Summer Updates: Big Brew, CMBTC Competition & More

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Good morning Brew Bombers! We have some updates for you regarding the Big Brew, CMBTC Competition, and more!

This is just a summary, see your email for full details. If you haven’t been getting club emails, see #4 below.

1. Executives

Marc has transitioned everything to me and I’ve effectively taken over the President role. Thanks to all who voted for me. I look forward to making the upcoming season a great one for all of you.

Marc is still involved until the Big Brew and CMBTC competitions.

The Secretary role has been filled by Ryan Gren. Congratulations Ryan!

2. Big Brew at Nonsuch

Please sign up Before Friday as we need to give a final number to Nonsuch so they can order the ingredients. If you don’t remember if you signed up already or not, just sign up again and we’ll remove duplicates. This is an event for active, paid members.

https://forms.gle/mmDRyTFK889jPjW9A

3. CMBTC Competition

Registration is open!

https://beerawardsplatform.com/2024-cmbtc-brew-bombers-competition

As with the Big Brew, this is a special event for active, paid members.

4. Emails

I’ve been hearing that some folks aren’t getting the all-member emails. If you know of anyone affected, please report to the president email directly.

5. Social Media

I encourage you all to tag the club on your posts. If you’re not on social media, but want to help the club, send me some pictures of your beer, brewing, and related stuff and we can highlight it on the club accounts! This isn’t a club without it’s members so we should try to highlight you a lot more.

That’s all for now!

Cheers!

Dan Molinski

Election Results, Big Brew, CMBTC competition

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Thank you to those who took the time to vote in the recent election. 47% voter turn out is not great, but it’s what we got.

Daniel Molinski won the presidency. Over the summer, I will be helping with the transition and wrapping up some projects I started, and he will take over officially in Sept (possibly sooner).
Tyler Shipman won the VP position, and Paul Mailhot held on to the uncontested role of Treasurer.

The position of Secretary is still open. If you are interested, please send an email the club executive and we will have a run off vote to fill the spot.

Big Brew

The Big Brew at Nonsuch will happen on Sunday July 28th.
It will be an early day (7am-1:30pm). There will be someone working the taproom, able to serve beer,  but the kitchen will be closed, so we could do a potluck style lunch, and people are free to order delivery as well. There will be more communication on that soon.

The Big Brew beer will be available at The Common in September, as well as at Nonsuch for a release party.
Now that we have a date set, we need to know how many people will be committing to coming, and we need to collect fees for the event. The following link will be a sign-up for people committing to attending.

Big Brew Sign Up < Please sign up again even if you’ve filled in previous forms for the big brew.
Note that this is a paid-members-only event. Free-tier members are not eligible to participate

CMBTC Brew Competition

I’m excited to announce that CMBTC has offered to run a competition for the Club. They will be donating some malt to be used in brews done over the summer, with a submission deadline of September 14th. They will be judging and announcing the winners at the October meeting (which, if all goes as planned, will be at CMBTC).

The CMBTC malt will be available at Grain To Glass. When each person who commits to brewing for the competition gets ingredients for their brew, they will be given some base malt, but there will be no other rules beyond using the malt as a main component (>50%) of the recipe. Style is up to you – smaller batches may be necessary for higher gravity beers. Specialty malt, hops, and yeast will be up to you.

We will need you to sign up for this so that the amount of malt provided to each individual can be determined. If only a handful commit, each get a lot, but if there are many entrants, the amount of malt will be less.

Prizes will include a chance to brew a big batch at CMBTC and have your beer served at their December Open House. Also possibly free malt for a year.

We will need each person submitting a beer to include the style and any relevant notes regarding ingredients and adjuncts for the judges.

Oxus will be the drop off point, with a deadline of September 14th. We will keep the beer in the cooler to maintain freshness.

Cheers,
Marc

Windup Potluck & Info

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Howdy Brew Bombers,

It’s that time of year where we wrap up the season with a Windup BBQ. Please check your emails for the link to sign-up for the potluck.

Hot dogs and burgers are on the menu with the club supplying plates, napkins and utensils as well as buns and basic condiments. Feel free to bring other more exotic condiments.

