Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge, Recap!!

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Thank you to everyone that volunteered to Judge as well as Steward, and to everyone that Entered Beers into this last Saturday’s Comp, and of course a huge thank you to our 2016 Sponsors and the LABBC board members that helped make it happen. Everything went great and we couldn’t ask for a smoother judging day.

It started off with a bit of light set up work in the early morning and some super fresh Noah’s bagels! All the volunteers started rolling in and got signed up with judging stickers, name tags, and all of the volunteers walked away with some of the best looking competition shirts ever made!! They also got a 10 oz Firestone Walker glass thanks to Firestone Walker donating a ton of swag.

Judging was on its way by around 9-9:30am and the rooms of Neil’s complex where filled with the sounds of bottles popping, pencils writing, and Judges conversing. The morning or a.m. judging round consisted of all the largest categories that where entered for the competition. After the judges started finishing their categories, it was time for lunch. Where everyone was greeted by Ian and his super delicious Beef Carbonnade made with Belgian Dubbel beer and sides of red potatoes and a gourmet raspberry salad. It really helped soak up all that judged beer.

By the Afternoon session some of the judges and stewards had gone. One session of judging beer is usually enough, but for some of us we stayed for the long haul by doing a second session of some of the smaller entered categories. All but one was judged by the end, the Best of Show. Now scheduled for this Thursday with Henry, owner of Monkish Brewing. We wanted him to be a part of the BOS since he will be brewing one of the winning beers!

Ribbon ceremony is scheduled to be held at our next club meeting, which is at Terry’s house. Winners maybe announced online before that at some time TBD.

All in all a great time and a great competition, and here is this years 2016 Sponsors that made it all happen!

Monkish Brewing Co.
20311 S Western Ave, Torrance, CA 90501Monkish Brewing Co. Logo		 Smog City Brewing Company
1901 Del Amo Blvd., Ste B, Torrance, CA 90501Smog City Brewing Company Logo		 Three Weavers Brewing Company
1031 W. MANCHESTER BLVD., UNIT A-B INGLEWOOD, CA, 90301 UNITED STATESThree Weavers Brewing Company Logo		 Absolution Brewing Company
2878 Columbia St, Torrance, CA 90503Absolution Brewing Company Logo
Barley Forge
2957 Randolph Ave, Costa Mesa, CA 92626Barley Forge Logo		 The Daily Pint
2310 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405The Daily Pint Logo		 Brouwerij West
110 E. 22nd St., Warehouse No. 9, San Pedro, CA 90731Brouwerij West Logo		 El Segundo Brewing Company
140 Main St, El Segundo, CA 90245El Segundo Brewing Company Logo
Ladyface Ale Companie
29281 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills, CALadyface Ale Companie Logo		 Phantom Carriage
18525 South Main Street Carson, California 90248Phantom Carriage Logo		 Steinfillers
4160 Norse Way, Long Beach, CA 90808Steinfillers Logo		 The Bruery
717 Dunn Way, Placentia, CA 92870The Bruery Logo
The Doughroom
3409 Overland Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90034The Doughroom Logo		 Culver City Homebrewing Supply
4234 Sepulveda Blvd Culver City*, CA 90230Culver City Homebrewing Supply Logo		 Firestone Walker Brewing Company
1400 Ramada Dr. Paso Robles, CA 93446Firestone Walker Brewing Company Logo		 Wyeast Laboratories, Inc
PO Box 146, Odell, OR 97044, USAWyeast Laboratories, Inc Logo

March Club Meeting Recap

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Hey hey!

So who else had a REALLY good time at our club meeting last Thursday?!     In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap.

Michael Patterson brought out another round of off-flavor examples, one pitcher of “solventy” beer and another with “fruity” notes. The latter can be a good thing in certain styles but that solventy beer was something I hope to never taste again! Certainly not in my own home brew!     As an added albeit somewhat unexpected bonus, Michael also showcased an oxidized bottle of home brewed Imperial Stout from his cellar. Proof that even great brewers like Mr. Patterson make an off beer every now and then. 😀

Announcements were brief but informative; mostly centered around our 2nd Annual Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge, upcoming events and a few notes from yours-truly about some website updates that Webmaster Tad and I collaborated on recently. Speaking of which, how are you all liking the new First Friday Schedule under the Events tab on the homepage?  Useful or no?

