homebrewing

Early Friday evening April 12th, several members of the Prairie Homebrewing Companions presented Sickies Garage with a Quality Beer Zone sign.  They local homebrewing club had these signs made up so they could show their appreciation to local businesses that they felt supported quality beer and the club.  Sickies was the most recent recipient of this sign because of their large tap list of good beers and because of the support Sickies has given the club with their Hoppy Halloween homebrewing competition and more.

The Quality Beer Zone sign being presented to Sickies manager Zack Click by PHC member Eric Sanders

If you see the Quality Beer Zone signs posted in a bar, liquor store or other business, you will know that the local homebrewers appreciate what that business has done promoting quality beer in the community.  More information about the sign can be found at the PHC website.  A full list of businesses that have revived the Quality Beer Zone sign are:

99 Bottles, Moorhead, MN
Atomic Coffee Moorhead, MN
Bernie‘s Wines & Liquors South University, Fargo, ND
Bridgeview Liquor Moorhead, MN
Country Cannery (homebrewing supplies) Moorhead, MN
Fargo Billiards & Gastropub, Fargo, ND
Happy Harry’s Bottle Shop 45th Street, Fargo, ND
Monk’s Pub @ Usher’s House Moorhead, MN
Old Chicago Fargo, ND
Sickies Garage Fargo, ND
Sidestreet Pub Fargo, ND
Summit Brewing St. Paul, MN
Zorbaz Detroit Lakes, MN

In the December 23rd edition of the Grand Forks Herald, they included an article about the Bitter North Brewers homebrew club.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/252227/

There is really no better way to understand beer than to homebrew.  As you work with the base ingredients in beer and go through the processes needed to make beer, you can really appreciate the final product and what is really takes to get there and how all the flavors you find in the end product get there.

Click on the Homebrew menu tab to find the club local to you along with suppliers of ingredients and equipment so you can start homebrewing yourself.

Fargo homebrewers Tom Roan and Nancy Bowser were invited to send in a homebrew to Willamette Weekly’s ‘President of Beer’ competition.  This competition was created by this Portland Oregon website as a battle between the 50 flagship commercial beers from each state.  Well North Dakota does not have a full brewery operating within the state at the time of the competition so they asked some homebrewers.

Well Tom and Nancy sent in some bottles of Beaverbear Barleywine and Willamette Weekly got a panel of judges together and did a blind tasting scoring all 50 beers and the one on top, was Tom and Nancy’s barleywine, beating out some very well known commercial beers from the other states.  Minnesota’s representative was Summit EPA and it got 39th place.

Congratulations Tom and Nancy!

Also congratulations go to South Dakota’s Crow Peak brewery who got 3rd place with their Pile O’ Dirt Porter.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-19731-the_president_of_beers.html
http://wweek.com/portland/article-19731-the_president_of_beers.html?current_page=2