South Australian Brewing Club

Happy Easter! 🎉🐰

We hope you got a chance to brew something.

At last week’s meeting, Darren Williams shared his experience in brewing low and no-alcohol beer. As these beverages have gained popularity, some techniques have proven more effective than others for the homebrewer. He has kindly made his presentation available for download in PDF format here, along with a helpful resource from ultralowbrewing.com. Consider giving it a try; we’re thinking about hosting a brew challenge later this year!

Winter Competition

At the meeting, we also announced the details of this year’s SABC winter competition. They are popular straight bat categories to help you fine-tune your favourites and go-to brews for ABCSA.
We’ve also got a new page on the website, ‘Upcoming Competitions’, so you can easily find out the details.

• Date: Sunday, July 27th
• Time: 1pm (drop off from 12pm)
• Venue: East Torrens Kensington Gardens Tennis Club
• Portal Open: June 20th

BJCP Categories

Lager

• International Pale Lager (2A)
• International Amber Lager (2B)
• International Dark Lager (2C)

Pale Ale

• American Pale Ale (18B)
• Australian Sparkling Ale (12B)
• Amber Ale American Amber Ale (19A)
• California Common (19B)

Stout

• Tropical Stout (16C)
• American Stout (20B)

Speciality

• Sugar Specialty Spice (30D)
• Alternate Sugar (31B)

Mead

Drop off locations

SA Brewing Supplies, Thebarton (by July 26th at midday)

At the venue on the day of judging (only from midday)

Club bus tour tickets

The club’s Southern Vales breweries tour on Saturday, 10th May has a few seats left. Book here

Visit four breweries, Swell, Kick Back, Penny Red, Shifty Lizard. See the schedule and more details here.

Tickets are $35pp and are available at the SABC shop here. If they are not sold soon we’ll open them up to ticket holder’s family and friends.

The cost includes bus travel only and enjoyment. Food and drinks are to be paid for on the day.

Calendar updates

• May 10: Southern Vales Bus Tour – book NOW!
• May 21: What’s a freakin; Franken Chiller… we’ll find out from Jules. (Wheaty)
• June 28: SABC BeerBQ (EKTG) — Tix on sale soon, so renew your membership
• July 27: SABC Winter Competition (EKTG) Details here
• September 20-21: ABCSA Judging (Irish Club) — You know what to do.

Subscribe to this calendar in Google (other cals available on the Calendar page)

This month’s regular meeting is this week, Wednesday, April 16, we’re looking at brewing low alcohol beers. They’ve definitely come a long way in recent years, as many people still want to enjoy beer but are cutting back on alcohol intake for different reasons.

They’re also very handy when you are the designated driver!

Many styles can be low or no alcohol, and Darren will be doing a presentation on the science of and brewing low alcohol beer with some tasters to try as well! Come with all your questions!

With two of the slots for tasters being taken up by the topic, there is still one free tasting slot available for anyone who has a brew they’d like to share with the group. Remember, bringing a beer for tasting will earn Brewer Of The Year points! If you are keen, contact the committee via email.

We’ll also announce the categories to brew for the club’s winter competition judged on July 27.

Bus tour

Tickets for the bus tour of Southern Vales Breweries on May 10 are still available. Tickets are $35pp and available at the SABC shop here. This cost includes bus travel only and enjoyment. Food and drinks are to be paid for on the day.

Grab one now. They will sell out soon. Read what’s in store for the day here.

Don’t forget bottle bingo. Bring a bottle of your beer and go home with a bottle of someone else’s!

Calendar updates

• Next meeting Apr 16: Brewing low and no alcohol beer — or how not to feel dusty the day after with Darren Williams (Wheaty)
• May 10: Southern Vales Bus Tour – book NOW!
• May 21: What’s a freakin; Franken Chiller… we’ll find out from Jules. (Wheaty)
• June 28: SABC BeerBQ (EKTG) — Tix on sale soon, so renew your membership
• July 27: SABC Winter Competition (EKTG) Styles to be judged will be announced soon.
• September 20-21: ABCSA Judging (Irish Club) — You know what to do.

