Oshkosh Classics

Oshkosh Classics is a 32-page, full-color, magazine-sized booklet of historic Oshkosh beer recipes. The booklet is aimed primarily at homebrewers, but anyone interested in Oshkosh's brewing history or the city’s social history will find it interesting. The story told here goes beyond beer. It’s about community.

I began searching for these recipes about 12 years ago. My intention was to replicate what were then lost Oshkosh beers. As I found recipes, I scaled them to homebrew batch sizes and began brewing. I wasn’t surprised to discover that the recipes produced great beers. After all, people in Oshkosh once loved these beers.

I wrote the booklet on behalf of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers homebrewing club. All of the proceeds go directly to help support the club. Individual copes of the booklet are available for $5 in person or $7 postpaid.

For a copy of Oshkosh Classics, email me at oshkoshbeer@gmail.com.

Oshkosh Peculiar

All is not well in the world of beer. American beer sales are trending steadily downward, and craft breweries are failing at an unprecedented rate. Yet there’s little evidence of such withering here. Last year, Oshkosh's three breweries – Bare Bones, Fifth Ward, and Fox River – each saw their sales volume increase.

“Maybe it’s just that we’re a couple of years behind the trend,” says Ian Wenger, co-owner of Fifth Ward Brewing. Wenger may be half joking, but the concern is genuine. When it comes to beer, Oshkosh has a history of being slow to adopt national trends. If the local homebrewing scene is any indication, though, this may be one trend that skips the city altogether.

Homebrewing has been looked upon as a bellwether for the craft beer industry. In fact, the struggle that now besets craft brewers was preceded by a sharp downturn in homebrewing. Membership in the American Homebrewers Association has fallen by 35 percent since 2018, and the organization has canceled its annual conference for 2024. Over the past three years, however, the Society of Oshkosh Brewers homebrewing club has increased its membership by 35 percent. The club now has 69 members.

Scott Westpfahl during a recent meeting of the SOBs at Fifth Ward Brewing. Photo by Staci Saunders.

Scott Westpfahl has been president of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers (the SOBs) since 2021. He has no doubts about what makes the Oshkosh club different. “We have a lot of people here who are truly invested in the club,” Westpfahl says. “It’s a very active membership. It makes all the difference. And we’re so tied into the community. The SOBs are engaged with every brewery, cidery, meadery, and distillery in the region.”

At Fifth Ward, brewery co-owner Zach Clark takes a similar view. “I go around to a lot of other towns on sales calls, and one thing you notice here is that the enthusiasm hasn’t died down the way it has in some places. We see it in our taproom. People want to go out and do things and be active. I mean, we have a pretty advanced crowd coming in here. They’ve evolved along with us. You don’t see that everywhere.”

Clark says it probably helped that the craft beer scene in Oshkosh didn’t grow as quickly as it did some larger cities. “It happened more gradually here, and I think that’s meant that we’ve never had the oversaturation that you see in other places where there might be too many breweries, and people kind of losing interest because it's just too much to keep up with. I think people around here have remained engaged with what’s going on.”

The engagement is an expression of social life in a city where tavern culture has been foundational. Wenger sees a shift taking place. “I know that some of our taproom regulars are people who used to spend more time in bars, but maybe they just wanted a different sort of atmosphere. We see a lot of the same faces, and they might be with their families and they're getting together, and they can all feel comfortable here. I don’t know if that kind of thing is happening in the bars so much anymore.”

The Fifth Ward's taproom in Oshkosh. Photo by Staci Saunders.

Fifth Ward is looking to build upon its taproom success. Clark and Wenger are currently exploring the possibility of opening a second taproom in the area. After doubling the capacity of its brewery over the past two years, Fifth Ward became the largest producer of beer in Oshkosh last year selling 1,480 barrels.

“We could already make twice as much beer here as we do now, so we absolutely have the capacity to supply another taproom,” Clark says. “The question we’re thinking about is how far do we want to go in that direction? We’re trying to figure out where the equilibrium is.”

For the Oshkosh homebrewers the future appears as promising, but far less complex. “I mean, for us it’s all about having fun,” Westpfahl says. “And right now we have such a great group that’s really invested in the overall experience of being an SOB. We’re in a good place.”

The Society of Oshkosh Brewers invites the community to get a taste of the SOB experience on Saturday, May 4, when the club will hold its annual Big Brew from 9am until 1pm at The Cellar homebrew shop at 465 N. Washburn Street. The event is open to the public and will feature brewing demonstrations.

A slightly different version of this story appears in today’s Oshkosh Herald.

