SABSOSA Wrap Up + Special Announcements

Lachlan Johnson

Beers were brewed, bottles were sorted and over 300 entries were judged in this years SABSOSA culminating in the awards presentation at the Wheaty this weekend.

Congratulations go to long time SABSOSA entrant Peter Bradshaw who won best brewer of show, Craig Blessing for best beer with his Rye Smile IPA and Bruce Token for highest score with his English Cider.

SABC members had great representation once again picking up best beer (Craig Blessing), Highly Commended Brewer (Lachlan Johnson) and 35 places out of the 60 available!

Results are now available via the entry portal: https://enter.sabsosa.com.au/. Score sheets will be available when they have all been scanned and uploaded (WIP).

BJ has put together this awesome video of footage taken during the judging weekend. It’s a great way to show your friends and fam what actually goes on at a homebrew competition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRd6FDddUPA

A huge thank you and round of applause for everyone who helped put another great competition together!

AABC Entries + shipping

Everyone who placed in SABSOSA is now ellegable to enter the national competition to be held in Melbourne on October 14th. Head to the AABC portal hosted by Vicbrew to add your entries: https://aabc2022.vicbrew.org/

SABC will once again be providing group shipping. Please bring you entries to the meeting Wednesday 21st at the Wheaty. If you cannot make it then, please reach out to the committee and make arrangements for an alternative drop off by Thursday 22nd. You also ship it directly yourself – details on the entry portal.

Wheaty / SABC / SABSOSA Collab

To celebrate 10 years of SABC, 25 years of SABSOSA and the long running support provided to both by the Wheaty, we’re very excited to announce we will be brewing a collaboration beer to be launched at the SABC Anniversary Dinner on December 10th! SABC and SABSOSA winners will be invited to join the brew day expected to be in October.

SABC took the opportunity at the SABSOSA presentation to thank Jade for all her support over the last 10 years with a gift of two exceptional Bruery beers.

Special thanks to Luke and Sam who pulled this gift together from their personal cellar.

SABSOSA rebrand

The SABSOSA committee has decided to rebrand the annual event with a name that better reflects its position as the top amateur brewing contest in SA. From 2023 the event will be called the Amateur Brewing Championship of South Australia.

Leons water talk is now available to members!

Brendan Macey

For those who missed the August water presentation by our resident water expert Leon Van Der Linden.
We have it available in the SABC shop for streaming and download. The slide deck PDF and audio extract is also available if you’re looking to just listen along and scan the slides.

Available free to all financial members!

Click below to access the content.

https://shop.sabrew.com/product/water-presentation-with-leon-august-2022-meeting/

Welcome to 10 years of SA Brewing Club

Mark Woods

Welcome to 10 years of SA Brewing Club

Dear Members past and present.

Firstly I would like to acknowledge the past efforts of Brad, Julien , Clinton and most recently Gus as Presidents of this club. They collectively have built a strong club with great values of Companionship, Knowledge, Participation and Inclusion.

I can already see these values in the current committee who have really blown me away with their talents and enthusiasm. We should all look forward to a full year of activities.

Here are a few of these activities to look forward too

– SABSOSA is just around the corner, put your entries in and if you can help on the days we can always do with extra hands
– Guest speakers have been organised for October and November, September will allow us to recap on SABSOSA and prepare for ANHC.
– Summer comp has an ANZAC theme
– Group Challenge has already been announced, details and ingredients will be released at the September meetings, but get your group together. See Facebook for details
– 10 year Dinner, details available shortly.. Just keep Dec 10 available
– BeerBQ and Winter Comp are committed too
– Luke Beard is being very tight lipped at the moment in regards to the barrel project .. but its WOW!

I hope everyone gets something special out of the club, please let me know if you have any ideas new or areas of improvement.

Cheers

Gary Waters
0417 893 321

SABSOSA and AABC/ANHC

Lachlan Johnson

SABSOSA Reminder

There is just over a month to go before this years SABSOSA competition, so you have time to get a few more brews down. We’ll announce when the entry portal opens in the next week or two. In the mean time you can review this years style guidelines by visiting https://www.sabsosa.com.au/

Australian Amateur Brewing Championship

As always, the top 3 entries in each SABSOSA category will qualify to enter the national competition http://www.aabc.org.au/. This year judging will take place in Melbourne and it will coincide with the national homebrew conference (ANHC). Not only do we benefit from a relatively short journey for our SA entries to travel, the winners will be announced at an in-person awards ceremony. This is the ANHC you want to win at!