Subscribe to this calendar in Google (other cals available on the Calendar page)

A third of the year gone already! Club members had an enjoyable meet-up at Brightstar Brewing last week, enjoying its beers on a balmy autumnal evening on the deck.

First up, the Southern Vales bus tour on May 10 tickets are available now. See below for more or grab them here before they’re all snapped up.
Calendar updates

• Next meeting Apr 16: Brewing low and no alcohol beer — or how not to feel dusty the day after with Darren Williams (Wheaty)
• May 10: Southern Vales Bus Tour
• May 21: What’s a freakin; Franken Chiller… we’ll find out from Jules. (Wheaty)
• June 28: SABC BeerBQ (EKTG) — Tix on sale soon, so renew your membership
• July 27: SABC Winter Competition (EKTG) Styles to be judged will be announced soon.
• September 20-21: ABCSA Judging (Irish Club) — You know what to do.

Subscribe to this calendar in Google (other cals available on the Calendar page)

BJCP exam

Gary needs beer donations for BJPC training that are out of style or may have faults. A couple of bottles would be great. Drop him a line if you can help.

Hi fellow brewers,

The club has organised a bus tour of Southern Vales breweries on Saturday, 10th May. The last club bus tour was way back in 2023, with 20 people joining the event, which toured through the Barossa region.

Book your seat here

This tour is taking in four breweries to provide more time to relax and enjoy drinks and tours where available, without rushing to get to the next destination.

The schedule for the day is: 

• 0930 Meet at Cafe Bang Bang, 53 Hindley St, Adelaide SA 5000 – grab a coffee or breakfast.
• 0945 Leave Cafe Bang Bang 55min drive
• 1100 Arrive Swell Brewing 60min visit
• 1200 Leave Swell Brewing 18min drive
• 1230 Arrive Kick Back Brewing (lunch) 90min visit
• 1400 Leave Kick Back Brewing 18min drive
• 1415 Arrive Penny Red Beer Co 60min visit
• 1515 Leave Penny Red Beer Co 14min drive
• 1530 Arrive Shifty Lizard 60min visit
• 1630 Leave Shifty Lizard 55min drive
• 1730 Arrive Wheatsheaf Hotel Thebarton (likely include a second dropoff at Craft Robot in CBD)

Tickets are $35pp and available at the SABC shop here. This cost includes bus travel only and enjoyment. Food and drinks are to be paid for on the day.

Depending on requests we may be able to organise a second pickup/dropoff location for folk somewhere between the city and McLaren Vale.
.
Kick Back has generously offered to have us for lunch, and is offering a free pint with any burger purchased. Brenton and or Adam will provide a talk and tour of the brewery with some sneaky tastings apparently!

The food menu is here . If we are able to provide a list of orders before arriving this will ensure no one has a long wait for lunch when we arrive. Please send me your order when possible, preferably before the day.

Penny Red have offered to provide a chat and possibly a tour; they have a relatively small brew system. I’ve been told, but when I chatted with Craig and Jess about brew club members visiting and it sounds like it’s the perfect opportunity for brew club members to enjoy.

Shifty Lizard is the last stop on the tour, as the club managed to visit several years ago on a previous bus tour. Lee has also said he or a brewer will be available on the day, they also have Soul Bird Distilling if anyone is interested in asking about the distilling business.

Gavin from Bizzy buses is driving us again — Gavin has hosted the club on a couple of bus tours over the years, and luckily, even though his company is double booked for the day, he has managed to drive us again. He’s a very friendly chap, so be sure to say hello while on the tour.

At this stage, this event is only open to financial members, but if there are unsold tickets, non-members may be able to grab one.

Any other questions, please send through!

Cheers, Nick (on behalf of SABC)

Hola brewers,

March Meeting
This week’s club meeting is at Brightstar Brewing, 35-37 Stirling Street, Thebarton (Map).

The Wheaty is unavailable, so we thought it’d be a good opportunity to see what Thebarton’s other brewery is doing. “…using traditional European brewing techniques, we produce a wide range of balanced beers…” is its aim.

