Know ye, one and all, that the Shire of Hartstone will be holding it's annual Autumn event, known as Hunter's Moon on October 25, 2008 at the Dansville Fish and Game, Dansville, NY. It is time once again to harvest friendship and memories, fight by day, and make merry by the light of the moon! The day will offer a German theme, with various activities to reflect this, including Brewing activities led by Lord Magnus Jager. (Details) The feast will also have a German theme, menu will be posted soon! The subtlety will be prepared by Lady Bridget de Kirkland.

Martial activities offer a well rounded selection for your enjoyment, including heavy weapons, archery, and thrown weapons. Lord James of Hartstone will be assisted by Sir Wulfstan Huscarl in presenting a Combat Croquet Tournament (details forthcoming) and a Warlord Tournament. We have youth combat activities planned as well!

There will be Bardic activities following the evenings repast.

Coppertree, in conjunction with Hartstone, is working on a silent auction of pieces made by, or donated by, people who cared for Duke Morguhn to raise funds for Rowan and Meirwen.

To all Brewers, Seamstresses, Painters, Jewelers; basically anyone that would like to volunteer their time to give the auction one or more items to be bid on. We have forms that can be mailed to be filled out,or if you wish to simply let me know by email, we will do that too. When you confirm that you are donating, please let me know what you are going to be donating, the size, and how much. There will also be two tags attached with the item at the auction - a tag with your name, both mundane and Scadian, with any other contact information you may want included. The other tag will have a green background with a gold star on one side, with Morguhn's dates on the other.

Contact Info: Rosaleen Dhu aka Krys Gokey Or you may contact the autocrat for more information.

Your autocrat for this event is Lady Katriona of the Groves (Kat Sullivan) katriona@stny.rr.com Phone (585)643-5438. Reservations may be sent to our reservations clerk Vicki Willis c/o Kat Sullivan at 19 Washington St. Dansville, NY 15537

The costs for this event are as follows: $7.00 per adult 18 and up, 6-17 will be $3.50, under 5 will be free. The $3.00 non member surcharge will be collected at the Troll. Cost of the feast will be $7.00 from 10 years old and up, under 10 eats for free.

Pictures of the site can be viewed at: http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Stonies/photos/browse/c3d2?c=3D

Directions: Make your way to Interstate 390, to Dansville, NY. Take exit 4 and make a left at the bottom of the ramp. Turn right onto Gibson Street, and the entrance to the site will be on your right just past the top of the hill.

Map:

Brewing activities led by Lord Magnus Jager (details):

The plan is to make a Stein beer of Corinthia

This is an old beer style actually predating the middle ages. It involves boiling the beer with rocks heated in a fire.

The entire process takes about 6-7 hours start to finish with some down time at certain points as follows.

Step one make a fire with rocks in it. Get it burning hot and keep burning for about 2 hours to get rocks well heated. This requires someone to keep an eye out but no real labor.

Step two boiling the juniper and hops. In the pot put water juniper branches and hops. Bring to repeated boils with the hot rocks. This takes about 30-45 minutes of juggling rocks into and out of the kettle.

Step three add ground barley to mix. I'm going to grind this before hand to save time and energy.

Step 4 wait about 60-90 minutes for the grain to convert starch to sugar. Occasionally I'll drop a rock or two in and remove them to keep the grain warm and for flavor.

Step 5 add more water and do the boil. By adding rocks to the kettle bring the mix to a boil over about an hours time (once it is at boiling temp). This is one of the more hands on parts and I will be using volunteers for this part.

Step 6 collect hot wort from the kettle. Let the wort run out of the kettle into fermenters. Though this is still non-alcoholic the labor is pretty much done. Yeast is added when the wort cools and its up to the yeast at that point.

As I said I did the beta last night at a friends' house with limited equipment, and all went well. I should have samples of this beer at the event. So far from the wort I believe it will be a decent beer with some juniper overtones, but not overwhelmingly so.