Brewers,The next Canberra Brewers meeting on 3 Apr 2025 at the Polish White Eagle Club in O’Connor. This is the first full meeting for the 2025 committee. The six pack swap is on again (sign up on FB or the forum) and the raffle will have a range of amazing prizes up for grabs. Don’t forget to bring your latest and greatest brews to share!

Education

This month’s education session will be presented by Pat and David, demystifying the art of sensory analysis and beer judging. The ability to judge beers is a critical skill for any brewer. It helps you accurately assess your beers to determine if there are any off-flavours or imbalances that you can factor into brewing the best beer possible. Pat and David will take you through some simple tips and tricks to evaluate a beer and use these skills to improve your product!

Six pack swap

The six-pack swap is on again! Add your beer details to the FB or the forum, bring your 6 beers to the meeting and walk away with a mixed six-pack to enjoy at your leisure!

Raffle

The raffle will be on again with great prizes up for grabs! Thanks to our sponsors who often donate prizes or provide significant discounts on great products. Will the committee win again?? Buy some tickets and stick around for the draw at the April meeting. Don’t forget to bring your latest brew along to earn NOOKIE points with raffle tickets purchased.

Club Competition

The Canberra Brewers Autumn Comp. is on this coming Saturday, 29 March 2025 at a location known to those who are judging and stewarding. Thank you to all judges and entrants, and to the club sponsors as well! Results will be announced in due course after the comp, perhaps at the April meeting.

BJCP Judging Exam

The Canberra Brewers have booked a Beer Judge Certification Program judging exam for 10 May 2025 and need 6-12 participants. We will host a series of exam preparation sessions in the weeks leading up to the exam. For more information, and to express interest, send an email to bjcp@canberrabrewers.com.au or check out the recent posts on the Facebook group or club forum.

We need your beers!!!

As we prep to host the BJCP exam, we need home brew good, bad and in between to practice judging and for the exam itself. For the exam, we need about 2L, but for the practice sessions 500mL will be enough. We can keep the submissions anonymous if you prefer, and can provide feedback if you would like. Pat can collect donated beer at the April meeting or arrange to come and collect it.

Returning officer David Gilks dissolved the 2024 committee and members elected a new committee for 2025. All members were elected unopposed. Anthony Ween as returned as president, supported by Amber Hutchison (treasurer), Ed Wunsch and Nicole Coombe (competition secretaries), Daniel Davenport (editor), Andrew Lewis (education).

Ordinary Committee Members: Simon Watt, Stephen Nielson (memberships), Charles Newton and Jason Reilly (Multicultural Festival).

Before the AGM, the president and treasurer delivered an annual report.

Read the highlights from 2024

The next Canberra Brewers meeting on 6 March 2025 at the Polish White Eagle Club in O’Connor.

There’s no education this month as we make way for the AGM, but the six pack swap is on again (sign up on FB or the forum) and the raffle will have a range of amazing prizes up for grabs (we promise it’ll happen this time). Plus don’t forget to bring your latest and greatest brews to share!

AGM and Committee positions

With each new year comes a new committee. If you’ve previously thought about volunteering, why not make 2025 the year to give black to the club.

All committee positions are up for reelection, including office bearers (the president, treasurer, social secretary, competition secretary, education officer and editor) and ordinary committee members (the webmaster, assets manager and assistant committee member/s). If you’re interested in finding out more about these roles, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the current (or previous) committee members.

Gilks has generously offered to be the returning officer this year, please send all nominations to him at bjcp.e3506@gmail.com

Club Competition

Registration for the Canberra Brewers Autumn Comp (Saturday March 29) has opened today. You can register your brews as well as sign up for judging or stewarding here. The venue is yet to be confirmed.

BJCP Judging Exam

The Canberra Brewers have booked a Beer Judge Certification Program judging exam for 10 May 2025 and need 6-12 participants. We will host an information session in the coming week and then a series of exam preparation sessions in the weeks leading up to the exam. For more information, and to express interest, send an email to bjcp@canberrabrewers.com.au or check out the recent posts on the Facebook group or club forum.

