Category: President’s Report

By Mark ‘Billy’ Bilbrough, President

CB LogoAnother year of Canberra Brewers and I think the Club is 18 this year (since March ’95?), so she will shortly be able to buy a drink at the bar…

First of all I’d like to say a huge thanks for the Canberra Brewers 2012 Committee – they have grown the club to be the biggest yet, in a very strong financial position, and I feel, generated a fantastic vibe among the members.

New initiatives such as the club library and brewers showcase open up the chance to learn more about brewing and often an exposure of styles we’d normally not taste. Thank you to all.

As we are at the start of a new year I wanted to share with you my thoughts on where the focus will be for 2013.

Many of you had to sit through my long spiel at the December meeting – fortunately this post will be a lot smaller and quicker. 🙂

This year I’d like to focus on professionalising the craft – and I think there are a couple of dimensions to this vision.

The first (and this is an ongoing theme) is about making great beer.

Whether you are kit & kilo, partial mash, BIAB or all-grain, I believe we should all be trying to make the best beer possible.

Quality ingredients are a no-brainer, as is dialling in your process (whether you are a by-the-numbers or a free-spirit, your process should be the same).Read more »

By Tom Dixon, President

Dicko 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…

By Darryl Barbour, President

Darryl_1 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.

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By Darryl Barbour, President

Authorbox_presidentAdelaide, San Francisco, Seattle and beyond. It has been a busy month travelling the country and the world, but alas there have been fewer brew-pub visits than I would have liked. I can complement The Pike Brewery in Seattle though, with a lovely “Kilt Lifter” Scottish Ale (around the 80/- mark?) and “Tandem” Belgian Dubbel. Of course, this is a poor excuse for not getting a President’s report out for the August meeting, but it is the best I can offer!

And so while it has been a busy and tough few weeks I was really encouraged to see the turnout of members, both those working towards BJCP recognition and those who are not, to the faulted beer tasting this week gone by. I hear that a report it being prepared, but can confirm that we had some absolutely horrid samples to work through. We did, however, get a better understanding of what the different flavours (that may or may not be considered faults) are like in beer and a few ideas on how to address them. Hopefully we will be able to offer that session each year that a BJCP course and exam is run.

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