May meeting

The next meeting is a couple of weeks away, on May 18th.  This month we are conducting a beer faults tasting session, where we will be presenting three “spiked” beers with common faults.  A big thanks to Dr. Smurto for helping out with this.  Hopefully it is a good learning experience for everyone.

If you have a beer that you would like to present, send us an email and bring it along.  Aim for three longnecks or equivalent, and please be prepared to discuss your beer in detail (i.e. have the recipe and any notes from the brew day on hand).  If you would like your beer to be judged against a style, that’s no problem.  We always have judging forms on hand.

The survey results are in…

Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete our short survey.  We really appreciated the feedback received, which was very positive in general. Some excellent feedback suggestions and challenges were put to the club. We’d like to share some of the common themes with you and share with you what the club will be looking to initiate as a result of your feedback.

Here’s what you’ve said:

It’s hard to get a group of people to truly share and communicate without fear of failure or feeling stupid for not knowing something and making mistakes . Knowing and remembering each others names would be good to help stop little sub groups forming because they can’t remember other members names.

-Really great feedback. The committee have discussed the possibility of name tags. We think it should go ahead. 


Better agenda with serious beer discussion matters each meeting.

-Agreed. There were a number of comments along these lines.  The club will be setting the discussion/theme agenda ahead in advance by at least 6 months so members know what to expect and look forward to. This will be sent out in separate comms by email newsletter and club website. 


I think it would be good to see the club extend beyond the Brew Adelaide forum.

Over the last year the club has moved all of its communications to members from the Brew Adelaide forum to Newsletter emails and website updates. There have only been a few updates to the wider beer community on Brew Adelaide to promote events to non members. The club is now entirely separate from Brew Adelaide. 


Create a Facebook group instead of the current Facebook ‘community’.The Facebook community page as it is tends to just be club officials sharing various posts. There’s useful info in the posts but rarely anything directly related to the club or its members. I think an SABC group on Facebook would be a lot more interactive, allowing club members to post/share themselves, find/add members as friends and get a better sense of who’s in the club (real names, photos etc). It’s also a great way to advertise the club and get more people to sign up.

Another excellent bit of feedback! The committee will look into this as a matter of priority.


The Wheaty is great, but our own premises would allow the club to expand into more activities and be heard over the jets etc.

-This would be fantastic. However, at this stage with financial constraints, it just is not possible. If anyone has suggestions for how this can be affordably done i.e. venue share with other clubs etc, please contact the club to discuss. Regarding noise, this is not as bad when out in the back area. The club has communicated concerns around clashes of events with the Wheaty. When this happens, using the lounge area at the Wheaty is no longer an acceptable situation. The Wheaty have assured us that for the remainder of the year, there are no further clashes. The club will look to have a few meetings at alternative venues too, like the recent visit to Little Bang for example. 


The communication has slipped in the past ~12 months to the point where it’s hard to even know what’s going on around the club. I feel there should be a little more transparency around what the committee are working on – especially with an important event like AABC/ANHC coming up later in the year in Adelaide. From the outside it appears that all the work is being done by only a couple of people. I hope that isn’t the case as it’s a sure recipe for burnout.

-Feedback noted. This is especially true for meeting topic agendas. As previously mentioned, the club will publish topics ahead. The committee can discuss the possibility of making committee meeting minutes available. 


A calendar of events should be published.

We are looking at integrating a calendar into the website, and hopefully this will come online in the next few weeks.  The plan is to include club events, key competition dates for all SA competitions, as well as other dates of interest to members.


Perhaps more sponsors required to donate raffle prizes.

-Absolutely! Suggestions are welcome. 


The full survey results are available here if you wish to read them.

Good Beer Wheaty! Get into it!

The program for Good Beer Wheaty has been announced, and once again it looks to promise four days and nights of interesting discussion, celebrity shoulder-rubbing and of course great beer.

And once again, in what we consider to be an extremely fine tradition, SABC members who purchase a ticket to one of the ticketed events will receive pint of beer on the Wheaty!  To take advantage of this, you need to email us to let us know what sessions you are attending at least two days prior to the first one.  We will then forward a list of names to the Wheaty the day before each event.

Check out the program here

The AGM is coming

As announced at the April meeting, the AGM is being held on Saturday July 23rd, starting at 1pm, to the back at the Wheaty.  Keen observers will have noted that this is also the date for judging the winter competition. We will power through the AGM first, and then get on to the judging after that.

All committee positions will be declared vacant at the AGM, and absolutely anyone (who is a financial member) is eligible to nominate for a position.  Nominations can be mailed to the club in advance, and are also open on the day of the AGM.

There will be an agenda circulated closer to the event, but if you have any questions regarding the AGM, being on the committee or indeed anything else please send us an email at info@sabrew.com