July’s First Friday Tomorrow! :)

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Hey PG!

 

Sorry for the late reminder, I’m traveling again, this time in New England, and I haven’t had a moment to sit down and write this up!

Tomorrow, Friday July 1st is First Friday at King’s Harbor Brewing Company’s waterfront tasting room. Located on the Redondo Beach Pier, their beer is super fresh (the brewery itself is just 2 miles away).  Growlers, 22oz bottles, and crowlers (32oz can growlers) are available, plus their limited Radler – South Bayern Hefeweizen blended with Lemon Soda.

As an added bonus, Naja’s is literally a crawl away, if you’re feeling adventurous enough to attack their tap list too. 😉

This event starts right around 7:30pm on Friday and goes until closing time. The Redondo Beach Pier offers great parking at that time of night and due to the holiday coming up, I expect both K.H.B.C. and Naja’s to be a little more accessible than usual.

As usual, I recommend everybody find a designated driver or über down there. Especially due to the holiday weekend!

Have fun and party safe.  See you all soon.

_Michael

1jul7:00 pmFirst Friday - King Harbor Brewing Company7:00 pm King Harbor Brewing Company Waterfront Tasting Room

 

Club Meeting and other event dates!!

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Sorry for the late announcing of this months club meeting which will be held at the:
Culver City Homebrew Supply store this week June 16th at 7:30pm.
4234 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City, CA 90230. Style of the Month is All Lagers for homebrewers and International and Czech Lagers for the commercial tasting. There will be a raffle, food, and sign up sheets for next month’s Summer Party for volunteers, beer, and food.
Also if you still need to brew beer for the Summer Party, all club nights held at the Culver City Homebrew Supply shop is double discount nights, So bring you recipes and buy some homebrew supplies!!

We have some more events coming up in July, so set your calendars!

July 1st for First Friday will be south of us at King Harbor’s Waterfront Tasting Room, in the Redondo Pier area! really close to Naja’s Place. Go down via Uber or Lyft and check them out, have a few of their beers and if you need more then head next door. Waterfront Location: 132 International Boardwalk, Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(Note: Do not mistake the location with King Harbor’s actual brewery located at 2907 182nd street Redondo Beach, California 90278)

July 10th for Sunday Funday in the Arts Disttrict, Downtown LA!! This should be a real fun bar crawl in a cool part of downtown with a lot of great beer bars, food, and Breweries. Plus the highlight event where we get a personal tour from club friend Devon Randall, aka Head Brewer at the Arts District Brewery.
The Plan: So the Expo Line just opened up all the way the Santa Monica, so this is a great excuse to use it. The train’s will take you all the way to the Arts District area. Plan on getting on the trains about 10am-10:30am to meet at our first location: Wurstkuche at 11am, where you can get the best sausages in town and some awesome German and Belgian beers. Then about 12:30pm-1pm we head across the street to the Arts District Brewery, where we will meet Devon, drink her beer’s, eat more food, and set off on a personal tour of the brewing facilities. After a good while of hanging at the brewery, the next stop we leave it up to the group, or the individuals. I might head to 82 the Arcade Bar, or Mumford Brewing a few block away. There is also Angel City Brewing and Eat Drink Americano real close too. A bit farther you can cab it to Iron Triangle Brewing, Little Bear, or Villains Tavern. Check out all the links I added to each location, I will announce at the June club meeting and post more about the schedule closer to the date of the event.

July 23rd for Pacific Gravity’s Summer Party!! Definitely set your calendars for this, the biggest event of the year! We will have sign up sheet at this thursday’s club meeting for volunteers, beers, and pot luck food. We will also be looking for some special volunteers to help out Ian with the food duties as well, the week before, during set up, and during the summer party day since he is not as mobile as usual. We will make the official announcements at the meeting this Thursday at the Culver City Homebrew Supply shop.

 

http://pacificgravity.com/2016/06/club-meeting-event-dates/

Pro/Am opportunity for a Pacific Gravity member!!!

