Category: Meetings

Club Updates & January Meeting (Creative Comp)

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Hello Brew Bombers!

Thanks to those who made it out to our last meeting at DMC, and a huge shout out to those who brought something for show & tell.  I heard from a few people that it was fun and interesting to see what kinds of things other brewers use and why.

January Meeting – Creative Competition

It’ll be at Torque Brewing on MONDAY January 13th, at 6pm. We have a permit that allows us to sample homebrew from 7-10pm, but we want people to show up earlier so we can get the entries organized, take some time to have a few Torque pints (show appreciation for hosting us) and to get some general socializing in before the judging kicks off.  The competition is registered with BJCP, so if you’re certified this is a good chance to get more experience points.

Pro/Am 2025

Dave and Steph are still looking for replacements to fill the roles of Director and Co-ordinator of the Pro/Am Brew Challenge.  The competition doesn’t happen without anyone running it, so if you have the slightest interest in keeping it going, reach out to proambrewchallenge@gmail.com.  Remember, a perk to running the Pro/Am is a year of free club membership!

Club Kits

The test batch was brewed and turned out very nice, so the recipe has been finalized and the order has been placed.  The ingredients could arrive by Friday or early next week at the latest, at which point we need 4 or 5 volunteers to meet up at Grain to Glass to prepare the kits.  It only takes a couple of hours at most, so if you’re able to help out please let me know. 

BOTY 2024

This was the best year ever for the Winnipeg Brew Bombers!  We have a lot to be proud of, including:

Club Standings:
>Winnipeg Brew Bombers finished 6th out of 23 clubs across Canada!

Beer Standings:
>Steve Shaw – 31.5 points, and 8th place!
>Dan Molinski – 9 points, 35th place
>Neal Foy – 3 points
>James Ediger – 3 points
>Jonathan Schneider – 3 points
>Luke Thiesen – 3 points
>Chuck Mackenzie – 2 points

Cider Standings:
>Dan Molinski – 5 points, and 3rd place

Mead Standings:
>Thomas Cooper – 1 point

Club Updates & December Meeting

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Hello Brew Bombers!

The next club meeting is Tuesday December 3rd at Devil May Care and we’ll be doing Homebrew “Show & Tell”, so bring a piece of homebrew equipment you’d like to show off.  It can be almost anything… something you consider critical that you never brew without, or something unique and interesting, something homemade/DIY, or something expensive to make others jealous, ha ha.  We’ll also be doing a bit of beer trivia just for fun.

Homebrew Feedback

We have a new process for getting feedback on your homebrews.  In short, you bring your bottled beer samples and prepared feedback sheets to a club meeting, other members take them home to evaluate, and they give their feedback directly back to you.  There’s a new page on the website with all the details.  You can navigate there by looking under the “Members Area” menu > Homebrew Feedback

Pro/Am Brew Challenge

The Pro/Am is done!  Congratulations to the following winners from our club:

  • James Ediger got 1st with his Altbier
  • Jonathan Schneider, got 1st with his Blonde Ale
  • Steve Shaw got 1st with his Peanut Butter Porter, 3rd with his Fruit Beer, 3rd with his Mixed Style Beer
  • Thomas Cooper got 3rd with his SHV Mead

The points accumulated for the club should be pushing us up to 6th place in the BOTY circuit, which is the best position we’ve ever been in! 

Dave and Steph will not be continuing in their roles so they’re looking for next year’s organizers to take over!  If you’re interested, reach out to them!

  • Competition Director: Responsible for recruiting/managing judges, BJCP registration, LGCA Permit, Budget, Big picture stuff.
  • Competition Coordinator: Responsible for recruiting volunteers/stewards, marketing, sponsorships, prize donations, etc.

Tap Handles

Most of you have gotten your tap handles from me already.  Those who haven’t can pick them up from Steve Shaw.  Big shout out to club Secretary, Ryan Gren for the idea! It was a big success and the tap handles look pretty sweet. If there’s enough interest, maybe we can do another round with a new design next season.

Creative Competition

This will take place at Torque Brewing on Monday January 13th, so this is a reminder to members to get your brews going sooner rather than later.  This year’s creative competition is all Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beers.

Big Brew 2025

We have a host! This season’s Big Brew event will be taking place at Trans Canada Brewing sometime in March.  Specific details are still being worked out, but as usual, the winner of the creative comp gets to work with the brewery on the recipe for the big brew.

Cheers,
Dan Molinski

October Meeting, Tap Handles, Club kit & More

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Hello Brew Bombers!

It’s time for another monthly update chock full of awesome news.  I’ll try to keep everything brief but informative.

September Recap

Our season opening meeting went well with 22 people in attendance.  Steve did a great job presenting on “how to do beer competitions good”.  His presentation and template spreadsheet for tracking your competition entries are available HERE.  Our club is currently in 6th place nationally on the Brewer of the Year circuit, which is the best we’ve ever been (so far).  Let’s keep it up!  If you have any beers laying around, consider entering them into some of the remaining competitions this year.