We’ll be outside on the deck so keep that in mind when thinking about wearing your club t-shirt, hoodie or cap … coincidentally, all are available in our shop for sale and if you order before Wednesday you can wear it.

BOTY Leaderboard

The Brewer of the Year leaderboard is now live will all points accumulated to date. If you’re not yet familiar with the new format, check out the details here. Take note of the additional ways you can earn points outside of competitions.

Upcoming Events

A couple of new dates to lock in your diaries.

The Southern Vales bus tour is on Saturday, May 10th. Tickets will go on sale in the shop soon, so watch out for announcements as numbers will be limited!

Our annual BeerBQ will be back on Saturday, June 28th. This gives you three full months to plan and brew something exciting for the event. The club winter comp will follow a month later, on Sunday, July 27th. Competition categories will be announced soon.

Calendar Dates Summary*

• Mar 19: Brewery visit – Brightstar Brewing Thebarton
• Apr 16: Brewing low and no alcohol beer (Wheaty)
• May 10: Southern Vales Bus Tour
• May 21: What’s a freakin; Franken Chiller… we’ll find out from Jules. (Wheaty)
• June 28: SABC BeerBQ (EKTG)
• July 27: SABC Winter Competition (EKTG)
• September 20-21: ABCSA Judging (Irish Club)

Subscribe to this calendar in Google (other cals available on the Calendar page)

Brewer of the Year format change

I’m very excited to announce an overhaul to this years BOTY competition! The goal of the change is to increase the number of point scoring opportunities throughout the year, reward brewers for brewing great beer even if they don’t place in the top 3, and most importantly, reward brewers who contribute to the club outside of competition entries. The competition leader board will be published and updated throughout the year, hopefully adding to the overall excitement and providing more incentive for brewers to brew and share their beer in order to reach top of the table!

For a full run down on the new competition format and how points will be awarded, refer to https://sabrew.com/sabc-brewer-of-the-year/

If you would like to present a beer at a meeting and earn yourself 30 BOTY points, email the club now! Tasting slots will be limited to a maximum of 3 per meeting, and beers brewed for the meeting topic will take preference. There is 1 slot available for Feb.

Feburary Meeting – Brewing with RO

The Feburary meeting is this coming Wedesday 19th at the Wheaty. We’ll be discussing all things reverse osmosis brewing and doing a side-by-side tasting of a blonde ale brewed with RO vs Tap water. If you’re already an RO aficionado (a recent poll suggests 50% of you are!) come along and share your RO knowledge with your fellow members.

Summer Competition Results

The summer competition was run last weekend with 20 entries in the wheat focused categories. The winners will be announced at the Feburary meeting, with full results and the BOTY leaderboard to be posted shortly after.

Howdy yeast wranglers,

A quick reminder that the club’s Summer Competition — focus on wheat — is scheduled for this Sunday. All the details are below. Please register your entries tonight. Leaving it to the last minute leaves you at risk of being locked out or your printer running out of ink. It happens.

February meeting

Wednesday, Feb 19 is the date. We’re at The Wheaty for a deep dive into reverse osmosis (RO) water filters, using RO water and a side-by-side tasting of a recipe brewed with RO vs Adelaide metro tap.

Click attending on the Facebook event so you get reminders.

Summer Competition – Focus on wheat

• Date: Sunday, 9th February 2024
• Time: 11:00 AM
• Venue: East Torrens Kensington Gardens Tennis Club
• Cost: $5 per entry HERE

Categories: This competition will feature the following BJCP styles:

• American Wheat (1D)
• Weisse Beer (10A)
• Dunkelweisse (10B)
• Witbier (24A)
• Saison (25B)
• Berliner Weisse (23A)
• Gose (23G)
• Wheat Wine (22D)

Important Dates:

• Portal Opens: Thursday, January 9th  
• Portal Closes: Friday, February 8th  
• Drop-off Locations: SA Brewing Supplies, Thebarton to COB Friday or at the venue on the day from 10am.

