Club members - BEWBC will be participating in this year's Beerstock again. We welcome beer and winemakers to the event. If you plan on coming, please contact Mark Emiley (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
------------------------
BEERSTOCK 5060-7 Saturday, July 30, 2016 (you’re welcome to camp Saturday night)
(Please share this information with your club members, most questions can be answered within.)
WHAT IS BEERSTOCK 5060?:
In the summer of 2009 Beerstock 5060 was the first, legal get-together of homebrew clubs to share and taste each other’s homebrew and talk brewing across homebrew club lines. Thanks to the passing of Bill 5060, as of July 26th, 2009 it is now legal to have this type of event as long as all homebrew is free. Beerstock is like homebrew beer fest!
If your club is interested in attending and setting up a booth and hasn’t contacted us yet, please contact Brian at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Beerstock is organized entirely by volunteers and is designed to break even. (This is not a money-making event.) However, there has been a philanthropic addition to Beerstock the past few years with the help of the Lakewood Rotary club. Rotary club members come to Beerstock and help us by serving food all day on Saturday and early on Sunday morning. The money they make from these sales is matched by a grant from the Gates Foundation and is used to fight polio in 3rd world countries. We are so happy to have this positive element as part of Beerstock 5060. Yes, it is true, “Beer can save the world.”
LOCATION & DATE:
July 30, 2016 Beerstock 5060-7 is held south of Seattle at a private Ski Park near Orting, Washington.
Address: 17299 S. Pioneer Way, Orting, WA 98360
(If you have questions contact us, your Beerstock committee, do not contact the park about the event.)
BEERSTOCK 5060-7 starts serving beer at 1:00 pm, July 30, 2016 with an official opening toast at 2:00pm:
-Booth set-up starts at noon
-2:00 pm parade & opening toast in an official Beerstock 5060-7 taster glass
- 3:00 pm or so, Pro Brewer’s Forum and Q&A
-Meet homebrewers from all over the area
-Hawaiian music & dancing
-Live Band - Blinded By No One
-Fire Dancers – Musphelheim, et al.
-6:30 pm Pot Luck, bring a side dish, snacks, dessert, salad, etc. (Prizes awarded for best food made with beer.)
-Grilled sausages, hot dogs & burgers sold by the Rotary Club all day
-A new Beerstock t-shirt and/or cap might be for sale (cash or check only)
-Plenty of room for camping and RV’s (no hook-ups)
-Breakfast served by the Rotary Club
BRINGING BEER TO SERVE:
Each club may bring as many different brewed beverages as they’d like to share with other club’s members. It is up to each club to organize this. You can bring beer in bottles, kegs, or whatever. You can bring a lot or a little. All homebrewed beverages are welcome as long as they are yummy.
It is not required that all attendees bring a homebrewed beverage, but taste buds are a must.
There will be one booth per homebrew club (just like last time). Each club is responsible for their own jockey boxes and/or dispensing set-ups, signs, table, chairs, water, ice and shade tent. It’s nice for attendees to know what beer you’re serving, so an easily seen sign is exceptionally helpful. Please bring water for rinsing glasses, too. Feel free to decorate your booth to suit your fancy. There is a prize for the best decorated booth determined by, as always, “the whim of a mad man”.
BOOTH SET-UP STARTS no later than noon: (If you need 2 hours, feel free to come at 11:00am.)
If your club is setting up a booth, please plan to come at the designated set-up time to set-up your booth. Drive in and one of the organizers will show you to the homebrew fest circle and help you find where to unload your gear. After you are unloaded, please move your vehicle to the back parking area. No vehicles are to be left around the booth area. During the event we must keep the area open for a fire lane. Safety first! Important note: don’t forget to eat lunch.
The Rotary club will be selling brautwurst, burgers and hotdogs all profits from the sales at the Rotary booth will go to polio vaccines. (Hint: cheese is good to eat before consuming alcoholic beverages--it slows down the alcohol absorption rate, so bring a baggie of mozerella sticks and chow down all day.) They will also be serving breakfast. Credit cards accepted.
THINGS YOU’LL NEED TO BRING:
Please bring something for the pot luck dinner. There will not be plug-in’s available. You may bring a contained grill, as long as it does not drop ash or grease on the ground. As always, clean up after you leave, and please don’t dump spent charcoal. (The check-in booth has a few pieces of metal that can be put under grills to protect the grass.
