April 2019 Meeting – beginners’ luck

This month we will be doing more for beginners with education and the start of our mentoring program. We will also have some opportunities for the mead lovers.

Education Session @ 7:30pm

Water, how hard can it be? – Improving your beer via water modification

Mark ‘Billy’ Billbrough, our long standing club member, will be explaining the ins and outs of brewing water and how to optimise it for your brew.

Billy will be covering three levels of depth:

• The Shallow End (Beginner) – essentials of brewing water treatment, what is and isn’t important, how to get started. These are the core things for brewers with kits up to basic all grain;
• Up to your Neck (Intermediate) – Basics on salt water additions, how to squeeze the flavour from your hops with water modification;
• The Deep End (Advanced) – Running through some software tools to assist brewers in modifying water, and covering a “seasoning” approach to water additions.

Mead experiments

We are organising a pile of mini mead experiments. We plans to have members make small batches. The aim is to improve the club’s mead making and judging skills. If you are interested, talk to Tarun (Tunips) at the meeting and if you know a good supply of honey, please step forward.

Asset Easter hunt

As we now have a new assets manager our first task is to catalogue what assets the club actually has. Over the years the club has obtained an assortment of items, many of which we are trying to locate and we ask the following of long term members to PM Turnips with a list of all assets you have, know about or have helped the club acquire over the years – the more specific the better, even if the assets have not been seen for a while. Knowing what items are missing will greatly help in locating them. Hint – hold an Easter egg hunt in your brew shed and see what you find!

Library

We are looking to increase our library in the Mead, Cider and alternative areas. If you know of any books, catch up with Turnips and give him your suggestions.

Make sure you check out the library account. Go to https://canberrabrewers.librarika.com/ and check out some great resources and reserve a book or two to read over the next month.  You can reserve a copy of something and we’ll deliver it at the meeting.  If the book is on loan, email education@canberrabrewers.com.au and we’ll arrange it to be brought back for you to borrow.  Don’t have access to the library? Email us and we’ll hook you up.

Raffle & NOOKIE !

Again there will be some great raffle prizes including grain from Voyger Malts (thanks Stu), hops from Mashematics (thanks Kurtz) Beer from Catpial Brewing and they are the minor prizes. Also the new NOOKIE is still being sorted but is garanteed to be an interesting brewday at a great brewery. Remember every time you enter the raffle at club night and buy $5 or more of tickets you get an entry into the Nookie, bring a bottle(s) of beer of 750ml or more and get another ticket, bring a keg get 3 Tickets! Get on it!

Mentor brewing competition.

We are asking for volunteer mentors to assist new brewers to get their first beer into one of the local competitions. The mentor and new brewer get paired up to design and brew a beer on the new member’s kit. We have started to call on mentors and will be asking for new brewers on Wednesday. They will be judged against each other as well as be aimed at comps. Details will be announced at the meeting.

‘Dark Fest’ brewing competition

If you felt the buzz on social media, you will know there is a Dark Fest brewing comp coming to Canberra. This is not a club or ANHC event but something completly different. Mitch, one of the organisers will be at the meeting to tell all and answer questions.

Social outing to GABS

If you have never been to GABS, here’s your chance. If you have, you will want to go again. The club is looking to organise a trip to GABS on the weekend of 1-2 June. Please ask at the meeing or check the forum to register interest.

New Members please check out the forum

The forum https://www.canberrabrewers.com.au/forum/index.php is a great place to find out what’s on, get tips and info and exchange equipment. Whether you need a few bottles or want to sell your excess brewing gear, it is they place to do it.