Author: Admin

JulyMeetingGrowler
Growler – A Happy Raffler

Canberra Brewers shivered their way into the Harmonie German Club on a cold winter’s night in July for another fun/beer filled meeting. Once again, we left the miracle boxes on the sideline for a bottle sharing night. Ciders, Schwarzes, and IPAs were bandied about. Diacetyl was criticised, hops were appreciated. Cheeks were made red. It was good.

The committee ran through the latest with ANHC (tickets now on sale!) and reminded members that this year’s Oktoberfest will be more of a Septemberfest, before compsec Steve ‘Lawfo’ Lawford handed out all the certificates from competition two. Co-social secretary Jeremy Michael kicked off planning for the club bar at the ANHC Club Night before a bunch of spring rolls and fried chicken came out.

Full of spring rolls and fried chicken, brewers sat down for the ‘going for gold’ talk, where former champion brewers Craig ‘Stagger’ Webber, Ross Mitchell, Kevin Hingston, and Mark Overton shared their varied approaches and attitudes to competition success. Hopefully brewers can find some barley and/or wheat among the chaff of that talk and really rep the club at the ACTABCs and AABCs this year.

With the talking well and truly behind us, we called the humoungous July raffle. With a brand new Keg King Keg via Mashematics, half a kilo of Hop Dealz hops, books, an infrared thermometer, and a bunch of swag from the Lord Nelson brewery, tickets went like hot cakes. Chris ‘Growler’ De La Rue wanted to win so bad, he broke his arm rushing to the front, but in the end it paid mad dividends for him.

IHBD Beers
IHBD Beers

The June meeting showcased the Big Brew Day beers. Brewed on May 3 at The Make Hack Void, the beer this year was American Pale Ale with each brewer allocated a two hop combination for flavour and aroma. The brewers who lined up (and their accompanying hops) were:
Scotty T (Cascade + Nelson Sauvin)
Chekkie (Amarillo + Citra)
Bainesy (Ahnatum + ?)
Gazza (Kohatu + Southern Cross)
Coops (Waimea + Kohatu)
Geoff Swan (Sorachi Ace + El Dorado)
Anton Wood (Southern Cross + Wai-Iti)
Patrick Baggoley (Mosaic + Vic Secret)

After a brief talk about the actual brew day, the members settled into sampling the 8 kegs of APA for the evening.

Other highlights of the meeting were a host of new members turning up and an epic amount of gear up for grabs in the raffles.

IHBD Brewers
IHBD Brewers

By Malcolm Scholes, Competition Secretary

We had a good showing for competition 1, 2013 with 61 beers entered.  Of these, we had 8 Gold Medals, 11 Silver Medals and 24 Bronze medals awarded.

Style Name Sub Style Name Brewer Result
Brown Ale American Brown Ale Stephen Lawford 136
Brown Ale Scottish Ale Mark Bilbrough 135
Farmhouse Ale & Wild Beer Flanders Red Ale Bruce Arnold 134.5
Brown Ale Irish Red Ale Stuart Whytcross 126
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) English Bitter Stuart Whytcross 126
Stout Sweet Stout Joel Baines 125
Stout Sweet Stout Steve Hogarth 121.5
Farmhouse Ale & Wild Beer Saison Kevin Hingston 121
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) Mild Ale darren blackhurst 116
Brown Ale American Brown Ale Matt Garven 113
Pale Ale Cream Ale Steve Hogarth 113
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) English Bitter Michael Glasswell 112
Stout Oatmeal Stout Malcolm Scholes 112
American Pale Ale American Pale Ale Sean Lillywhite 111
Brown Ale American Brown Ale Pete Daffern 110
Brown Ale Irish Red Ale Matt Hogan 108.5
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) English Bitter darren blackhurst 107.5
Brown Ale Irish Red Ale Malcolm Scholes 106
Pale Ale Cream Ale Matt Garven 106
Pale Ale Kölsch Stephen Lawford 104.5
Brown Ale Irish Red Ale Kevin Hingston 103
Farmhouse Ale & Wild Beer Berliner Weiße Mark Overton 103
Stout Oatmeal Stout Danial Pymont 103
Pale Ale Kölsch Ben Solly 101.5
Stout Oatmeal Stout Pete Daffern 100.5
Farmhouse Ale & Wild Beer Saison Chris De La Rue 99.5
Pale Ale Cream Ale Chris De La Rue 99.5
American Pale Ale American Pale Ale Pete Daffern 98
Pale Ale Australian Pale Ale Chris De La Rue 97
American Pale Ale American Pale Ale Matt Garven 96
Pale Ale Kölsch Steven Roberts 96
Pale Ale English Pale Ale Michael Lawrence
 95.5
American Pale Ale American Pale Ale Rohan Lilley 94
Pale Ale Australian Pale Ale Joel Baines 94
Farmhouse Ale & Wild Beer Witbier (White) Patrick Baggoley 93
Pale Ale Cream Ale Malcolm Scholes 92.5
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) English Bitter Tom Dixon 92
Brown Ale Irish Red Ale Steven Roberts 91
Brown Ale American Brown Ale Peter Collins 91
Stout Dry Stout Darren Blackhurst 91
Pale Ale Blonde Ale Paul Haesler 90.5
American Pale Ale American Pale Ale Stephen Chapman 90
Low Alcohol (<4% ABV) English Bitter Matt Hogan 90

Full results are available on the forum.

A special thanks goes out to all of the Judges and Stewards for making the day go smoothly:
Judges:
Richard Watkins
David Gilks
Steve Hogarth
Chris Duffy
Ben Harmer
Joel Baines
Mark Billbrough
Paul Haesler
Tom Dixon
Kevin Hingston
Charles Newton
Keenan Fahey
Craig Webber
Adam Langan
Martin Budden
Rohan Lilley

Stewards:
Michael Lawrence
Rodger Braid
Sean Lillywhite
Steve Lawford

For the information of members, the medal classification was changed for 2013 with an increased emphasis on Bronze Medals being better than just average beers.  The range is now 90 to 104, previously 75 to 104.

Medal Classifications for Members Competitions (2013)
Gold: 120 to 150 points
Silver: 105-119.99 points
Bronze: 90-104.99 points

By Nick Wiseman, Editor

Oktoberfest was celebrated in style at this month’s meeting with plenty of great beer on tap and a massive attendance of 100 members.

Richard Watkins brought in a keg of Keenan’s 2011 Wig & Pen Trophy winning American Brown and Chris ‘Duffbowl’ Duffy’s Red Sour Ale was also a hit on the night as well as many other great German drops.

In true German style, Knuckles put on a massive buffet feast of pretzels, goulash, roast pork, sausages, roast potatoes, salad and the all-important sauerkraut.

Normal official procedures were kept to a minimum ensuring the night was left open to plenty of tasting, chatting, more tasting and even more eating!

Special congratulations need to go to Mark Overton on taking out champion brewer as well as Best of Show at the recent competition.

With everything else on the night there was still time for the Brewers Showcase thanks to Duffbowl who spoke on the solera sour setup he is running – it’s just a pity that the samples of his beer had run dry before the presentation started and also to Owen ‘Owy’ Andrews who presented a Foreign Extra Stout.

Congratulations to Ross Mitchell who took out the ‘Best of the Fest’ competition with his Winterweizen which was a maltier variation of a Hefeweizen.

Oktoberfest