I'm new to the forum

Hello.  My name is Scott Ickes.  I live in Vancouver, WA.  I'm a member of Cascadia Brewers Alliance homebrew club here in Vancouver.  I was out of brewing for about 10 year.  I had always been an extract brewer before.  I started back into brewing in March of this year, when my nephew moved out this way and saw my brewing equipment in my garage.  I made the leap to all grain shortly thereafter.  I ended up getting BeerSmith, so that I could make recipe formulation easier and to be able to take detailed notes.  I've brewed 15 5 gallon batches since March when I got back into it.  Two of my beers just won blue ribbons at the County Fair brewing competition, both scoring in the 40's.  I'm quite pleased with the results.  My beer is much better now than it ever was before.  I attribute a lot of that to BeerSmith.  In addition, the club and my LHBS are great resources.  I look forward to learning even more on here.

Welcome to the forum! I've been brewing only about a year now, all-grain for the last six months, and have learned so much from the folks on this forum.

Is there anyone local to me here in the Portland/Vancouver area?

I'm from Ilwaco, WA. Not really 'local' to Vancouver, but close. Have bought a lot of stuff over the years from Steinbart's in Portland, and bought my first kit from Steve Bader in Vancouver.

Welcome to the forum.

Ed

I buy my supplies at Baders.  Great group of people and very knowledgeable.

I'm from out in Raymond Washington.  Much closer to Rusty Nails ( same county ), but we're all in Western Washington and not near that horrible mass of humanity up North that starts in Olympia and continues North through Seattle to parts unknown!

Beer hasn't changed much in all that time you took off from brewing.  Beersmith and the jump to all grain probably both contribute to the improved beer.
Beersmith is a real nice tool.  It's great for looking up ideas, making recipes and keeping notes.
I bought the mobile version too.

I wish I had a homebrew store near by.  I drive hours to any store from here, or I would if any of the ones close enough to drive to had anything I needed in stock! 
Morebeer.com is my local store!

SharpsRifle said:

I wish I had a homebrew store near by.  I drive hours to any store from here, or I would if any of the ones close enough to drive to had anything I needed in stock! 
Morebeer.com is my local store!

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Agree, except I do my mail order from Steinbart's. I've had better luck with them and have used them for 12 years, now. Kelso is pretty good, I stop when visiting family. Astoria LHBS isn't bad, just never what is needed in stock.
A lot of grain and hops crosses the docks in Vancouver, you would think that some of these LHBS would buy stuff locally, not re-packaged stuff that has to be shipped out then back in.

Ed

Rusty Nails said:

I do my mail order from Steinbart's. I've had better luck with them and have used them for 12 years, now. Kelso is pretty good, I stop when visiting family. Astoria LHBS isn't bad, just never what is needed in stock.
A lot of grain and hops crosses the docks in Vancouver, you would think that some of these LHBS would buy stuff locally, not re-packaged stuff that has to be shipped out then back in.

Ed

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I'll check out Steinbart's.  Hard to beat morebeer, but I'll check it out and see.
In Longview / Kelso I used to use "your homebrew".  Good people and a young store that needed support but they were lacking and I hear they are now gone.
Hop-and-grape looks good but every time I contact them to see if they have what I want, they either don't get back to me or they don't have what I want.
Astoria is a cool store.  They have decent beer on tap and a good selection of bottled beer that's hard to come by.  Unfortunately they have very limited grain and yeast selection and they keep their hops in a box on a shelf rather than in a fridge.  Not ideal.  I did buy my portable draft system hardware from them though.
Still, it's located a couple doors down from another entertaining drinking establishment that I may need to go to this weekend.  If I'm over there I'll stop in to the homebrew store just because.

Still, it's located a couple doors down from another entertaining drinking establishment that I may need to go to this weekend.

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Annie's?

Rusty Nails said:

Still, it's located a couple doors down from another entertaining drinking establishment that I may need to go to this weekend.

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Annie's?
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Annie's, where they are eager to please the customer.  They seem to try harder than the places in Portland.
Plus, there is Chinese food at the Hong Kong in between, or better yet on the way home there's calamari at the Ship in.
I may even get one of my CO2 tanks filled at Englund Marine if I go over there.

The Vancouver Brewfest is this weekend (August 9, 10 and 11) in downtown Vancouver, WA.  The brew club that I belong to will have a booth.  Cascadia Breweres Alliance is who we are.  We'll be brewing at our booth in the evening each of the three days.  I'm working the Saturday, August 10 brewing session.  We'll start brewing around 5 p.m.  If you live close by, come down and have a few beers and meet us.

Well Scott, I was sort of thinking of going the Vancouver way anyhow.  One of about three possible agenda's I had in mind.
That sounds like a good time.
Hmmm......  Do I pre order my ticket and get the glass mug? or get the plastic one at the gate?

Here's the link for anyone else who cares.
http://vancouverbrewfest.com/

Friday: 3pm to 9pm
Saturday: Noon to 9pm
Sunday: Noon to 7pm

Location:
Esther Short Park
301 W. 8th Street
W Columbia St. and 8th St.
Vancouver, WA 98660

Wish I had some bottled up samples worth bringing. 
Are you going to be there for the full day's worth of event Saturday?

I'm sorry that I didn't read your post sooner.  I was there from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.  I did the brewing demonstration at the Cascadia Brewers Alliance tent.  I made an all grain English Extra Special Bitter.  I hit my target gravities right on the nose.  We had a lot of activity at our tent.  Lots of questions from noobies and experienced brewers alike. 

We brewed a Pale Ale on Friday.  We'll be brewing a Session IPA on Sunday.

We're right next the Baders tent.  When you go in, we're down the left side about 150 feet.

Sure with I would have made it.
I go distracted and ended up busy all day.
As a side note, I've got three yeast starters going that I started last night and I got a lead on some honey for mead.

I'm going to have to keep an eye out for the brewfest next year.  If I plan ahead I should be able to get a motel in walking range.
You had 23 mostly small breweries represented there so that's a lot of temptation for a guy with a 2 1/2 hour drive home.