Club Meeting May 7th / Windup BBQ RSVP

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Hey Everyone!

Just a quick reminder to everyone that our next meeting is May 7th and it will be at Oxus Brewing Co. I’ll send out the food groups as we get closer to the date (I don’t have the information on hand at the moment).

Wow how time flies by! Next up after May is our final meeting for the season, and everyone’s favourite! The windup BBQ! It will be held once again at Half Pints Brewing Co. and it will be the traditional potluck style dinner so everyone bring something tasty to eat.

IMPORTANT!! We’ll need everyone to RSVP by May 10th so that we know how many steaks to buy. (See link below to RSVP) You can still RSVP after that but you won’t be getting a steak

In order to RSVP, please click this link (REDACTED TO AVOID SPAM – Email the prez for the link if you didn’t get it already) and fill out the form. It’s just full name, email, steak opt-in/out, and what category of food item you’ll be bringing. We just want to make sure we cover all the bases. This is easier for me to track attendance and such rather than collecting each individual email reply.

Also, bring your home brew to share! The club executives are brewing a lager for the event as we speak. What will you bring? Don’t have anything? There’s still time to get a brew going. I look forward to trying everyone’s brew.

On that note, please make sure you get a ride, or call a taxi/ride-share, or get a designated driver. Let’s be safe.

Cheers,
Sean.

Big Brew – March 17th 2019

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Hey Everyone,

For those that may not have been receiving the emails, the Big Brew is this Sunday March 17th and we still have some spots available. If you wish to attend please send me an email ASAP.

Here are some event details:

  • The event will start at 10 AM at Oxus brewing at 1180 Sanford St.
  • We’re doing a Pot-Luck, so bring a food item.
  • We are doing work so wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.
  • The floors have an anti-slip coating but can still be slippery when wet. Please wear appropriate footwear with decent grip.
  • Bring a chair. There aren’t many chairs in the building, so if you don’t bring one you may be standing.
  • Bring a CLEAN carboy. We will have a sanitation station (starsan) setup, but you need to make sure it’s cleaned first.
    • If you bring a glass carboy make sure to bring a milk crate (or something similar) to transport it. Glass carboy on a cement floor isn’t a good plan.
  • In the event we have more wort than carboys you may want to bring a second carboy just in case.
  • Yeast will be pitched at home, not at the brewery.
    • Recommended yeast for this recipe is: Wyeast Labs #1968 (London ESB Ale).
    • This isn’t provided, and the choice of yeast is up to you.
  • Payment for the event will be collected at the event.

Here are some of the jobs / stations, at the start of the event we’ll organize people to the various jobs. Think about which one you want to be part of.

  • Mashing in / water chemistry
  • Vorlauf
  • Transfer to boil kettle
  • Empty and clean the mash tun
  • Boil station
  • Whirlpool
  • Knockout (chilling via the heat exchanger)
  • Boil kettle cleanup
  • Oxygenate the wort
  • Carboy sanitization
  • Carboy filling
  • General cleanup

Sean Richens will have a couple of informative presentations with a slideshows during the day.

Sean S will have a NEIPA (I believe) on tap for us 🙂

This should be a fun day of brewing, learning and hanging out with some really cool people. 🙂

Cheers,

Sean.

Email Issues

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Hey Everyone,

It appears that a large amount of the club emails are not making it into our member’s inboxes. In many cases it has been ending up in their Junk/Spam folders. Other cases it was rejected with an undeliverable response. While in the worst case it was outright dropped by the receiving mail server with no warning.

I’m looking into the issue, but in the meantime be sure to keep an eye out on our website and our facebook page. I often duplicate the member wide emails there.

Cheers,
Sean.

Big Brew 2019

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Hey Everyone,

It’s hard to believe there’s only 4 meetings left in the season! It feels like it’s been flying by. March is here and with it comes the Big Brew.