October Meeting

Our next meeting will be 7pm, Tuesday October 1st at the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), 303 Main St.  They’ll be announcing the winner of their competition at this meeting, and we’re looking at changing things up from the usual “talk and tour” they do, and instead doing some kind of “testing tour” where we focus on their lab equipment and the kinds of tests they do.

As a reminder, they’re in a secured government building so make sure to arrive at 7pm SHARP because they have to meet us at the door and escort us up to their space.

Pro/Am Brew Challenge

Dave Cole, Steph Barten, and team are busy preparing for this year’s Pro/Am and are always looking for people to volunteer.  In particular, they need judges, stewards, and auditors from November 2-5.  If you can help out, even for just a day, visit proam.beer to contact them. Oh, and definitely enter some beers into this competition!

Club Branded Tap Handles

We’re taking orders for club branded tap handles!  The folks at Tap Handles To Go are giving us a discount (provided we order at least 25 tap handles).  There are 4 designs to choose from, two full-color, and two back & white.  Each with or without a chalkboard space.  Since we don’t want to have a bunch of inventory sitting around this is how it will work:

  1. From now until October 15th, CLICK HERE to place your order
  2. Pay us for your order before Oct.15. If your payment is not received you won’t get your tap handles.
  3. We’ll place the bulk order with Tap Handles To Go on October 16th.
  4. Pick them up when they arrive!

Facebook Group

Last year we set up a new Facebook Group for club members as an alternate means of connecting and having discussions (because long email threads can get pretty annoying). We only allowed active members at first, but now we’re opening it up to everyone.  Post pictures, ask questions, engage with each other.  There’s also an associated group chat on Facebook Messenger you can join.

Club Kit Survey

If you’re a fully paid member, you’re entitled to vote for this season’s club kit.  The options are:

  • Irish Red Ale
  • Scottish Ale
  • German Weissbier
  • Tropical/Juicy Hazy IPA

Go HERE to submit your preferences.  We’ll announce the winner at the October meeting.

Creative Competition

This season’s club creative competition is all about Spice, Herb, and Vegetable Beers.  As with last year we plan to get a permit so that we can sample and evaluate your beers during our January 14th meeting.  Time flies, so start planning!

Cheers!

Dan Molinski

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!

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.

December Meeting, and Pro/Am Awards

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Hi Brewers!

Yes there is a meeting tomorrow. 7pm at Oxus. There’s no presentation, speaker, or topic, but we’ll be sharing a lot of updates, so we hope to see you there. If you can’t make it, updates will be posted on the website after the meeting.

The Pro/Am Award Ceremony will be hosted by Fionn MacCool’s at Grant Park this year. It’ll take place this Wednesday December 6th at 7pm. We also plan to try live-streaming the awards… likely via the proambrewchallenge Instagram account, but if that proves to be a challenge, we may just provide a Google Meet link. Keep an eye on our social channels for that.

Cheers,

Dan,
Secretary

November Meeting & Reminders

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Hello Brewers!

We have the most excellent news for our next meeting on November 7th at Oxus.  Because we have a permit for the Pro/Am judging, and the permit dates overlap with the meeting, we’re going to leverage this opportunity to allow sampling each other’s homebrew at the meeting!

  • Everyone who plans to attend the meeting has to sign up in advance, and be sure to arrive early enough to start by 7pm sharp.
  • While everyone is welcome to attend for sampling, we’ve decided to limit only paid members being able to bring their beer for evaluation.
  • Due to limited time, we expect to be able to evaluate at most 16 brews.
  • To be fair, there’s a limit of one brew per person, sign up in advance
  • Try to bring up to 12 bottles or two growlers to ensure enough beer is available for everyone in case we have a full house
  • Everyone attending must review the code of conduct.

This is only possible because Marc had the foresight to align the Pro/Am with the regular club meeting schedule, so give him a high-five next time you see him!

REMINDER: the Pro/Am Drop-off and Mail-in window was extended to November 2nd, so get your entries in!!!

REMINDER: if you’re a paid “club kit” member and haven’t filled in the style survey yet, please do so before the next meeting.  https://winnipegbrewbombers.ca/club-kit-beer-first-round-selection/

Cheers,

Secretary, Dan Molinski

A few things…

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Hey gang!