Australian National Homebrew Conference

ANHC is back! After skipping 2020 due to covid, the event will return to Melbourne on the 14/15 October. For those unfamiliar, ANHC is a bi-annual conference for homebrewers that sees international guests and expert locals deliver a series of sessions over two days. The conference will culminate in the infamous Club Night where homebrew clubs from around Australia setup themed bars, don ridiculous costumes and pour some of the best homebrew their club has to offer.

SABC has won prizes for best bar/theme two conferences in a row and we want to put on a great showing again! We’ll be calling out for all members attending ANHC to help put on another great night.

For ANHC tickets: https://anhc.com.au/

10th SABC Committee

Lachlan Johnson

At last months annual general meeting members elected the 10th SABC Committee. This means 2022 marks the clubs 10th anniversary! Your new committee is meeting for the first time in early August and one of their top priorities will be organizing a special 10th Anniversary celebration to be held later this year.

EOI for Anniversary brews

The committee would love to hear from anyone who would be interested in helping brew for the 10th Anniversary event. If you have capacity to brew large batches (~40L) and would like to help, please contact us via info@sabrew.com or reach out to a committee member directly.

2022/23 Committee

Office Bearers

  • President: Gary Waters
  • Vice President: Nick McAuley
  • Treasurer: Lachlan Johnson
  • Secretary: Brendon Macey

General Members

  • Clint Fisher (Competitions)
  • Julien Gibson (IT operations)
  • Mark Woods (Socials)
  • Gerard Flynn
  • Russel Saint
  • Luke Beard
  • Nick Hauschild
  • Jason Armfield

Nomination for Life Membership for Julien Gibson

Gus K

I was pleased to nominate Julien Gibson for SA Brewing Club Life Membership at the AGM last week. It was seconded and passed without opposition. As he was unable to be there, the award will be presented at a meeting in the future.

There’s a theory of clubs and groups that says, for every 100 people in a group, nine will be active and one person will be super-active. Julien Gibson is SABC’s one. He has been a key member of our club since its inception and puts a lot in to make it run well. 

He oversaw the club’s transformation from a group of homebrewers to an incorporated club.

Introduced a modern cashless and online membership system — said to be one of the first brewing clubs to offer it. This reduces the workload for everyone else from the treasure down.

Life MembershipWe have a shop to manage and buy club merchandise.

Our website is never down and is an important feature in presenting what the club is to the interested outsider.

He has set up and managed the competition portal for all our club competitions and SABSOSA is also said to be the first in Australia to do so.

He is the club’s public officer to keep us legal and within the associations’ laws.

He’s won many Best Beer of Show awards and places in competitions.

He was a club president and has been on the club committee for all of its existence.

His contribution to the ideas and progress of the club is highly valued.

President’s Report, 2022

Gus K

Another year is done — a year that wasn’t without Covid disruptions but we managed to work around it.
The club finally managed to host its premier event, BeerBQ, in its old format in June. All brewers bring whatever creation they want to share, food cooked and provided by the club and everyone digs in. The new venue at the ETKG Tennis Club was great and my only regret was I couldn’t be there (bloody Covid).

Our alternative events were also well attended and enjoyed — like our British cask beers night at the Hilton Hotel.
In an attempt to work around the restrictions on gatherings, we introduced the team’s brew-off. The first was the supermarket challenge that resulted in some interesting and very drinkable creations.

The second was Brew The Burra — a brewing challenge to replicate Lady Burra beers. Something closer to known styles than the supermarket beers.

While fun, the team events allowed newer members to connect with others often in their local area and in turn strengthened connections within the membership.

Again we successfully ran SABSOSA, won by our own Brendan Macey, and two club competitions.
Throughout the year members had some social catch-ups at local venues including Shapeshifter, Kickback and Brightstar.

All of this including regular monthly meetings couldn’t be organised by a single person and I thank the committee for all their work, even with life’s commitments, serious illness, Covid and weddings.

I won’t be standing again for president this time. I’ve enjoyed it a lot and I feel it’s time to let someone else have a go and new committee members to share their fresh ideas.

I’ll still be a part of the club of course.
Thank you.
Gus

Meeting Wednesday at the Wheaty and AGM

Gus K

It’s been a big few weeks in beer with our Winter competition and Beer n BBQ on the weekend. We hope you can join us for the regular monthly meeting at the Wheaty on Wednesday from 7pm.