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The SOBs Move to Fifth Ward

Fifth Ward Brewing is the new home of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers. The club will begin having its monthly meeting at Fifth Ward starting tomorrow night at 7 pm. If you’re a homebrewer, homebrew curious, or just into good beer, stop in and check it out (wine, cider, and mead folks are also welcome). The SOBs move to Fifth Ward has been a long time coming. When the club formed in 1991, Oshkosh was without a brewery and finding good beer here could be a challenge. Part of the original SOB mission was to agitate and educate with the goal of improving the beer scene in Oshkosh. Now we have three breweries, each of them with ties to the SOBs. Fifth Ward was launched in 2017 by SOB alumni Ian Wenger and Zach Clark. It's fitting that this place would become the club’s home base.

A Librarian Learns about the Society of Oshkosh Brewers

I’ve been beer-drinking my way across Europe for the last couple of week and while I was away Michael McArthur at the Oshkosh Public Library posted a couple of great videos about the history of homebrewing in Oshkosh and the Society of Oshkosh Brewers. Enjoy!

The SOBs Celebrate 30 Years

The Society of Oshkosh Brewers homebrewing club is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month with a series of beers made in collaboration with three Oshkosh breweries. The first of those beers will be released at Bare Bones Brewery on June 10. It will be followed by beer releases at Fox River Brewing on June 17, and Fifth Ward Brewing on June 26. The three beers were produced from recipes supplied by members of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers; or as they've come to be known locally, the SOBs.

A few of the SOBs during a recent group brew at Bare Bones.
In back on the steps of the brew deck is founding member Al Jacobson.

Al Jacobson's Christmas in June, a spiced ale, was brewed at Bare Bones and will be the first in the series to begin pouring. Jacobson is an original SOB. He was on hand when the club was launched in April 1991 at the now-defunct Galaxy Hobby on Oregon Street. He's also the last of the original members still active in the club. "It started with brewing classes at Galaxy," Jacobson says. "The club came out of those. There were about 10 or 12 of us in the beginning. We'd meet and try each other's homebrews and exchange ideas and recipes. That part of it hasn't changed much."

Some of those early brews were more powerful than expected. "I'm probably the only one that ever hit the ceiling at Galaxy Hobby," Jacobson says. "I took the cap off a beer I made and it shot out of the bottle and hit the ceiling." Remembering it still makes him laugh. "We were learning," Jacobson says. "You never knew what you'd get. We were making beer in soup pots."

SOBs making beer on a stove top in the early 1990s.

As a group, they accumulated knowledge and became a training ground for at least a dozen members who have gone on to brew professionally. Bare Bones' head brewer Jody Cleveland, and Fifth Ward's brewing team of Ian Wenger and Zach Clark are among the club’s alumni who have joined the professional ranks.

Future Oshkosh brewery owners Ian Wenger and Zach Clark during
an SOB visit to the Milwaukee Brewing Company in 2015.

The SOBs' influence has also spread beyond Oshkosh. The club has been the starting point for similar groups in Appleton and Fond du Lac and has been instrumental in re-shaping Wisconsin’s homebrewing laws. In 2012, the SOBs hosted Cask and Caskets, the first all-homebrewed beer festival in the state.

Jeff Eaton, who now brews for Lion’s Tail in Neenah, serving his homebrew
while dressed as a hot dog at Cask and Caskets.

Mike Engel has been the SOBs' president for 15 of the past 17 years. He's guided the club through its most dramatic period of growth. There are now more than 50 members in the club making it among the largest, most active organizations of its type in Wisconsin. “I can’t believe how successful the club has become over the past few years,” Engel says. “We seem to get one or two new members at almost every meeting.”

Engel's Pumpernickel Rye Ale will go on tap at Fifth Ward on Saturday, June 26. It's a rustic beer brewed with flaked rye, molasses, and caraway seeds. "What really gives it the flavor is the caraway seeds," he says. "It’s almost like drinking liquid rye bread." This is the third time Engel has had this beer produced by a commercial brewery. "It feels great," says Engel, who is stepping down as the club's president this year. "It’s kind of like the icing on the cake of my brewing career."

Mike Engel at Oblio’s pouring his 2013 version of Pumpernickel Rye
made by Stone Cellar (now Stone Arch) Brewpub.

But new brewers still come to the SOBs for the same reasons that Al Jacobson did 30 years ago. Logan Anderson joined the club in 2017 "I was 21 at that point," he says. "It was only a few months after I started brewing. I knew from the get-go that I was going to need to find some people who knew what they were doing to give me pointers. That was the best choice I could have made"

Logan Anderson filling a carboy during an SOB wort share last July at Fifth Ward Brewing.

