Club Meeting Notes - January 17th, 2019

[WillL]

First meeting of 2019! A BIG THANK YOU to Towne Park for hosting us and Andy (head brewer) for giving us a tour of the facility. Really awesome to get a behind the scenes look at how their brewery operates.

17 in attendance and our first ever meeting at Towne Park. The location is great and the room they gave us was fantastic. Looking forward to having more meetings there!

Holiday Party
The holiday party had a wonderful turnout with probably the most people we've ever had at a holiday party. A BIG THANK YOU to Derrin and Byrd for hosting! Even the rain couldn't stop us from having a good time. Congrats to Greg Guillen on winning the tasting competition!

2018 Brewcommune Awards Winners
BrewBrawl Winners
1st: MrAverageGuy
2nd: Mosaic1492
3rd: BrewMasterBrad

Most BJCP Medals
Reid

Most Batches Brewed
TheAirtry1 with 30 batches!

Brewcommune Homebrewer of the Year 2018
Megastout

Congrats to all the winners!

2019 Officers
President: CurtisG
Vice President: indianajns
Treasurer: Mosaic1492
Secretary: WillL
Style & Competition Coordinator: JustinH

Thank you to Tim and Brian for all the hard work you did in 2018!

Club Dues
New year, new dues. Membership is only $20 a year and offers a wide variety of benefits such as:
-Access to members only events and forums
-Access to the year end holiday party
-The ability to attend the Socal Homebrew Fest and pour and enjoy homebrew as a part of Brewcommune
-The ability to participate in club activities such as club barrel brews and brew days.
Please see this page for membership: http://www.brewcommune.com/join-the-club.html

2019 SCHF
Dates of the fest are May 3-4, 2019 (Fri-Sat). This is a fantastic event and is always bragged about being one of the best events you can attend every year. We have a post up with more info HERE.
Bob brought up a good discussion about having a board above our booth so people can see what beers we have to offer from the line. It was discussed about potentially moving our banner up a little bit and having a PVC layout underneath with all the beers available. Each person could make their own paper to showcase their beer or maybe we will have a standardized format for everyone to use. Lots of good discussion on this.

NHC 2019
Homebrew Con will be held in Rhode Island from June 27-29.
Important Dates
Competition application open enrollment: January 22 - January 29
Beer registration & payment: February 1 - February 14
First Round shipping window: March 1 - March 14
First Round judging: March 22 - April 14

Greg Hinton brought an awesome pamphlet showing the 2018 final round breakdowns with each style's % of total entries. We are hoping to push for the Gambrinus club award, which is given to the club having the most final round points per the number of entries from the club. To be eligible, clubs must have a minimum of 5 club members entering the first round, and a total of 2 club members advancing to and at least one entry placing in the final round of the competition.

Another cool competition that was discussed is the Boil Rumble. Each club sends a beer and the top 6 homebrew clubs will be asked to brew in Melvin's Brewing San Diego location. If you plan on wanting to represent us, please bring your beer to the February off-month meeting, because beers must arrive between March 1 - March 5.

OCMU vs. Brewcommune
There is a post up HERE where we want to get feedback on what the next style should be.

Competitions
Check out our "Compete" section for updates on what competitions are coming up!

Beers Brought
theairtry1 - Pale Ale featuring Citrus, Simcoe, and Denali
Mosaic1492 - Sweet Cream Ale with 1/4 lb of lactose and some vanilla. Tasted like Cali Creamin'.
Megastout - Helles Bock with Pilsner, Vienna, Munich, and aromatic malt. Step mash with White Labs bock yeast. Finished a little high.
ctninh - Maple BBL Imperial Porter featuring barrel aged maple syrup. 1.016 final gravity and 11% ABV. Aged in a used buffalo trace barrel.
ctninh - Smoked RIS
khilt360 & IP Abe - Saison

Style Presentation
Category 13. Brown British Beer
13 B. British Brown Ale

Appearance
Dark amber to dark reddish-brown color. Clear. Low to moderate off-white to light tan head.

Aroma
Light, sweet malt aroma with toffee, nutty, or light chocolate notes, and a light to heavy caramel quality. A light but appealing floral or earthy hop aroma may also be noticed. A light fruity aroma may be evident, but should not dominate.

Flavor
Gentle to moderate malt sweetness, with a light to heavy caramel character and a medium to dry finish. Malt may also have a nutty, toasted, biscuity, toffee, or light chocolate character. Medium to medium-low bitterness. Malt-hop balance ranges from even to malt-focused; hop flavor low to none (floral or earthy qualities). Low to moderate fruity esters can be present.

Mouthfeel
Medium-light to medium body. Medium to medium-high carbonation.

Vital Statistics
IBUs: 20 – 30
SRM: 12 – 22
ABV: 4.2 – 5.4%

History
Brown ale has a long history in Great Britain, although several different types of products used that name at various times. Modern brown ale is a 20th century creation. A wide range of gravities were brewed, but modern brown ales are generally of the stronger (by current UK standards) interpretation. This style is based on the modern stronger British brown ales, not historical versions or the sweeter London Brown Ale. A classic example, Maxim Double Maxim, was brewed around 1900 and was brewed for nearly 100 years before they went out of business. Started again in 2000 and still making it today.

Commercial Examples Shared
Towne Park Brown (American Brown, but was donated!)
Newcastle - Pre-Lagunitas, and tasted like cardboard.
Hobgoblin English Ruby Beer
Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale

[indianajns]

Fantastic, concise, and complete notes as always Will!

[Megastout]

Great job Will!