Canberra Brewers

Wig & Pen Brew Day

By Sam Highley, Editor

One of the most popular days on the Canberra Brewers calendar each year is the Wig & Pen Brew Day. The extremely generous support of Lachie McOmish (owner) and Richard Watkins (brewmaster) of the Wig & Pen allowed about sixty members and friends to gather at the crack of 9am on Saturday 4 June, for a day full of beer, coffee, cheese and food.

Richard set out to provide evidence that a focus on the process, rather than the ingredients, is the best way to improve your brewing. With this in mind, he designed a beer featuring no less than sixty ingredients, including twenty different types of both malt and hops. The resulting beer was on-tap recently at the July club meeting, and the general consensus was that it was a definite winner.

Club competition two — 2011

By Mark Bilbrough, Competition Secretary

With 45 beers, 10 judges, three stewards, one-and-a-half days and a great venue, we judged a fantastic selection of beers for the Canberra Brewers Club Comp 2 on July 2 and 3. Over the course of the weekend, Canberra Brewers finest Scottish and American Ales, Lagers and a couple of RISs were on show.  Club Comp 2 covered: American Pale Ale, American India Pale Ale and Imperial India Pale Ale; Premium American Lager, Munich Helles, Dortmunder Export, German Pilsner, Bohemian Pilsener, Classic American Pilsner; Vienna Lager, Oktoberfest, Munich Dunkel, Schwarzbier, Maibock/Helles Bock, Traditional Bock, Doppelbock; Scottish Light 60/- and Scottish Heavy 70/-; and, last but definitely not least, Russian Imperial Stout.

June club meeting

By Sam Highley, Editor

The Canberra Brewers hold a club meeting on the first Thursday of every month, except in January, because a large chunk of the membership is away on holidays. These meetings are held in the cosy surrounds of the Harmonie German Club's bierkeller, deep inside their building in Narrabundah, and kick off around 7:45pm.

The meetings are a great opportunity to socialise with other people who are passionate about craft beer and brewing, and everything that this entails. Members bring along samples of beer that they've brewed, and there's always plenty of quality product on offer to sample. This not only gives people the opportunity to get feedback on their beer, but also to swap recipes, and details about the process, with other people when they sample something they like.

Canberra Brewers Incorporated

By Sam Highley, Editor

The Canberra Brewers club reached a significant milestone on 10 March 2011 when the club successfully incorporated as an association in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). This followed the successful vote on various motions at the February meeting that allowed the club to proceed to the formal registration process.

Incorporation as an association allows the club to, amongst other things, obtain public liability insurance. Having this insurance will mean that the club can participate in a greater number of public and community events. Club President Tom Dixon (aka Dicko) points out that being able to provide fully insured brewing demonstrations and tastings at events like the Australian Science Festival, National Capital Craft Beer Festival and Multicultural Festival, is a great way of enhancing the connection of the club to the community.

Stagger's brew day

By Sam Highley, Editor

The first big event of the year for the Canberra Brewers kicked off on Saturday 12 February with a brew day at the house of former Club-President Craig Webber (Stagger). As previously mentioned by Dan the event was designed to be both social and educational, providing an opportunity to meet members outside of the normal monthly club meeting, and also get a chance to see the same beer being brewed on two different systems.

The plan was to brew two separate batches of a Stone & Wood Pacific Ale style beer using both Stagger's seriously sweet PID-controlled Heat Exchanged Recirculating Mash System (HERMS), and also his old (but very successful) gravity-fed system now used by neighbour Matt.

Money, money, money

By David Gilks, Treasurer

As we come into 2011, the Canberra Brewers is coming off a great year. Success at Nationals, a great year on the social front, better prizes and rewards for members and a strong balance sheet have all contributed to this result.

Your Committee has been discussing plans for this year and you can expect expanded social activities, quality education events and new options to let loose your competitive spirit. We will also explore more opportunities as they arise following incorporation. As Dicko has mentioned, a range of specific initiatives are already underway with more details to follow as soon as details are locked down.