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Hello Pacific Gravity members,

We have been given the possible opportunity to have one of our members that have won a bjcp certified homebrew comp placing 1st-3rd since Jan. 1st of 2015 the chance to be hand picked for a Pro/Am from an LA brewery in town. This means they will pick a beer out of a list we give them and if picked you will be able to brew that beer with the brewery and they will possibly turn it in as their Pro/Am entry into GABF this year.

-To qualify for this Pro/Am you must be a current dues paying Pacific Gravity Member, if not you will not make the list turned into the brewery for the Pro/Am. So pay your dues!!!

-You mush have won 1st-3rd place in an AHA and BJCP sanctioned homebrew comp since Jan. 1st 2015.

-You must be a member of the AHA, by the time the brewery turns in the beer to the Great American Beer Festival Pro/Am Comp (June 2016) and a current member of the AHA by the time of the judging of that comp (Oct 2016).

I have emailed the current PG members from the list we have of winner of homebrew comps the club keeps track of. If you did not get an email please email me ASAP and let me know of your winning beers and provide me with this info:
(Date won/Comp/Placing/Style/ABV/Special ingredients and methods)

I will be turning a list into the brewery by the end of the week hopefully, so contact me now with your winning beer info if you want to make the Pro/Am list.
President at Pacific Gravity dot com

Also let me know if any of your beers have won a Pro/am in the past or you are currently already participating in a pro/am this year.

 

May Club Meeting Recap!!

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First off I wanted to Thank everyone again who brought their generous donations for our May club meeting charity drive. We collected a ton of stuff for our friends at OPCC.org and it showed with all the extra pink tickets people where given for the raffle because they donated. Which made the raffle more fun because people where yelling out pink or blue at every prize, wishing for there color to come up. We gave away a lot of great stuff that night too during the raffle because of it: hops and brew in a bag- bag, hop rhizome clipping and even a whole cap, shirts, beers, glasses, Firestone Walker glasses wear, and a few bundle pack of Wyeast and Firestone Walker swag, and a lot more.

Thank you to Michael Musgrave for stepping in and manning the grill he and Terry brought, cooking us a bunch of tasty burgers and large dogs with all the fixings chopped up by Dean and Terry. Ian I hope your recovering nicely!? Michael M. also bought our alternative fermentable commercial beers and Terry helped serve and present them.

We had Simon in from Phantom Carriage Brewery, doing the Barrel Project sours. Where a few of the PG homebrewers brought in sour beers and dregs to be added to wort Simon brought and will soon be added to a PG/PH barrel project soon!

We had some great educational stuff going on as well. Michael Patterson brought us two more off flavors to try: D.M.S. and Indole “BarnYard”. I personally finally had one I could not stomach with the indole off flavor, not the nice Brett barnyard flavors you would think. Michael P. also brought his own test of different added levels of grapefruit flavoring to beers, from low to high. Then, Greg Foster brought us another mind blowing triple triangle Brulosophy.com test to test on us! This time he did a 5 day traditional dry hop in wort vs. a long term hop in cold kegs of carbonated beer. The cold hop was surprisingly more aromatic.

We had more Homebrew then we could drink too! A bunch of kegs and some great examples of Alternative Fermentable Beers on hand. The Best Beer of the Night winner for the style of the month was our resident master brewer Carl and his Belgian Blond!!

We also inducted a few new roles to the Board: “Charity and Special Events” with the roll being filled by Mimi Bardet, and then “Educational Coordinator” with the roll being filled by Michael Patterson. I just wanted to thank you both for your contributions in both those roles so far this whole year.

Also a big thank you to Culver City Homebrew Supply for hosting the meeting at their shop, it looked like a bunch of club members where taking advantage of their extra club meeting member discount we implemented for this year. 10% off your purchase at the shop on club meeting nights hosted at the shop, instead of the usual 5% off.

May was one of those special club meeting months, and everyone had such a great time. Photos are on Facebook below, if you’re not seeing the gallery in email, click here. Thank you all for coming and see you all soon!

Lloyd

June 3rd, First Friday @ Louie’s of Mar Vista

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Hey PG!

