!! Whet your appetites, folks - oyster BBQ time fast approacheth! The game's the same, only the price of oysters has forced us to jack your cost a couple of bucks if you indulge in those wonderful mollusks - if you're allergic - you face no price increase, as the kind folks who run the park are not as greedy as SF Park & Rec. When: Sunday, April 29, Noon to Dusk. Where: San Pedro Park, Pacifica (Linda Mar east from CA 1 until it ends; R a block, then left into the lot. Parking was $4 last year - may be a buck more this year - if the lot's full, there's street parking, but you have a bit of a lug if you have coolers. kegs. etc. If you live south of Half Moon Bay - DON'T USE 1! There's usually an air show in HMB that causes a major traffic jam - instead, take 280 to Westbrook, which becomes Sharp Park Blvd, then go south on 1 to Linda Mar.) Bring: Quaffs of your choice, eating utensils (we'll have plastic if you forget, but we like to be eco-friendly - on that same note, try to conserve plates!!), something to drink out of, and a salad/side dish/appetizer/dessert. Last year we got a pretty good balance. As an added feature this year, we're going to hold ELECTIONS ... all paid-up Malts as of 4/25 are eligible to vote. Send us your nominations for prez, VP, treasurer, & Editor - we'll leave the Webmeister slot to Jay for the time being. *I do not want to wear 2 hats, & I prefer being Editor - so somebody get your name out there to be El Presidente!!* Henceforth, officer terms will be July 1- June 30 if this works - we'll use May-June for transition! *MJK*
a melange for your reading pleasure, including... BHJ - Bar Chat OYSTER BBQ ALERT STEVE NORRIS TRIBUTE STOUT BOUT
STOUT BOUT When: Wednesday, March 21, 7:30PM Where: Pat Loughran's house, 409 Mangels, SF What: "Homeys" vs. commercial stouts - bring yours for a fun evening of comparison tasting!! Then the "swill bucket"! Directions: Via (80/101 to) 280 south, take the Monterey exit. Straight at light onto Monterey, then R at Forester, then up 3 blox & R on Mangels. Pat's house is on the right, near the crest of the hill. From 280 northbound, take the San Jose/Bosworth exit & head for Bosworth, which brings you under 280 to Glen Park BART (on your L). L at the light by BART Station, then one block to Monterey & proceed as above. From within SF, take Sloat (from 19th Ave) thru St. Francis Wood to Monterey if you know that route, then L on Forester; or Market/Portola, L on O'Shaughnessy, which becomes Bosworth at the bottom of the hill, then R at BART station & proceed as above. Via BART/Muni, the westbound 23 Monterey will get you within a few blocks' mostly uphill walk from Glen Park; BART/Muni 54 or 44 get you to Glen Park. If you plan to drive, carpool if you can - parking can be tough!

WHEN YOU SEND IN YOUR DUES, PLEASE GIVE US AN E-MAIL ADDRESS IF YOU HAVE ONE, PLUS AT LEAST ONE PHONE NUMBER - WE NEED TO UPDATE OUR RECORDS!



