Do you know how to drink a beer? Summer comp this Sunday

This Sunday, Feb 20 is competition judging day. To run a club comp we need as many members as possible. Whether you’re BJPC or can raise your arm with a glass to your lips, you can judge. Register in the portal so you can be allocated. https://comps.sabrew.com. If you can’t use it, just send us an email at info@sabrew.com

We can’t hold competitions if we don’t get the support to run them, especially with judging. If you’re new to the club and think judging is beyond you, don’t worry. Have a go. We’re not in it for sheep stations. 

The location is at Unit 3/77 O’Sullivan Beach Rd Lonsdale in a new brewery.  

If you can’t be there from 12, come along at 3.30pm and bring one or two beers to share around. We’re making it a social event too where we’ll announce the winners. Here’s a Facebook event for it.

Of course, you can still enter your beer for the competition. Bottle drop on the day from 11.30am, at this week’s meeting or BeerBelly by 5pm Friday 18th. Entries close on Thursday 17th February

This Wednesday’s meeting is at the Wheaty from 7pm. Again with numbers probably lower, we’re getting out and supporting a local business that does appreciate us being there.

As always, if you’ve got a beer to share or an idea to raise, bring it along.

President’s report, 2020

So it’s another year gone and it’s been an unusual one but a good one. 

Our regular meetings have been really well attended when we could meet in person either here at the Wheatsheaf Hotel or at Little Bang Brewing Co. 

In the time of isolation, we want to keep providing value for money for members to feel a part of a club, so we went online. COVID was the curveball of the year. We managed to give everyone some connection via Zoom and I think everyone understands it’s not the ideal scenario for holding meetings but we tried to make it different and still give everyone the feeling they were part of a club still.

While we continue to grow and welcome new members we also acknowledge that asking people to bring in beers for tasting is getting harder so we worked on new ways of sharing our beers. We introduced bottle swap or bingo and as we did in February, a beer assessment night tasting more beers from members. We’ll keep on looking at ways of making sure everyone’s homebrew is shared because that’s what a homebrewing club is about.

As a club, we brewed again at Left Barrel Brewing and we will do that again in October this year. I think a highlight was the brew days at Glen’s house too. 

Despite setbacks as COVID forced us to nearly cancel, we managed to pull off the Summer competition judged in isolation with two new members in the top three overall.

The Winter competition was judged last weekend and was a success as was our running of SABSOSA last September. Thanks to the team behind that, Gary, Julien and Brendan as well as everyone who volunteers to judge or steward. 

Our events took a bit of a hit with the Hills breweries tour having to be postponed. The summer event at the Petanque club was a new venue and worked well. Along with BeerBQ in May (that will be mid-August this year) these social events remain highlights of our calendar. 

We continue to strive to offer the best value for money for members through all our events, maintaining virtual meetings, prizes like the kettle we gave away and will give away another one in the next month too and brew days, connection, discounts and offers. But overall… 

The club is about community, especially in these times. It gives members a connection to others who love doing what they do and a support network of friendships that isn’t just about brewing beer but a whole lot more in life.

It’s been really heartening to see the members use the club’s network to call out for help when their equipment fails or are in urgent need of advice and mentorship.

The club works because of you the members but also the committee which really makes this stuff happen and I want to personally thank them for always being there to step up, step in and come up with the ideas and shoot down the not so good ones.

Thank you all.

Gus

SABC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet, the Kurana of the Adelaide Plains pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

President’s report, 2019

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 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.

Feb meeting change, final call on brewery tour and summer comp open

Some rapid-fire news (it won’t take long to read Matt Johns!).

One: The bus tour of Southern Vales breweries is almost sold out and due to a cancellation, we’ve got four seats left. The tour is this Saturday and will take you to Goodieson Brewery to meet head brewer Jeff, Shifty Lizard Brewing Co and meet head brewer Lee, Forktree Brewing to meet head brewer Ben and then lunch in the restaurant overlooking Carickalinga and then South Coast Brewing Co where you will meet brewers Scott, Mark and Brett. $30 for a 9.45am start. Return to The Wheaty by 5.45 where you can kick on at Thebartonia. We won’t be doing another one in the near future so be quick! Book via the shop. You must log in https://shop.sabrew.com/product-category/events/

Two: Our next regular monthly meeting is having a date change. It will be THURSDAY 21 February at Little Bang Brewing. Unfortunately, they’re not open on Wednesdays and unlike when they were smaller, can’t make exceptions for homebrewing mates. The Wheaty is also busy with Fringe events.

Bring your summer competition entries but we won’t be judging them on the night.

We’ll get a backstage tour of the new brewery and other plans are still being worked out. Watch for emails and the event on Facebook but just note the date change now.

Three: The summer competition entry portal is now open. It’s found from the competitions page on the site or at https://comps.sabrew.com/ – you need to log in etc…

Drop off is at the February meeting unless you organise something with us before with an email.

May Meeting Announcement

It’s SABC club meeting time tomorrow night.

Please be aware that this month’s meeting is NOT at the Wheaty!

We will be enjoying a brewery tour of one of SA’s newer craft breweries at Sweet Amber Brewing from 7pm

Unit 5, 21 Naweena road Regency Park.

(Note this is the brewery and tap room, not the Semaphore Cafe)

There will be a burger food truck from 6pm, so bring a few dollars for some tukka.

Tasting are welcome, please indicate if you have something to bring along by emailing info@sabrew.com

IMPORTANT: BeerBQ announcement

Previous communication about this Saturday’s BeerBQ has stated the INCORRECT address. Please accept our apologies for this mix up. The correct address below:

Colonel Light Gardens Bowling Club
Reade Park Reserve, Flinders Ave
Colonel Light Gardens, SA 5041

This address also appears on your eventbrite ticket.

Please register to attend before end of day tomorrow (Wednesday 2nd May) by following the link on the previous post.

 

Final Brewboys Event Reminder

Hi Guys and Gals,

Final reminder to register at Saturdays event at Brewboys from 2pm onwards. Register via the Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/sabc-brewboys-tickets-39381005648

If you’re a financial member, select tickets and then enter voucher code “brewboys” to claim your free entry. Please register before 6pm on Thursday 23rd November.

The order of play will start from 2pm onwards. Brewery tours will be taken in 2 sessions from approximately 2:30pm for the first run and the second run from 3pm or so.. depending on how much talking Simon does.  OK, make that 3:30pm.

The pork spit roast experts will be preparing from earlier in the day and will look to eat by 4:30pm or so.

Looking forward to seeing you all then!