2024-2025 Club Election
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.
Windup Potluck & Info
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
- CMBTC Visit – hopefully March/April-ish.
- 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.
Pro/Am, Creative Competition, January Meeting, and other Updates
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.
“Now Hiring” Pro/Am 2024 Coordinator
Planning for the 2024 Pro/Am Brew Challenge is already under way, however the Winnipeg Brew Bombers require a volunteer to step up and fill the role of Competition Coordinator.
This person will:
- Work alongside the Competition Director
- Be responsible for procuring sponsors and prizes
- Handle competition marketing – social media posts, advertising the competition
- Solicit beer submissions from professional breweries
- LGCA Permit application
- Arranging judging venue, awards venue
- Planning judge/steward meals
While someone with experience is preferred, don’t let it deter you from putting your name in the hat. This is a great opportunity to learn as you go, with the support of the Competition Director and the WBB club executives. If you’re working on your BJCP certification this is a good way to earn non-judging points as well.
If you’re interested, send an email to executive@winnipegbrewbombers.ca