Jeff Bystrom dragged in a heavy payload of Irish, Scottish and Stout beers for our commercial tasting and Parker earned the best beer of the meeting and a $25 gift certificate to CCHBS with his Red Carlin Irish Red Ale. Congrats Parker! With so many kegs lined up, it was easily our most fierce competition of the year so far.

Thanks very much to Michael Steinberg’s mentoring, I pulled off a gigantic batch of his club-famous corned beef and cabbage which Ian Fraser graciously pitched in and helped me to serve. Special thanks also goes out to Garrett and Bernadette Smith for picking up the loaves of rye bread and to Treasurer Tim for grabbing the deli mustard at the very last minute. Many thanks!

What else, what else…  Treasurer Tim manned the renewal booth and most everyone who attended renewed and received their 2016 sticker. I can’t stress enough how important those membership dues are to the club and on behalf of the board I thank you all for renewing with us year after year.

Terry Molloy, as usual, closed us out with a really fun raffle extravaganza and prizes were literally flying. We drank and ate very late into the evening and everyone made it home safely. Below are some photos courtesy of President Lloyd and the very funny featured image for this post is from Carl Townsend who captured Scott and Jeff’s almost-matching green shirts!  🙂

Great meeting and a very memorable St.Patty’s day. Thanks again for the memories!

_Michael

 

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St. Patty’s day came on the perfect day this year!

Posted by Pacific Gravity on Thursday, March 24, 2016

 

 

Is it April yet??!

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Hey everyone,

These past couple weeks have been such a wild ride and on behalf of the board I thank you all for coming along for the journey.  We had a sold-out Monsterbrew with Smog City Brewing Company, Rives, Barbara, Tania and I ran a home brewed soda booth at Phantom Carriage’s first anniversary party, and we collected a TON of entries for our 2nd annual Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge; over 30% more than last year!   Also a quick reminder: Our March meeting is this Thursday (St. Patrick’s Day) at Culver City Home Brew Supply and I hope to see you there.

In case you missed it, you can check out the photos that Lloyd and I took during the Monsterbrew with Smog City. They’re posted on our Facebook page and at the bottom of this post.  Porter and Dan were great hosts as usual, fielding our questions and giving us all an inside look at how their brewery operates and what is coming up for them in the future. This year they even broke out the bbq and a slew of burgers and dogs for us to cook – Thanks again for running the burners Ian and Lloyd.

Phantom Carriage’s first anniversary party was a day to remember too. Martin, Simon and crew pulled out all the stops and between the amazing beer selection on tap, the excellent food, and the fun crowd it was one of those “glad to be here” moments for about 6 hours straight. It was awesome to be a part of it all and I’m already looking forward to our invite for the 2nd anniversary party in ’17.   Well deserved special thanks goes out to Terry Molloy for loaning out his jockey box for the event and to Culver City Home Brew Supply for letting me borrow a CO2 regulator at the last minute. Oh and I also want to give a shout-out to my new friend Cosmo the Goat! 🙂

So as I said earlier, our monthly meeting is coming up this Thursday the 17th. I’m trying to put together some St. Patty’s day food for it so if you feel like cooking a dish or if you have a connection for a bunch of Corned Beef and Cabbage DROP ME A LINE!  Also, we need to borrow some coolers and tables for LABBC so if you have an extra please bring it to the meeting. Don’t forget to label them with your last name so we can get everything back to the rightful owner after the event. If you haven’t signed up to Steward or Judge and you’re interested, Thursday is a great time to volunteer. Just talk to Carl, he’ll get you set right up.

Our style of the month is Irish and Stout beers and Jeff B. will be hosting the commercial tasting. If you’ve got a home brewed beer that fits the style, bring it out for the best of the meeting competition. As always, a $25 gift certificate to CCHBS is up for grabs.

