By Steve Sargent (aka Sarge)

Member-stuff

February 2009 marked the start of construction of the “Sargent Arms Bar and Brewery”. Twelve months in the making, it is a purpose built, 24 square metre ‘shed’ in the backyard. It also includes a 15 square metre deck. Footings are 600 mm deep, with stirrups concreted into the holes. 100 X 100 mm treated pine posts support the treated pine bearers and floor joists. There are 16 posts in all, supporting four bearers, plus another bearer that is dyna-bolted to the double brick wall at the rear. The floor is ‘yellow tongue’ particle board. The frames are standard structural pine and the rafters are 4.6 metre long treated pine and span the 4 metre wide floor space with a 600 mm eave. The whole thing is clad with corrugated iron and both walls and roof are insulated. It has two second-hand sliding cedar doors, 1 X 1.8 metre and 1 X 2.4 metre, courtesy of my cousin,  giving a total of 4.2 metres of glass over the 6 metre length. The decking is new timber but was weathered, so I picked it up for $2 per metre.

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Stuart Whytcross

Memberstuff_box Hi, my name is Stuart Whytcross (disco stu) from Griffith NSW. I have been all-grain brewing for about two years now. In October last year I was introduced to the Canberra Brewers Club by Dicko at the Nationals. I was amazed to find so many other people as passionate about brewing as myself, and so the next day I became a member of the National Champions!

Being 350kms from Canberra, I have yet to attend my first Canberra Brewers meeting, but I still manage to get to Canberra quite regularly. Since joining the Club my brewing has dramatically improved as well as my enjoyment of the hobby. The friendship and knowledge I have gained from members on visits to Canberra, the forum, ‘The Ferm’ and competitions has been extraordinary to say the least.

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The club runs a vibrant, interesting and valuable forum, chock-full of technical information and assistance, general chat, social events and competition details. To get the most out of this forum you will need to become a member of the Canberra Brewers Club. You will then receive an invitation via email to register an account. Once you have registered you will have full access to the site and its contents. This is an open forum and your opinions are encouraged. Once you’ve become a member of the club and received your login details, you can access the forum here.

Monday February 8 2010: forum access update

Access to the forums should now be fixed. If you’re still having issues, please email the Webmaster.

Access the forum


We run a number of club competitions and challenges during the year which are open to all, not just club members. Brewers are entitled to enter two beers into each of the four categories, but not two beers of the same style. This means you could enter two beers into, say, the light lager category, but not, say, two Munich Helles. This makes a maximum of eight beers per competition per brewer. The members cost per entry is $3 ($5 for non-members) which is payable on submission. The money raised is used to cover the cost of the competition, which includes such things as the purchasing of dry plain biscuits and cheese used by the judges as ‘palate cleansers’, and for buying prizes.

The entries submitted must be registered via the online entry form and labelled with the identification number supplied. Canberra Brewers use style guidelines from the international Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) which are available from the BJCP website or via email from the Competition Secretary.