Category: Editor’s report and club news

Although our annual Oktoberfest meeting was actually held last month, the month is Oktober and we all still got together for our monthly meeting with most enjoying the Oktoberfest beers available at the venue.

We soon got down to business with many awards handed out for some great beers in the recent club competition – well done to all those members.

With so much on the calendar coming up, such as the highly anticipated Australian National Homebrew Conference (ANHC), business was kept minimal with the focus on being social and tasting each others brews – of which there was plenty going around.

Raffles were on as usual with some great prizes although a few members either left early or got caught up chatting with plenty needing to be redrawn – make sure you listen up and stick around so you don’t miss out.

Everyone enjoyed the night and it ended well with the exception of a couple of glasses – seems you cant take brewers anywhere.

The next big event for the club on the calendar is the ANHC being held in a couple of weeks and is promising to be a huge event – if not the biggest in it’s history.

Banner_Facebook2

Club President Billy listening in to the rest of the committee talk (for a change)
Club President Billy listening in to the rest of the committee talk (for a change)

The middle of the year has passed and we’re one meeting closer to one of the biggest club nights of the year – Oktoberfest!
But first, we had a meeting in August – and despite the cold a great number of brewers turned out with quite a few new faces in the crowd.

Despite some heckling from the normal crowd at the back of the room, the committee got stuck into the official proceedings for the night and passed on some important information to the members.

Bruce got up and gave everyone an idea of what the club would be doing as part of this year’s Floriade festival – talking about beer, so even if you’re not part of the official team make sure you keep up to date with what is going on and go down there and show some support.

Eugene educated the crowd on malting wheat and barley with plenty walking away with either knowing more about the grains they use for their everyday brewing to those perhaps thinking of giving it a go themselves.

The kegs ran dry pretty quickly, but members had plenty of bottled beer to pass around for feedback – including this editor who is back to first brew status on a new brew system and copped a fair bit of feedback on a “kit beer” – thanks fellas, the day was a disaster but it sort of resembled a beer!

The raffles saw some great beer up for grabs including some bottles Moo Brew from Tassie as well as a bunch of other items up for grabs.

Overall it was another spectacular night for the brewers of Canberra.

For those who don’t know, next month is Oktoberfest!

For us anyway, the club is not available for our normal meeting night in Oktober so we’re celebrating it earlier. Until next time.

Eugene educating the crowd on malting wheat and barley.
Eugene educating the crowd on malting wheat and barley.

JulyMeetingGrowler
Growler – A Happy Raffler

Canberra Brewers shivered their way into the Harmonie German Club on a cold winter’s night in July for another fun/beer filled meeting. Once again, we left the miracle boxes on the sideline for a bottle sharing night. Ciders, Schwarzes, and IPAs were bandied about. Diacetyl was criticised, hops were appreciated. Cheeks were made red. It was good.

The committee ran through the latest with ANHC (tickets now on sale!) and reminded members that this year’s Oktoberfest will be more of a Septemberfest, before compsec Steve ‘Lawfo’ Lawford handed out all the certificates from competition two. Co-social secretary Jeremy Michael kicked off planning for the club bar at the ANHC Club Night before a bunch of spring rolls and fried chicken came out.

Full of spring rolls and fried chicken, brewers sat down for the ‘going for gold’ talk, where former champion brewers Craig ‘Stagger’ Webber, Ross Mitchell, Kevin Hingston, and Mark Overton shared their varied approaches and attitudes to competition success. Hopefully brewers can find some barley and/or wheat among the chaff of that talk and really rep the club at the ACTABCs and AABCs this year.

With the talking well and truly behind us, we called the humoungous July raffle. With a brand new Keg King Keg via Mashematics, half a kilo of Hop Dealz hops, books, an infrared thermometer, and a bunch of swag from the Lord Nelson brewery, tickets went like hot cakes. Chris ‘Growler’ De La Rue wanted to win so bad, he broke his arm rushing to the front, but in the end it paid mad dividends for him.

IHBD Beers
IHBD Beers

The June meeting showcased the Big Brew Day beers. Brewed on May 3 at The Make Hack Void, the beer this year was American Pale Ale with each brewer allocated a two hop combination for flavour and aroma. The brewers who lined up (and their accompanying hops) were:
Scotty T (Cascade + Nelson Sauvin)
Chekkie (Amarillo + Citra)
Bainesy (Ahnatum + ?)
Gazza (Kohatu + Southern Cross)
Coops (Waimea + Kohatu)
Geoff Swan (Sorachi Ace + El Dorado)
Anton Wood (Southern Cross + Wai-Iti)
Patrick Baggoley (Mosaic + Vic Secret)

After a brief talk about the actual brew day, the members settled into sampling the 8 kegs of APA for the evening.

Other highlights of the meeting were a host of new members turning up and an epic amount of gear up for grabs in the raffles.

IHBD Brewers
IHBD Brewers