Also, don’t forget that we receive a special discount from the shop on club meeting nights so bring out your shopping lists!

Finally, as Treasurer Tim pointed our last week: March is renewal time so please bring cash or a card to pay your dues.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all Thursday night.

 

Thanks,

_Michael

 

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Posted by Pacific Gravity on Monday, March 14, 2016

February Club Meeting Recap

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Couldn’t make the meeting last night? Here’s what you missed!

Michael Patterson and Greg Foster were at it again on the educational side of things at the start of the meet. Michael brought with him some great [sic] sun-soaked beer to give us a solid example of skunked, a definite off-flavor unless you work at Heineken. Greg held another of his Brülosophy exBEERiments, this time having to do with the effects of dry hopping.

A lot of the usual suspects were present there at Neil’s place and quite a few members brought out their home brews. Pizza was absolutely upstaged by a shrimp, rice and stir fry dish whipped up expertly by Neil’s girlfriend. I had two bowls so… My apologies if you didn’t get to try some.

Tim Jones wowed us with the selection of beers he broke out to host the commercial tasting with. Off the top of my head (Tim pardon my short memory) there was a bottle of Anderson Valley Amber, Alesmith’s Evil Red, Sam Smith’s Brown, Port Brewing’s Brown, Smog City’s Sabre-toothed Squirrel, an Imp. Red from Lagunitas. I’m sure I missed a few but between the choices and the BJCP printouts Tim hosted like a boss!  Thanks Tim!

Parker entered his Cinnamon Porter, Tad & Ramesh their Pumpkin Porter, and Tim his Simi-Mild but in the end Scott Stout took home the win for the Best Beer of The Night competition with his Caribou Slobber clone. Congrats Scott, enjoy using that $25 CCHBS gift certificate to make more great beer.

Of course, being the 21st anniversary club meeting, we had a little something special on tap. Thanks to Terry and his rockin jockey box we had our Firestone Walker collaboration Weizenbock and the three Chili Cookoff Weizenbock’s that Carl Townsend and Dan White brewed.  All four beers were great, I hovered around that area for basically my entire night.

I missed it, but I’m told the raffle was a riot ending with Barry and Neil both owning tickets that matched the last three numbers Terry called out. You see, somehow we sold tickets from two different rolls and… Yeah, that happened. What are the odds??  😀    Anyway, it came down to who’s ticket matched the last FOUR numbers instead and Barry won. A true gentlemen, he gave Neil half the prize: a nice Firestone Walker tin sign and then took home the other half, a growler full of our FW collaboration ale.

Perfect weather, great beer, food and people. It really was an exceptional club meeting.

A few things to keep in mind…

We’ve been invited by Martin and Simon from Phantom Carriage to make and serve soda at a booth during their one year anniversary party on March 12th. Laws restrict us from bringing homebrew, as much as everyone would like to but it will be a good experience nonetheless and an excellent way to show what we’re made of. If you’re interested in providing a keg of soda and/or serving, drop me an email as soon as possible.

First Friday in March is our St. Patrick’s day celebration and it’ll be held, as always, at Irish Times. I’m told they’re putting on some great beers for the event and I hope to see you there.

That same weekend we’re brewing up a monster with Smog City!  If you’re interested and haven’t signed up yet, email Lloyd right now to get on the list.

So thank you to our educators, beer bringers, our host Neil and everyone who attended. See you next time.

_Michael

Three Weavers Recap

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We had a great big turnout for First Friday at Three Weavers Brewing Company in Inglewood last night and it was fun seeing everybody. It feels good to show up and find so many of us together. In case you missed it, here are a few photos (care of Lloyd) and a recap.

Founder Lynne and the team at TW were ready for us and generously honored a special members-only discount for the whole night. Emily White, our resident PG’er at Three Weavers, gave a tour of their [giant] space and all of the beers I sampled were excellent. As I’ve mentioned before the Blood Junkie Imp Red and Kill The Lights Black Lager have been favorites of mine lately. For this visit I went for a sampler flight and I really had a tough time deciding on my growler fill when the time came.