I hope this reminder finds you all well, both in life and brew schedule. 🙂

Friday is our June First Friday at Louie’s of Mar Vista, which should be a very chill food and beers event. If you’re not familiar with Louie’s, it’s a well designed restaurant with a beautiful bar and dining room. They have an area out back that’s covered, but open to the outside air with a few tables. The food is excellent, ASAP style (As Southern As Possible), so I highly recommend you bring your appetite and a date. 😉 Here’s a link to the menu to get your appetite going: http://louiesofmarvista.com/?page_id=344

Beer and drink-wise they’re stocked pretty well, including a few locals like Monkish and Smog City the last time I was there and a whole bunch of specialty cocktails, enhanced by the fresh honey harvested from their bee boxes on the roof.

Tania and I will be there right around 7pm but you’re welcome to come by anytime. Looking forward to seeing you there!

_Michael

3jun7:00 pmFirst Friday - Louie's of Mar Vista7:00 pm Louie's of Mar Vista

May Big Brew Recap

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Taking a break from a work conference here in Minneapolis and I can’t help but wonder how the little batch of all-grain Belgian Tripel I brewed at our May 15th Big Brew is doing at this moment. I’m sure it’s almost completely done fermenting and I’d bet it has developed some nice flavors to sip and enjoy. In about a week I’ll take a sample and decide if it’s ready to bottle. I’m looking forward to packaging it up into some Belgian style 750’s; cork and cage seems only suitable for the style. 😀

My thoughts wander to the 6 other brews that were born on the same day and how they’re doing. If you didn’t make it out, you missed a very fun event. Since it was hosted by Carl, I offered him first dibs at writing a recap, and the piece of prose he wrote captured the day perfectly…

 It has been quite a while since Pacific Gravity has done a traditional Big Brew event and the natives were getting restless! So much so that Neil Saund and John Hilliard couldn’t wait for the official 10:00 AM start time. Both were nearing strike temperature as the hour rolled around. Especially impressive, given that Neil lugged in not only his brew setup, but also a dozen gallons of distilled water to make surehis Czech Pilsner had the correct mineral balance. Being happy with the native sulfate to accentuate the Citra hops, John went right to work with some carbon-filtered LA aqueduct to brew his Pale Ale. In the meantime, Carl went to work making sure both Shark and Mermaid were ready to slake the thirst of both brewers and spectators alike. 

 Much to the delight of the early-birds, coffee and donuts arrived at 10AM thanks to the efforts of Michael and Tania Musgrave, our Veep and Secretary. They were eagerly wolfed down, maybe with a bit of coffee porter to ease us into the late-morning swing. 

 With a spark and a roar, Carl fired up the amazing thermosiphon reboiler to brew his commemorative 25th Brewing Anniversary Belgian Quad. Shortly thereafter, Brian Holter stepped up to the plate to demonstrate the “brew-in-a-bag” technique. Not really sure how much heat the nylon bag could take, Brian eased into the kettle gently until he was sure his mash temperature had been met. 

 Michael then kicked off his mash making a mini Belgian Tripel. He was followed by Tim Bardet with an extract version of American Hoppy Brown. Last, but definitely not least, Ian Fraser showed up with a big jar of honey that would make Winnie-the-Pooh happy and set about making mead. 

 In the meantime, more and more spectators arrived and were amazed at the size and diversity of brewing set-ups and mashing techniques. Brewers carefully explained the enzyme action needed to convert starch into sugar, hopefully prompting them to jump into the all-grain fray. Additional beer donators were also arriving and hooking up the fruits of their earlier brewing triumphs. The shark and mermaid were quickly at capacity, and reinforcements were “jockeyed’ into action. To fill out the field, many bottles of exotic fermentation, both commercial and homebrew showed up as well. 

 All this brewing had everyone working up an appetite, so President Lloyd stepped into action at the barbeque grill. Aided by the adept slicing skills of Tania, a bevy of burgers and dogs soon hit the lunch plates with all the accoutrements.

 It has been said the last shall be first, and Ian proved that to be true with a quick completion of his mead. Not only that, but he took the record for starting gravity for the day, at about 1.130! The rest of the brew crews finished up roughly in reverse order of their starting times. Carl’s hop garden, artichokes and tomatoes got plenty of water that day as the seven batches of wort approached their pitching temperature. 

