Category: Committee Reports

By Tom Dixon, Social Secretary

Oktoberfsst Brewers – Oktoberfest is on again! The Canberra Brewers Club Oktoberfest will be held during our October meeting. Just like last year, we’ll kick off at 6:30pm in the restaurant upstairs, where the Chef will provide us with an excellent selection of German foods — and it truly was excellent last year!

We will be running the 'Best of the Fest' beer competition again. Bring along your best German beer and they will be assessed by a panel of judges in a very relaxed competition. The winner will take home a $100 Mashematics voucher. Entry is free, just bring 1x750mL or 2x500mL bottles or serve out of a keg! If you don't have any German beer handy, bring along what ever you have as usual.

Entry to the Oktoberfest will be $10 per head and will include not only your German feast (subsidised by the Club) but also a ticket in the end of the year Nookie Prize draw. Of course we will have the usual raffles, with great prizes, on the night. Feel free to bring significant others, friends or family who can also join the festivities at $10 per head.

To get an idea for catering we need to know numbers. Please reply to the thread on the club forum with your name and the number of guests you will be brining (if applicable).

By Darryl Barbour, President

Flash Brewers, the Club meeting is just two days away now, and with the ACT Amateur Brewing Championships just around the corner, which are themselves the qualifier for the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships (AABC), we’ll be hosting a presentation this month to help you get your best beers to the judging table, in the best condition possible. And just to show you we are serious, we’ll be rolling out a guest presenter with a host of titles: Former-President; Former-Social Secretary; Club Champion, AABC Champion, all around good guy and the deacon of Dortmunder … It is of course our own Craig Webber.

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By Darryl Barbour, President

Authorbox_presidentAdelaide, 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.

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By Darryl Barbour, President

Authorbox_presidentWe are into the second half of the year and what looks like being a busy time in the club. The Science Festival is now just five weeks away, Sunday 8 August. We have been provided a 45 minute talking spot at 11:30am, space for a stall, and weather permitting will also be brewing outside. We will need plenty of help on the day, so please get in touch with Craig (Brewtus) or myself — the more the merrier. We will be at the Shine Dome, otherwise known as the Australian Academy of Science.

After that we've still got two more competitions (Comp 3 and the ACTABC), Oktoberfest, a road trip to the Nationals, and at the end of it all, the AGM. We are also keen to try and have a second guided beer tasting at a club meeting a bit later in the year, following on from the weizen tasting at the July meeting, and I'd love to hear suggestions for styles or beers that people would like to learn more about, and get some tips on how to brew them well. As always, we need volunteers to help out at events, so please pitch in wherever you can.

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