Gus K – Page 7 – South Australian Brewing Club

Back to normal

September 16, 2019September 16, 2019 Gus K

The monthly club meeting is on this Wednesday at the Wheaty from 7 pm. After a flurry of activity managing a successful SABSOSA, we’re back to core business — almost.

On the feedback we got on last year’s post-SABSOSA meeting, we’re going to do it again. Some of our winning brewers will reveal the story and secrets behind the brewing of their winning beers and share their tips and advice for what might have given it marginal gains to earn a medal.

We know not everyone cares about competitions but comp winning brewers make good beer and it’s good to learn how we can make our beers better.

If you did well and can bring in some of your beer for a tasting, that’d be great. Drop us a message to let us know (info@sabrew.com)

Gary accepts his Best Brewer of Show award from Jade at The Wheaty

SABSOSA Results
SABC, again, did really well in the show. Congratulations in particular to winners of Best Brewer Of Show, Gary Waters and Highly Commended Beer (Imperial Stout), Julien Gibson.

Also, Luke Scrivens, Wolfgang, Thomas Michl, Rafael Aragon, Brenton Schoemaker, Wol, Brendan Macey, John Van der Zalm, Liam Yorke, Craig Milnes, Lachlan, Ali Holden, Neill Gardner and Paul Sparkes.

The full results are now on the SABSOSA page.

A big thank you to Gary and Julien who shouldered the majority of the work organising the competition and everyone who helped judge, steward or did anything to make it the successful and smoothly run comp it was… and of course all of you who entered.

Left Barrel Brew Day #2
We held one last year and Left Barrel has invited us to brew again. For members who didn’t get to do it last time, we can offer it to about 15 to brew on Saturday, October 12. Express interest on the Facebook event or email us. We hope we don’t have to have a rock-paper-scissors playoff to select the final 15. Get in fast. More on Wednesday.

Want to brew a beer with kviek?
We’ve got the ingredients to brew a beer using kviek yeast — the Norwegian monster yeast that knows no temperature boundaries. Come on Wednesday and put your case forward — again it might involve a rock-paper-scissors playoff to select a winner. Resident kviek professor, Mark Pirates, is going to share his boundless passion for his favourite Norwegian product other than Aha.

Got any ideas?
We’re always looking for meeting night presentation ideas. If you’ve got something you want to share or group experiment — let us know. We can help buy ingredients if needed.

Case Swap
Glen is hosting another case swap on Saturday, November 9. A case swap is a good chance for brewers to get together to enjoy beer, talking brewing and of course, talking crap. Attendees typically bring a keg or bottles of homebrew beer along to share. Talk to Glen or send him a message if you want to know more (like where he lives). More on Brew Adelaide forum here.

Merch!
If you want a t-shirt or cap for summer or a hoodie to warm up on chilly spring evenings, order from the SABC shop. If you order now, we can deliver to you on Wednesday night. https://shop.sabrew.com/
You can also join or renew your membership too!

Robe Beer Festival Homebrew Competition

Enter your beers into the Robe Beer Festival and compete for gold, silver and bronze awards in 10 categories, up to $1000 in prize money. Gain recognition for your crafty brews and valuable feedback from the competition’s judging panel. This is your chance to win the BEER OF SHOW prize, where you get the opportunity to roll up your sleeves and brew your winning beer on a commercial scale at the local Robe Town Brewery in Robe, South Australia.

Awards will be announced on the main stage at Robe Beer Fest 2019, Saturday 26th October.

The Entry deadline for entry to the Robe comp must be received by email: October 13th. Entry Form is here.

They also need judges. Contact Tom O’Reilly on 0434 497 131.

They’re also organising a masterclass for homebrewers that will be held in Robe on the afternoon/evening of Friday, October 25th, during the final judging stages of this year’s homebrew competition. Learn about classic homebrewing faults and how to avoid them, as well as tips for making great beer from experienced brewers and beer judges.