Lloyd had a sign up sheet for our upcoming Monsterbrew with Smog City going around. Still room on the list if you want to reserve a portion, it’s a very cool event and you go home with a project to work on, I highly recommend it. Get into contact with Lloyd for more information.

We also had three new members sign up, which is exciting. Now that I’m seeing firsthand how membership dues drive the club events and benefits I have a better understanding of why growth is great. Most of us have at least one friend who is always “almost ready” to try brewing some beer. Our events are a great way to put them in front of a bunch of like minded people so bring the good ones along.

Tumby’s Pizza boxes and glasses of beer surrounded our group in the tasting room. I think at one point we had 2/3 of the inside seating completely filled with PG, and even with all of our extra people clogging up the beertender line, Three Weavers kept things moving smoothly and glasses full.  A well earned thank you to Lynne, Emily and everyone at Three Weavers for recognizing our club and for their gracious hospitality.

_Michael

 

January Club Meeting Recap

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It was great seeing all of you last night and I’m very thankful for those of you who brought out your kegs and bottles of homebrew. The combination of education, competition, and comradery exhibited last night was over the top. For those of you who weren’t able to make it out, here’s a recap.

The meeting started off with education, care of Michael Patterson and Greg Foster; a tradition we’re planning to continue beginning each meeting with moving forward.

Michael hosted a sensory perception demonstration on Diacetyl, the cause of the butter flavor that is by and large considered an off-flavor in most styles and Greg ran a Brülosphy exBEERiment that sought to investigate the differences between homemade and commercial Belgian candi sugar. Both were well executed, fun and informative. Many thanks to Michael and Greg.

Pizza was served, taps flowed and the board members reviewed current and upcoming events.

Lloyd led by announcing that my wife Tania Musgrave has volunteered to fill the open Secretary position on the Board.

Terry reminds all interested parties to contact soon if they plan to attend and camp at the SoCal Homebrew Festival, May 29th and 30th. Time is running out so act fast if you want to get involved, I’m told it’s an event that is not to be missed. General info here, email the Board for more info on our club specific plans.

Carl reviewed our competition calendar including our 2nd Annual Los Angeles Belgian Brew Challenge on March 26th and the Doug King Memorial Competition held tomorrow, Saturday January 23rd at MacLeod’s Brewing Company in Van Nuys. Take a look at his recent Competition Corner post for more info.

I announced my new role on the LABBC planning board as Sponsorship Coordinator and made a call for connections to breweries and businesses that might be interested in sponsoring the event. Sponsorship starts at just $50 dollars and tops out at $250. Email me for more info.

Also, First Friday for February is on the 5th at Three Weavers Brewing Company. For me, their Blood Junkie Imperial Red Ale, Kill The Lights Black Lager, and Amburana Wood Aged Porter are real highlights in their taproom and there is also a very good pizza place within walking distance which we’ll be ordering from. Getting there is easy too, just take Sepulveda south, take a left on Manchester and then another left on Isis.

Tim Jones announced proud news that Tomm Carroll will be teaching a class at UCLA focused on the business of craft beer. For those that don’t know him, Tomm is a local beer celebrity and columnist for Celebrator magazine and Beer Paper LA and he’s also one of us! Exciting news to say the least and as more details emerge I’m hopeful that Tim and/or Tomm will keep us posted.

Later on I held the commercial tasting bringing as many British Special Bitters and Commonwealth Ales to the table as I could find (they were surprisingly scarce) and Terry and Lloyd ran a really fun raffle in which most memorably Norm won a red bottle drying rack donated and later autographed by Simon Ford of Phantom Carriage fame; also a Pacific Gravity member.  I’m still laughing at that moment, photo included in the gallery below.

Finally, our Best Beer of the Meeting competition brought out a number of great brews and to my surprise and delight my Belgian Winter Ale earned the first win of the year! Thanks again to those who entered beers and to those who participated in judging.

