By Peter Devries, Competition Secretary

Authorbox_compsec Welcome all to the first Ferm of 2010! The club competition's for 2010 will follow on from last year’s excellent effort coordinated by the outgoing Competition Secretary, Charles Newton. The same beers and style categories will appear this year, with the major difference being that the beers from competition three have been swapped for those in competition one. There were a few reasons to make this switch, but the first one was to get your fresh-is-best summer ales and wheat beers into the first competition of the year.

Not all of our members have the ability to adequately cool their fermenters during warmer weather, and this may have presented an issue for those wishing to brew Lagers and Pilseners. The beers that may need cooler weather can therefore be brewed in the middle of the year, and then entered into competition three in August. We also have the stronger beers — that need some quality time spent in the keg — in competition three. So, think about those strong beers now, and get brewing!

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Graham Achilles, Web Minion

Authorbox_webminion Hi fellow brewers, my name is Graham and I’ve taken over admin of the Canberra Brewers website and forum for this year. I would like to say a thanks to Jamie (pome) for his great work last year, particularly with having to handle the Nationals and his development of the new online competition form. Jamie took the time just prior to Christmas to go through the webmaster job with me in detail. I’m anticipating that I’ll need support from both Jamie and Chris (Duffbowl) throughout the year.

I joined Canberra Brewers at the start of 2007, and started all-grain brewing at the end of 2008, after completing the 2008 BJCP course. I hope to start putting some entries into this year’s competitions. I have three kids which places some challenges into finding time on the weekends for brewing. One new member joined the club in December and he has been added to the forum. The usual cleanup of forum accounts will occur after the March meeting, to allow everyone time to pay their membership renewals. (Editor: Graham, how about a photo?)

By Steve Sargent (aka Sarge)

Member-stuff

February 2009 marked the start of construction of the “Sargent Arms Bar and Brewery”. Twelve months in the making, it is a purpose built, 24 square metre ‘shed’ in the backyard. It also includes a 15 square metre deck. Footings are 600 mm deep, with stirrups concreted into the holes. 100 X 100 mm treated pine posts support the treated pine bearers and floor joists. There are 16 posts in all, supporting four bearers, plus another bearer that is dyna-bolted to the double brick wall at the rear. The floor is ‘yellow tongue’ particle board. The frames are standard structural pine and the rafters are 4.6 metre long treated pine and span the 4 metre wide floor space with a 600 mm eave. The whole thing is clad with corrugated iron and both walls and roof are insulated. It has two second-hand sliding cedar doors, 1 X 1.8 metre and 1 X 2.4 metre, courtesy of my cousin,  giving a total of 4.2 metres of glass over the 6 metre length. The decking is new timber but was weathered, so I picked it up for $2 per metre.

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Stuart Whytcross

Memberstuff_box Hi, my name is Stuart Whytcross (disco stu) from Griffith NSW. I have been all-grain brewing for about two years now. In October last year I was introduced to the Canberra Brewers Club by Dicko at the Nationals. I was amazed to find so many other people as passionate about brewing as myself, and so the next day I became a member of the National Champions!

Being 350kms from Canberra, I have yet to attend my first Canberra Brewers meeting, but I still manage to get to Canberra quite regularly. Since joining the Club my brewing has dramatically improved as well as my enjoyment of the hobby. The friendship and knowledge I have gained from members on visits to Canberra, the forum, ‘The Ferm’ and competitions has been extraordinary to say the least.

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