Winner of the 75l kettle

August 21, 2019August 22, 2019 Gus K

Congratulations to Nicky Thomas who was the winner of the 75l stainless kettle valued at $300. It was drawn by luck from the kettle from the list of members at our August meeting.

Scaling up

August 19, 2019August 19, 2019 Gus K

At the club meeting on Wednesday, we’re going to be joined by three brewers who took their homebrew developed recipes to commercial release. James from Shapeshifter, Tony from The Suburban Brew and many of you will know our member Stuart Kirk, SK Beverages. All three have released beers on the market this year.

We’re going to discover what lessons they learnt when scaling up their homebrew to commercial scale. Can you just press the scale-up button on BeerSmith and know the beer will be the same and how does the cost of ingredients factor. An IPA with five hops might be spectacular as a 20L batch but it’s not economically practical at 1000L.

So the theme is about recipe design and ingredients and not so much about barcodes, marketing and tax but the brewers will be available for a chat after the formalities. We’ll also have some goodies to raffle!

Win a 75L Stainless kettle

We’re going to draw the winner of the stainless 75L kettle at the meeting as well. Everyone who is currently a financial member of the club will be in the draw. If your membership has lapsed, or you’re not sure what status it is, check or renew online before you miss the draw. Tips on how to do it here.

SABSOSA entry assessment. Brewed an IPA but the hops haven’t quite popped? Maybe it’s a winning American Pale Ale. A stout but with some adjuncts? Possibly it’s better suited to the experimental category.

As we’re on the eve of the state competition, we are also asking everyone to bring along a bottle of your entry and our experienced club judges can offer some advice on if you’re entering it in the right category. It seems straightforward but many great beers lose points and places because they’re simply in the wrong category.

SABSOSA
It’s getting close. Bottle sorting is on August 31 and judging on September 6-7. If you are willing to help, either judge or steward, can you please express your interest via the portal. You need to EDIT your profile and indicate in the fields that you can help. It helps us plan things much more easily and with over 400 entries, we need to be methodical. You can also help at bottle sort and even at the award presentation on Sept 14 at the Wheaty.

The entry portal is open and closes on Aug 30. Like our comps, you should enter, pay and print labels well in advance of the deadline. You won’t be able to get in after that. Fix your labels to bottles with rubber bands.

Bottle drop off. Club members who have bottles ready can bring them to the Wednesday meeting. We’ll look after them. Goodwood Cellars are now a drop-off point too. Follow SABSOSA on Facebook for updates.

Understanding beer
Speaking of the language of beer, TAFE SA is offering its Beer Flavour Training course again. Over four weeks, it aims to teach anyone seeking a detailed and comprehensive understanding of beer styles, flavours, faults and evaluation. The course is delivered by Stephen Nelsen.

Ideas Do you have an idea for something the club can do or offer? It could be a simple meeting theme or a weekend event or even a service for members to benefit from. Let us know either by email or chat to a committee member.

It was a dark and roasty night

August 5, 2019August 5, 2019 Gus K

Mid-winter is good in some ways. Dark beers take on a uniqueness that’s better enjoyed (and add some cheese!) but chilling wort is much quicker with cold groundwater.

Here’s a quickfire what’s on.

August meeting – Wednesday 21 at The Wheaty

We are going to be joined by three local brewers who ‘went pro’. The theme is upscaling and lessons learnt — Suburban, Shapeshifter and SK Beverages.

They perfected a beer on a homebrew scale that they believed in. What does a brewer need to think about when making a commercial batch of the same beer and what were some of the surprising lessons learnt?

SABSOSA – share your entry

Also, with SABSOSA entries open, we’re asking everyone to bring a bottle or two of their entries to share one-on-one or two with some of our club members who judge. It might be too late to brew again but it’s not too late to make sure the beer is entered in the right category.