In closing I want to say thank you again to those who brought homebrew, those who volunteered to host future commercial tastings, to CCHBS and Greg and Michael for their effort and time. I also want to welcome our newest members Josh, Pat and Nick.

Hope to see you all at First Friday and beyond!

_Michael

Cheers To A Happy New Year!

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With the holidays behind us, there is only one more party night in 2015 to go and there are just a few quick things to mention before you throw on your best suit and break out the NYE noisemakers…

Holiday Party Recap

The holiday party was a smash success and we owe a huge thank you to everyone who pitched in. Whether you helped plan, or brought a dish to share or beer, or helped during setup and clean up, it all came together perfectly and much merry fun was had.

Neil, for your generous donation of the space. Ian and Marvin, for your exceptional culinary work. Terry, for playing Santa so well, raffling off all those goodies. Mimi for helping us put it all together. Brian, Tad+Ramesh, Carl… The list is SO long. Thank you for going above and beyond.

Food and Clothing Charity Drive

Another huge thank you is in order to those guests who brought donations of food and clothing for our charity drive. We ended up with three huge boxes full and it marks a proud moment for us as a club. It was great to give something back and we’re looking forward to having a charitable piece to future events too. If you have any suggestions or ideas send them to us at board@pacificgravity.com or bring them up at our next club meeting.

First Friday January 2016 Plans

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and I hope everyone has a great time out there (safely) with friends and family.  Because of the way the actual first Friday of the year lands, we’re pushing the PG First Friday event to Friday January 8th. It’ll be held at Father’s Office in Culver City starting around 7pm and going until as late as they’ll let us stay. While there is no reserved seating, I’ll be there early to try and hold down a table or two. Come early or come late, we’ll be there with beers on. Oh and they make a damn good pub burger too, if you’ve never had one this is your chance. It’s a Culver City treasure.

8jan7:00 pmFirst Friday - Father's Office Culver City7:00 pm PST Father's Office

Alright, I have to go locate a magnum of Chimay (because who toasts Champagne anymore??)  and I’m hoping to see you out on Friday the 8th.

Until then, Happy New Year from the PG board!

Michael Musgrave

 

Weekly Update: Club Meeting Recap

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For those of you that were unable to attend last week’s club meeting – for shame.  You missed out on some fun stuff:

Bite At the Beach

  • Spots are still available.  You still have a few weeks to brew a beer for this and participate in the event.  Shoot us an email at board [at] pacificgravity.com to signup.  If your name isnt on the list at the bottom of this post we did not receive your email (or i screwed up and forgot to notate it on my list).  Just send me a reminder and shame me for poor organization.

Firestone Walker Brew 

  • The brew day has officially been set – we are going to head up to Paso Robles and brew up a batch of beer on 10/31/2015.  The brew will be at 8:00am at the Paso Brewery and will be followed by the 19th Anniversary party that evening.
  • If you signed up at the club meeting for events – thank you.  I am using that list as a tentative head count to provide FW with an idea of how many people will be attending.  If you were not in attendance that does NOT mean that you are missing out.  It just means that my head count is missing you.  Shoot me an email  at president [at] pacificgravity.com to let me know if you will be able to attend the brew and the 19th anniversary party and if you will need a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night.
  • We are NOT chartering a bus for this trip.  Many of you have expressed interest in making the trip a full weekender and I know some of you cannot make it for more than the brew itself.  You will be responsible for getting yourself to Paso for the brew.
  • The club WILL be locking down a block of rooms in Paso at one or two hotels.
  • Most importantly – the beer.  The team at Firestone Walker has asked our club to brainstorm what our ultimate brew would be and present the ideas to their team.  After announcements this past week a few of you approached me with some ideas for the beer which are included here:
    • Come up with a list of historically important beers brewed by Pacific Gravity club members.  The idea was to build off of a recipe from one of our homebrewers that we all look forward to drinking at club meetings.  Like Carl’s harvest ale, Rives’ sour quad, Craig Corley’s Belgian (fill in the blank), etc.
    • A Belgian styled beer because FW doesnt have a huge history of brewing belgian beers and it would tie in with our Belgian Brew Challenge.
    • Anything barrel aged.  FW makes some of the best barrel aged beers – it would be cool to be a part of one.
    • Hold an in house homebrew competition (using one style) and having judges choose the best beer.

