Where oh where has the President gone?

By Darryl Barbour, President

Adelaide, San Francisco, Seattle and beyond. It has been a busy month travelling the country and the world, but alas there have been fewer brew-pub visits than I would have liked. I can complement The Pike Brewery in Seattle though, with a lovely “Kilt Lifter” Scottish Ale (around the 80/- mark?) and “Tandem” Belgian Dubbel. Of course, this is a poor excuse for not getting a President’s report out for the August meeting, but it is the best I can offer!

And so while it has been a busy and tough few weeks I was really encouraged to see the turnout of members, both those working towards BJCP recognition and those who are not, to the faulted beer tasting this week gone by. I hear that a report it being prepared, but can confirm that we had some absolutely horrid samples to work through. We did, however, get a better understanding of what the different flavours (that may or may not be considered faults) are like in beer and a few ideas on how to address them. Hopefully we will be able to offer that session each year that a BJCP course and exam is run.

On the club news front, we are barely a fortnight away from the BJCP exam – 11 September, good luck to all the examinees – and of course the end of year competition that will also be the qualifier for the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships. I am sure there a plenty of fermenters working overtime to get the last beers brewed in time and to be at their fresh best.

We have talked about the rules of association on the forum a bit and I hope to provide a slightly amended version for consideration by the members. I suggest it will be only slightly amended as the debate was really focussed on the role of absentee or proxy votes and how this might work best. What I see from here is a proposed set of rules that the club membership agree on leading to a formal vote at the November meeting on whether we adopt the rules and incorporate (with the paperwork done ahead of the December AGM), or whether we don’t.

Which takes me to the end of my space and the question of what witty and probably overused sign-off I can use…..

Keep Brewing!
El-Prez.