If you want to set your tuckus down while you savor a brew, bring a chair. You’ll want to bring things like sunscreen, bug spray, tent and warm cloths for the evening. Bring any water or non-alcoholic beverages you’d like to drink. It’s usually quite hot this time of year, so drink lots of water. It’s also helpful if your non-alcoholic beverage is an anabolic energy fluid, meaning “it’s got electrolytes”. Also, bring your own rinse water and ice. You'll need cash or checks for various things, such as, T-shirts, band donations, sausages, etc.
A flashlight and battery powered lighting for your booth at night are helpful when the sun sets. Hint: Ace Hardware has round, battery-powered, hanging LED lamps that illuminate a fairly wide area. There will be a little light around the band, but your taps will need to be lit by you after dark descends. The band will be using the only electricity available.
Remember if you pack it in, you must PACK IT OUT. Leave your booth area as clean as you found it. After packing up on Sunday, please walk your area and pick any paper scraps, bottle caps, feathers or butts out of the grass and throw them away. Thanks so much, this kind of clean-up really helps us.
CHOOSING THE BEERS YOU BRING:
This is entirely up to you and your club. Bring as many or as few as you desire. If you only have a 4 tap jockey box and 8 beers to serve, split the time in half and ring a bell or blow a chorus of kazoos to draw attention to the fact that you are switching out kegs.
In the middle of the event will be the check-in desk. You will see it as you walk to the event from the back parking area. Please check-in immediately after you’ve parked. At the check-in desk you will fill out a name tag with your name and club affiliation. (If you are a guest of someone from a club, you should write down their club name.) Next you will need to sign a short waiver stating your club affiliation, that you are at least 21 years of age (bring yer ID) and various other safety details. Next the Beerstock staff will give you a couple of food coupons, a Beerstock 5060-7 taster glass and serve you your first homebrew. You will then be released to roam club booths as a free-range sampler.
$$$:
To keep this legal, Beerstock 5060 is an invitation only event that is sponsored by donations from homebrew clubs. We invite homebrew clubs to attend. Homebrew club members are welcome to invite their friends to join them as their guests. (Here’s a reminder to have your guest write down your club’s affiliation on the waiver at the check-in desk.) We request that each club to collect a donation of $20.00 per attendee. This is a donation out of the goodness of your heart, it is not a ticket sale. Your club’s Beerstock Rep will collect money from his or her members and their guests and send it to Mark and Alison before or after the event.
Note for each club’s Beerstock Rep: Beerstock is a fun event, where everyone, even those in the check-in booth, are sampling beers. Because of this, we’d rather not collect donations at the check-in booth. It’s better for us if you can collect the money ahead of time and send it to our treasurer at: Alison Sheafor-Joy, 3410 Stanwood Bryant Rd, Arlington, WA 98223. If it’s just too hard to collect the money ahead of time, collect it from your members at the event or after, then mail us a check. It’s helpful if this check arrives within a month before or after this event because it is all paid for up front by Alison’s credit card which has a hefty % that she doesn’t like to pay. J Of course, if it’s just plain easier for you to give us the donation at the event, bring it to the check-in booth in an envelope with your club’s name on it. We do like to stay organized and keep track of things.
What will your donation get you? We are always jazzed about our glass taster glasses with the Beerstock 5060-7 logo that are provided to all who attend! As always, we will rent numerous porta-potties. You dontation also covers parking, rental fee, prizes, printing, plates, silverware, entertainment, morning coffee and hair-of-the-dog, etc. You will also get two discount coupons to use at the Rotary food booth. Any left-over money is donated to the Lakewood Rotary club to fight polio around the world. And unlike most beer fests, at Beerstock the beer is always free all day, all night and even the following morning, if you’d like.
RULES, AGE & OTHER SPECIFICS:
Each attendee must be a Washington homebrew club member or the guest of a homebrew club member. Your guests will also need to fill out a waiver at the check-in booth, just have them write your club name as their club affiliation. All attendees must be, at least, 21 years old to drink.
There are a few homebrewers who have requested bringing their young children and it has worked well in the past. You may do this, but they must remain under your care at all times. This is an adult event with lots of people drinking. Consider this when making your decision. We also ask that the adults be considerate of the kids in attendance.
CLUB OF THE UNAFFILIATED:
If you are a homebrewer, are not in a homebrew club and would like to attend Beerstock 5060-7, you may join the Club of the Unaffiliated. The Washington Homebrew Association has graciously offered to have a jockey box available for those who are not attached to a club. You will need to email Mark Emiley or Peter Twigg at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. They will organize the booth set-up with you. They are really cool guys, and lots of fun. You’ll also get to be in a booth where award winning beers are served. yum.