 As the sun was setting in the west, all the brewers commented that the brew session went well. The various yeast starters got their reward next, as they got down to the real business of converting maltose into ethanol. All in all, it was a great day as Pacific Gravity got back to one of their treasured traditions. Despite the quantities of homebrew that were consumed, we finished off the day with more beer than we started with! Talk about a tradition worth keeping!

– Carl 

For those on Facebook, below are photos from the event care of President Lloyd and Carl. Hope to see you at the next Big Brew or any of the other fun PG events we have coming up.

_Michael

 

Strand’s invited PG along for their “Beach Bar Bike Ride” Pub Crawl

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Strand Brewers Club has invited Pacific Gravity along on their Beach Bar Bike Ride pub crawl, June 4th, in the south bay area. With in their club they are calling it “AAAA” to differentiate between the usual bike ride bar crawl they will also have at the end of the summer “BBBB”. There will also be a cell phone designated person that day to call and catch up with the group or if you get left behind to find where they have gone.

So if you want to go on a super fun bar crawl with bikes and awesome people in the South Bay Area, email Jay to sign up, he is Strands Activities Director,  JayAnkeney at mac dot com.
Here is the tentative schedule and the list of locations so far, things could change a bit so get Jay your email address asap!

10:00am- Meet at Sharkeez on Hermosa Pier for breakfast. We’ll have some tables reserved on the patio, but I need a head count to make this happen. Sharkeez weekend breakfasts are a great deal and include endless Mimosas. Have you ever tried their weekend breakfasst specials? They are really something. Cheap, delicious and include endless Mimosas for an hour.

11:00am- Hot’s Kitchen in Hermosa, Incredible selection of craft brews, and they promise something special for us.

12:30pm- Brew Co. on Manhattan Pier, An even more incredibler selection of craft brews

2:00pm- Silvio’s on Hermosa Pier, Great beer, great food.

3:30pm- Naja’s Place on Redondo Pier, or maybe Select Beer in the Riviera Village.

Strand is really looking forward to this event and they hope some PG members will make it with them!

Remember!!! to get your items for Charity tonight, for tomorrows Club Meeting.

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Remember to go out and get your items for our May club meeting Charity Drive, which is tomorrow @ Culver City Homebrew Supply Store!  Located at: 4234 Sepulveda Blvd Culver City, CA 90230, where we will be serving us some classic BBQ (Burgers and Dogs) at the meeting tomorrow night cooked by Chef Ian.

So for Charity, run to Costco, Target, Ralphs, Vons, CVS, Wallgreens, Smart and Final, Ross Dress for Less, Fallas Discount Clothing store, or anywhere you think you can get a great deal on items individually or in bulk. Items like a large pack of sock, double packs of toothpaste and toothbrushes, or those large packs of Dove Soap Bars. Check out the list below, you are also welcome to clean out your closets like we did for the winter party Charity drive, and if you want to donate money Mimi will use it to go out and buy the need products on OPCC.net list of items they can use the most.

Charity Donations are listed below and to entice you or bribe you to donate for this great cause we will be giving out EXTRA RAFFLE TICKETS TO THOSE THAT DONATE!!!! the more you donate the more tickets we’ll give you, but a pack of socks or 2-3 toiletries will be worth about 5 extra tickets in the raffle. Items in this weeks Raffle: Beers, Glasses, Hops and Hop bag, Beer Boxes and Bottles, Fresh Cascade Hop Rhizomes, Wyeast Merchandise Pack, and Firestone Walker Merchandise Pack and glass wear just for some example!!! Regular for purchase Raffles tickets will be for sale too as normal.

PG MAY 2016 – Charity Drive
We are collecting items that will be donated to Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC).
OPCC is an independent, community-supported organization in which staff, volunteers and clients work with mutual respect to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect and discrimination.  OPCC empowers people to rebuild their lives. (https://www.opcc.net)
In-kind or non-monetary contributions
These donations are valuable resources that we then distribute to our clients. In keeping with our mission of treating all clients with respect and dignity, we ask that all donations should be clean and, if used, in good condition.
Below is a list of items that we can always use..