Traditionally the Big Brew has always (to my knowledge) been held at Half Pints. Half Pints has been a gracious host to the club over the years and I want to personally thank them for what they’ve done for us through the years. However, due to logistical reasons (occupancy limit and space issues) we have to look elsewhere. Just in case some have been wondering why we haven’t met there (except for the first meeting of the year) lately. We’ve simply grown too big and we don’t want to cause them any issues. I’ve been talking with Sean S (yep. there’s a lot of us) at Oxus Brewing Co. and he’s going to be hosting us this year. We’re booked in for St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th). Sean himself (as some of you know) was a former member of the club and has been eager to give back

The only catch is that we can only do 500 L at a time. Rather than do a double batch in one day (a very long day) he’s going to run a 500 L batch the day before and store it at 0 C for us, then we can just focus on the one 500 L batch.

The estimated cost for attending the Big Brew is $25, but we’ll have to see what the cost of the ingredients will end up at. Also the event is open to any Winnipeg Brew Bombers member that has paid for their 2018/2019 membership. If you haven’t paid yet but would like to enter there’s still time to pay the dues (you can send an email to treasurer@winnipegbrewbombers.ca). Also note that in the cost of the membership you get a steak at the end of year BBQ. 🙂

There’s also limited space so we’re limited to 50 spots. If you would like to attend please RSVP to myself ASAP.

The choice for this year’s Big Brew has been narrowed down to three styles. If you’re planning to attend you can vote on the style you wish to do here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JTVXG8V

I’ll leave the vote open until the end of the week (Sunday).

More details will be provided as we get closer to the date.

February 5th Meeting: 7pm – 9pm @ Torque Brewing

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Hey Everyone!

Just a quick reminder that the next meeting is on February 5th at Torque Brewing from 7pm to 9pm.

Originally we were going to be doing the sensory training however, we need a bit more time for the kits to arrive. So we’ll be doing that one at the March meeting.

However, we have another topic ready to go for February’s meeting: Sensory Evaluation of Grains. We’ll be taking some various grains and steeping them then doing a sensory evaluation on them.

Here’s a link to the process we’ll be following: http://beersmith.com/blog/2017/06/23/sensory-evaluation-of-grains-for-brewing-the-new-asbc-method/

See you all there!
Cheers!

Club kits are ready for pickup!

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Hey Everyone,

This afternoon we finished assembling the club kits. Thanks to Jacob at Grape and Grain who got a head start on the process for us, as well as Kevin, Chuck, Sean R and Paul.

The kits are ready for pick up now at Grape and Grain. Please be sure to pick them up ASAP. The deadline to pick up your club kit is February 8th, space is limited at their store so the quicker we can get these kits into our members hands the better. 🙂

Reminder: The club competition will be held at our club meeting on April 2nd. Be sure to give yourselves enough time to brew!

For those that are interested, here is the recipe (both all grain and extract): https://winnipegbrewbombers.ca/club-recipes/club-brew-20182019-kolsch/ For users of BeerSmith, I’ve made the recipe public. You should be able to find the recipe on their web site or in Beer Smith itself (v3 may be required) under “cloud search” and use the term “winnipeg brew bombers” and you’ll see both versions of the recipe.

Cheers,

Sean.

November Meeting – Tuesday November 6th, 2018

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Hey Everyone,

Just a reminder that the November meeting is on Tuesday November 6th at Fort Garry Brewing Company. The meeting begins at 7pm and ends at 9pm.

Club Kit
We’ve been working on the club kit last month and getting our ducks in a row. (Many thanks to Jacob at Grape and Grain for all his help!) To guarantee that you receive a club kit we’ll need to receive your dues payment ($40) along with your kit preference (All grain or Extract) by end-of-day November 16th at the very latest. Dues payments that occur after November 16th will not receive a club kit (but you’ll still be in on the Windup BBQ, just don’t miss that deadline too!). If this is an issue for you and you would like to make arrangements, please contact me directly (before November 16th) to see what we can work out.

Club Kit Payment
You can pay the dues at Tuesday’s meeting. Or you can E-Transfer the funds to the Treasurer (Paul) at the following address: treasurer@winnipegbrewbombers.ca. If you E-Transfer the dues please indicate in the notes/memo your kit preference (all grain or extract).

Guest Speaker
There’s been a bit of a change in plans. Sean Richens will be giving a presentation on recipe formulation and a few other neat tidbits of information.

Can’t wait to see everyone there!

Cheers!