Anderson, who recently graduated from UW-Platteville with a degree in engineering, will have his Kellerbier, a German-style lager, released at Fox River on June 17. "Having the opportunity to brew one of my beers on a large system is like a dream come true," he says. "Looking back five years ago, I never would have expected that I’d make it to this point."

Anderson says the club's appeal extends beyond brewing. "The real benefits go back to that community of beer thing," he says. "I’ve made lifelong friends and could not imagine a group of more enthusiastic and fun-loving people. We have a great beer history in Oshkosh, and I think that people who know about it are proud. So, to be part of that community and history was really a great draw."

The Society of Oshkosh Brewers will hold their next meeting on Thursday, June 17 at 7 pm in the Taproom of Fox River Brewing in Oshkosh. The meeting will be open to the public.

Get Your Brew On With the SOB’s

Here's a welcome sign: The Society of Oshkosh Brewers is back in action. This month, Oshkosh’s homebrewing club held its first in-person meeting since last fall. And this weekend the tribe is gathering for its annual Big Brew.

This Saturday morning, the SOBs will gather for a communal brew day in the parking lot behind The Cellar Brew Shop at 465 N. Washburn. 

The brewing begins about 9 am with at least nine homebrewers there with their gear making beer. Get there early if you can, as the bulk of the actual brewing is likely to occur before 11 am. It's great way to see how homebrewing gets done. And if you’re nice to them, those SOBs might even share some of their homebrew with you. It’s a free event and always a hell of a lot of fun. Hope to see you there!

Here’s something of a preview... This minor masterpiece was shot at the SOBs’ 2010 Big Brew event. You’re bound to see a few familiar faces...

The SOBs Turn 30

On this day 30 years ago an ad ran in the Northwestern announcing the formation of a new club for homebrewers in Oshkosh. It would be known as the Society of Oshkosh Brewers.

Oshkosh Northwestern; April 5, 1991.

Thirty years later, the SOBs are still chugging along and the club’s meetings are still held in what used to be the Lake Aire Center at O’Marro’s Public House. The card shown here is from the first set of membership cards issued by the SOBs.

Derek Gilbertson's Award Winning Homebrew

Winning the Best of Show award at this year's Midwinter Homebrew Competition could have proven fatal for 37-year-old Oshkosh Homebrewer Derek Gilbertson. “I damn near had a heart attack when I saw my name at the top of the results page,” Gilbertson says. You would think he'd be getting used to this kind of thing by now. Gilbertson has been entering his homebrewed beer in competitions for the past three years and in that time has managed to pick up his share of awards. His most recent award, though, is easily the most coveted of the bunch.

Derek Gilbertson making beer in his backyard.

Gilbertson's "Fuzzy Wuzzy" Barleywine, named as a salute to his dog Ginny, was chosen as the best beer from a field of 293 beers at last month’s Midwinter Homebrew Competition. The competition was sanctioned by the American Homebrewers Association and sponsored by the Beer Barons of Milwaukee homebrew club. It's among the largest regional competitions in the nation. This year's event brought in beers from 41 states and was judged by a panel that included 20 certified beer judges.

Gilbertson's best-of-show award and Fuzzy Wuzzy barleywine.

Gilbertson describes his winning beer as having "A really malty backbone with a nice, pine-resin note on the back end from the hops. You also get a little heat in there from the alcohol." The beer was over a year in the making and finished at 10% ABV. It's the sort of strong beer that Gilbertson has come to be known for among the family and friends he regularly shares his output with. "I like making big beers with bold flavors," he says.

In six years, he's come a long way from that first brew of his made with a Mr. Beer Kit. "It was terrible," he says. "I walked away from it saying I'm never doing that again. Then I was telling a friend of mine and he said I needed to go get a real beer kit with good ingredients. I got my first real kit at The Cellar (an Oshkosh homebrew shop) and that one turned out pretty good. So I thought I'd give it another try. After that, I just kept at it and started coming up with my own recipes. I fell in love with it."

Along the way, he began enlisting the help of local experts. Gilbertson met up with Shane and Laurel Coombs, the husband and wife team who operate Rushford Meadery & Winery in the Town of Rushford. The two of them also happen to be certified beer judges. "I started taking my beer over there and asking them to be brutally honest about it," Gilbertson says. "My friends and family would all tell me they loved the beer, they've all been really supportive, but that's not the same as having someone who can really pick it apart. Shane and Laurel helped me a lot with their feedback and suggestions."