We encourage everyone to nominate to judge or steward. Nominate via the portal when it opens.

Calendar Dates Summary*

• Feb 9: Summer Comp – It’s time to start brewing if you’re keen on a Dunkelweisse, Witbier, or Wheat Wine.
• Feb 19: How RO works.
• Mar 19: Brewery visit – Brightstar Brewing Thebarton
• Apr 16: What’s a freakin; Franken Chiller… we’ll find out from Jules.
• May 21: Brewing low and no alcohol beer
• Also coming soon… Southern Vales brewery bus tour,

Happy New Year brewers.

We’re off and running again this week with a meeting on Wednesday night. It might seem early, or you may have thought it was scheduled for next week, but the calendar situation is unusual this time. Since January 1 fell on a Wednesday, this is already the third Wednesday of the month. Phew. Time for a beer.

The plan was to taste the four versions of the beer brewed in December at the SABS brew day but there’s been a hiccup in the fermentation and they’re not ready yet. We’ll do that next month (TBC).

However, all is not lost. We’re cobbling together something else fun and interesting — and yes, involved beer tasting.

If you have a beer you want to present to the meeting, bring along about 3-4 litres to share. Please drop us a line if you have something. info@sabrew.com

What brew day? What else has been going on if you were under a rock for the tail end of 2024. Read Lachlan’s end of year dispatch here.

What’s coming up this year? See below and subscribe to the calendar in your Google, Outlook etc.

Summer Competition – all things wheat

Competition day is February 9 at the East Torrens Kensington Gardens Tennis Club again. Bottle drop before judging starts at 11am.

• Date: Sunday, 9th February 2024
• Time: 11:00 AM (bottle drop from 10am)
• Venue: East Torrent Kensington Gardens Tennis Club
• Cost: $5 per entry

Categories: This competition will feature the following BJCP styles:

• American Wheat (1D)
• Weisse Beer (10A)
• Dunkelweisse (10B)
• Witbier (24A)
• Saison (25B)
• Berliner Weisse (23A)
• Gose (23G)
• Wheat Wine (22D)

Important Dates:

• Portal Opens: NOW
• Portal Closes: Friday, February 8th  
• Drop-off Locations: SA Brewing Supplies, Thebarton to COB Thursday or at the venue on the day from 10am.

We encourage everyone to nominate to judge or steward. Nominate via the portal when it opens.

Calendar Dates Summary*

• Jan 15: At the Wheaty
• Feb 9: Summer Comp – It’s time to start brewing if you’re keen on a Dunkelweisse, Witbier, or Wheat Wine.
• Feb 19: How RO works.
• Mar 19: Brewery visit – TBC
• Also… Southern Vales brewery bus tour,

(*Events subject to change).

New year, new membership if yours has lapsed. Renew now.

As the year draws to a close we’ve had a flurry of club activity. The combined Xmas case swap and brew day at SA Brewing supplies was a fantastic event despite the sweltering conditions. The SA Brewing supplies team looked after us with a giant AC and ice cold hop water. Club members contributed with various beers including everyone’s favourite on a hot day, Wolf’s Pils!

The case swap had great participation with all contributors going home with a crate load of fantastic beers, and positives reviews and feedback and flowing in via the Facebook group. If you haven’t participated in case swap before, I highly recommend you mark a slot in your brewing schedules for xmas 2025.

Following the weekend event we had our December meeting at the Wheaty where we distributed prizes from Nationals. Everyone who placed at AABC received one of these fantastic teku glasses.

Then there was the big one – Club Brewer of the Year. In a very tight race Charles on 21 points was just beaten out by Brenton George on 22. Well done to Brenton who had a very strong showing in the Winter comp to set him up for BOTY success.

The day after our monthly meeting we received some more great news when Beer and Brewer magazine posted an article featuring club member Tali and her summer comp winning recipe for a Scottish Light. Well done Tali! Read the article here

As we sign off for 2024 I would like to thank everyone who has helped contribute to the SA Brewing Club in the last 12 months. The sponsors, the members, the committee and anyone who has volunteered their time in some capacity. We appreciate all contributions to club no matter how big or small.

