Home Brew Department Manager (and Guru to many) Scott Russell will be teaching a basic brewing class at the Montshire Museum on Sunday, February 12.
Details on the class can be found at
http://montshire.org/programs/adults/the-science-of-brewing-beer/
The Point radio station ran this “Montshire Minute” on Wednesday 2/1…
Attention all Homebrewers!
Just got word from an old friend, a homebrewer who also has some professional and commercial brewing experience, who is moving and can’t take all his stuff with him – and can’t bear to trash it if he can avoid it. He has MANY MANY clean, delabled bottles of various styles and sizes, and would love to give them to someone who can use them. If you are interested and can arrange to pick them up in Norwich (VT), call Ward at 802-299-6278. He also has some brewing equipment he is willing to sell at a reasonable price, so again, give him a call and see what he has.
-Scott
Spring and summer bring many opportunities to celebrate with family and friends. Whether it for Mother or Father’s Day, graduation, birthday, or a hostess present, the Market has many thoughtful gift ideas.
Make your own selection, or call ahead (763-2400) to order a gift basket, or buy a gift certificate at the register.
Here are some ideas to get you started …
The Home Brew Department will have a fairly good quantity of hop rhizomes available for sale starting Wednesday, 4/20. If you pre-ordered rhizomes, they will be tagged and put aside for you. If you didn’t order any, don’t worry – there will be plenty available. For more info or to reserve rhizomes from what has arrived, email Scott at homebrew@soromarket.com. Rhizomes will sell for $4.50 each.
I will be ordering hop rhizomes after this weekend. If you would like to plant your own hops, we will have a pretty good selection available in about 3 weeks or so. If there is a particular hop variety and/or quantity you would like to grow (from the list below) email me (homebrew@soromarket.com) and I will do my best to save it/them for you. Once they arrive, rhizomes will be sold on a first come, first served basis except for those reserved and pre-ordered. Rhizomes will cost $4.50 apiece.
Available varieties:
Brewers Gold
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Fuggle (limited quantities)
Galena
Kent Golding
Mt. Hood
Magnum
Newport
Northern Brewer
Nugget
Sterling
Willamette
Zeus
Instructions and advice on planting, care and harvest will be available.
Cheers,
Scott, Home Brew Guru
Three bits of hop-related info to pass along:
On Friday, 2/18, Home Brew manager Scott Russell and asst. manager Rick Scully attended the Second Annual Winter Hops Conference, organized by the UVM Extension Service, at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. The conference featured speakers discussing breeding and cultivating hops, hopyard and trellis construction, and the history of hop growing in Vermont, as well as a panel of Vermont’s commercial brewers talking about how locally grown hops might impact the brewing scene in Vermont. Naturally, we sampled the Trapp Lodge Brewery’s outstanding Austrian and German-style lagers after the conference… and found them to be excellent.
As part of the conference, the Market became a member of the Northeast Hop Alliance, an organization dedicated to bringing back commercial hop production in the region. While we are not a voting member (only actual hop growers, with 100 plantings or more, are allowed to vote) we will be able to access workshops, information and perhaps some equipment and materials as members. For more info about this organization, visit their website.
In just a couple weeks, I will be ordering hop rhizomes again. Last year we sold nearly 120 rhizomes to local brewers and hop enthusiasts – if you are certain you would like to plant hops this year, feel free to email me (homebrew@soromarket.com) and let me know how many you intend to plant, and what varieties you would prefer, if you know. I can’t guarantee anything as far as quantity or variety, but I will do my best. I expect they will run about $6 per rhizome this year.
The Market offers several different types of classes, from cheese and soap-making to pickling and sushi. One frequent request of late has been a basic beer brewing class and/or a tasting/beer appreciation seminar. Unfortunately, the Market does not have the facilities to actually brew beer, nor the appropriate level of licensing to pour and taste beer, making both of these requests impossible to fulfill.
The possibility exists, however, of hiring the Market’s Home Brew Guru, Scott, to lead such classes in your own space – if you have a small group that would like to learn either basic or advanced brewing, or learn to taste, appreciate, even judge beer, contact the Guru at scott@vthomebrewguru.com for more information, prices, scheduling, etc.
Couldn’t resist passing along this email I got from a home brew customer. Who says the Co-Op experience doesn’t change lives? 
-Scott, the Home Brew Guru
Hi Scott, I bought your book last summer when I passed through Royalton. I currently live in Northern New York State, but will be retiring to your area in a couple of years. I have been brewing for 25 years, and your department at the Co-Op is one of the reasons I am relocating there. Maybe I will catch you the next time I am in Royalton. Love your homebrew supply department. Take care, Neil
We got in a small batch of locally grown (East Randolph) fresh Cascade hops at the end of last week – they are wonderfully aromatic and perfect for your Harvest Ales and Fall IPA’s – but there are only about 15 ounces left. $1.89/ounce, first come, first served!
If anyone else has some local home-grown hops they would like to sell to the Market, contact me either at the store or by email (homebrew@soromarket.com).
Cheers!
-Scott, the Home Brew Guru
A few months ago, the producer of our standard malt extracts, Munton’s, changed their packaging from a 15 kg. jug to a 25 kg. bag-in-a-box. While the changeover was occurring, they stopped shipping bulk malt to our supplier, Crosby & Baker, who consequently ran out of their stock. Which of course meant we at the Market ran out as well. Many of you came in to buy bulk extract in April, May and June only to find we had none. We finally got some of the new packages in July, and they are not what we hoped. They are heavy, unwieldy and just not practical for our space. The good news is, C&B is now carrying Briess malt extract in bulk jugs similar to what we used to get from Munton’s, so we are transitioning to Briess. There are a couple of advantages. Briess is a domestic malting company, using US and Canadian-grown grains instead of British. This means it is fresher, generally, and less expensive as well. You will see the bulk syrups go down from $2.39/lb. to $2.09/lb.
We will also be moving to carry Briess Dry Malt extracts, which will reflect similar price decreases. We will still carry Munton’s extracts in cans, and can special order Munton’s DME (or Cooper’s) if that’s what you prefer, but it makes sense to only carry one brand on a regular basis, given our space and storage limits.
Let me know what you think!
-Scott, the Home Brew Guru