LABBC

  • We wrapped up our first LABBC.  There were a total of 95 entries into the competition and the results were absolutely DOMINATED by Pacific Gravity homebrewers.  Thank you to everyone who submitted beers and helped PG have a good showing in our inaugural comp.
  • Kingsley and I won BOS – thanks to everyone who offered their congrats.
  • Scoresheets have been emailed out to all participants.  If you entered a beer and have not received an email from us email labbc [at] pacificgravity.com and we will send you a link with your entry numbers.
  • Ribbons will go out sometime soon to those of you who were not in attendance.
  • T-Shirts – We will order T-Shirts next week and should have them ready for April’s club meeting.  We had a sign up sheet at the judging day and at the club meeting.  Volunteers (staff, stewards and Judges) receive free shirts.  If you signed up for a shirt at the club meeting the price per shirt will be somewhere between $15-$20.  We will have our pay pal setup at the next club meeting for you to pay for your shirts.

April First Firday

  • Reminder that next month’s first friday is at the Doughroom in Culver City/Palms and is a bottle share.  Bring out some special beers and lets pack that place out.

Membership Renewals

  • Membership dues are due now.  Just a friendly FYI.

 

Bite At the Beach – Recap!

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Pacific Gravity Signage

Pacific Gravity Signage

On May 17th Pacific Gravity took advantage of our first opportunity to pour beer under the 2013 law AB1425 that allows homebrewers to donate their precious homebrew @ a public event as long as that event is benefiting a non-profit organization.  Matt McIvor reached out to our club to ask if we were interested and after many of you showed interest in donating and serving your beer to the public Pacific Gravity was signed up to pour beer.

We were also joined by a few brewers from Strand Homebrewers Club who brought along some meads and ciders to share as well.

I wanted to post some pictures for those of you who were in attendance, along with those of you who were unable to make the trip / pay the entry fee.  Those of us who donated beer were allowed to enter the festival for free – which was really an awesome advantage.  The event was a food and beer pairing event where every tent was 1 brewery and 1 restaurant.  One of my personal favorite food pairings was the Brown Ale from King Harbor paired with a Smoked Clam Chowder – it was delicious!

The highlight of the entire event though was when our very own Terry Malloy and Rives Borland gave a homebrewing demonstration during the VIP hours.  Due to ABC law we couldnt actually brew any beer, but we had an entire all grain setup with us along with some barley and hops to share with the festival attendees.  Terry got up in front of the stage and gave a fantastic presentation while Rives walked around and shared the raw brewing ingredients with the crowd.  I for one had a blast listening to Terry break down the science of homebrewing on the fly – it was a really special event.

The second really awesome part of the event is that we had 4 different beers on tap that were Monster Brews from Smog City.  Adam Ward brought his Kolsch fermented with White Lab’s

Tad and Ramesh filling out the wave of beer.

Tad and Ramesh filling out the wave of beer.

Kolsch strain, Kingsley and I brought along our Kolsch fermented with East Coast Yeast’s Kolschbier, Terry Malloy brought along his batch which he had turned into an American Blonde Ale and Rives Borland / Jesse Tice brought their Brettanomyces Pilsner from the monster brew.  It was really awesome to get to share those beers with the festival attendees and get to explain to them that all four beers were from the same batch.

We handed out numerous membership forms, along with a lot of membership pamphlets for Strand Brewers Club as well.

To those of you who donated your time and beer I just wanted to say thank you for both coming out and for the beer.  I think PG was really well represented with the beers, meads and ciders we had on hand.  To those of you who were unable to attend I hope you can make it out for the next event – I will be reaching out to future festivals to gauge their interest in our clubs involvement.  I am hoping that with the next event we can organize our beers a bit more – maybe even choosing a list of beers that we would like to have on hand to pour before hand, rather than having it be a free for all in beer styles.