Happy holidays and we’ll see you in 2025!

Hi Brewers,

Our monthly meeting is this Wednesday at The Wheaty, from 7:00 pm. Apart from catching up and trying delicious Wheaty Brewing Corps beers, we’ll focus on pressure fermentors. We’ll explore how to do pressure transfers or bottle from them or kegs to get the best results—perfect timing with Christmas around the corner if you’re thinking of gifting your brews or putting them in the case swap.

Don’t forget to bring along a bottle of homebrew to swap for another in bottle bingo. To encourage more members to participate, we’ll give all the swappers a bottle of the SABC x TAFE collab ESB. Bring one bottle of beer and go home with two!

Looking ahead, our end-of-year event on Sunday, December 15, is shaping up to be a big one. SA Brewing Supplies will host us at their Maria Street store for a Christmas Brew Day and Case Swap. This is your chance to see different brewing systems in action as we put them to the test with “System Wars” – brewing one batch, split across three systems with different chilling methods (immersion, plate, and no-chill). The results will be blind-tasted at our January meeting.

The Case Swap is also on that day: now is the time to brew a batch, bring twelve 750 ml or 24 stubbies, and go home with the same amount of different beers. Think of it as a beer advent calendar! If you want to join, sign up via the Facebook event or check in at Wednesday’s meeting.

To make the day successful, we’ll need a hand with food—BBQ chefs, salad makers, or those who can bring something to share. If the weather’s hot like last year, we might need marquees too. Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Let us know at info@sabrew.com or at the meeting.

These events are for club members with up-to-date subscriptions. Renew now if you’ve let yours lapse.

Calendar Dates Summary

• Nov 20: Club meeting, The Wheaty. Bottle and filling from kegs and pressure transfers
• Dec 15: Christmas bottle swap and brew day! Facebook event here.
• Dec 18: End of year drinks and pizzas
• Jan 15: At the Wheaty where we’ll be A/B tasting the brew day beercertain beer.
• Feb 9: Summer Comp – It’s time to start brewing if you’re keen on a Dunkelweisse, Witbier, or Wheat Wine.
• Feb 19: How RO works.
• Mar 19: Brewery visit – TBC

The Australian Amateur Brewing Championships (AABC) results from this year’s competition in Brisbane have just dropped, and SABC has had another great showing!

At a state level, South Australia has placed third with three Gold, five Silver, and three Bronze awards, achieving a total score of 22.00.

Here’s the rundown of placegetters from SABC

Table 3: Amber & Dark Lager

2ND John Van Der Zalm – Style/Name: Traditional Rauchbier

Table 4: Pale Ale

1ST Sabelo Charles Nzama – Style/Name: Belgian Blond Ale

Table 5: American Pale Ale

2ND Lucas Veitch – Style/Name: NZ Pale Ale

3RD Mark Lehmann – Style/Name: Make Pale Great Again!

Table 6: IPA

1ST Mark Lehmann – Style/Name: Double Cheers IPA

Table 8: Amber Ale

3RD Sabelo Charles Nzama – Style/Name: Son Of The Soil

Table 10: Porter

1ST Darren Williams – Style/Name: Nordic Noir

Table 12: Strong Stout

2ND Maz Ali – Style/Name: Southern Starlight Stout

Table 13: Wheat and Rye Beer

3RD Matthew Kennedy – Style/Name: Plain Beret (Saison)

Table 16: Sour and Wild Ale

2ND Matthew Kennedy – Style/Name: The Goose (Gose)

Table 18: Specialty Beer

2ND Russell Saint – Style/Name: Manuka Smoko

HUGE congratulations to all members who placed by brewing some truly outstanding beers. As club president, I am extremely proud to see both the state and club continue to do very well in the national competition.

The dedication of club members, the quality of ingredients from our LHBS, and the willingness to share advice on how to brew better beer all combine to produce these results.

Next year the competition will be back in Queensland and co-hosted with the Australian National Brewing Conference. It’s not too soon to start planning for 2025 now.