That ethos of working with what you have at hand continues to inform Gilbertson's love of beer making. He still sources his ingredients at The Cellar and brews on a cobbled-together system that includes a 20-gallon kettle and a propane-fueled turkey fryer. He's made his home serve as an oversized fermentation chamber, using its varying temperature ranges to influence the flavors produced during the fermentation process. "I'm continually moving different vessels around the house," he says. "It started off as a little hobby and now we've got fermentors everywhere." Gilbertson has dubbed his home brewery Easy Rider Brewing. "Because I also love riding motorcycles," he says..

Gilbertson is preparing to take his hobby to the next level. "I'm going to start doing some national competitions next year," he says. His friends and family have encouraged him to go pro. "They keep telling me to open a brewpub," Gilbertson says. "I do parties a lot in the summertime where I'll smoke a bunch of brisket and have everybody over for barbecue and homebrew. We get together and have a good time." Which is exactly what successful homebrewing is really all about.

Dick's Bedford Porter

The relationship between homebrewers and pro-brewers in Oshkosh runs DEEP. For example... Dick's Bedford Porter is brewed from a recipe by Dick Waltenberry of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers. Dick won the club's annual homebrew competition back in July with this beer, so Fox River Brewing brewed it on their big system in Oshkosh in early October. It's available now in bottles at Fox River and will soon be pouring there on tap as well.

Dick Waltenberry at the Fox River Kettle on October 2, 2020.

Bill Steiger and the Bathtub Beer Bill

Considering the history of this place, it’s not too surprising that someone from Oshkosh would have played a central role in the legalization of homebrewing in America.

William A. Steiger.

On January 4, 1977, Congressman William A. Steiger of Oshkosh introduced House Resolution 1337. It was a sausage-like bill that, among other disparate parts, included a provision that would legalize the making of beer at home "for personal and family use." Just over two years later, the federal prohibition on homebrewing came to an end.

For his part, Steiger never professed any special love for the home craft of making beer. He was born in 1938, five years after Oshkosh's once-vibrant homebrewing scene had been made redundant by the repeal of Prohibition. The city was home to three breweries during Steiger's time, but young Bill was brought up about as far removed from all of that as was possible for any person living in Oshkosh.

Bill Steiger was born into a wealthy family. His father, Carl, was president of Oshkosh's Deltox Rug Company and heavily involved in politics on both the local and state levels. Bill grew up in a posh neighborhood on Algoma Boulevard in a mansion that had been built for lumber baron Edward Paine in 1860. Steiger probably never heard that there had once been a brewery run by a German named Kaehler just a few doors down from the family home. That part of the story was forgotten by the time the Steigers arrived.

The Steiger family home.

Bill Steiger quickly made a name for himself. Upon graduation from the University of Wisconsin in 1960, he ran for and won a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly. In 1966, he was elected to Congress and at 28 became its youngest member. By 1977, Steiger was a rising star within the Republican Party and being groomed as a potential Senate or Vice‐Presidential candidate.

William Steiger and Richard Nixon, 1966.

William Steiger, 1968. At the far left is Steiger's intern, future Vice-President Dick Cheney.

So why would a guy like Bill Steiger bother to insert an unrelated clause legalizing homebrewing into a larger bill concerned with excise taxes on trucks and buses? The thanks goes to one of Steiger's colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee. A Congressman from Rochester named Barber B. Conable.

Barber B. Conable

Conable had been trying to get homebrewing legalized since 1975. On September 27 that year, he introduced House Resolution 8643, a bill to authorize the home production of beer. Homebrewing was a federal crime punishable by a $5,000 fine and/or five years in jail. Conable’s bill would eliminate that penalty for a two-adult household making less than 200 gallons of beer a year. He later told a reporter from Copley News Service that the idea for legalization had come to him via a constituent who made kits for homemade beer and wine.

The man who had Conable’s ear was probably Jack Leonard, president of Rochester’s Vynox Industries. Vynox was then selling wine and beer making kits and equipment from the back pages of Popular Science magazine. Leonard was one of the early voices campaigning for legalization and had testified before Congress in December 1975 on behalf of Conable's bill. That bill never came to a vote.

Popular Science, October 1976. 

The legislation Steiger introduced in 1977 was a repackaging of the Conable bill. And as the new bill took shape, Conable became its chief advocate.

It took a year for the Steiger bill to come out of committee. The process left it significantly deformed. Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), had gotten into the mix. They managed to insert a provision requiring homebrewers to register with the federal government. It was a matter of bureaucratic quid pro quo.

At the time, home winemakers were required by law to register with the federal government before producing any wine. Many home winemakers simply didn’t bother. But some 21,000 others sent in Form 1541 each year to remain on the right side of the law. Steiger’s bill would eliminate that prerequisite. The BATF wanted something in return.

