A note about within-club competitions

A reminder to all of you brewers -

The Treehouse brew club within-club competitions will occur at the club meetings in April, August, and December.

That means that if you think you'll want to enter a beer in the August competition you should be looking at your brewing calendar to make sure your beer is carbonated, appropriately aged, and fully prepared to be ready for tasting/judging by your fellow attendees on August 5th, which will be our regular first-Monday-of-the-month meeting time.

The style parameters for that competition are that we be tasting summertime appropriate beers - - brews that are refreshing and enjoyable in summer weather, so keep that in mind when thinking about your potential submissions. That leaves things a bit open-ended and suggests that it could be inclusive of BJCP styles 1, 2, 3A, 6, 7B, 8, 10A, 14, 15, 16, and 17A, which are light lagers, pilsners, Vienna-style lager, light hybrids (cream ale, Kolsch), California common ale, English pale ales, American pale ale, IPA, German wheat & rye, lighter and/or less alcoholic Belgian & French ales, and Berliner weisse.

As the time approaches for the competition I will be asking people to notify me if they are planning to enter a brew just so I can have a feel for number of entries and the breadth of styles that will be represented.

The December competition will be for holiday ales, spiced ales, winter warmers and such, which are season appropriate at that time of year. The style theme for next April's competition is yet to be determined.

- best regards,
Shawn Crawford, club competition coordinator

May 2013 meeting minutes

May has started off in a big way. Not only did Greeley get 8" of snow dumped on us on May 1st, but that very weekend saw 11 club members brew on Big Brew Day on May 4th out front in the Crabtree Brewing parking lot. Things got started early due to the Crabtree's holding their 7th Anniversary party for the brewery later that afternoon.  More pictures of Big Brew Day can be found on the club's Facebook page.

The following members participated during Big Brew: Bob Biffle, Erik Briscoe, Curt Covelli, Paul Dolan, Alex Drayer, Jeff Graber, Jeremy Fusco, Michael Hinton, Mike Lurbe, Steve Skinner, & Dennis Swingler.

Then on Monday, May 6th, the club held their regular monthly meeting at Crabtree Brewing in Greeley.

The members in attendance voted for club competitions will be held in the months of April, August and December. We voted to give Jeremy (of Juice of the Barley) free membership in exchange for 3 presentations throughout the year. Jeremy also offered to give an additional discount to club officials. This was also voted in and will start next year after our election vote in January.

Greg suggested that club officials should get free membership and this was also voted in. The club members present also voted for limiting the number of beers to be tasted during a meeting. If you want to share a beer at an upcoming meeting you need to let one of the officers know.

We decided to put a limit on 7 beers, but if you want to bring a beer to share after the meeting that will be fine. For those sharing during a meeting please bring your recipe and notes, if any, to share with club members. If all 7 slots have not been filled during the meeting the number of available slots will be posted for those who were unable to attend.

As of now we have 5 members that would like to bring something in next month so we still have room for 2 more. Let Steve Skinner know if you have something you want to bring in.

Beers tasted during the meeting:

John Coan - Ginger Citrus Saison
Dave McGinley - Apple Crabapple Cider
Ken Kramer - E. S. B.
Jeff Graber - American Brown Ale
Ken Kramer - Breakfast Stout

Please welcome Sean Denning as our newest member. He has not started brewing yet but
is interested in getting started soon.

The next meeting will be held on June 3rd at 7pm at Crabtree Brewing Company.