The Windup itself is taking place at Half Pints Brewing on Saturday June 8th (there will be no meeting on Tuesday June 4th!). Windup festivities will begin once Half Pints closes at 6pm but feel free to arrive early to support them by enjoying a taproom beverage.

Bring any outdoor games for the competition and merriment.

The club will also be purchasing a keg for members to enjoy as we can’t have any home brew at this event – though you may bring bottles to share/exchange with others as long as they remain unopened.

Rain or shine. BYO Chair.

Thanks,

Your Brew Bombers Executive

2024-25 Club Election Call for Candidates

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Club elections for next season’s exec will kick off during the season windup BBQ at Half-Pints on Saturday June 8th.  Whether you’re at the BBQ or not, please make the time to review the candidates and submit your vote (the page is only visible to registered members).

Below is a short writeup of the current exec roles, as well as an estimate of monthly time commitment outside of club meetings and events.  If you are interested, message Marc with the position you would like to run for and a brief write up about your ideas/goals for the upcoming year.

President:

Typical Activities / Responsibilities:

  • Lead meetings
  • Planning Club meeting agenda and content
  • Arrange meeting locations
  • Plan and coordinate field trips for members
  • Answer emails from Club members
  • Plan the Club Kit, organize voting, and coordinate with Grain to Glass for kit building
  • Arrange Creative Comp
  • Apply for Special Sale permit via LGCA for competitions
  • Set up BJCP connections for competitions
  • Arrange Big Brew and coordinate with host brewery for brew date, aid in selling beer produced
  • Plan and arrange Club Wind-Up party
  • Keep mailing list up-to-date
  • Monthly meetings (first Tuesday) and executive meetings (second Tuesday)
  • Attend quarterly Canadian Homebrews meetings
  • Maintain relationship with LGCA regarding sampling homebrew in meetings
  • Assist other Executive members when/where needed

Average monthly time commitment:

  • 4-7 hours excluding Club & Executive meetings

Vice President:

Typical Activities / Responsibilities:

  • Lead meetings in absence of President
  • Assist in coordinating club activities
  • Assist in planning meeting content
  • Manage merchandise 
  • Fill in for other Exec members as required

Average monthly time commitment:

  • 2 – 3 hours

Treasurer:

Typical Activities / Responsibilities:

  • Working with the Club Executive to ensure that the Club is on sound financial setting by ensuring that Club activities can be funded based on Club resources
  • Working with the Pro/Am competition committee to ensure the competition is financial self-sufficient  
  • Managing and tracking the cash flows of the Club and Competition including their respective bank accounts and payment of Club and Competition expenses. 
  • Running the monthly raffle draw including purchasing beers

Average monthly time commitment:

  • 1 – 2 hours

Secretary:

Typical Activities / Responsibilities:

  • Record keeper
  • Agendas for club meetings
  • Notes/Minutes for exec meetings
  • Track/update action items throughout the season
  • Assistant to other executives
  • Help out as required
  • Draft/send communications to members
  • Set up surveys/forms
  • Updates to the club website
  • etc.

Average monthly time commitment:

  • 3 – 6 hours

May meeting will be at Sookram’s

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The next club meeting will be at Sookram’s on May 7th.

We’re still working out what we might do for a topic/theme/presentation, but it’s possible there may not even be one, in which case we can just get together, chat about homebrewing, and socialize.  If you have something you’d like to share with the club at the next meeting, please reach out to the club exec!

Also, as a reminder, we’ve resumed the meeting snack potlock, so check your email to see if your name is on the food group list.

Creative Comp Results, Discount Card, and April Meeting

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Thanks to all members who attended last night’s meeting. It was a great turnout with 25 people judging and evaluating the beers. Overall there were 14 beers judged.

The winners are:

1st Place: Hazelnut Espresso Stout, brewed by Steve Couch

2nd Place: Smoothie Sour (with mango and tamarind), brewed by Steve Shaw

3rd Place: Ail Ale (cream ale with garlic), brewed by Dan Molinski

Congratulations to the winners, and great work from all the brewers who participated. If you entered a beer you’ll get your score sheets emailed to you soon. Winners will be contacted directly to determine their prize selections – which were generously provided by the guys at Grape & Grain, and Grain to Glass.