  • Our October meeting will be this coming Tuesday October 3rd at Oxus. We will discuss the styles for the Club Kit, and go over some basics about the malting process, which leads us to…
  • A tour at Scythe Malting is in the works. October 28th works for them. I will create a poll to see how many from the Club can attend, and then we can arrange transportation.
  • The ProAm registration is still open, entries are rolling in. Hoping to see a good representation from the Brew Bombers this year. Head to https://proam.beer to sign up.
  • The Ukrainian Hops project brew day went fairly smoothly. Thanks to everyone who was able to help out. The beer has been dry-hopped, and I’m planning to transfer it to kegs in a few days. Sean Ali has offered to bring his Cannular system in to help with the packaging.
  • Regarding homebrew sampling: we will have a Club sampling night at Oxus as part of the ProAm on Nov 7th (the dates line up with our November meeting.) There will be scoresheets available for judging. Please plan to bring one or two brews for judging. Beyond that, I have a plan for approaching some higher level authorities at the LGCA, and a letter is being drafted to request a meeting with them.
  • As far as the Cereal Bowl beer, I was planning the Oxus cereal beer and figured I’d try to be productive with my time and brew a couple batches at once. I brewed it on Wednesday last week, hoping it will be ready for Oct 6th. It was a very last minute idea. I used grain I had in my personal inventory, some yeast Sean gave me, and some hops for bittering from the Ukrainian Hops project.

See ya on Tuesday!

Cheers,

Marc

September Meeting Recap

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Hey gang,

Some notes from the meeting:

1) First, the bad news: I have not been able to secure permission from the LGCA for us to host homebrew sampling at Club meetings. A couple ideas were put forward and I will be investigating those avenues. Again, for now, we are still unable to do samplings during meetings.

2) There are a few locations I would like the Club to visit for field trips in the near future: Dacotah Malting and Scythe Malting. Both are located to the west of the city. It will probably be easiest if we go on a Saturday, considering the time needed for tours plus the commute.
It would also be cool to check out Prairie Gem Hops and Prairie Mountain Hops. Again, they are in high season, so I hope to hear back from them soon.
The other place I proposed a trip to is the Canadian Malted Barley Testing Centre. CMBTC is located at Portage and Main, and would not require much of a commute, so we could meet there. They have hosted us before, and it’s a very interesting facility. 

3) The Club Kit recipe will need to be discussed soon. Next month we will take suggestions, and it will be put to a vote online so that all paid members can have their say. You can find the past recipes on our website.

4) Our first Club Creative Competition will be a Supermarket Sweep. Rough plan is to do a very simple base of pale 2-row, with each member being allowed yeast at a local homebrew store, and flavouring adjuncts at a local grocery store. We will break into groups to judge each entry (this will hopefully be figured out soon, along with sampling in general). Feedback will be given for all entries. No dates have been decided for this yet, but start thinking about your recipe plans.

5) The Pro/Am Brew Challenge is quickly approaching. It will run November 5-9, 2023. This will be the 10th year that the competition has run, which is quite exciting. It is the only BJCP-sanctioned competition in Canada where amateurs and commercial/professional brewers compete against each other, in a battle royale style event. It is a great opportunity to see how your brews (beer, cider, and mead) stand up against everyone else’s in Canada.
The Pro/Am is a great chance for local judges to get points which go towards their BJCP rank. If you are interested in judging, check out https://www.bjcp.org

6) I’d like to start working on the planning for the Big Brew soon. For our new members, the Big Brew is where we team up with a local brewery to make a big batch of a recipe from the Club. We go to the brewery and help with the brew day, and at the end, each paid member can bring home a 20L fermenter of wort from the batch. (Yeast must be pitched at home!) You are able to then tweak the recipe as you wish, or ferment it without adjustments. In the past, the recipe chosen was the winner of a Club Creative competition. I think this is a good idea to continue with. This past year, Barn Hammer hosted us and released cans of the beer we made. It is a Smoked Wee Heavy called Slow Build and is still available if you haven’t tried it. It’s a great fall beer. Go get some!

7) On Saturday Sept 16th, we will be doing the Ukrainian Hops Experiment Brew day with Olekksi. A handful of you reached out and I will be emailing you details for that day.

8) Finally, something I forgot to mention last night is that I was recently contacted by Accurate Fire + Safety. They are looking to expand into doing more CO2 for keg systems, and have offered the Club a 20% discount on tank fills. We are trying to come up with a way to keep this exclusive to the Club and prevent it from being shared with the community/city as a whole. I am looking into getting some Club ID “coupon” cards made to give to paid members. I hope to have this arranged very soon.

9) I have changed the membership details on our site so that memberships can be renewed earlier than the calender date of when you last registered. This will help the Club get its dues in earlier in the year so we can plan for Club Kits, events, field trips, and such with a better idea idea of our finances.

10) Finally, I forgot to thank Dan for stepping up as Secretary this year. He has held the position in the past, and will be a great re-addition to the Club Executive.

Reaching the Executive is pretty easy:

Marc – president@winnipegbrewbombers.ca
Tyler – vicepresident@winnipegbrewbombers.ca
Dan – secretary@winnipegbrewbombers.ca
Paul – treasurer@winnipegbrewbombers.ca
Executive@winnipegbrewbombers.ca will reach us all.
For Club correspondence, use members@apps.winnipegbrewbombers.ca

I am also looking into changing how our Facebook group works to allow for members posts so we can have a discussion board that is less clunky than big email threads. If anybody has a better idea than FB, let me know.

I hope that wasn’t too much of a tome for you to read. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Marc