The grasping nature of the agency's argument was evident. “Unregulated homebrewing might facilitate evasion of taxes on distilled spirits,” a BATF official said. "The mash that is left after beer is brewed can be distilled into hard liquor." Of course, you could accomplish much the same by distilling wine. But at this point, the bill had garnered little attention. Perhaps the BATF was banking on others not noticing what it was up to.

The bastardized bill sailed through the House with little fanfare and no opposition. It passed on a voice vote on Monday, March 13, 1978. It then went to the Senate where it was named the Homebrew Beer Equality Act of 1978. Newspapers called it the Bath Tub Beer Bill. Homebrewers weren’t amused. Their annoyance turned to outrage when they learned of the onerous addendums the bill had been saddled with.

It wasn’t just the federal registration requirement. The bill allowed for 100 gallons of beer production per year for a single adult household, and 200 gallons for households that had two or more adults. But those limits came with the stipulation that no homebrewer could have more than 30 gallons of beer – either finished or under fermentation – on hand at any one time.

Homebrewers pushed back. California homebrewing clubs the Maltose Falcons and San Andreas Malts appealed to Senator Alan Cranston of their home state. They found a powerful ally in the Senate's second-ranking member. Cranston jeered the BATF's meddling, saying it was "beer-ocracy at its worst." He called it "white-collar leaf raking."

The Maltose Falcons, 1974.

Alan Cranston

When the bill hit the Senate floor, Cranston was waiting with an amendment of his own that stripped the extraneous provisions and restored the bill to something very much like those Conable and Steiger had proposed in 1975 and 1977. No federal registration. No 30-gallon limit. Cranston had already lined up all the support he needed. His revisions passed through both the House and the Senate and October 4, 1978, the finalized bill was sent to President Jimmy Carter.

On October 14, 1978, Carter signed H.R. 1337 into law. Public Law 95-458 ended the federal prohibition on homebrewing effective February 1, 1979. By then, Bill Steiger was gone.

On December 4, 1978, the 40-year-old congressman from Oshkosh died unexpectedly of a heart attack. The New York Times, in its obituary of Steiger, noted that "He was widely regarded as one of the most promising political figures in his party... known for his wit, sunny disposition and informal appearance."

Steiger had grown up in a small, "informal" city with three breweries. He saw each of those breweries fail during the consolidation of the industry that occurred during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s.

Today, Bill Steiger's hometown has four breweries. And each of the brewhouses here is run by a former homebrewer who directly benefited from the legislation Steiger introduced in 1977. It was the trigger that set into motion the unanticipated transformation of America's beer culture.

Pandemic Homebrewing

A slightly different version of this story appears in today's Oshkosh Herald.

Homebrewing in Oshkosh tends to surge each time the local breweries falter. It happened in 1920 with the start of Prohibition. It happened after 1972 with the closing of Peoples Brewing. And it's happening now with the restrictions on breweries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of spending the afternoon in a brewery taproom, folks in Oshkosh are bringing out their kettles and making their own beer.

Jeff Duhacek, co-owner of The Cellar Brew Shop in Oshkosh, has seen the spike in homebrewing first hand. "We're having people coming in buying two or three beer kits thinking they're going to be home for the next few weeks with time on their hands," he said. "We're also seeing more first-time brewers and people who are dusting off equipment who haven't brewed in a while getting back into it."

Oshkosh homebrewer Travis Sullivan is one of those who has been putting some of his unexpected free time into making beer. Sullivan, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, is spending far less time in the operating room now that elective surgeries have been canceled.

He's filled the gap by brewing several batches of beer including a cream ale he calls Dad's Weekend Ale. Sullivan, a father of two, describes it as a "crushable" 6% ABV beer. "I also whipped up six gallons of Chardonnay wine," he says. "And This week I'll be brewing up an Imperial Belgian Blonde for a barrel-aging project that a few of us SOB's (Society of Oshkosh Brewers) are collaborating on."

Sullivan is part of The Society of Oshkosh Brewers, a homebrewing club that's feeling the pinch of Wisconsin's Safer At Home Order. The club has canceled its events for the foreseeable future including a gathering of members that was to take place at McFleshman’s Brewing Company in Appleton. Like all breweries, McFleshman’s has been forced to close its taproom. The impact on small breweries has been devastating.

The Brewers Association, a trade group representing craft brewers, has reported that among its members beer sales have dropped 77% since the wave of shutdowns began in late February. Small brewers across Wisconsin continue to sell beer that was already in their pipeline, but most have ceased regular brewing operations. Among those breweries that have stopped making beer for the time being is Bare Bones Brewery in Oshkosh.

