Big Brew/May 2014 Meeting – Notes

General Business
Our sincere condolences to James on the death of his mother Saturday morning. Our thoughts are with you, James & Joan
Thanks to Harry for stepping up at the last minute to host the meeting.
We didn’t have a big turnout – only 25 members (and two kids) throughout the course of the day – but it was a beautiful day and those that attended had a great time!
Bryan and John M. both brewed (ESB & Americanized Alt, respectively), both using the brew-in-a-bag method.
We had great fun doing the FastRack challenge. Surprisingly, only one bottle was broken (sorry about that!). Unexpectedly, after drinking a few more beers, both Justin and Dan improved their times. Our three best times were: Dan – 13.43 seconds; Justin – 13.99 seconds; Kevin – 14.23 seconds. I’ll send the video footage of the three best times to see if they get invited to the AHA NHC for the big competition…
Treasurer’s report: $1059.32 (after paying for the stainless steel cups); 60 members
Future meetings:
  • June – Kim and Lizbeth (Belgian Golden Strong ale competition)
  • July 19th (tentatively) – Doug and Kel M. (Oatmeal Stout presentation)
  • August – Dan & Terri
  • September – ?? Who wants to volunteer??
Discussions
  • Virginia Beer & Wine Festival – May 10th
    • Two shifts: 11:30 – 3; 2:30 – 6
    • You can sample before/after your shift (unknown whether there will be restrictions)
    • We (SCBG) will have a tent to talk about homebrewing and pass out flyers for Teach a Friend. If you are volunteering or attending, stop by the club tent in your free time to give me an occasional break (and make it look like we have people in the club!)
    • Who wants to volunteer to pour? Contact me directly (shyzaboy@yahoo.com)
    • We need more Teach A Friend flyers to hand out. Maybe a poster. Anyone with access to a good printer?
  • Teach A Friend, Spring Edition – May 17th
    • So far, we have three brewers committed to brewing: Harry, Mike & Alex
    • We will go pot-luck (like a typical meeting) instead of catering it like last November (unless Josh wants to bring his smoker again – we’ll ask)
    • We will try to contact a food truck. Anyone know some of these guys personally?
  • Stainless steel pint cups
    • Available to pre-pay for $9 each. Once they arrive, the cost is $10 each. To prepay, contact Carrie directly (bluenymphbeersnobs@gmail.com).
    • They will be printed and shipped on (or about) May 12th. It is possible that they will be here for Teach a Friend (but probably unlikely – they are shipping from California).
    • We ordered 90 pint cups, and 31 have been prepaid. If no more are prepaid, we will need to sell 36 at $10 to break even. We will sell them to the general public once the club has an opportunity to purchase them.
  • BrewBug – sharing between members & long term plans
    • Bryan didn’t bring it to Big Brew. Hopefully he has it working on his Big Brew batch. Who wants to try it next?
  • T-shirts
    • Chris B. & Kathy volunteered to help Carrie come up with a design or two, find a supplier, and collect orders
    • We could probably use another volunteer for the creative design part of the process if anyone is interested!
    • Requests were made for a “girly” style and a long sleeved version
  • Experiment brew @ Chaos – experiment parameters and methodology
    • Dan volunteered to write up a proposal for the AHA Research and Education Fund
    • We need some input on our “research” objectives. Any suggestions are welcome.
  • Local brewery of the year
    • We will investigate using surveymonkey for the voting.
  • Open floor (local beer/brewery updates, brewing tips/questions, etc.)
    • Bryan showed his weldless thermowell for monitoring the temperature at the output of his plate chiller.
    • Other beer related events:
      • Beertopia: June 7th
      • Floyd Fest: July 23rd-27th
      • Microfestivus: August 9th. Harry will coordinate volunteers and judging as in the past.
Break
  • Silent auction to “win” two FastRack drying racks and a drip tray
    • We actually had two sets (each with two drying racks and one drip tray)
    • The silent auction winners were: Kevin and Jim D., adding $41 to the club coffers (minus the $15 we paid to ship the FastRack sets, netting a total of $26).
  • 50/50 raffle was won by John M. A total of $54 was collected, giving both the club and John $27.
  • I believe that the Kentucky Derby raffle was won by Joan (in absentia). I dunno how much was collected, but I remember a vocal crowd watching it…