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Hello Brew Bombers!

A bunch of updates for you all.  As usual I’ll try to keep things to the point.

CMBTC Competition Winner

Congratulations to Chuck Mackenzie for winning the CMBTC competition. Sherwin and Aaron really loved his American Porter “The Night Porter”.  The main prize is a brew day on the CMBTC brewing system using his recipe, and the beer will be served at the CMBTC Christmas Open House. Thanks again to everyone who participated!

Pro/Am Brew Challenge Registration is OPEN!   

If you have any homebrew ready, you’re highly encouraged to enter.  Even if you don’t think it’s a particularly good brew, enter it anyway!  You’ll still get valuable feedback from BJCP certified judges.  All details found at https://beerawardsplatform.com/2024-pro-am-brew-challenge.

Judging is November 2-5.  If you’d like to volunteer as a steward or a judge, even for just a day, please reach out! This is the 10th Pro/Am, so let’s make it a great one!

Tap Handles

You have one more week to pre-order your tap handles.  Click Here to place your order before October 15th.  We currently have 16 pre-orders, but we need to hit 25 to make sure we get our discount. It might be a while before we do this again so don’t miss your chance!

Creative Competition

We’re still working on finalizing the location for the creative competition, but you should start planning your brews now as judging will be happening during the January meeting.

This year’s creative competition is all Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beers.  Since the style is inherently creative we’ve decided not to have rules around dollar/spend limits and no restrictions on where you shop.  Just make sure you understand and follow the BJCP style guide – have a base style and provide a description of added SHV.  If you have debatable ingredients, be prepared to defend them (i.e.: you used a fruit, but there are more dominant spices).

Club Kit

The votes are in and this year’s club kit will be a German Weissbier!  If you have a recipe you’d like to share as a starting point, please let me know.  Steve will be hosting the rest of the exec to do a test brew at his place in a couple of weeks.

Once we have done a test batch and make final decisions on the recipe we’ll place our order. If all goes well we hope to have the kits ready for pickup shortly after the holidays.

November Meeting

Our next meeting is on Tuesday November 5th at Oxus.  Since we have the Pro/Am permit, If you have some homebrew you think is great and you want to share, or if you’re just looking to get feedback and advice from others, plan to bring some samples! The meeting will be all about “evaluating homebrew” so we’ll be going through the five main areas of assessment found on typical judge scoresheets: appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and general impressions.

Cheers!

Dan Molinski

Nonsuch Big Brew

The American Brown Ale we brewed at Nonsuch, officially name “Bush League” will be on tap at The Common as of September 1st.

The official release party will be on Saturday September 7th at 2pm on the patio at Nonsuch. 

They’ve asked for a rough headcount so they can prepare for the influx of beer and food orders, so if you plan to attend, please RSVP here.  Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. Bring all your friends and family!

September Meeting

We kick off the new season at 7pm, Tuesday September 10th at Sookram’s.

Steve Shaw will be presenting about homebrew competitions: What you should know

The vote for this season’s club kit style will kick off (on the website).

CMBTC Competition

If you haven’t registered yet and want to take part, there’s still time to brew something before the Sept. 14th drop off deadline. Register here!

2024-2025 Season Calendar

We’ve tentatively nailed down all the monthly meeting topics for the upcoming season. The Calendar of Events page has been updated.  Note that these are subject to change as we iron out the details of each meeting and event.  Also, this calendar is not an exhaustive list.  We can still plan some ancillary events or field trips, depending on opportunity and level of interest. Some ideas: visit Prairie Gem Hops, field trip to Scythe or Dakotah, group brewing experiment, taproom crawl, etc. If you have any ideas or are willing to spearhead a “side quest” of some sort, please let the club executive know! 

Memberships

A reminder that membership terms are 1-year long.  If you haven’t set your membership to an auto-renewing subscription, then please remember to take some time to review your membership and take care of any pending renewals before they expire. You can manage your membership / subscription on the Account page under the Member Area of the website.

See you all in September!

Cheers!

Dan Molinski

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

Registered club members can vote now! Voting is open until Friday June 14th at midnight.

Log in to review the candidates and cast your votes.

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

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

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.

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.

Hey brewers!

We have some big updates, most of which were shared at the last meeting.  There’s a lot of information here, so please read everything!

Pro/Am Awards night was a great success.  Thanks to those who showed up to support the event, and the competition.  We live streamed the awards for the first time ever, so if you’re interested you can watch that here.  If you placed in any of the categories, we’re still waiting on a few items to be delivered before we can divvy up and ship out prizes. There will be a central pickup point for local winners – stand by for a separate update email on that.

Also regarding the Pro/Am, planning for 2024 is already under way with Dave Cole leading as Competition Director, and Steph Barten as Competition Coordinator.  If you’re interested in pitching in with planning or executing the competition in any way, or if you have any questions about the Pro/Am, please reach out to them directly.

The Club Kit style for this season has been chosen.  We’ll be making a Dark Mild.  We’re working on a recipe now and may be brewing a test batch, but if you’ve got a recipe you think is good, or if you have any ideas or suggestions, please share!

The final details of the Club Creative Competition, aka “Supermarket Sweep” have been decided and posted here.

We’ve decided to bring back the snack potluck to club meetings! Starting with the January meeting. The list of active club members has been sorted alphabetically by last name and split into three groups. Check your email to see if you’re in the first group. If you’re on the list and you’re coming to the meeting on January 9th, please do your part and bring a snack to share with everyone. It can be anything from cookies, crackers, and chips to vegetables, fruit, and meats.

January’s meeting, unlike other meetings, is the second Tuesday of the month. It will be an Off-Flavours seminar! This is historically one of our more popular meetings so we’re scoping out a meeting location that can suit more attendees. Keep an eye on the Club Calendar for info. We’ll also send a reminder leading up to the meeting.

Finally, we’ve set up a new Member Feedback page on the website accessible to active registered members, which allows you to submit confidential, anonymous messages to the club executives. We recognize that many members have thoughts and ideas about the club but don’t always feel comfortable sharing directly with the club executives, so we wanted to provide this as an alternate channel of communication. Your input is important to us and we want to hear what you have to say so that we can make sure the club is heading in the right direction.