Jody Cleveland, head brewer at Bare Bones, was furloughed from his position in March. His beer brewing journey began with homebrewing and now he finds himself returning to his roots. "Brewing beer is the first hobby I’ve ever had and as much as I hate being laid off, I do like that I have time to brew at home again," Cleveland says.

He's been working up pilot batches on his home system that he'd like to dial in and eventually produce commercially when he returns to work. "One of them uses wild yeast that I captured in my backyard," Cleveland says. But going back to brewing five-gallon batches at home is a far cry from the 15-barrel batches he's accustomed to producing at Bare Bones.

"It’s been weird to say the least," Cleveland says. "I took a huge risk two years ago to follow my dream and brew professionally. I wouldn’t trade that for anything, and I’m really glad I did it, but I never dreamed I’d be in the position I am now. I’ve been living in fear day to day about where everyone’s going to be at the end of this. Homebrewing helps me escape all that."

Back at The Cellar, Jeff Duhacek says the uncertain times have brought in others who share that sense of unease. "We've had a bunch of people come in and buy champagne yeast for bread because stores don't have any yeast right now," Duhacek said. "We've had people come in and buy five-gallon buckets of honey because they want to make sure they have something to sweeten things with or to make bread with that doesn't spoil. It's just a different mindset right now."

The SOB's Oyster Stout

Saturday morning, The Society of Oshkosh Brewers will be doing the sort of things those SOBs do. They’re brewing an Oyster Stout at The Cellar Brew Shop. And yes, that beer will include actual oysters. Brew day starts at 10am. Stop by The Cellar and check it out.

Ask the Brewmaster Saturday at The Cellar

This Saturday, February 22, Fox River Brewing Company brewmaster Drew Roth will teach an Introduction to Brewing class at The Cellar Brew Shop, 465 N Washburn St, in Oshkosh. Class begins at 11 am. And it's free.

Drew is going to go through the basics of homebrewing using an extract kit to demonstrate all the steps along the way to making your own beer. He'll cover cleaning and sanitization, gravity readings, the fermentation process, and the basics of racking and bottling your beer.

If you're interested in getting started in homebrewing, this will set you on the right path. A class like this is helpful even if you're just into drinking beer. You'd be surprised how much the experience of beer is enhanced when you know how the fluid in your glass came into being.

All of which reminds me... In the 1950s, the Oshkosh Brewing Company ran a series of ads titled "Let's Ask the Brewmaster" featuring OBC brewer Wilbur Strottman. Each week, Strottman would answer basic questions about beer and brewing. I always liked that idea. A brewer ought to care enough about their customers to take a little time to help educate them. That’s something sorely lacking in the current scene. I’ll spare you my rant on that. Here’s a couple of those Ask the Brewmaster ads from 1957.

July 12, 1957; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

November 11, 1957; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

Homebrew #350

I’m calling this one Oshkosh. It’s a dark lager sort of like those made here in the 1860s. Using homegrown hops sourced from Winnebago County rootstock that dates back to that same era. A couple months of lagering in our root cellar is as close as I can get to the old beer-cellar aging they used to do here. Now if I only had a wooden barrel to serve it from.

Ordering Online from The Cellar

Last Sunday, The Cellar Brew Shop posted on its Facebook page that it was rolling out the online ordering system the shop has been working on since July. I thought I'd give it a spin.

At the moment, I'm pretty well stocked with malt, hops, and yeast. So I placed just a small order: three pounds of specialty malts. The system works like most online ordering forms. You make your selections, add them to your cart, and head to checkout. With each item you select, there's a comment box where you can add notes. I noted that I didn't want my grains milled. At check out, you leave your name and contact info and when you plan to pick up your order. Easy. Done.

I placed my order on Monday morning and scheduled the pickup for Tuesday at 10:30 am. Monday afternoon, I received an email saying my order was ready.

When I arrived at The Cellar on Tuesday morning, my malt was waiting. The only problem was they had mixed all three of the malts into the same bag. These malts are going into different batches of beer. Having them blended together wouldn’t work. Brian at The Cellar quickly fixed that. He put together a new order for me.

Next time, I’ll include a note that I need the malts in separate bags. Though, really, that ought to be standard practice on the part of The Cellar.

This is just the first iteration of this system. At this point, the menu only includes brewing ingredients and beer kits. It's a decent start, though, and I'll definitely be using it more in the future. You can check it out HERE.

