Author: Social Secretary

Welcome back for another great year of brewing!

We’ve got our first meeting of 2016 coming up this Thursday (February 4), and after a fantastic preview of BentSpoke’s new Mitchell facility (thanks again to Richard and Stagger) we’ll head back to the Harmonie German Club in Narrabundah for this meeting, starting with an education session at 7.30pm.

We’ll look forward to trialling another meeting at Mitchell when construction work at the venue allows sufficient space.

Multi-tasking: Our major fundraiser

One of the key parts of this week’s meeting will be going over the finer details of what’s happening at the Canberra Brewers’ stall at the National Multicultural Festival on February 12-14. We are still looking for volunteers to work short shifts at the stall on the Friday and Saturday – despite being a few hours of work, it’s a fun experience and great way to get to know fellow club members. Sign up for a spot on the forum here!

Get organised

We’ll kick off education in 2016 with a 7.30pm session on organising your brewing. We’ve lined up three of the club’s stellar brewers – Craig ‘Stagger’ Webber, Tom ‘Dicko’ Dixon and Stephen ‘The Law’ Lawford – to talk about how they plan their brewing. As all three have proven their ability to turn out high numbers of award-winning beers, we’re keen to glean some insights into how to make better beer, more often.

Have your say!

Have you considered putting your hand up for committee? With the Canberra Brewer’s holding its annual general meeting on March 3, we will soon be calling for nominations for committee positions. If you’re passionate about the club and have a vision for what it can do for the Canberra brewing community (or know a club member who fits the bill) consider putting in a nomination. New and long-term members should consider applying. Nominations for committee close on February 25 (one week before the AGM). The office-bearers of the association are: president, treasurer, social secretary, competition secretary, education officer, and editor. There are also non-voting positions for an ordinary committee member (recently used as assistant social secretary) and webmaster. If you’ve got any questions, a current or former committee member would be only too happy to help out.

Judge-ment day

We’ve got a group of keen judges preparing to take the Beer Judge Certification Judging exam on March 19. To help with preparation we’ll need beer to practise on, so we’d love it if you could donate a couple of bottles of beer for the cause. If you think you’ve got something suitable, flick an email to education@canberrabrewers.com.au or come and see education officer Patrick at the meeting. We’re also going to need a couple of stewards to help out for the exam on Saturday, March 19, and a practise exam on or around Tuesday, March 8. Get in touch if you’d like to help out.

Club financial statements

Treasurer Andrew Chek put up the club’s financial statements at the December meeting and has also put them on the club’s forum here. Check them out before we vote to accept them at the meeting next week. As you can see, the club is in a healthy position financially, mostly due to the annual Multicultural Festival.

The raffle returns

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Canberra Brewers meeting without a fantastic raffle! We’re kicking off the year in style, with a brand spanking shiny new 19L keg from Mashematics, some gleaming Spiegelau glassware with matching beers, some swag from Grainfather/Mangrove Jack’s and some fascinating new “Hop Shots” – from Hop Dealz Australia. These aroma extracts you can add directly to finished beer (even straight into the glass) to give your beer some more hop punch. A big thanks to Hop Dealz Australia for hooking us up, the winners will have to report back with their findings!

Club library

Don’t forget to head to the club’s online library catalogue at https://canberrabrewers.librarika.com/ to peruse this great resource. You can reserve a copy of something and we’ll deliver it at the meeting. If the book is currently on loan, email education@canberrabrewers.com.au and we’ll arrange to have it brought back for you to borrow. Don’t have access to the library? Email us and we’ll hook you up.

 

Happy brew year!

We hope you had a happy and safe Christmas and New Year’s, and have plenty of great brewing planned for 2016.

While we don’t generally have a meeting in January, there are a couple of things we wanted to wrap up for 2015 and preview for this month so we can hit the ground running.

We had a fantastic meeting at BentSpoke’s new warehouse facility in Mitchell – and it’s already looking likely we’ll be meeting there again in February. As we heard in December, there are some big, exciting plans for the venue, so we’ll want to make extra sure they can accommodate us on February 4 – watch this space for confirmation closer to the date.

A big thanks to Richard Watkins and Craig Webber for generously accommodating us on the night.

Step up to help your club!

We’re calling on members to step up and help out with the club’s major yearly fundraising effort – our stall at the National Multicultural Festival. We need volunteers to work short (3-4 hour) shifts across the weekend of February 12-14. Only those with Responsible Service of Alcohol certification will be able to sell or pour beer, but there are still plenty of jobs for people without. If you wish to gain RSA certification, the club will pay for a limited number of people to complete a course online – just add your name to the list here and follow the instructions.

If you enjoyed Oktoberfest, the family Christmas Barbecue, entered a competition or enjoyed any of the education sessions this year, do the right thing and help us fund another year of great activities.

It’s also a great way to get to know some of your fellow club members and really get involved.

Sign up for a shift or two here,

Club financial statements

Treasurer Andrew Chek put up the club’s financial statements at the last meeting and has also put them on the club’s forum here. Check them out before we vote to accept them at the February meeting. As you can see, the club is in a healthy position financially, mostly due to the annual Multicultural Festival. The club is also finishing the year with 161 financial members – surely a record!

2015 club member of the year

The Craig Robinson Memorial Trophy was presented to Andrew Blencowe at the December meeting, recognising his tireless hours of work behind the scenes building our club bars and helping find a new venue for the BJCP course. The award is named named after a highly-regarded club member of many years until before his sudden passing in 2009. Other honourable mentions included Stephen Neilson, Stephen Lawford and Patrick Baggoley.

2015 N.O.O.K.I.E winner

Rob Booth was the lucky winner of the 2015 Newcastle Or Otherwise Kind of Interstate Experience. The lucky b****** will get flights to Avalon and a night’s accommodation at Geelong to check out the new Little Creatures brewery in Geelong, followed by a trip up to the Prickly Moses Brewery in the Otway Ranges for a day of brewing, tasting and relaxing, followed by a helicopter tour of the 12 Apostles! Remember, you get an entry into the yearly N.O.O.K.I.E. draw every time you buy three raffle tickets at a club meeting.

Want to have a say in how the club is run?

The March meeting will be the club’s Annual General Meeting, the first since members voted to move the meeting from December. This is members’ opportunity to step up and help make this club the best it can be. With more than 140 financial members, we should see lots of people willing to put their hand up, and a healthy pool of nominees is a sign of a club’s strength. Nominations for committee close on February 25 (one week before the AGM). The office-bearers of the association are: president, treasurer, social secretary, competition secretary, education officer, and editor. There are also non-voting positions for an ordinary committee member (recently used as assistant social secretary) and webmaster.

BJCP charity movie night (postponed)

This post initially included details of a fundraiser movie night for the John James Foundation for Saturday, January 16. We’ve decided to postpone the event until later in the year to hopefully attract more people. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Hi Brewers,

By now most of you know that Bentspoke has begun their expansion with a new venue in Mitchell.

Richard Watkins has offered to host club meetings at this kickass new venue and we’re going to hold the December meeting there as a trial run.

Date: Thursday 3rd December
When: 7.30pm early education session, 8pm start
Where: 61 Lysaght St. Parking is available on Baillieu Circuit.
What to Bring: homebrew of course! there will be also be a bbq on.

We hope to share more details closer to the meeting.