2 MARCH PROST 2001

		B^REWER'S Comments & Opinions Home Journal
	SAN ANDREAS MALTS P O Box 884661 San Francisco, CA 94188-4661 http://www.river.org/~mumbly/malts/ Prez/Editor - Mark Kornmann 510/528-5351 (h) 510/466-3495 (w) yupbashr@pacbell.net (h) beerman49@msn.com (anywhere) Vice President - Jack Dawson 415/841-1433 (h) jsdawson@pacbell.net Treasurer - David Najman 415/585-1384 (h) dnajman@earthlink.net Webmeister - Jay Stanley 415/990-6951(cell) jaystan@well.com Contributing Emeritus Officers Pat Loughran Alec Moss Bill Stender Russ Wigglesworth Dave Suurballe Honorary Lifetime Malt - Steve Norris *** * * * * * * It's easy to become a San Andreas Malt. Dues are $15/year, renewable in January. Mail them to our PO Box or pay at any meeting/club event.** The Malts publish the Prost* semi-monthly. Our copy deadline generally is the 25th of the even-numbered months. You may reprint our articles as long as you cite the *Prost* as the source. *Editor's note:* Send me material on the net/on 3.5" disk (< 1.44 Mb) in Word (< 7.5), WordPerfect (< 6.5) or ASCII (text only) files. If you send Word/WordPerfect files, send an ASCII backup just in case. Mail discs to: Mark Kornmann 1621 Mariposa Street Richmond, CA 94804-5017 * prost \pröst\ interjection, [German fr. Latin], used to wish good health, especially before drinking.	B^REWER'S Comments & Opinions Home Journal
		Won't this damned rain & cold ever go away? I brewed a dark lager a couple of weeks ago that still hasn't finished fermenting - in my kitchen!! I have the carboy covered with an old sweatshirt to keep out the light, but the gurgles started slow in the fermentation lock, never ever reached a frenzy, & still con- tinue ... come Saturday I keg & hope for the best - & hope we get some warmer weather for the ale yeast brews I intend to do soon. KUDOS this time to Allan Paul & the folks at SFBC for hosting the Steve Norris "tribute" & to Russ Wigglesworth for setting it up - I'm sorry I missed it (it hit the weekend of a long-standing family commitment I have in LA) ... & to those wonderful folks at Anchor for another great "Homebrew Club of the Year " party that we in the officers' slots get to go to (we've always used our allotted billets for the current & previous years' officers in the years we're not the designated honoree) GET YER NAME ON THE BALLOT if you don't want to bank on us winning the award to get there! - we've had a dry spell - more people brewing for competitions would help (tho our limited entries often do well!). A couple of weeks ago, I stopped at Pyramid for dinner on my way home from work & got into a long conversation at the bar with a couple of 20-ish dudes who are members of one of the many bands who got booted from the warehouse on 3rd St. in SF that also housed Speakeasy (who has since found a new home on Evans near the USPS facility). One of them told me that Rogue Brewery's owner owned that site - and that they would not drink any more of Rogue's brews. I related the story to Alec Moss at the last planning meeting, & he told me that the guy had the wrong brewery - the owner was Stone Brewery of San Diego (they make Arrogant Bastard Ale. which I have given positive reviews before - also an IPA, which isn't nearly as good). Alec also told me that Speakeasy is suing Stone regarding the moving timeframes ... stay tuned. Greg "Griz" Miller of SF Brewcraft is offering a discount on ingredients to anyone who wants to use his brewing facility in the back of the store - stop by if you're interested ... the shop is at 1555 Clement. We're looking to set up an affiliation with him to recharge our membership ... we give him a few extra copies of the *Prost* to give to his customers. Look for more party-ish meetings this summer - we had a long discussion about this last week at the planning meeting & decided that the best way to boost attendance was to do the social thing - either weekday nights at brewpubs or at willing members' homes on Friday nights/weekend afternoons. Call/E-mail me if you're willing to host one!! Now go to page 3 for Jack's comments on the Steve Norris party & the Toronado BW Fest, details on the upcoming elections, & some quick beer notes. Peace & good brewing!! - MJK



	3 MARCH PROST 2001

				A FEW QUICK BEER NOTES ... Czechwar is available at BevMo (Oakland; none in Albany - don't know about other locations) for $7.99/6 - same price as PU. This is a damn good beer & worth a try if you like lager/pils. The sad part is that in the Czech Republic it's dirt cheap!! BevMo in SF has Crystal, another brew from the same province as Czechvar (Budjovice) for $3.99/6, which also is better than any American brew; TJ's has Starbrno for $4-4.50/6 - that also is quite good. Speaking of lager ... Pyramid has created one for the Bud drinkers (as one of the bartenders told me recently) - Coastline Lager now is on tap in Berkeley. I tasted it (it had been on line for about a week) - clean & quite malty, but was a little "green" - as in under-aged (blame that on the corporate beancounters?). Good effort for an alehouse, but certainly not on a par with PUor Czechwar. Stick to IPA if you like hops - currently Tilted Kilt (6.5%) Scottish Ale is the $3/pint special; no more 5000 (DAMN!!) or Snowcap. Bigfoot 2000 is out ($8.49/6 at Bev Mo) - enough said! Full Sail Imperial Porter is very nice - chocolate overtones & higher alcohol than most porters. Their IPA isn't bad either. All Full Sail goes on sale at Safeway every so often.

