Fellow Homebrewers,
Another amazing and exciting year of home brewing is upon us! Every New Year’s Eve I make a resolution to brew more beer the next year and to improve upon my brewing equipment and knowledge of brewing. I plan on improving my kegerator, making a beer infuser, and maybe dabbling in mead. I hope all of us can make our own “brew year resolutions” come true.
Your elected club officials and I are planning lots of awesome things for us to do this year. I don’t want to give away all the surprises but there are talks of another club outing! We are also planning another big barrel brew at Carson’s (a big thanks to John Mills for hosting last year), and our own club hosted brewing competition. This year we are also going to try something new that some other clubs have done and that is to have a quarterly “Club Social Night” where we can meet outside of official club events with our friends and families to partake in some good old fashion socializing.
At the January meeting Drew Mitchell of CYO Brewing will be speaking about the new dedicated brew shop he has opened in Evansville and the brewery he is planning. I know that I, for one, am thrilled to have a dedicated home brewing store open in Evansville and I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Also, Phil Johnson, Brewmaster at the Pour House in Tell City, will be speaking about his experience with the UC Davis brewing science program. We will also be having a vote to decide what beer styles (that’s right, more than one!) the big turkey brewing contest will be this year so be sure to make it to the meeting in order to get your votes cast. At the meeting we will be drawing names for a three-way extract, brew-in-a-bag, and conventional mashtun brewing experiment to finally put an end to the debate on which process is the best. Or we will find out there is no difference. Either way we are sure to have some fun! So if you want to be one of the brewers you will want to get your name in the hat before we draw!
As our club continues to grow I strongly believe it becomes more important to give back to our community, and so this year we have decided to ask that starting in February, all club members bring one canned good to every meeting in order to get a ticket for the door prizes. We have sent our own club treasurer Jack Frey to CYO to pick up some new goodies for the door prizes so remember, don’t forget your canned good starting in February! Later in the year we will also be holding a drive for old eyeglasses. If you feel strongly about a particular charity and have an idea for our club to contribute please contact me or one of the board members.
Don’t forget, the start of the New Year means it’s time to renew your membership dues on the OVHA website. It’s those dues that allow us the ability to have special guests and rare beers and prizes. Next month is the annual club group photo, so be sure to get your dues paid so you can be in the picture.
Cheers!
Sky