Clothing

  • Sweat socks – for men, women and children
  • Sweat shirts and pants for adults – all sizes especially larger sizes
  • Sneakers – men’s & women’s most needed
  • Shower shoes/thongs
  • Rain ponchos for adults & children
  • New underwear – men’s, women and children
  • Flannel and long sleeve shirts for adults

Tolietries / Hygiene Items
Travel or regular sizes of the following:

  • toothpaste
    • toothbrush
    • deodorant
    • shampoo
    • disposable razors
    • bar soap
    • hand & body lotion

Also, remembers we are starting a “Pacific Gravity/Phantom Carriage Club Barrel Project” during this meeting as well. Here is the info below:

At this month’s meeting, Simon from Phantom Carriage will be bringing a few jars of sterile wort to inoculate with various wild yeast and bacteria from club members.  These inoculated jars will be used to create a Pacific Gravity “club barrel” of blonde/lambic-style beer at the brewery, which will be packaged at a later date.  
Homebrewed/house cultures are preferred, but all samples are welcome, so feel free to bring along commercial varieties of wild fermented beer to share and pitch bottle dregs.  Also feel free to bring yeast/bacterial slurries for pitching in addition to bottle dregs (they don’t have to be carbonated in a bottle).  We will vote on our favorite homebrewed contribution, which will win some Phantom Carriage swag!

So basically, bring your homebrewed bottles of sour beer, or collect in a bottle or jar some of your slurry and sour beer for tasting from a carboy, or bring your favorite live culture commercial sour beers to the meeting for sampling, judging, and sour dreg pitching. Then on a later date and time we will be throwing it into a barrel at the brewery!

Also bring your “Alternative Fermentable” homebrewed beers. AKA anything with added alternative grains like “rye, oats, buckwheat, spelt, millet, sorghum, rice, etc” and alternative sugars like “honey, brown sugar, invert sugar, molasses, treacle, maple syrup, sorghum, etc.” for your chance to win a $25 gift Certificate to the Culver City Homebrew Supply store. BJCP Style Guide Here, page 66. As well there will be the “Alternative Fermentable” commercial tasting presented by Michael Muskgrave and some off flavor and other educational tastings presented by Michael Patterson.

Sorry if this has been a bit redundant, but we really wanted all you to remember what we are trying to do here. See you all at the Meeting tomorrow!

 

May’s Club Meeting: Charity Donations, Club Barrel Project, and more!

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Hello Club Members,

Just a reminder that the May club meeting will be this Thursday, May 19th at the Culver City Homebrew Supply Store!  Located at:
4234 Sepulveda Blvd Culver City, CA 90230 with a start time of 7:30pm. Also bring your “Alternative Fermentable” homebrewed beers. AKA anything with added alternative grains like “rye, oats, buckwheat, spelt, millet, sorghum, rice, etc” and alternative sugars like “honey, brown sugar, invert sugar, molasses, treacle, maple syrup, sorghum, etc.” for your chance to win a $25 gift Certificate to the Culver City Homebrew Supply store. BJCP Style Guide Here, page 66. As well there will be the “Alternative Fermentable” commercial tasting and some off flavor and other educational tastings presented by Michael Patterson.

Also Do Not Forget, we are doing another smaller Charity Drive for our Friends at OPCC.net during the May Meeting this Thursday. In short this week PLEASE stop by your Ralph’s, CVS, Target, Costco, or any of your local stores to buy in bulk donations for the meeting. We are looking mainly for either “Mens Socks” regular or sweat socks and/or “Toiletries” to bring for donations. Also all other clothing donation are accepted as well, like we did for last December’s winter party (Also if you want to donate straight money, Mimi B. will go out and buy needed supplies with your contributions too for OPCC). Charity Donations are listed below and to entice you or bribe you to donate for this great cause we will be giving out EXTRA RAFFLE TICKETS TO THOSE THAT DONATE!!!! the more you donate the more tickets we’ll give you, but a pack of socks or 2-3 toiletries will be worth about 5 extra tickets in the raffle.

Items in this weeks Raffle: Beers, Glasses, Hops and Hop bag, Beer Boxes and Bottles, Fresh Cascade Hop Rhizomes, Wyeast Merchandise Pack, and Firestone Walker Merchandise Pack and glass wear just for some example!!! Regular for purchase Raffles tickets will be for sale too as normal.