The biggest thing to happen to the Canberra Brewers this year will be incorporation of the group following the final proposal that was put to you all at the February meeting, and which was passed following the various votes. It is important that members renew their membership as soon as possible so that they are a part of a significant piece of club history. Details on both incorporation and membership renewals are in the News section of the forum.

I suppose as Treasurer I should let you know about the finances. Our finances are strong coming out of last year and will provide a strong base to support your Committee's Whitlam-esque plans to transform the Canberra Brewers and provide a better experience for members in 2011.

Edumucation

By Dan Rayner, Education Secretary

Hello fellow lovers of good beer! This year has an excellent line up of events, competitions, meetings, raffle prizes and we have an incredibly enthusiastic President and committee keen to make sure it all happens! For my part as education secretary (and as well as some interesting events and experiments) I hope to bring a few permanent resources to the club for any brewer who feels they need improvement in their brewing methods.

Firstly, like in previous years, we’ll conduct information sessions held during some of this year’s meetings. These will include a few that the club has presented in the past like counter-pressure filling demonstration and calibration of thermometers and temperature controller units as well as a few new sessions. We’ll investigate interesting beers styles and coordinate a mass brewing experiment later in the year to display the differences in recipe formulation, which will be open to any and all who wish to be involved.

Competition report

By Mark Bilbrough, Competition Secretary

Hey Brewers, i’m looking forward to the challenging job of running a productive competition program that will help cement Canberra Brewers as the Nations top club for the third year in a row. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to look through the program which was recently published on the forum, and you're getting together your entries for the first competition in late March.

As in previous years, the club competition schedule has covered pretty much all of the BJCP styles for you to present your brews for judging and feedback. As we get to the ACT Comp later in the year, we’ll switch over to the AABC styles to qualify for the Nationals (being held in Adelaide this year).

Welcome to 2011!

By Tom Dixon, President

G’day Brewers and Welcome to 2011! I trust that you’ve all well and truly recovered from the festive season and are primed and ready for another big year of better brewing, camaraderie and of course beer appreciation [sic].

With our first meeting just a week away (4 February), it’s due time to provide an update from your 2011 Committee and assure you that we’ve been working furiously behind the scenes. The Committee Forum has been inundated with a frenzy of ideas and development for 2011. Whilst your committee members will update you on their areas of interest, I personally have adopted a leadership style akin to by my beloved Australian Labour Party, having found myself striving to lighten the Clubs coffers in a variety of different ways. I will outline some of these outlays at our upcoming meeting…

Other than upholding the founding aims of our Club, specifically “to promote the brewing of beer and the art of marking it, to improve the quality of the beer we brew, to promote sensible use of alcohol, and to create a social atmosphere”… i’ve tasked myself with two primary goals as your President:

1. To see through the incorporation of our Club
2. To retain our Nationals title for the third year in a row.

I look forward to achieving both of these goals with your continued support. Remember that it is your club, so the greater your involvement, the greater our Club will become…

So long, and thanks for all the beers

By Darryl Barbour, President

Brewers, we’ve come to that end of the year where we get to kick out the old committee and introduce some new blood. It is also time, after all the competitions, brew days and general chaos, that we can sit back and look at everything that has gone on, and gone well for the club. So let me reflect …

Having taken over the reins from President Stagger and crew last December, we had the legacy of one of the best, and most certainly biggest Canberra Brewers events that I can remember being run – the Nationals and club night. In his time in charge the club had been set on a great path with high standards to meet. This year, and I hope you’ll agree, I think we met those standards and introduced a few new things to make the club another step better. We’ve had great sponsorship deals, a return to the road-trips, a fantastic Wig-and-Pen brewday, more success at the Nationals, a new forum, a new webpage, we’ve broken the 100 member “barrier”, raffled off more brewing “bling”, filled out bellies at Oktoberfest, held faulted beer tastings (ahem.. education sessions). On top of that, and closest to my own interests, we’ve seen relatively new club members make a huge showing in the club competitions and then backing that up with success at Nationals. Finally, we’ve had another batch of brewers sit the BJCP exam.