I've shamelessly lifted the below from the excellent @Auger who did a fantastic job organizing the 2017 TBoC exchange:
Ok I'll volunteer to run it this year. Guidelines copied from last year:
Here's the general concept:
12 different brewers will brew one of the 12 beers of Christmas found in Randy's Mosher's Radical Brewing.
If you don't have the book, can't borrow it, etc., I can PM the recipe to you.
Each brewer sends out three 12oz bottles of their beer to the 11 other brewers (33 bottles sent out in total) and receives 3 bottles of each recipe in return. Maybe you drink one, share one, and age the third!?
Some of these are fairly big beers, and need some time and aging to be optimal, so planning and brewing early can be critical. If you're bottle conditioning, be ready to bottle in time, etc. Also, one of the beers (Juniper Rye Bock) is a lager, so a brewer with a lagering fridge will be needed for that one.
Shipping:
It will cost you some money to send out 11 packages! Getting involved in this project means you'll eventually need to wrap up 11 packages with 3 beers each, and mail them potentially all the way across the country from where you live. You may be looking at about $140 in shipping give or take (but you're getting 33 fancy Christmas beers!). (I think for 2017, with me being on the east coast, the total was approximately 130 bucks for the 9 packages we ended up having to ship. So, keep that in mind.)
With this in mind, it has been historically a necessity to require that all brewers will need to be located inside the continental U.S.
If you can accept packages at a business address, that will save your fellow brewers some money. (For some reason, the big shippers charge less to deliver to a business address...)
Speaking of the big shippers, generally if you show up at UPS or FedEx with a well packed, sealed box, they don't ask questions. Legally you aren't allowed to ship alcohol via USPS, but in prior years some participants have shipped using Flat Rate boxes from the post office, and haven't had any issues, but this is by no means an endorsement of such an action.
Shipping will need to occur approximately the week after Thanksgiving.
For reference: In 2012, @biochemedic posted some (admittedly perhaps overkill) instructions for packaging a 12 oz longneck for shipping, and also a post with some common box sizes that work well for shipping 3 wrapped/bagged longnecks.
Choosing What You Want to Brew:
We'll use the same system as previous years: first come first served (with the noted restrictions below...)
Reply to this thread if you're interested and let us know which beer you want to brew.
As beers are claimed, I will update the thread with the brewer's name next to their selection.
How to not be a d*u$hb@g:
As much as it pains me to post this part, the simple fact is that, every single year this project has been run, there has been at least one brewer who has simply up and vanished, and at times has been shipped homebrew in good faith before their disappearance has become apparent.
Based on this, I wish to request that all participants be either relatively established HBT members (more than a year since joining) *or* be a paid (Supporting or Lifetime) member, *or*, have successfully participated in the previous year.
Communicate! If for some reason you have to back out, own up to it ASAP, and hopefully allow a replacement brewer to step in.
Here is the list of Beers:
(please note I've now added a second column for a second group of TBoC)
1) Caramel Quadrupel (@Scturo ) (@BigCrazyAl )
2) Spiced Cherry Dubbel (@HawleyFarms ) (@btbnl)
3) Spiced Dunkel Weizenbock (@MapleGroveAleworks ) (@Blackdirt_cowboy )
4) Juniper Rye Bock (@HopHeavy's brother) (@cmac62)
5) Fruitcake Old Ale (@JDXX1971 ) (@Auger)
6) Saffron Tripel (@TBC ) (@Yeroc )
7) Christmas Gruit (@BradleyBrew ) (@November)
8) Honey Ginger IPA (@biochemedic )(@Brewfessor)
9) Crabapple Lambicky Ale (@dryboroughbrewing )
10) Gingerbread Ale (@jerbrew ) (@badgerfan79)
11) Spiced Bourbon Stout (@gromitdj ) (@anotherbeerplease )
12) Abbey Weizen (@HopHeavy ) (@Zimm9)
So....release the hounds!
Ok I'll volunteer to run it this year. Guidelines copied from last year:
Here's the general concept:
12 different brewers will brew one of the 12 beers of Christmas found in Randy's Mosher's Radical Brewing.
If you don't have the book, can't borrow it, etc., I can PM the recipe to you.
Each brewer sends out three 12oz bottles of their beer to the 11 other brewers (33 bottles sent out in total) and receives 3 bottles of each recipe in return. Maybe you drink one, share one, and age the third!?
Some of these are fairly big beers, and need some time and aging to be optimal, so planning and brewing early can be critical. If you're bottle conditioning, be ready to bottle in time, etc. Also, one of the beers (Juniper Rye Bock) is a lager, so a brewer with a lagering fridge will be needed for that one.
Shipping:
It will cost you some money to send out 11 packages! Getting involved in this project means you'll eventually need to wrap up 11 packages with 3 beers each, and mail them potentially all the way across the country from where you live. You may be looking at about $140 in shipping give or take (but you're getting 33 fancy Christmas beers!). (I think for 2017, with me being on the east coast, the total was approximately 130 bucks for the 9 packages we ended up having to ship. So, keep that in mind.)
With this in mind, it has been historically a necessity to require that all brewers will need to be located inside the continental U.S.
If you can accept packages at a business address, that will save your fellow brewers some money. (For some reason, the big shippers charge less to deliver to a business address...)
Speaking of the big shippers, generally if you show up at UPS or FedEx with a well packed, sealed box, they don't ask questions. Legally you aren't allowed to ship alcohol via USPS, but in prior years some participants have shipped using Flat Rate boxes from the post office, and haven't had any issues, but this is by no means an endorsement of such an action.
Shipping will need to occur approximately the week after Thanksgiving.
For reference: In 2012, @biochemedic posted some (admittedly perhaps overkill) instructions for packaging a 12 oz longneck for shipping, and also a post with some common box sizes that work well for shipping 3 wrapped/bagged longnecks.
Choosing What You Want to Brew:
We'll use the same system as previous years: first come first served (with the noted restrictions below...)
Reply to this thread if you're interested and let us know which beer you want to brew.
As beers are claimed, I will update the thread with the brewer's name next to their selection.
How to not be a d*u$hb@g:
As much as it pains me to post this part, the simple fact is that, every single year this project has been run, there has been at least one brewer who has simply up and vanished, and at times has been shipped homebrew in good faith before their disappearance has become apparent.
Based on this, I wish to request that all participants be either relatively established HBT members (more than a year since joining) *or* be a paid (Supporting or Lifetime) member, *or*, have successfully participated in the previous year.
Communicate! If for some reason you have to back out, own up to it ASAP, and hopefully allow a replacement brewer to step in.
Here is the list of Beers:
(please note I've now added a second column for a second group of TBoC)
1) Caramel Quadrupel (@Scturo ) (@BigCrazyAl )
2) Spiced Cherry Dubbel (@HawleyFarms ) (@btbnl)
3) Spiced Dunkel Weizenbock (@MapleGroveAleworks ) (@Blackdirt_cowboy )
4) Juniper Rye Bock (@HopHeavy's brother) (@cmac62)
5) Fruitcake Old Ale (@JDXX1971 ) (@Auger)
6) Saffron Tripel (@TBC ) (@Yeroc )
7) Christmas Gruit (@BradleyBrew ) (@November)
8) Honey Ginger IPA (@biochemedic )(@Brewfessor)
9) Crabapple Lambicky Ale (@dryboroughbrewing )
10) Gingerbread Ale (@jerbrew ) (@badgerfan79)
11) Spiced Bourbon Stout (@gromitdj ) (@anotherbeerplease )
12) Abbey Weizen (@HopHeavy ) (@Zimm9)
So....release the hounds!
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