Brewers of South Suburbia

We are dedicated to the art of crafting and quaffing fine beers through
the sharing of ideas and experiences, the advocacy of brewing as a hobby and the responsible consumption of beverages containing alcohol

BOSS is a club of home brewing hobbyists.
Our meetings are held on the first Friday of each month in club member's homes or at local brewpubs around the Southwest Chicago Suburbs.
We have members from Joliet to Crown Point, from Hyde Park to Kankakee.

You can learn more about BOSS
and see where our next meeting will be held in our
Latest newsletter!
Viewing our newsletter requires the Free Acrobat Reader.

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May Meeting

The May meeting will be at 5 Rabbit Cerveceria in Bedford Park, IL. See the May newsletter for directions and more details.

PLEASE RSVP! Send Mark Westmeyer an email to let him know you plan on attending.

The style for this month's meeting is Extract Beers. Because the May Club Only Competition entries were already judged at the April meeting, there will not be any judging at the May meeting. However, feel free to bring your best extract brews to share and get feedback from other club members.

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The Origins of Barrel-Aged Craft Beers

It is fairly common now to find a bourbon-barrel-aged beer at a brewpub. And more and more home brewers are forming groups to brew 55 gallons of beer for barrel aging – which only makes sense considering that adventurous home brewers were among the first to experiment with bourbon-barrel aging. It was in the early 1990s when the Brewers Of South Suburbia (BOSS), a Chicago-area homebrew club, were holding "brew ins" to ferment homebrew in bourbon barrels. Greg Hall of Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company heard about this and began to make commercial beer aged in bourbon barrels, shortly followed by Todd Ashman at Flossmoor Station. When Goose Island entered a bourbon barrel brew in the GABF in 1995, the judges loved it but had no idea how to categorize it. They decided to award it an honorable mention, anyway. Three years later, Ashman won a gold medal at the 1998 GABF in the experimental beer category with a barrel aged beer. By 2002, the GABF viewed barrel brewing as "sustainable" and opened a new category: Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer. Since then, barrel brewing has gone mainstream. Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer was the second most-entered category at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival (GABF) with 103 entries. And it all started with a group of home brewers thinking outside the box.

Listen to Todd Ashman describe the origins of barrel-aged craft beers.

== References ==
*Ashman, Todd (2011). "The Sunday Session" 5/22/2011, The Brewing Network, 58 - 66 minute mark.
*Dienhart, Paul (2006). "A Barrel of Fun" October 2006, Brew Your Own Magazine.

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For those interested in staying up on the latest BOSS happenings, the BossBeer Google group is our official means of communication. The Google group is open to members and non-members alike. So if you're curious about the club, come and join us! Visit the BossBeer Google Group.

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Brew News

Brew News aggregates beer news from all over the Internet into one convenient location for you to view. Keep up with all the happenings in the world of beer with just a click of your mouse.

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Competitions Calendar

This calendar shows all of the AHA/BJCP sanctioned competitions.
Check the calendar to find competitions in which to enter and/or volunteer and determine when you should brew. CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED

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BOSS Is Now On Facebook

Become a member of the BOSS fan page on Facebook, and suggest that all your friends become fans too. Keep up to date with BOSS current events, photos, and regional homebrew/brewpub related news as it happens.

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BOSS Supporters

Without the help of our supporters, The Brewers Of South Suburbia could not exist. We'd like to thank them for their continued support.

Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery - Orland Park

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