Homebrew club

I went to my first Home brew club meeting and tasting last week. I'm in a few Facebook groups of homebrew type clubs and I'm usually too busy to go and socialize with people I don't really know, who happen to have brewing as a common thread. But the group was given permission to have a meeting and tasting in the boardroom of Australia's no.1 craft brewer, Mountain Culture.

Yep, Western Sydney brewers (check them out on Facebook) have 400 or so members and about 10 or so turned up this Friday evening to sit around a boardroom table and taste each others beers and discuss all kinds of shit, mostly brew related some not. Then as a thankyou to our host we imbibed a little on the crafty options available at the massive Emu plains brewery and tap room till closing time.

I'm surprised at the volume of knowledge held collectively in the heads of this group of guys and 1 gal, and the different approach to brewing and styles evident in the room. It turned out to be a great night. We tasted everything from a 5% Fruitloop ipa to a 17% honey mead and I think we all improved our knowledge and appreciation on the way. None of the evenings participants were customers of Habit Six, and I know there are quite a few brewers in the mountains who are ideally suited to this kind of group and would benefit and be a welcome contributor to this club. I'd like to suggest you all get out there and join up. Western Sydney Brewers on Facebook and then wait for a meeting or pub crawl to be announced and turn up.

One thing discussed on the night was the demise of home brewing in general. The closing of brew stores, the lack of supplies etc. I know,

( and this is a generalization ) that home brewers are a bit tight with their dollars. I'm surprised that people will spend $50 on a Friday night on 4 schooners of craft beer but complain about spending $90 on 25 kg of grain that they can brew 100's of litres with. Time poor was also mentioned and I can relate to that one, but I can also see the amount of time I personally waste watching tele or doom scrolling per week and I still get enough time to brew on the weekends, around mowing lawns and being present with fam and friends.

Probably because I love brewing and drinking my efforts, at about $3 per litre, I'll keep finding the time, but if we all just buy fresh wort kits or bottlo craft beers cause its easy and quicker, the whole all grain knowledge base and skill will fade away and die out with old codgers like me.

I say again, Join a club, manage time, put some aside for the important things like brewing, buy that fermenter and that bag of grain and keep this skill alive.

Brew love as usual.

Andrew.