PG MAY 2016 – Charity Drive
We are collecting items that will be donated to Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC).
OPCC is an independent, community-supported organization in which staff, volunteers and clients work with mutual respect to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect and discrimination.  OPCC empowers people to rebuild their lives. (https://www.opcc.net)
In-kind or non-monetary contributions
These donations are valuable resources that we then distribute to our clients. In keeping with our mission of treating all clients with respect and dignity, we ask that all donations should be clean and, if used, in good condition.
Below is a list of items that we can always use..

Clothing

  • Sweat socks – for men, women and children
  • Sweat shirts and pants for adults – all sizes especially larger sizes
  • Sneakers – men’s & women’s most needed
  • Shower shoes/thongs
  • Rain ponchos for adults & children
  • New underwear – men’s, women and children
  • Flannel and long sleeve shirts for adults

Tolietries / Hygiene Items
Travel or regular sizes of the following:

  • toothpaste
    • toothbrush
    • deodorant
    • shampoo
    • disposable razors
    • bar soap
    • hand & body lotion

Next, on the Sour side of things, do not forget we are starting a “Pacific Gravity/Phantom Carriage Club Barrel Project” during this meeting as well. Here is the info below:

At this month’s meeting, Simon from Phantom Carriage will be bringing a few jars of sterile wort to inoculate with various wild yeast and bacteria from club members.  These inoculated jars will be used to create a Pacific Gravity “club barrel” of blonde/lambic-style beer at the brewery, which will be packaged at a later date.  
Homebrewed/house cultures are preferred, but all samples are welcome, so feel free to bring along commercial varieties of wild fermented beer to share and pitch bottle dregs.  Also feel free to bring yeast/bacterial slurries for pitching in addition to bottle dregs (they don’t have to be carbonated in a bottle).  We will vote on our favorite homebrewed contribution, which will win some Phantom Carriage swag!

So basically, bring your homebrewed bottles of sour beer, or collect in a bottle or jar some of your slurry and sour beer for tasting from a carboy, or bring your favorite live culture commercial sour beers to the meeting for sampling, judging, and sour dreg pitching. Then on a later date and time we will be throwing it into a barrel at the brewery!

See you all at this Thursday’s Meeting!!

Saturday: Big Brew @ Carl’s

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Hey PG!

Remember, THIS SATURDAY May 14th is our first Big Brew of the year, at Carl’s place (3621 Redwood Ave. Los Angeles, Ca. 90066) from 10am to 6pm. If you’re new to brewing, or just want to get some ideas for improving your skills and setup, you should definitely come by for this free event. The weather forecast is good so far, cloudy in the morning with the sun breaking through in the mid-day.

Here’s a rough agenda for the event.

  • Light breakfast served at 10am sharp, with coffee + tea. All-grain brewing will begin at this time.
  • 1 extract, 1 mead, 1 brew-in-a-bag, and 4 all-grain demonstrations are planned.
  • BBQ’d burgers and dogs will be provided for lunch.
  • The Wave of Beer™ will be setup and CO2 will be available for kegs.
  • Carl *may* dip into his beer archives, if we behave.  😀
  • Last call at 5:30pm, everybody cleaned up and gone by 6pm.

Things you’ll want to bring:

  • The forecast calls for sun, bring a hat and sunblock. Protect your neck!
  • Similarly, for the sake of your back, bring a chair. It’ll be a very long day without one.
  • To help us avoid waste, bring a large container we can use to catch water runoff.
  • A notepad and pen is probably a good idea, especially if you’re talking shop near the Wave. 😛
  • A side dish or a few bucks to throw in for breakfast/lunch. Either or both.
  • Hydration. We’ll have some water on hand but the more the better.
  • Kegs and/or bottled beer to share!🍺

If you have any questions, reach out to me at vicepresident@ or Carl on the competitions@ or LLoyd on the president@ email address.  If all else fails, chat us up on Facebook.

Looking forward to brewing at this event alongside my fellow club members. Can’t wait!

_Michael

14may10:00 am- 6:00 pmBig Brew @ Carls houseBig Brew10:00 am - 6:00 pm Carl's house