Congrats to a Local Homebrewer!

 Special congrats to Tommy Orr for his Jalapeno Ale that was featured on tap in the tasting room at Cigar City Brewing! Tommy is a member of Special Hoperations, a homebrew club that meets regularly at Datz.

Here are the details courtesy of Cigar City Blog:

The Smoked Jalapeno Ale was collaboration with Tommy Orr, a member of Special Hoperations Homebrew Club of Tampa. His is the first of 4 very special beers we will be releasing in the next few months all brewed with members of local homebrewing clubs. 

Here’s how it all started:
This past March we chose a beer from each local homebrew club that participated in the events of this year’s Hunuphu’s Day party and we’ve been working together with the brewers of those beers to brew them. Each will be on tap in the coming months in the tasting room for you to try. Once they have all been on tap individually we will put them all on tap together and offer samplers of all 4 so we can get your opinion for a People’s Choice vote. From there we will factor your opinions as we perform our own judging and choose one of the beers to be brewed in a full sized 15BBL batch to be served and to be submitted in the 2012 Great American Beer Festival’s Pro Am Competition. We had hoped to have this ready to go for this year’s competition, but with all that has been going on here at the brewery it has taken longer than we expected so we will be ready to go by next year’s GABF.

The beers and their brewers are: 

Smoked Jalapeno Ale- Tommy Orr from Special Hoperations

Kumquat Amarillo Wheat Ale- Mark Stober from Tampa Bay BEERS

Belgian Strong Dark Ale- Dave Kmietek from Dunedin Brewer’s Guild

Where’s my Lips Double IPA- Bob Bridges from Pinellas Urban Brewer’s Guild

Look for these beers to be on tap in the coming months and be sure to let us know what you think! When we are ready to put them all on tap together we will update you with another blog post so that you can come try them all and give us your official vote.

Sources:
Cigar City Brewing

 Related Posts:
Chateau Jiahu – Beer as Time Capsule

Tags: Cigar City Brewing, Datz Deli, Jalapeno Red Ale, special hoperations

Beer will be Flowing for Big Brew Day!

Dear Datz:

I received the Big Brew Day flyer in my email inbox this week, and it looks great, but I¹m a little confused. Can you tell me more about Brew Day and Special Hoperations?

Mark

Mark!

I was glad to learn of your interest in our Brew Day and I’d love to yell you more about it.

Brew Day is being held and run by the newly formed South Tampa homebrew club Special Hoperations.  Datz has been great and supports us whole heartedly, and they don’t hesitate to host our club meetings or events. So Datz is really our de facto headquarters.

The May 1st Brew Day will be Special Hoperations first event.  As its also National Homebrew Day, we are centering the day on the three beer recipes that the American Homebrewers Association encourages brewers to make.   However, don’t feel locked on to this.  If you want to come out and brew something of your own choosing, please do!  Our goal is really just to get together in the fellowship of craft brewmaking.

You do not have to RSVP for Brew Day, but I encourage you to come to our next Special Hoperations meeting. We hold meetings the 2nd and 4th Mondays at 6:30 p.m. at Datz, so our next meeting will be Monday the 26.  As an experienced brewer we would absolutely love to get you involved with us!

Dues for membership are a whopping $15 a year.  With membership, Southern Brewing Supply offers 10% off their grains and hops.  Oh, and make sure to bring some of your beer to our meetings!  We all try to bring in something for everybody to sample/critique.

As for brew day, bring whatever equipment you need to make a batch of beer, including ingredients.  Datz will supply us with a water source, but otherwise its on the individual to bring their own equipment.  One great thing about a brew day is to inspect what other brewers use and see how they do things.  We are starting the day officially at 11 a.m., but most of us will probably get there by 10 a.m. to start setting up.

For more information about the AHA Big Brew Day and for a copy of the recipes, log onto the American Homebrewers Association website.

Special Hoperations also has a fledgling website: www.specialhoperations.com.  It’s only about a week old, so there is not a lot there right now, but go back often.

Again, Mark it was great to hear of your interest and we look forward to meeting you. Please don’t hestiate to contact me with any other questions or comments.

Cheers!

Danny Reid

President, Special Hoperations

danny@specialhoperations.com

Tags: @datz, Beer, Beer Brewing, beer geeks, brew, brew day, Danny Reid, homebrew, south tampa, special hoperations, Tampa