	THE VP SPEAKS ... *(about the party to honor Steve Norris & the BW Fest* ) On February 18th, many Malts and others gathered at the San Francisco Brewing Company for good beer, good food, and to honor one of our founding members. You're probably already aware that late last year, Steve Norris closed the Home Brew Shop on Taraval. It was one of the first home-brew shops, lasting for 22 years but became a victim of the economy and diminishing interest in home brewing. So on that Sunday, Allan Paul of SF Brewing hosted a dinner in Steve's honor. Afterwards, people stood up spontaneously and gave testimonials to Steve and his impact on them, and home brewing. I learned about the San Andreas Malts from visiting Steve's shop in 1989, where he convinced me that fermenting in a plastic bucket would work way better than continuing to use the kitchen wastebasket I'd bought from a hardware store. He touched a lot of people over the years and made huge contributions to Bay Area home brewing. Besides the good food and excellent beer served up by Allan, there were some truly unforgettable sights: like Steve in a jacket & tie, and Nick Farats in a bright red plaid blazer & tie (I thought I was at a wake). Thanks to Russ Wigglesworth for organizing the event, Allan Paul for hosting it and providing some really good brew (loved the IPA and the porter), and to all the Malts, old and new, and all the others who came out to honor Steve for his many years serving the home brewing community and our club. Steve is the first Malt to be given a lifetime honorary membership for all he's done for us over the years - so even though the shop is gone, Steve is, and always will be a San Andreas Malt. On Saturday February 17th, the Toronado held their 8th annual Barley Wine Festival. Many of us are involved in judging these commercial beers every year and the event has obtained a kind of cult status, as the Toronado gathers 40-50 barley wines from regional micro brewers and swaps out their regular brews for a barley wine orgy. This year, Rogue Old Crustacean won, followed by Triple-Rock. I liked the Magnoloa Thunderpussy and the Speakeasy brew. Anchor and Sierra, old standbys were eclipsed by the smaller brewers who all seem to be cranking out seasonal barley wines. The event lasts several days, usually ending quietly as they run out of these magic brews one by one. If you haven't been, you should check the event out when it comes back next year, usually starting the 3rd Saturday in February *Jack Dawson*
				WE ARE HAVING ELECTIONS!! (cooperate - or you'll get an anal probe a la Cartman!!) The only time most of the members are in the same place at the same time is at the Oyster BBQ ... therefore - we will vote for President (MJK declines - only willing to be Editor), VP, Treasurer, & Editor next month ... the floor is open to nominations! Officer terms will be July 1-June 30 henceforth. Nominate yourself or anyone else in the club - preferably via e-mail - with a short sup-porting statement (snail mail to 1621 Mariposa St, Richmond CA 94804-5017; fax to 510/466-3082) that I can publish in the April *Prost. Nomination deadline is April 1.* Once I get all the nominees (incumbents are automatic unless they decline), I'll create ballots to be given out to members at the oyster BBQ - those who can't make it will get theirs via e-mail or snail mail - May 10 deadline for return. We've survived for a long time because we've had enough influx of "new blood" to give the "old-timers" a break from the admini-strative stuff ... & we have a huge loyal cadre to help out at the 2 big events (Oyster BBQ & State Comp). Howsomever - we're in a bit of an "old fart" rut these days & would welcome some new points of view to keep us vibrant! We officers like what we do & the occasional "perks", but we feel that the general membership should have a say in who runs the show - so get those nominees into my inbox ASAP!!!! - *MJK*


4 MARCH PROST 2001
		CALENDAR
	Saturday, Nov 10, all day - STATE HOMEBREW CLUB COMP @ STERN GROVE (no confusion in 2001 like there was last year!). *Recreational/Educational Activities:* Devise a weekend "road trip"/outing! Call an officer/attend a Planning Meeting/post details to the PO box to run it up the proverbial flagpole! WE HAD A DEAD Y2K - LET'S MAKE 2001 BETTER!!!!! *YOUR '01 DUES arE DUE!!* *don't be one to get the dreaded red dot next month!! -*
Wednesday March 21: Stout Bout at Pat Loughran's (see P. 1) Saturday, March 24 - World Cup of Beers at Golden Pacific - if you want to steward, check out their website for a POC. Sunday, April 29, noon to dusk - OYSTER BBQ @ San Pedro Park in Pacifica (see page 1). WE NEED A MEETING HOST FOR MAY! Call/E-mail your editor if you're willing!! Tue/Wed/Thurs evenings or Saturday afternoons are fine!




*1ST CLASS*