Cheers!

-Brian

April Meeting Recap

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Thanks to everyone who came out for April’s monthly club meeting.  We had an excellent turnout, especially considering the last minute change of location.  A special thanks to Ian for hosting us again and on such short notice.  Another special thank you to everyone who brought out beer for the night.  I think there were more kegs of beer at last nights meeting than I have seen at a monthly club meeting in quite a long time – so good work brewing and sharing the beer!

Here is a summary of the items covered last night at the meeting for those of you who were unable to attend, couldnt hear us, or drank a few too many and cant remember what was covered:

  • First, we issued our new Associate’s Cards to everyone in attendance who has paid in full for this calendar year.  The new cards are awesome – they are thermal printed PVC cards like you would get issued from Costco or the AHA for example.  This card entitles you to discounts at local businesses.  Currently we have two discounts in place – 5% off at Culver City Home Brew Supply and 10% off @ City Tavern in Culver City.  As we are able to gather up additional discounts/benefits for memberships we will post about them here on the blog or you can click on the menu item above under About > Benefits to see a current list of club benefits.  If you have not paid your dues yet please do so ASAP so you can get your new card.  The only way to redeem said benefits is by presenting this new PVC ID card, last years cards will not be accepted.  Thanks again to Ramesh and Tad for putting this together for us.
  • We had to do a last minute change of venue this week, which was unfortunate.  There is a newish Q&A issued by the ABC regarding home made wine and beer and where you can serve these items.  Unfortunately one of the items on that list made it illegal for us to share our homebrew at Smog City, so we made the call to cancel that location for last night and move to Ian’s.  Right now it is very important for you as a homebrewer to understand the law so that you dont expose yourself to legal issues.  Here is a link to the new Q&A.  Also note that in this document it lists homebrewing demonstrations as illegal.  Thanks again to Kingsley for rallying the troops to a new location and to Ian for hosting.
  • Last night we held our vote to ratify the bylaws presented to the club last week on this blog.  The vote was nearly unanimous (the only nay being Dean – who wrote the bylaws – because he wanted there to be at least one nay).  This is really great news for our club and is the first official step towards our march towards non-profit status.  The Board and I will file our articles of incorporation as soon as possible and continue through with the remaining paperwork towards our goal of becoming a 501c3 Non-Profit club and filing for Tax Exempt status with the IRS.  A special thank you to Dean for the amount of work he put in to create these bylaws is needed – if you can buy the guy a beer sometime you should.  Another special thank you to the club associates who spent the time reading through the document.  Its not a fun read, but a lot of you spent the time and we all appreciate that.
  • We handed out the LAAW & PG Cask forms last night and many of you filled out your special ingredient forms.  For those of you who did not get a chance to fill out the forms before the end of the night, you can email me @ President@pacificgravity.com and I will send you an electronic copy of the form to be filled out.  For the next iteration of this event we will switch over to using a google doc so that it is 100% online.  If you are interested, please try and get your form in to me no later than Friday May 2nd.
  • The Summer Party will most likely be held on July 26th this year at Dean’s house.  We should know in another month or so if this is date is 100% set in stone.  There will be more information coming at next month’s Club Meeting regarding planning and organizing this event.
  • Lastly, as I mentioned at the March meeting and last night, we have been asked to provide donated homebrew to an event on May 17th in Manhattan Beach called “Bite at the Beach”.  This is a non-profit event which allows us as homebrewers to donate our brews to be poured.  I am really excited about this event.  If you look at the website you can see our logo on it up front.  You officially have one month until this event and I would like to get an idea of how many of you are interested in donating beer so that I can let the organizers know how much homebrew to expect.  Please email me @ president@pacificgravity.com to let me know if you are interested.  I will be bringing 10-15 gallons of beer with me for the event – many of you approached me last night saying you would be donating beer as well – which is awesome.  I will follow up this post tomorrow or Sunday with a single post dedicated to this event.

Cheers everyone!

Brian