Who is BABBLE?
BABBLE is a local club dedicated to the art of brewing beer, mead, and cider. We are located in north central Lake County, Illinois with members from Ingleside, Fox Lake, Round Lake, Hainesville, Grayslake, Waukegan, Mundelein, and other close-by communities. We have brewers of all levels from extract, all-grain RIMS systems, and professionals.
We make some pretty good beer, and we don't necessarily say so ourselves: check out our Brag Box for a list of prizes we've won.
We make some pretty good beer, and we don't necessarily say so ourselves: check out our Brag Box for a list of prizes we've won.
What do we look like?
2006 Officers:
President - Josh Widup
Vice President - Aaron Slocum 847-973-2598
Treasurer - Ken Durigan 847-543-1913
Secretary - (now taking applications)
Vice President - Aaron Slocum 847-973-2598
Treasurer - Ken Durigan 847-543-1913
Secretary - (now taking applications)
Meetings:
BABBLE meets twice per month - a formal and an informal meeting.
Formal Meeting - Fourth Thursday of the month (7pm) at a member's house. This is our opportunity to sample member's homebrews and maybe a few interesting commercial examples. Each meeting has an educational component where a topic of interest is presented by a club member and a formal component to discuss any club business and future events.
Informal Meeting - Second Thursday of the month (7pm) at a local drinking establishment. This is a chance to get out of the house, kick back, and enjoy a few excellent beers at a local tavern or brewpub with fellow club members.
Formal Meeting - Fourth Thursday of the month (7pm) at a member's house. This is our opportunity to sample member's homebrews and maybe a few interesting commercial examples. Each meeting has an educational component where a topic of interest is presented by a club member and a formal component to discuss any club business and future events.
Informal Meeting - Second Thursday of the month (7pm) at a local drinking establishment. This is a chance to get out of the house, kick back, and enjoy a few excellent beers at a local tavern or brewpub with fellow club members.
Club Events and Benefits:
Brew Off - Late February
A.H.A. Big Brew - Early May - we all get together and brew following a A.H.A. chosen recipe for this occasion.
Oktoberfest - September - we get together with spouses and friends and enjoy beer, brats and everything good!
Yeast bank - The club maintains a yeast bank in order to provide members with high quality yeast at a low cost (club dues pay for it!)
Canned Starter - A couple times a year club members will get together and can wort in 1/2 pint, pint and quart mason jars. The starters are a very convenient method to step-up your yeast before brew day to get the optimum yeast count pitched into your wort.
Internal competitions - We will be having an internal club competition at 5 formal meetings this year - 4 beer styles and 1 mead. This will give us a chance to enter the AHA club only competition and will allow us to learn more about the different styles of beer and judging. See the club calendar for the schedule.
Others - Brewery/brewpub tours, participation in homebrew competitions, meet up at the Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival and more...
BABBLE Club Equipment
ITEM / KEEPER
pH meter / Dan
Yeast Culture Equipment - Separation funnel, stir plate, disposable petri dishes, vials, pipettes and syringes, glass petri dishes, alcohol burner / Dan
Wooden cask (50 gallon) / Doug
Burner / Ken
Brewpot (10 gallon) / Doug
Pressure cooker / Doug
A.H.A. Big Brew - Early May - we all get together and brew following a A.H.A. chosen recipe for this occasion.
Oktoberfest - September - we get together with spouses and friends and enjoy beer, brats and everything good!
Yeast bank - The club maintains a yeast bank in order to provide members with high quality yeast at a low cost (club dues pay for it!)
Canned Starter - A couple times a year club members will get together and can wort in 1/2 pint, pint and quart mason jars. The starters are a very convenient method to step-up your yeast before brew day to get the optimum yeast count pitched into your wort.
Internal competitions - We will be having an internal club competition at 5 formal meetings this year - 4 beer styles and 1 mead. This will give us a chance to enter the AHA club only competition and will allow us to learn more about the different styles of beer and judging. See the club calendar for the schedule.
Others - Brewery/brewpub tours, participation in homebrew competitions, meet up at the Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival and more...
BABBLE Club Equipment
ITEM / KEEPER
pH meter / Dan
Yeast Culture Equipment - Separation funnel, stir plate, disposable petri dishes, vials, pipettes and syringes, glass petri dishes, alcohol burner / Dan
Wooden cask (50 gallon) / Doug
Burner / Ken
Brewpot (10 gallon) / Doug
Pressure cooker / Doug
Dues:
Membership dues are $36 per year per family (pro rated if mid-year). Contact any of the club contacts for more information.
The BABBLE Name:
Now how did BABBLE get its name? Well, here is the story as told by Doug so it accuracy may be at question!
"John, Gene Whipple, Jim Bush and I were in John's basement about 4 years. We'd decided to form our own homebrew club as the closest one was in Kenosha, WI. Because it was John's basement, we were forced to imbibe in way too many good homebrewed beers. Gene Whipple had also brought some excellent beers (I think Rodenbach Grand Cru was included in that group). After about three hours of drinking, I believe I came up with Brewer's Association Behind Beer & Libations Extraordinaire (BABBLE). This was after almost passing out, then waking up and blurting out the name BABBLE. This was amazing, as I was pretty inebriated and then forgot what the initials stood for... for a couple of years hence. Following that, Jim Bush then went on a mission. As he was employed at Heartland Homebrew (since gone defunct) Supply, he got the word out to all of their patrons about a new local homebrew club forming. Our first (informal) meeting was at the Columbia Bay Brewpub with about 6-7 people. Our first formal meeting was at my house on the third Trs of January. We had about 7-8 people at this meeting. The second formal meeting was that February at John's house."
"John, Gene Whipple, Jim Bush and I were in John's basement about 4 years. We'd decided to form our own homebrew club as the closest one was in Kenosha, WI. Because it was John's basement, we were forced to imbibe in way too many good homebrewed beers. Gene Whipple had also brought some excellent beers (I think Rodenbach Grand Cru was included in that group). After about three hours of drinking, I believe I came up with Brewer's Association Behind Beer & Libations Extraordinaire (BABBLE). This was after almost passing out, then waking up and blurting out the name BABBLE. This was amazing, as I was pretty inebriated and then forgot what the initials stood for... for a couple of years hence. Following that, Jim Bush then went on a mission. As he was employed at Heartland Homebrew (since gone defunct) Supply, he got the word out to all of their patrons about a new local homebrew club forming. Our first (informal) meeting was at the Columbia Bay Brewpub with about 6-7 people. Our first formal meeting was at my house on the third Trs of January. We had about 7-8 people at this meeting. The second formal meeting was that February at John's house."