WEATHER:
July is usually quite warm and sunny so bring sunscreen, but remember to bring warm cloths for the evening. Did I mention bringing water to drink? If it is raining, bring an umbrella and water-proof shoes. If it’s windy tie down your tent/shelter poles to gallon jugs and “party-on, dude”.
FIRE:
No open flames or fire-pits are allowed. The owners might provide one free-standing fire, but otherwise, fires are prohibited. This is a beautiful, pristine park where many events are held on weekends in the summer, please leave it as clean as you found it. For example, smoking cigarettes is allowed, but PLEASE put butts in a can or an ashtray. “Keep your butt off the ground, the earth is not your ashtray.” Ha ha.
Gas grills are fine. Please bring something to put under them so that grease does not get on the ground. If you must bring a charcoal grill, you’ll need to cool down your coals and take them with you when you leave. Please don’t dump ash or coal. Thanks.
BAND & ENTERTAINMENT:
Along with classic rock, we have Hawaiian music and dancing organized by Lisa Mansfield. You may even have the chance to learn to dance with Lisa. There will be performances by the band, Blinded By No-one” lead by Jason from BREW. They will entertain us with classic rock to hearken back to Woodstock, the event that inspired the name Beerstock. As dark descends on Beerstock 5060-7, Jason’s wife Carmen will lead the firedancers, Muspelheim. (Since way pay them very little compared to their usual wage, we invite you to donate to their performances.)
GARAGE SALE & BEER ARTS:
To take some of the burden off of the check-in booth, this year these things will be sold at your club’s booth.
If you want to sell some of your used brewing equipment, please feel free to sell it at your club’s booth.
We are very happy if you want to sell “beer art”. These are items made with beer in mind, items made with beer parts or items made with beer geeks in mind. Feel free to sell these wonderful creations at your club’s booth.
TRASH:
We will have trash cans at various locations, along with recycling bins and plastic silverware collection boxes. (I clean and sterilize the silverware each year.) Please keep Mother Earth in mind when throwing things in the trash and recycling bins.
Sunday morning, if you have room in your vehicle, PLEASE take a trash bag or two. Take a bag of recycling and put it in your recycling bin at home. We will the bags by a sign next to the road. We are grateful to those who so graciously helped by taking trash bags last year. The Beerstock staff’s vehicles are often overloaded with tables, tents and all of the other things it takes to put on Beerstock, and are hard pressed, each year, cramming in those last bags of trash as we are the last ones to leave the park on Sunday afternoon.
DOGS:
Friendly dogs are welcome at this park in Orting as long as you keep them with you on a leash and scoop their poop. Yes, they must remain on a leash and be well behaved. Please be mindful, there were a few complaints in the past. As owner, you are responsible for their actions, well-being and enjoyment of the event. Bring your own plastic baggies for poop scooping. Trash cans are available in various locations around the event, as are porta-potties.
CAMPING AVAILABLE:
You are more than welcome to camp, in fact, we encourage it! This is a large park with beautiful, flat, green lawns. Don’t forget your flashlight! If you think you might be camping, let your Beerstock Rep know, so he or she can inform us. We need a fairly accurate count for planning the camping area and breakfast food. There will be breakfast available for those who sleep over provided by the Rotary club. You will receive a $2.00 off coupon for breakfast. Coffee is free, as will be some other breakfast snacks.
As requested, we’ll try to put one of the porta-potties near the camping area.
NOTE: The camping area is for SLEEPING. If you want to keep partying, please do it in the Beerstock circle. Concerning noise, please be considerate of those sleeping around you, sounds carry far in the valley.
CURFEW?:
Well, we’ve never had one of these at Beerstock, but there have been some problems late at night in the past few years. I’m voting for everyone to try to go to bed by 3:00 am. (I’d prefer 2:00 am, but I’m an old fart that fondly remembers my wild youth, so I’m not going to be a dork about this.) How does 3:00 am snooze-time sound to you? This is just a suggestion--a general goal, of sorts, to plug into your noggin pre boozin’.
CAMPER TRAILERS/ RV’s:
Great news! There is room for camper trailers & RV’s at the Ski Park in the parking area. There will be signs showing you where to park your campers or trailers in the parking lot. There are no RV hook-ups available. There will be maps showing where to park, camp, set-up, etc. at the check-in desk and at the entrance. The map will also be emailed to each club’s Beerstock Rep before the event that he or she can share with their club members.
Please, no camping, drinking or tap-dancing on the putting greens. (Yes, there is a 6 hole golf course, there.)
PARKING:
Please, carpool as much as possible.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY:
There are lots of other people that help with Beerstock. If you want to help with set-up, tear-down or take a shift at the check-in desk please email Alison at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..