Jeff Eaton’s Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale

Jeff Eaton has a beer that he makes with, as he puts it, "A very healthy dose of Cocoa Pebbles added to the mash." Earlier this year, Eaton entered that beer in the Society of Oshkosh Brewers' annual club competition. The winner would get to brew a commercial-sized batch of their beer on the 11-barrel system at Fox River Brewing in Oshkosh. Guess who won?

Jeff Eaton

Eaton's Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale will go on tap at Fox River in Oshkosh this Thursday, December 5.

"It's basically an English Brown Ale with Cocoa Pebbles," Eaton says. "I used Marris Otter for the base malt and Fuggle hops for a mild bittering. It's fermented with Nottingham ale yeast to give it the British feel. Andrew (at Fox River) went with Cocoa Puffs for their version, but other than that we used all the same ingredients that were in the beer that won the SOB competition. You could smell cocoa inside and out all the way across the parking lot."

A mash tun loaded with Cocoa Puffs.

Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale is the first of two of Eaton's beers being released by area breweries. Eaton, who also helps out on the brewing side of things at Lion's Tail in Neenah, will have a beer going on draft there in early 2020. That beer will be brewed at Lion’s Tail in mid-December from Eaton's Czech-style pilsner recipe that includes an addition of honey.

And then there's that's pizza beer he makes. Don't laugh, it almost wound up in the Fox River brewhouse. "In the SOB competition, my pizza beer came in third, believe it or not," Eaton says. Maybe we'll get to try that one next year.

Craig Zoltowski in The Cellar

Over the past month, The Cellar, a beer and winemaking supply shop in Oshkosh, has been undergoing an expansion. Behind that expansion is one of the shop’s new owners. His name is Craig Zoltowski.

Craig Zoltowski at work in The Cellar

The Cellar opened in Fond du Lac in 2009 and moved to Oshkosh in 2016. Zoltowski and co-owner Jeff Duhacek purchased the business at 465 N. Washburn St. from Dave Koepke this past May. They've been operating the store since the beginning of June.

It's the first time either Zoltowski or Duhacek have run a homebrew shop, but they come to the business with bona fides, especially on the science side of brewing. Duhacek is a Ph.D. chemist. Zoltowski has a master’s degree in chemical engineering and an MBA. He's also a professional brewer.

Zoltowski is co-owner of Emprize Brew Mill, a brewpub that opened a year ago in Menasha. And with that, his path changed. "I've been in corporate America pretty much my entire career,” Zoltowski says. "I decided to get out and do this, do something I'm really passionate about."

His enthusiasm shows when he talks about his plans for the store. "We want to optimize this place," Zoltowski says. "We’re really trying to add a huge capability here that will help the homebrewers and small breweries and winemakers in this area. We’re adding more of just about everything.”

Inside The Cellar.

"We've added a lot of equipment," Zoltowski says. "We tripled out Blichmann inventory. We've added CO2 and nitrogen tanks. We have more corny kegs and fermenters and now we have sanke kegs and keg washers. We've also added more kits for wine and beer, and we've added a lot more honey for people who make mead. We're carrying a wider variety of yeast and hops. We're also starting to bring in more locally grown hops from Wisconsin and Michigan. We’ve probably added five times the amount of grain and new varieties of it. We also have a new, three-roller malt mill coming that we can really dial in, so we can offer different grain crushes for people who want that."

Zoltowski says his top priority now is a web-based ordering system. If it works as planned it will make the shop's inventory accessible online and allow people to place orders for pickup.

"We want to arrange it so we have people’s orders ready when they come in," he says. "What I'm thinking is, if you get an order in by 5 p.m. I can have it ready for pick-up by 10 a.m. the next morning. We're about to start beta-testing that and I'm hoping that in a month or so it will be ready. We want to make shopping here more convenient."

As part of that effort, the store is now open on Sundays. "That way if you are brewing on the weekend and run out of something you can come in and still finish your batch," Zoltowski says. "We're just trying to find ways to differentiate ourselves and provide a service. And we have the experience where we can answer questions and help people through their issues."

The educational component is something Zoltowski is also looking to expand. "Tim Pfeister is going to continue teaching classes here," he says. "Our goal is to eventually do a class every month. We’d like to be able to build it into something like a curriculum.”

Zoltowski says it's the community aspect of the shop that has been the most rewarding part of it for him so far.

"I enjoy the customer side of it,” Zoltowski says. "It's been fun. I'm an engineer, I like problem-solving and I really like teaching people. We’re trying to connect to the brewing community, both homebrewing as well as the nano and microbrewers and make it more like a co-op effort. We want to be a part of that community. There’s something powerful about that.”