Accurate Fire & Safety Discount Cards:

The folks at Accurate Fire & Safety have partnered with the club and are providing all registered club members with a discount card that give you 20% off CO2 refills!

You need to actually show the physical card, which has your name on it, in order to get the discount. To make distribution of the cards easier, they’ll be available for pick up from Devil May Care. If your card isn’t there, or if you’re a newly registered member, please let one of the club exec’s know.

April Meeting

The next club meeting is April 2nd and will be at CMBTC, (the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, at 303 Main St)

Cheers!

March Meeting, Creative Comp, Club Kits

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Hi Brewers!  We have some great updates for you!

March 5th Meeting & Creative Competition:

Our next meeting will be at Oxus. 

If you brewed something for the Supermarket Sweep, please arrive at 6:30pm with enough to go around because we have a permit! This means we will be able to sample and evaluate the beers during the meeting.  Not only that, but we’ve also registered the competition with BJCP, so if you’re pursuing points be sure to attend and participate. 
There are prizes from our fantastic local homebrew suppliers to be awarded for the top three beers – 1st place gets first choice, 2nd place gets second choice, 3rd place gets what’s left.

  • Either a 5 Gallon ball-lock keg, or a 25kg bag of Pale malt from Grape & Grain
  • $125 gift certificate from Grain to Glass
  • $75 gift certificate from Grain to Glass

The 1st place winner will also get to help craft the recipe for the Big Brew.

Club Kit

The order has been placed and should be delivered by the end of the week. Once the ingredients arrive we’ll need some some volunteers to meet up and help split everything up into the individual kits.

The recipe itself is posted and available here

April Meeting

Our April 2nd meeting will take place at the CMBTC.  It’ll be our first time there since before the pandemic, so hopefully you all can make it.

LAST CALL for Club Kits

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Hi Brewers!

We have 52 full members who are technically entitled to a club kit, but only 27 people have responded to the All-Grain vs. Extract survey.

We don’t want to order 52 kits if that means 25 of them aren’t going to be picked up.  That said, we will only be ordering kits for those members who have completed the survey, and therefore this is the last reminder before we place the order.

EDIT:
The survey is now closed. If you missed it, just let us know. We’ll be ordering few extra kits.

January/February Updates

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Hi Brewers!

We’d like to welcome Steph Barten as the new Pro/Am Coordinator! Thanks for stepping up, Steph! She’ll be working alongside Dave Cole. They’ve already got the 2024 competition site up on Beer Awards Platform!
An important note for everyone is that the Pro/Am is back to being operated at arms-length from the club, so going forward any inquiries regarding the competition should now be directed to proambrewchallenge@gmail.com rather than the WBB executives.

For the Supermarket Sweep creative competition, we’ve decided to shift it to March. A number of people have said that an extra month would help them get their beer ready. We have some cool prizes for the comp: Grain to Glass has graciously donated two gift cards ($125 and $75), and Grape and Grain has offered either a new corny keg or a bag of grain. First place gets first pick, second chooses second, etc. The 1st place winner will also get to work with the Exec and the brewery involved in the Big Brew to make a recipe for the Big Brew. So, hopefully this pushes more of you to get something in the works for March 5th. We’re still working on getting us a permit for judging the creative competition.

An update on the club kit! Big thank you Scott Parker for sharing his Dark Mild recipe. As a reminder to everyone if you want to receive a club kit, take a couple minutes to confirm your membership is paid and up to date.

Just so everyone is aware, these are the things currently up the planning pipeline.

  1. CMBTC Visit – hopefully March/April-ish.
  2. Big Brew – in talks with Nonsuch. There will likely be additional cost for members who want to participate.

Usual reminders:

Club Merch – the product listings have been updated, check it out!
Anonymous member feedback – share ideas / comments / concerns about the club.
New Facebook Group – interact with members there, because emails can be annoying.