Since its inception in 2012, the South Australian Brewing Club (SABC) has swiftly grown to become the largest and most successful brewing club in Adelaide and the country. The club embodies a diverse membership of individuals with a broad range of brewing expertise, all coming together to share knowledge and enhance their homebrewing skills. Central to the club’s calenda is the popular monthly meeting on the third Wednesday of each month, regularly attended by over 30 participants, thanks to the generous support of The Wheatsheaf Hotel. In addition to these gatherings, the club also hosts special events and brewery visits in Adelaide and the surrounding region. Find out more on our About SABC page.
After months of sweating over a hot keyboard, our shiny new membership signup form is live. Check it out on here.
Membership renewals are due on July 1st, but feel free to renew any time from now on.
If there are any issues with the new form, please let us know.
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.
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.
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
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
A huge thanks to Ryan and Fil at Little Bang for Hosting the April meeting. It was great to hear their story, poke around their brewery and of course drink their excellent beers. We’re looking forward to more visits and other exciting stuff!
Just a quick reminder that the April meeting, which is this Wednesday, will be at Little Bang Brewing. We will be kicking off at 7pm as usual with a bit of business, and any tastings that people bring along. There are no tastings lined up so far, so if you have something you want to share, please email us and bring it along.
Little Bang are at 8a Union Street Stepney, check the original post here for full directions.
See you there!
On a warm, peaceful autumn evening the South Australian Brewing Club descended upon the Clearview Lawn Bowls club with gallons of home crafted ales and mounds of slow cooked deliciousness.
What more could you ask for? 17 different ales and lagers were generously provided by various members to share. Each beer was lined up in a variety of porta-keg setups, (both large and small), with even stubbies, long-necks and growlers on offer. After a few issues with carbonation, the beers were pouring beautifully and members and guests started to get stuck in, each with their own souvenir SABC BeerBQ glassware. Beer of the night went to Lachlan, although it has to be said that it’s just as well there weren’t any polling scrutineers present. A lesson in inviting as many friends as you can find.
Now what is a brew club if you don’t do some brewing? Committee member Gary, who is an experienced brewer using the all-in-one Grainfather brewing system, brewed up a storm on the night. The recipe chosen was a Russian Imperial Stout. Gary used not only a brand new Grainfather generously loaned by the distributors imake, but also his own Grainfather, due to the large amount of grain required to brew such a big beer. The resultant 20L batch was offered as first prize in a raffle on the night, which was won by Glen Phillis.
Let’s not forget about the grub. A large selection of delicious proteins were provided to soak up all of that home brew. Kranskies, chicken wings, pulled pork, brisket and a selection of salads were devoured, demolished and digested by all. Thanks must be given to Jules, Darren, BJ, Clint and Simon for providing such an amazing banquet. Special thanks must go to BJ who cooked up the Kranskies and wings on the night using his own purpose built charcoal pit.
Overall the night was a great success and considering it was the first time the club has put on an event like this it went fantastically well.
A BIG thanks to all who came along and contributed on the night to make it such a success and we’ll see you at the next one.
Head over to the Competitions page, as the BotY leaderboard is now up. You never know, you could be on it!
The BeerBQ is just one sleep away. A large amount of meat is currently soaking up smoky goodness on it’s low and slow journey to your plate, and beer is chilling in anticipation of gushing out a tap into your souvenir glass. Phew, I need a cold shower…
Anyway, here’s another funky embedded google map to show you how to get there. Kick off is at 6pm, and don’t forget to bring a bit of spare change for the raffle. See you there!
Thanks Kieren for bringing to our attention a couple of errors in the announcement of the winter competition, which is here
Please note that under Strong Ales, category 23 should instead be category 22 (Strong American Ale)
And under Pale Ales, category 24B (Belgian Pale Ale) was omitted. It is definitely included in the competition.
The original post has been corrected
The April SABC meeting, which is at 7pm on Wednesday the 20th of April will not be at the Wheaty.
Little Bang Brewing have very kindly offered to host us this month, with a brewery tour, plenty of beers to try, and a good deal of witty banter no doubt. The usual starting time of 7pm remains, however if you’re a little early don’t worry. You can always chip in and do a spot of cleaning!
See below for directions: