Niagara Association of Homebrewers
Meeting Minutes: January 26, 2016

Member Announcements

1. 17 current members were present.
2. 3 new members were voted in – Bill, Lisa and Greg.
3. Jerry joined us for his first meeting.
4. 2016 dues ($25/individual; $30/couple) can be paid to Eric Stellrecht.

Holidaze Recap

Holidaze was well attended and the new venue worked out great.  We all enjoyed a delicious spread of food and homebrew.

In addition to the $25 Niagara Tradition certificate we buy each year, we also raffled the following prizes that were generously donated, unprompted, by some amazing local businesses.

1. Community Beer Works – one 10-fill growler card ($120)
2. 12 Gates Brewing – two growlers with fills ($18 each)
3.  Niagara Tradition – $15 certificate and $10 certificate
4. New York Beer Project – one growler will fill ($18)

Business Meetings/Socials

1. The February 9th Social will be at New York Beer Project and the Sultans will be there as well.  7:00 is the official start time, but some members usually show up early to eat.
2. The next business meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 23, 2016 at 7:00 PM at Crazy Jake’s.

20th Annual Amber Waves of Grain (AWOG)

John Crossett is the new organizer for AWOG this year.  The event has been registered for April 1-2 and committee meetings are underway.

We need a volunteer to brew a sessionable calibration beer for the judges on April 1-2.  If there’s any left, it will also be served at the banquet on April 2.  If you’re interested in brewing something else to serve at the banquet, contact John Crossett (jpcrossett@gmail.com) so he can plan according and let Tim Belczak (tbelczak@niagarabrewers.org) know if you want to use any donated NY Craft Malt.  The club has sacks of 2-row and Munich for events like this.

The registration website should be up in the next week or so – Tim Belczak is working on finalizing it.

If you can please help with anything (bottle registration, coordinating a breakfast, lunch or dinner order, photocopying paperwork, set-up, clean-up, etc.) please contact John Crossett. If we spread responsibilities out among many members the burden will not be as great on the core group of organizers or any one individual.

Business Topics

1. The Roycroft Inn is hosting a four-course homebrew and food pairing on Thursday, February 18.  Each course will be paired with one brew from the Sultans of Swig (who organized the event) and one beer from Niagara Association of Homebrewers.  Cost of the dinner is $30 and reservations should be made by calling the Roycroft Inn at (716) 652-5552.
2. The Art of Beer will be held on Friday, March 4 at the NACC. We will be sharing a table with Niagara Tradition and assisting with the brew demo.  Thank you to those who volunteered to help.
3. Beerology is Saturday, March 5. We will be brewing a demo in the kitchen like we’ve done in the past.  Tickets sold out on January 27th.
4. Dick and Jenny’s on Grand Island is interested in offering a homebrew course.  Tim Collins offered to stop in to find out more details.
5. The club’s new website has been launched.  More features will be added as we go along, but we will be focusing on functionality and keeping things up-to-date (calendar, meeting minutes, etc.).  If you have interest in writing content for the site, please contact Tim Belczak for a login.

BJCP Style Education

1. Tom Piwtorak gave an excellent overview of ciders and perry.  He brought three homemade examples – a still, medium-dry cider, a medium-sweet carbonated cider and a perry.  We leaned at the end of the presentation that the first two were actually the same cider that he backsweetened to different levels the night before and force-carbonated one.
2. February’s style will be Baltic Porters, presented by Dan Karyczak.
3. March’s style will be Bocks, presented by Mike Conley.
4. If you want to present a style and perhaps brew an example of your own to go along with your presentation, contact Tim Belczak to get on the list. We’d like to fill the list up several months in advance to give members the opportunity to brew an example for the presentation if they desire.

Meeting was adjourned and we shared some delicious homebrew with one another.