One of the areas some of the best beers fall short is where it’s a great beer but wrongly entered. An IPA where maybe it could have done better as an Americal pale ale, a wild ale that’s a winning saison or an America porter that’s better categorised as a black IPA etc.

Bring your entries to share and talk about. Take a good look at the SABSOSA guidelines too.

We’re also advising on packaging. Please be aware that SABSOSA is not accepting 330-375ml stubby bottles. It was announced last year that it was going to be the last year for stubbies. Read all of the entry FAQs.

The entry portal is now open. You need to create a new account. As you’d all be aware, SABC is running the competition and we do need help. Please sign in and enter your expression of interest to judge or steward that way. It makes allocating judges and stewards to flights easier for Gary.

We also are on the lookout for bottle drop locations. If you can think of any that would work, especially in the southern suburbs, please let us know. Preferably as the venue on our behalf too. That saves us a job. Bottles are dropped off in the last week of August.

Win a 75L stainless kettle.

Every financial member of SABC is in the running to win a brand new 75L stainless steel kettle generously donated by Kieren. We’ll draw the winning entry from the kettle at the August 21 meeting.

If your membership is about to expire, needs renewing or you have a friend that is interested in joining but needs some incentive, get on it before Aug 21. Renew or check membership online here.

All in to win a 75L kettle

July 21, 2019July 22, 2019 Gus K

Thanks to everyone who came to our AGM/ Cheese pairing night — everyone thought it was a great night. We got through the business end efficiently, presented winter comp prizes and moved on to SABC treating everyone with wonderful Wheaty French cheese platters to pair with WBC Yeast Coast IPA, Shiploads Porter along with a beer brewed by Leon with the leftover grain from the club brewday.

Competition time – win a 75L 304 steel kettle

We’ve got a great prize to give away and SABC members need to do nothing to be in the running to win except make sure your membership is up to date. All members are in the draw to win when we pull names from the kettle at the August club meeting on Aug 21.

If your membership has lapsed, or you’re reading this and have been thinking about joining SABC or you’ve got a friend you’ve encouraged to join, as long as you’re paid up by 12pm August 21, then you’re in to win. Checking the status of your membership is easy on our website. Find out how here.

Prize value $300. Kettle offered as-is with no accessories or warranty. Cannot be exchanged for cash. SABC is not liable for any issues or damages caused by its use. Winner will be drawn at the SABC meeting, Aug 21. Prize must be collected in 14 days or it will be offered to second place.

Gawler Show homebrewing competition

Entries for the Gawler Show close on August 9. It’s a good hitout for SABSOSA to test your beers — or enter your winter competition beer. https://gawlershow.org.au/shop/home-brewed-beer/. Enquiries to Rachel Edwards who has taken over the competition this year.

The SABC committee for 2019/20

President: Gus Kingston, Vice President: Luke Moran, Treasurer: Edward Shorne Holden, Secretary: Clinton Fisher, Comms and Social Media: Samantha Wallwork, Competitions Director: Gary Waters, Website Manager: Julien Gibson, Events Co-ordinator: Lachlan Johnson, General committee members: Glen Phillis, Leon van der Linden, Mark ‘Pirates’.

AGM minutes available on request.

President’s report, 2019

July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 Gus K

Earlier in 2019 the SABC conducted a questionnaire to find out what the membership enjoyed, wanted to do more of, see less of and the direction we should go in. The feedback we got was very positive. With that comes the hard part — how do we keep going offering the same meetings, activities, projects, events and get-togethers that our membership enjoyed?

It’s difficult for a club with a paid subscription to attract new members and maintain existing members with the pressures of life. There are also many avenues on social media to ask questions and get answers on how to brew better beer or overcome any challenges brewers face.

Forums and social media can quickly generate answers to a wide range of questions any homebrewer needs. Likes on a photo of a brewer’s ‘perfect’ creation can rack up but you can’t taste photos, friends and fellow brewers can’t smell the aroma from a picture. They can’t help with recipe design and other flaws.

