competition

Keepers of Craft take Heavy Medal @ 2025 WMBO!

The 2025 O'Connor's West Michigan Brew Off is in the books, and what a great showing! 12th Annual O’Connor’s West Michigan Brew OffBrew Competition Online Entry & Management Congrats to the following Keepers for their achievements! Chris Baar with Harry Jachym Bronze for Strong

competition

Homebrew Fantasy Draft 5pm September 28th at the Distant Whistle, Vicksburg

Hello Keepers (and other visitors, welcome!), A few years ago now, we held a 'fantasy football' style draft board to have a bit of fun to build recipes on the fly, and as it’s football (whichever flavour you prefer) season once more, we are bringing back the

hot sauce

Kalamazoo Hot Sauce Enthusiasts Meetup - Great Success

The Kalamazoo Hot Sauce Enthusits meeting in January was a great success! After a long break following the worst of COVID-19, KHSE met for the second ever time at the Distant Whistle brewery in Vicksburg.  While not Keepers distinctly, we absolutely consider them a sister club! Many a sauce was

Let's Talk About Brewing With Intent

What do I mean by "Brewing with intent"? Instead of digging right into it, I'll start with a few personal examples. My very first solo batch of beer was supposed to be a chocolate banana stout, and one of my first batches of mead was supposed

guide

Let's Talk About Carbonation as an Ingredient

The thought of first putting something like this together came to me when I was judging a competition some odd months back. As my judging partner and I were going through the beers, I mentally noted to myself just how often I was recommending increased carbonation in my overall impression

competition

Keepers of Craft homebrew club recognized with Gambrinus Club Award!

Pittsburgh, Pa. • June 25, 2022 The Keepers of Craft homebrew club of Kalamazoo, Mich., was presented the Gambrinus Club Award at the 2022 National Homebrew Competition, organized by the American Homebrewers Association® (AHA) – the national not-for profit organization dedicated to advancing the hobby of homebrewing. Winners of the world’s

competition

Keepers Wort Mixer Competition for Big Brew Day May 7th 2022

At the last meeting we announced the rules & teams for the inaugural Keepers of Craft Wort Mixer. Teams of 3 brewers have been randomly paired up to design and brew one of 4 styles together: * Belgian * Wheat Beer * Stout/Porter, and * British Beer Each team will be given $20

off-flavour

Off-flavour tasting

Here are the descriptors, causes & possible fixes to the off-flavours from yesterday's meeting Acetaldehyde (green apple) * green apple/dry cider * acetaldehyde is a precursor to ethanol from glucose * is found in every beer to some extent * also caused by oxidation of ethanol * lager yeasts can cause higher

Keepers of Craft takes home 2021 Homebrew Club of the Year!

Each year homebrew clubs from around the state of Michigan pool together entries for the Michigan Beer Cup homebrew competition.  When medals are awarded, scores are also given and aggregated for each club.  A gold is worth 3 points, a silver 2, a bronze 1.   This year Keepers of Craft

recipe

Hard Seltzer Recipe

Prepared by Evan Kessick Ingredients: * 6 gal distilled water (2 gal at boil, 4 gallons cold) (Boil) * 6 lbs corn sugar (dextrose) (Boil) * 12 gm Citric Acid (Boil) * 4 gm Calcium Chloride (Boil) * 1/3 oz Burton Water Salt pk (Boil) * Yeast Nutrient Schedule: * At boil: 8 gm * 24hr: 8

meeting

November Meeting Recording Posted

For our November meeting we were honored to have Lance Shaner, owner of Omega Yeast, on to talk to us about some of the Kveik strains they propagate (and other cool yeast knowledge!) Check out the video!

Keepers Cup 2020

Entries for the 2020 Keepers Cup are now being accepted! Competition season has been a little rough this year due to the pandemic, but that's not going to keep The Keepers of Craft down.  All members through the 2020 calendar year are eligible to sign up for the

presentation

Fermenting Foods

Fermentation isn't just for liquids. In this presentation we introduce the art of fermenting foods, focusing typically on the fermentation of fruit & vegetables, but similar techniques could be applied to meats, if that's your thing. The presentation introduces the basic procedures to start your own

recipe

First brew with Philly Sour - Lachancea spp. lactic acid producing yeast

Cross posting a recent Reddit post I made in /r/homebrewing. So what is Philly Sour? Philly Sour is a Novel Lachancea spp. yeast that is capable of producing lactic acid while also producing ethanol. It basically does all of the cool fun things that we want a yeast to

presentation

Brewing Water

This is the most recent revision of the brewing water presentation that I've given in the past. The presentation explores the contribution of various ions to the perception of the beer, mash pH, historical brewing profiles, and most importantly how to change the profile of your brew water

meeting

Christmas Brew Day 2019

It's the most maltiest time of the year!   The Keepers of Craft were back at it again at One Well Brewing's production facility in December.  One Well, being the fine, upstanding, and supportive brewery they are, have invited us to brew as a club (with their

meeting

2019 Beer Generator Competition

The 2019 beer generator competition was a great success! For the uninitiated, this year Keepers of Craft held a competition in which all participants were asked to brew a beer that they chose from a list of randomly generated "recipies".   Beers ranged from "irregularly colored" European

The Quest for Quetico Yeast (Method)

Methods used while traveling & harvesting wild yeast from Canadian Provincial Park Quetico August 2019

recipe

Baltic Porter

This is the recipe that got a honorable mention at the Bell's comp. It was derived from Adventures in Homebrewing's Buccaneer Baltic Porter. You can use lager yeast for a proper Baltic porter, but I prefer it with ale yeast. Baltic Porter Baltic Porter (12 C)

The Quest for Quetico Yeast (Location)

About Quetico and my quest for capturing wild yeast far off the beaten path

presentation

Brewing for Competitions

Who wouldn't want unbiased and valuable feedback on how to make better beer?  And maybe a little bling. This was originally a Powerpoint presentation used for an in-person meeting.  Instead of attaching the .pptx file I'm opting to go through each of the individual slides one

recipe

Denali IPA

Denali IPA American IPA (14 B) Type: All Grain Batch Size: 5.50 gal Boil Size: 6.90 gal Boil Time: 30 min End of Boil Vol: 6.35 gal Final Bottling Vol: 5.00 gal Fermentation: 66/68 Date: 23 Feb 2019 Brewer: j Equipment: Dirty 30 Efficiency: 62.

recipe

First Beer with Voss Kveik

In preparation for the upcoming Goshen Homebrew Competition, I decided I'd give a strain of Kveik yeast a whirl and make some beer.   My chosen strain for the competition was Voss Kveik which I was able to pick up at South County Homebrew Supply.  Thanks Drew Doster for

recipe

Boss Tweed Clone Attempt #1

Good morning all! I wanted to take some time and share my first attempt at a Boss Tweed clone in preparation for the upcoming release by Old Nation Brewing Co. First, I’d like to list off some considerations when I first decided to clone the beer. #1: Obviously I’

recipe

Black Currant Sherbet (Lactose) Sour

My first sour of many to come. There have been a lot of really flavorful beers coming out of the SW Michigan area lately. Specifically I've really enjoyed many of the Odd Side "Fruitsicle" series beers as well as the HOMES "Sherbert" series of