Our AGM meeting special guest is a club founding member, president, brewer and owner of Left Barrel Brewing, Brad Bown. He is also now 2022 Champion Beer of Show brewer with his Bob’s Ya Dunkle judged at the SA Beer Awards last week. He always has a lot to say about brewing and going pro.

We’ll also hold our AGM and to begin the celebration of the club’s 10th anniversary, the club will put on some special treats for everyone attending.

The AGM agenda is here (but will probably be updated on the night), including nominations received so far, and the minutes of the 2021 AGM here. You can still nominate for a committee place now via email or on the night at the meeting. As we wrote before, joining the committee is rewarding, fun and helps steer the best brewing club in Australia in the right direction.

We’ll also be presenting the medals to the winners of the Winter Competition.

It’s mid-winter and you know what that means!

Gus K

Greetings. It’s that time of SABC’s year for two things — the winter competition and its AGM.

Monthly meeting, July 20. 7pm at the Wheaty

We’re going to have a special guest speaker in July and to begin to celebrate the club’s 10th anniversary, we’re putting on some special treats for meeting attendees.  

As notified last week, the club’s AGM will be held at 7pm. Official business doesn’t take long. The main task is to present the club’s finances and elect the committee for 2022/23. This is where you come in.

The club invites members to nominate for committee positions to help the club grow, develop ideas, events and projects and make it a friendly club to be part of. 

The club has a committee meets every two months and keeps in touch via the chat app Slack to organise things (as well as banter and talk beer and brewing). It’s not all business.

The time commitment is not onerous. We acknowledge that everyone has commitments, work, family, travel and life’s ups and downs. The bi-monthly committee meeting is over dinner and beers in the city. It’s a fun catchup and an excuse to get out for a meal and try a new venue.

While they are four required roles of president, VP, secretary and treasurer (all open for nomination), there are five general committee members positions. There is scope for you to have a dedicated task if you are interested in comms, social media, managing the t-shirts and caps, planning events or competitions and SABSOSA. Anything you dream up.

The committee is a strong group that is mostly going to renominate but also has a turnover. It always needs new blood. Please think about getting involved. We promise it’s a satisfying experience.

Nominations (self or by someone else) are open by email at info@sabrew.com (by Thursday, July 7) or on the night from the room. Your club needs you.

Cheers,

Gus – pres; Clinton, VP; Lachlan, treasurer; Brendan, secretary and general committee members; Julien, Nick M, Nick H, Leon and Gary. 

Winter competition now open for entries 

The entry portal for the Winter Competition is now open. https://comps.sabrew.com/ Log in, or create a new profile if you’ve never entered a club competition before, and enter your beers. 

The theme is dark and stormy so the categories are limited to the darker range of the EBC pallette. 

Judging will be on Sunday, July 10, at the East Torrens Kensington Gardens Tennis Club with bottle drop from 11 and judging to get going from 12pm. Winners will be announced on the day. We welcome everyone to come along for a beer and celebrate the winners. The announcement is expected after 3pm.

As always, we need judges. Drop your beer and stay to judge. If you’ve never judged before, have a go. It’s fun and you’ll learn a lot from other experienced and BJCP-accredited judges. Don’t worry, you’ll be placed at a different table to your beer.

Entry is $5. Entries close on 07/07/2022 at 11pm. Enter and print labels by then.

Is your SABC membership up to date?

Go to https://sabrew.com/join-sabc/

Check your membership by going here and log in, navigate to My Membership and then Member and Manage to see the expiry date. Alternatively, look at Membership/orders to see the most recent payment.

Tips on joining, renewing or checking here.

Meeting this Wednesday

Gus K

Our monthly meeting is on this Wednesday night from 7pm at the Wheaty. Bring a beer to share and swap. If you would like to present your beer to the meeting and talk a bit about it, bring two or three long necks along.

Thank you to everyone who helped cook, set up and make our BeerBQ event on June 4 a great success. Despite the poor weather, there was around sixty in attendance enjoying more than thirty home brewed beers and awesome low and slow BBQ and smoked salmon.

The Winter competition is still on schedule for Sunday, July 10. We’ll have more info at this week’s meeting and online. We always need judges so make sure you block out that Sunday in your calendar.