It’s hard to get adults to join a club but everyone who has joined us recently has been pleasantly surprised by what they discover and the friendship we offer. This year we grew by around 25 members (that’s also 25 per cent) and now sit precariously on the verge of 100 members.

Our main focus is on how our members can benefit from what we do. Our special events are subsidised, the prizes for our competitions are for members to win, now our Facebook group is by-and-large for paying members and the unique opportunities like brew days are open only to our members to take part.

The most important thing we ask whenever the committee plans events is how much benefit does it offer our members and can we offer it for no extra money.

This year’s calendar has been choc-a-block and I did some back of an envelope calculation and estimated that if anyone came to at least half of the year’s regular meetings, attended a few of our special events, took up any of the special offers and benefits that come our way and maybe won a raffle, they’d have value that easily exceeds the $60 membership fee.

This year our meetings some great special guests. Many of you told me they enjoyed Stephen Nelsen from TAFE but we also had Gabi from Gladfield and Dermott from BeerCo. We went to the German Club, Little Bang and Pirate Life’s new digs and a tour of Southern Vales breweries.

Other highlights were presentations by members on water, lagers and kegging.

BeerBQ was again a highlight for the year – not only for Keiren’s green glitter beer but everyone else’s beers, the food was again on point and it was free for members again.

A brew club should brew beer and this year we were grateful that Brad at Left Barrel helped a group of members brew a pro-size batch of beer for them to all takeaway and make their own fermentation decisions. The rest of us got to try the results.

Brewing at Glen’s house was another great day of making beer and friendship and great pizza.

We’ll be doing both of these again soon.

We also kicked big competition goals. John Van de Zalm won SABSOSA’s Best of Show. Keiren Vercoe and Greg Weider shared silver at the Aust. National Homebrew Competition and SA best overall state.

The ‘Nats’ were held alongside the Nat. Homebrew Conference in Melbourne and a sizeable number of SABC-ers attended. Our beers were head and shoulders above other bigger clubs at the social club night and our theme bar took the equal top spot with a beer pouring Dalek. Gary’s saison also took silver in that unofficial competition.

I can’t write about our own competitions without by noting the work and passion of our competitions director Gary Waters and IT whizkid Julien Gibson. Gary’s passion was also rewarded. He was accepted into the associate judge program for the Independent Brewer’s Awards for the next year.

Our Summer Competition was saison, NEIPA and milk stouts and with 50+ entries, we had to look to the King’s Head as a venue to judge and then we came to the winter comp. At 75 entries for ‘All things American’ from club members, it was our biggest yet and judging day at the Irish Club was a suitable test run for SABSOSA.

That’s a wrap for the year but I can’t sign-off with acknowledging the hard work of the committee. It’s their ideas and support that really make things happen for the benefit of you the members.

Angus Kingston, President, SABC 2018-19

Membership renewal reminder

July 9, 2019July 15, 2019 Gus K

July is the time many memberships lapse because we used to do it manually around this time. Please take a moment to look at your records or login and see if you need to renew before next week’s AGM.

You can easily renew, or join, on our website. You can easily reset your password if you need to. Select the membership item in the shop, login and go to your dashboard. From your account dashboard you can view your recent orders (including the last time you renewed, manage your shipping and billing addresses, and edit your password and account details. sabrew.com/join-us

You can pay by PayPal/ credit card or bank transfer. Proceed throught checkout and at the end it will show you your order number to use as reference in your transfer and the account numbers to pay into. You’ll also receive an email with all this in it within five minutes too. Note, they might be different to a/c numbers you’ve used before. Any questions, please email us.

Hot hot hot cold winter comp this Saturday

July 1, 2019July 2, 2019 Gus K

We need your help

This year’s winter competition is set to be hot hot hot on a cold cold cold day. Judging is happening this Saturday, July 6 from 12-3 at the Irish Club, 13 Carrington St.

Thanks to everyone who has said they can judge or steward. We always welcome more help, even if it’s just to steward for an hour or so or clean up at the end. We’re going to run this as a SABSOSA dress rehearsal and give experience to new participants.

At the time of writing, there are 55 entries and we’re expecting this to be our biggest competition yet.

Please enter, pay and print your labels before the portal closes on Thursday night. After that, you won’t be able to access your entries. We can’t accept bottles without competition labels. Bottle drop off at BeerBelly, on the day by 1215pm (strictly) or by arrangement.

We’re also doing the prize announcements at the end of judging. Come down for a beer for that. We’re also hoping to broadcast it as a Facebook live event for those who can’t make it.

The prizes for SABC members who win are engraved prize glasses for winners, medals for silver and bronze and Best of Show will receive $100 in cold hard cash (more likely a Visa gift card). Runner up wins $50.

Also this month:
July 12-14: Beer n BBQ Festival member’s casual catch-up. All days if you shout out you’re going but Sunday afternoon is likely to be the main day.

July 17: Monthly meeting. SABC AGM and beer and cheese pairing night.

Membership renewals can be done online. Make sure your membership is up to date to vote or join the club committee.

Notice of SABC Annual General Meeting

June 20, 2019July 11, 2019 Gus K

The Annual General Meeting for the SA Brewing Club will be held on Wednesday, July 17 at The Wheatsheaf Hotel, George St Thebarton from 7pm.

All financial members of the club are invited to attend. The agenda can be downloaded here. Nominations for all positions can be submitted by email in advance.

Gary Waters wins top judging role

June 14, 2019June 14, 2019 Gus K

SABC Competitions director Gary Waters with his wife Lee at the 2018 ANHC.

Congratulations to our competitions director Gary Waters on being accepted into the associate judge program for the Independent Brewer’s Awards for the next year.

The ‘Indies’ is Australia’s largest independent beer competition to showcase the best of the independent brewing industry. Gary will have the opportunity to judge at the Indies in September then follow up with the state comp, Australian International Beer Awards and the world cup.

It doesn’t come without hard work to get there and then with the role that requires compulsory training (ie beer drinking) and a trip to Texas along the way. We’re lucky to have his experience in our club.

Thanks Gary and well done.

Winter 2019 competition open now

June 1, 2019July 1, 2019 Gus K

The club annual winter competition will be judged on Saturday, July 6 from 12pm at the Irish Club, Carrington St Adelaide. The theme is ‘all things American’ — adherence to style and not just ‘add more hops’ might just separate the winning entries from the rest of the pack.

The entry competition entry portal is open now for entries. If you’re new to SABC or have not entered one of our competitions before, you need to log in to access it. You can easily reset your password or create a new account if you need to.

Important: Please enter early, pay and print labels at the same time. The page will be closed for entries on Thursday, July 4 at 11pm and will not allow you to access your entry after that time for changes, printing or late payments. We need time to organise everything prior to judging. No exceptions.

The categories — All things American(ish) — is limited to 20 beers in seven BJCP 2015 categories.* Ensure you enter the correct category.

1. STANDARD AMERICAN BEER
18. PALE AMERICAN ALE,
19. AMBER AND BROWN AMERICAN BEER
20. AMERICAN PORTER AND STOUT
21A. AMERICAN IPA
22. STRONG AMERICAN ALE
28. AMERICAN WILD ALE

Note: NEIPA is not recognised in the 2015 BJPC categories and will not be judged.

Bottle drop off will be available at the June meeting, BeerBelly, Country Brewer and on the day. Other drop off places possible by request. Email us.

Make it a social occasion.

Everyone is welcome to come along and judge, help or just hang out and have a beer. Winners will be announced at the end of judging and notified by email. Winners not present need to claim their prize on, or before, the next club meeting on July 17.

See SABC competition Terms & Conditions .