National Beer Day with the SOBs at Bare Bones

I couldn't let this go by without making note of it... This past Sunday, November 7, the Society of Oshkosh Brewers (SOBs) celebrated National Beer Day by helping brew a batch of beer at Bare Bones Brewery.

A panoramic shot of the SOBs at Bare Bones. Pardon the distortions.

National Beer Day sounds like one of those phony holiday's made up by an advocacy group, but it actually marks an important date.  On April 7, 1933, the Cullen–Harrison Act made beer legal again for the first time since the start of Prohibition in 1920. Prohibition hadn't yet ended, that wouldn't happen for another nine months, but at least you could get a legal beer – so long as it was 4% ABV or less. It was better than nothing.

The SOB/Bare Bones celebration ended with each of the homebrewers taking home a carboy of freshly made wort to ferment into beer.

Wort going into SOB carboys.

This was the first time since the end of Prohibition that an Oshkosh brewery has supplied homebrewers with wort. But prior to April 7, 1933, this kind of thing wasn't unusual at all.

The Oshkosh Brewing Company, in particular, was a main supplier of wort to Oshkosh area homebrewers during the dry years.  They sold it in the form of malt syrup, a condensed wort, used by Prohibition-era homebrewers in the same way the SOBs are using the Bare Bones wort to make beer.

I took my carboy of wort home from Bare Bones and dosed it with a thick slurry of lager yeast. It's now in my basement fermenting into beer. I'm thinking I might end up dry hopping it with Hallertau hops. Why not? Other SOBs are going to turn their wort into Belgian-style Saison and English-style ale. Some are going to condition their beer on vanilla beans, others on chocolate. No two will be the same. And that's what homebrew is all about!

Cask and Caskets 2018

Cask and Caskets 2018 happens Saturday, October 27 at Hilton Garden Inn Oshkosh. This is Oshkosh's most unique beer event. Hands down. And it's free. No gimmicks, this is a free beer festival. I'll explain how that happens in a moment, but if you want to get in on it CLICK HERE then hit the big blue SIGN UP NOW button at the other end of the link. Follow the simple instructions and you're in. The event begins at 7:30 pm and goes until 10:30.

The Backstory
Cask and Caskets was hatched by the Society of Oshkosh Brewers in 2013. The idea was to create an outlet for members of the homebrew club to share their beer with a wider audience. And that's the first point of differentiation here. All of the beer, mead, wine, and cider pouring at Casks and Caskets is homemade by members of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers. It’s all one-of-a-kind stuff you'll find nowhere else.

When the event began in 2013, there was an admission charge. Same in 2014, when the SOBs held their second round of Casks. The money raised at those earlier events went to charity. Every penny of it. The cost of producing all that beer was shouldered by the homebrewers who donated their time, skill, and beverages to the event. That wasn't good enough for the State of Wisconsin. Because the beer was untaxed, state officials decided the event was not in keeping with the letter of the law. They shut it down.

Last year, after a couple years of wrangling, Casks returned. This time there was no admission charge. If you signed up and showed up you drank without having to open your wallet. That’s how it will work again this year. Casks is still a charity event with money raised through raffles, business sponsorships, and donations, but there’s no charge to attend and drink your fill. Money raised will help support the food pantries of Oshkosh.

The Beer
And what will we be drinking this year? It's an all-homebrew event so it won’t be anything like the standard lineup found at every other beer festival these days. This is the genuine article. This is beer with meaning.

For some homebrewers that means pushing boundaries. It's part of what homebrew is about. And it can get weird. For example, there'll be an Asparagus Stout, and something called Eggs and Sausage Stout. But it's not all fringe stuff. There'll be plenty of homebrewed Barleywine, IPA, Cider, Mead,  Stout, and Amber to go around.

For the past couple years at Casks, a few of us have been reviving old Oshkosh beers. This year Jody Cleveland, Steve Wissink, and myself have teamed up and are bringing six different brews that were once popular in Oshkosh.  Included are an 1850s Common Beer like the one George Loescher was making at the old Oshkosh Brewery on Bayshore Drive, a Kulmbacher Black Lager of the sort Lorenz Kuenzl was brewing at the Gambrinus Brewery in the 1890s, and the Oshkosh Brewing Company's 1960s Holiday Beer. In all, there'll be over 40 homemade beers, meads, and ciders to choose from (I think there may be a few wines there, too).  The list is still being populated, you can check it out HERE.

Try an 1870s Oshkosh Saloon Beer at Cask and Caskets 2018

There'll also be live music from the 432s, door prizes, bucket raffles, and more. If you go, wear your best Halloween suit; there's going to be a costume contest. For more info on Cask and Caskets 2018 check out the C&C webpage and the Facebook event page. See you there!