NOOKIE 2024

Big congrats to Amber who was lucky enough to win the N.O.O.K.I.E. raffle for 2024! For those not yet indoctrinated, the N.O.O.K.I.E. (aka the Newcastle Or Otherwise Kind of Interstate Experience) is the Canberra Brewers end of year raffle where the lucky winner is welcomed by a brewery (typically somewhere on the east coast) for a brew day and good time.

This is a great prize, and the only way to get tickets is by coming along to the club meetings and sharing your brews! So if you want to be the N.O.O.K.I.E. 2025 winner, then come along!

The Canberra Brewers have been regular stall holders at the National Multicultural Festival since 2012.

For the first time after more than 10 years of serving delicious local beers at the National Multicultural Festival, the Canberra Brewers will sell beers specially made by some of the region’s best homebrewers.

Visitors to Canberra’s biggest yearly festival from February 7-9 will get a chance to ‘think global and drink local’ with beers designed and brewed by members while chatting with brewers about all things beer and home brewing.

It will be the club’s most diverse tap list yet, selling beers that will only be available at this year’s festival.

Ever since hosting their first stall at the festival in 2012, selling the legendary beers made by Richard Watkins at the Wig and Pen, the Canberra Brewers have been using the festival to showcase the region’s best beer.

Since then, the lineup has been curated to highlight the club’s relationships with Canberra breweries, selling wares from BentSpoke Brewing Co, Zierholz, Cypher Brewing Co and Capital Brewing Co.

World class, home brewed

This year, the club is proud to be serving a range of beers specially brewed by some of its award-winning homebrewers on a pilot system at Zierholz Brewery in Fyshwick, thanks to the support from owner and former club champion Christoph Zierholz. The beers will represent styles from around the world including:

  • Dortmunder Helles Lager (Germany)
  • British Golden Ale (UK)
  • Tropical Fruit Sour (Brazil)
  • Table Saison (France/Belgium)
  • American Amber Ale (US)

Ingredients for these beers were all sourced through local homebrew suppliers Brew Your Own at Home in Kambah, Belco Brew Supplies, and Mashematics.

Best of the best

Alongside these will be two beers from the multi-award winning BentSpoke, made with club members after winning the ACT Amateur Brewing Championships yearly trophy for beer of show, the BentBrewer Award.

Continuing a tradition he started while at the Wig and Pen, BentSpoke co-owner Watkins helps judge the award, and then brews the winning beer with the winner and co-owner Tracy Margrain at their Braddon Brewpub.

Rob Barnsley won BentBrewer 5 in 2023 with his oak-smoked wheat beer, inspired by a traditional Polish grodziskie while Craig Evan’s won the BentBrewer 6 late last year with his American light lager. The smokey wheat beer is sure to be a great match to the festival’s rich, smokey foods while the light lager will be a smash as temperatures head into the 30s.

Two men standing, talking, in a commercial brewery. One is holding a beer
BentSpoke Brewing Co co-owner Richard Watkins with Bent Brewer 6 winner Craig Evans.

Complementing this line-up will be beers from club supporters Zierholz, Cypher and Capital, and BentSpoke’s Crankshaft, again voted Australia’s favourite IPA in the 2024 GABS Hottest 100 beer poll.

Find the Canberra Brewers at stall H27 – in Bundah Street between Akuna and Petrie Streets!

Two men standing next to large, polished stainless steel brewing pots
Canberra Brewers members Daniel Davenport and Jason Reilly brew on the pilot system at Zierholz
People stand around three large brewing pots, one man peeking over the rim with his nose poking into the pot, another adds ingredients to a pot.
Who nose: Canberra Brewers members brewing beer for the National Multicultural Festival at Zierholz brewery in Fyshwick.
Two men beside a stainless steel tank
Corey Fisher and Jason Reilly brewing for the National Multicultural Festival at Zierholz in Fyshwick.
Three stainless steel brewing pots on a stand, in front of the larger brewing system at Zierholz
The pilot brewing system at Zierholz brewery in Fyshwick