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.

.

Tom Dixon (aka Dicko), Club President for 2011, addresses the gathered crowd.
  . 

Andrew, Ben and Michael discuss beer and brewing in the perfect venue:
the downstairs bierkeller at the Harmonie German Club.
. 

A regular feature of club meetings is some type of education session. These might involve something technical like counter-pressure filling, kegging or thermometer-calibration. At the June 2011 meeting we held a beer-style appreciation session, with Brown Ales as the featured style. This involved each member getting a sample of various beers, and then Ben (aka Mashhead) ran us through each beer, describing the characteristics and what to look for when tasting this type of beer. The beers on offer included White Rabbit Dark Ale, Manns Brown Ale, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale and the Australian-brewed King Brown from Brew Boys.
. 

Ben (aka mashhead) takes the members through a guided tasting of brown ales.
. 

Jonathan, Andrew, Charles and Matt discuss the finer points of brown ale.
. 

Of course, a club meeting is not complete without a raffle, and one is held during every club meeting. They offer a mouthwatering array of brew bling, ingredients and education materials, and this meeting was no exception. Chris (aka Growler) took first prize and walked away with a massive, shiny, stainless-steel urn. Following a fairly solid tradition of committee-members winning raffle prizes, Steve (aka Northwest9) picked up a lovely mixed six-pack of craft-beer from generous club sponsor Plonk. Another pretty common occurrence is that of brand new members picking up prizes in the raffle, and Andrew was lucky enough to score a copy of Jamil Zainasheff's excellent Brewing Classic Styles book, at his first meeting!
. 

David (aka dgilks) and Steve (aka Northwest9) organise the raffle.
. 

Sometimes a committee member doesn't win the major raffle prize.
When that happens, Chris (aka Growler) wins it.
.

Andrew walks away with a copy of Brewing Classic Styles. A raffle winner at
his first Canberra Brewers meeting!
. 

Occasionally, committee members win raffle prizes. In this case, our social-secretary
Steve won a lovely mixed six-pack of craft beer from club sponsor Plonk!
. 

The next club meeting is just over a week away on Thursday July 7, and will feature the usual array of banter, beer, prizes and, perhaps, something educational. If brewing beer is your thing, and you've been thinking about coming along to a meeting, then please do. New members are always welcome, and we do our best to make you feel that way. The first meeting is on us, but after that, you'll be begging us to take your membership fee!

.