Just in case you missed it, or don’t remember everything, here’s what happened at last week’s meeting.  If I missed anything that should be on the record, let me know.  This meeting marks 2 years for the club!  

• Introduction/misc
  • This meeting marks the club’s 2 year aniversary (5 of the original 8 were present).  We’ve come a long way from the first experiment involving just water and hops!
  • On that note, the club now has 62 members!
  • Attendance: 22 members showed up.  Not bad for the historically worst month of attendance.
• • Welcome to the new members.  Andrew explained our club benefits, purpose and priorities we established a while back:
    • 1. Experiments
    • 2. Club sponsored Home Brew Competition
    • 3. Marketing/Social Activities
    • 4. BJCP certification 
• Announcements/upcoming events/new business
  • Big River HBC – Status and Update (Tyler and Nick)
    • We have a good deal of sponsors in place, though none are directly financing the competition; most have donated prizes.  Depending on the number of total entries, we may raffle off the prizes at the Big River Brew Fest to help cover costs.
    • Online registration (nordeasthbc.brewcompetition.com) is open until Sep 1st.
    • Bottles need to be dropped off (NB or MS) by Sep 15th
    • Judging is Sep 28/29 – We still need people to register as stewards (do it on the .brewcompetition site)
• Group Experiments update (Nick)
  • SHE(Single Hop Experiment)recap:
    • No one had any complaints, all that showed up enjoyed the beer, the food and the beer.  While the “best” example was very subjective, for the second year in a row this experiment was a success.
  • Barrel Aging Project update at 3.5 months (Nick)
    • Several of the brewers got together to try the beer.  It was tart, but should be even better with time.  See the post here.
• Financial Report (Matt)
  • Still not much to report.  We do have some money in the coffer, but how the competition goes will determine where we are at.  There is a goal to keep $500 in the bank at all times (should something really cool come along…)
• Education Session
  • Ryan P – Electrical Brewing set up
  • Great presentation can be found here
• Break
• General Q & A
• How do we decide what to do with the sour barrel?
  • Need to have a committee meeting, majority vote.
  • Need to put it in our competition
  • Once we pull out some, we can add in new participants for the solera
  • “We need to get more barrels going, people!”  If we want a red wine barrel, we need to do it by the end of the harvest season – no more shipments after that.
  • We are going to get another barrel, Aaron has offered his place as a location to store it.  Bring ideas to the next meeting for what we want to put in it.
• What’s On Tap
• • Fundraiser with Chowgirls Catering and other folk- They want 15-20 galons of beer for a gala fundraiser for the 13th of September.  Several people have volunteered some beer.  Contact Nathan  G for more details if you want in.
  • Project/experiment ideas?
    • New Barrels – More discussion at the next meeting
    • Yeast Experiment – Not from the meeting, but Northgate is planning to give us some wort from a test batch to play with.
  • Future Education sessions
    • September – Andrew N – Mash Tuns
    • October – Andrew W- Water
• Meeting Days in the fall?
  • We will meet on the third Thursday of the month at the East Side Neighborhood Services building for the foreseeable future.  It accommodates our growing club quite well.  Next meeting we need to bring more beer!  We will plan on one meeting every few months to have a dedicated potluck.  Otherwise feel to bring chips/pretzels/etc.
• Club only competition: Winter edition:
  • Strong beers @ January meeting
  • Required to be >7% ABV
  • Must be brewed in 2012.
• Official Tasting Session
  • 16E. Belgian dark ale – Nathan G
  • 13F?  Chocolate IS – Collin R
  • 14A/B?  Chad O
  • 14C – Imperial Ale – Tyler B

Next meeting will be September 20th 7:00pm @ East Side Neighborhood Services building (1700 2nd St NE)