Author: Social Secretary

Happy New Year Brewers

The holidays are over and we have an update about our first meeting of 2020

We trust you had a chance to relax and maybe had some time to brew. 2020 is well under way and the exciting news is our new meeting location. We are trialling BentSpoke at Mitchell. That’s right, Richard Watkins has welcomed us to have meeting at BentSpoke’s Mitchell brewery on Thursday February 6th. We will be looking for feedback to see if it is suitable for our meetings.

The details for our February Meeting are:

First Thursday of the month – 6th Feb.

From 7:30pm to 10:30pm

At the BentSpoke Cannery, 63 Lysaght St, Mitchell   https://her.is/37uh6hb

Please bring some of your home brew to share, bottles, growlers, corny kegs are all welcome.

New brewers and vistors from other brewing clubs are always welcome.

This meeting will be a great start to the brewing year. There is an education session on electronic hydrometers at 7:30pm, the raffles, six pack swap (see the forum) and of course, the chance to talk to other brewers and try their tasty brews.

Education session

This session will be all about the latest brewing bling, the digital, wifi, remote sensing ‘I can check my ferment while travelling to Perth for work’ wonder toy. Yes – it is the electronic hydrometer.  We will be reviewing the DIY German-grown iSpindel, and electronic hydrometers overall. And there will be a live demonstration of the iSpindel integrated with a Brewfather.

Raffle

This month the main prize with be a Grainfather Control box upgrade courtesy of our former member Nick Wiseman, now of Grainfather, as well as some other great prizes. Also the Nookie prize begins again. Last year’s went to Stephen Neilson AKA Kurtz, and he won a brew-day at Sailor’s Grave in Orbost in Gippsland with a Pamper Package for his partner. This year we will have another similar package with details later in the year. All you need to do is either enter is be a member and either buy $5 worth of raffle tickets and/or bring beer to the club meetings.

Mead Tasting

Last year a few club members got together and brewed several varietal meads. These are now finished, looking good and ready for sampling. Check out the forum* for details on how to get in on the action. https://www.canberrabrewers.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8423&p=68526&hilit=mead#p68526

Looking forward to a busy moth and a great year,

The CB Committee

 

*Forum access is for financial members.

The last regular meeting of the 2019 in nearly on us. This month we will learn about brewing software.

We will have the usual raffle with a Plonk Advent Calander for the main prize.

As normal bring your homebrew to share.

See you there.

ACT pipped at the post to come 2nd overall

The Australian Amatuer Brewing Championships 2019 were held on 26 October 2019 at the Bankstown Sports Club in Sydney. 350 entries from 207 brewers made it through to the competion from the state and territory qualifying rounds. A big congratulations to Canberra Brewers for our success.  ACT and NSW tied for first with 23 points each. Unfortunatley on countback, ACT had total 2,305 points for the scoring beers and NSW 2,662 points. Well done NSW.

Lawfo wins Champion Brewer of 2019

The Australian Amateur Brewer of the Year went to Stephen Lawford who won 3 first places (Czech Dark Lager, American Pale Ale & Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer) and 1 second place (Wheat & Rye – Roggenbier). What a champion! Stephen said of his brewing “Like many, my first experience of brewing was with my dad, helping him clean, fill and cap bottles,… (and with Dad) I put down my first batch on my 18th birthday. So I cannot thank him enough for igniting my passion for home brewing.” Equal 3rd place by points was shared by Steve Hogath with 2 firsts (Low Alc Dark Mild & Irish Extra Stout) but he was awarded 4th on count back (total number of points). Well done Hoggy! Thanks to NSW, especially Peter Symons (he writes great books on historical beers) and the seven judges from Canberra who made the journey. Full results are here. http://aabc.org.au/stateresults/AABC2019FullResults.pdf

Also congratulations to Kip Koenig and his Dark Terra and Richard Brown with his Chocolate Frog Porter who have made it through to the finals of the Coopers’ Masters of the Brewniverse completion.