What is Baltibrew?
A homebrew club dedicated to the discussion and exchange of fermented beverages!
Who is Baltibrew?
Great question!
Having never conducted a membership survey we decided to put a small set of questions to our brewers to get a bit of sense of who Baltibrew is. With a response rate from dues paying members of slightly over 50%, we received 23 complete surveys (1 of which only provided the written feedback). All percentages are based off the sample of actual responses. Let's dig in!
While homebrewing is fairly strong in the 30-40 demographic, Baltibrew skews young with 72% in the 20-40 range (the 2013 AHA Survey had 60% in the 30-50 cohort). Our membership is somewhat less skewed when compared to the results captured by the Brulosophy online survey in 2017 (65% in that under 40 cohort, 44% 30-40 & 21% <30).
Half of our membership dabbles with funky brews. We have many more sour brewers (50% vs 30%) than the Brulosophy average.
April 19, 2018 @ Nepenthe
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
Contest is this Sunday @ 2PM. Jon will arrive a bit early to get set up. Competitors should look out for an email to coordinate. Please promote the event amongst your friends and in your social media feeds. We’ve sold 25/50 attendee tickets through the web portal so far which is pretty decent for pre-sale numbers.
The e-board has been working up the rest of the bylaw changes. We will discuss them at the next e-board meeting and look to bring them to the club for a vote in the next few months.
May 5th - Big Brew @ Nepenthe
Jude and Jacob are interested in doing a brew @ Nepenthe. Permits have not yet been acquired for the parking lot but Nepenthe will follow up. Look for an email thread to coordinate. Cairan will not be there to work logistics, so that will fall to the club.
May 6th - 2018 Big Brew w/ Brewtherville @ BC Brewery
Several folks are interested in dropping in on Brewtherville’s big brew event. It is a small group and they will coordinate amongst themselves.
June 9th/10th - Sensory Classes @ Jon's
Jon is hosting 2 days of tasting panels in June. The first day will be faults and the second will focus on barrel flavors. Each panel will consist of 15 different compounds. Cost will be set at $35 dollars for both days, $20 for one day. Seats are limited to 20 per day and the tastings run from 12-3PM. Tasters should plan to arrive 20 minutes early so the panel can begin on time.
2018 Baltibrewer Survey Results!
Result summary in attached document. 2018 Baltibrew Survey Results
There was interest in providing the opportunity for more focused feedback during the homebrew swap section of meetings. We will draft a feedback form that brewers seeking comment can place on any beers they want detailed notes from others.
Baltibrew Yeast Capture! - feat. Christoph & Becky
The big 2018 education project is an attempt to capture and isolate a pure strain of saccharomyces from Baltimore. Kris and Christoph distributed 15 capture kits to club members. A protocol sheet was included in the kits and reviewed at the meeting. This portion of the activity centers around getting a large sampling of organisms from the area for Christoph and Becky to plate out. Please bring successful captures to the next meeting for lab work.
If successful isolate a good brewing yeast we will try to incorporate it in the historical Baltimore beer education project later this year.
Water Survey Collection
Jude, Greg, and Christoph provided water samples from Hampden, Fells Point, and Lutherville. Becky and Max will provide a sample from Riverside. Kris is probably going to coordinate a tour of one of the water processing plants for his family in the next month. He will let the group know when that is in case anyone wants to join.
We had three entries for Iron Brewer Tea, the winner being Will’s Chai Saison!
Details on the next Iron Brewer competition will come at the May meeting.
March 15, 2018 @ Nepenthe
Guild minutes were sent out to the Baltibrew listserve.
The BJCP class was cancelled due to lack of interest.
A number of events are coming up, including the CRABs Light Rail crawl on April 8th and the VIctory Brewing Taste at Goddard Space Flight Center on March 16th (Zymurnauts).
MALT was happy to see so many Baltibrewers sign up for their bus trip!
Brubakes was plugged, there seemed to be some interest.
May 5th - 2018 Big Brew
Nepenthe is not sure if they will be hosting a Big Brew event this year, as they have not worked out their lease in the near term. Several options were proposed, including attending the brew at Maryland Homebrew or joining Brewtherville’s Big Brew. Members will reach out to the other organizations and we will pick the discussion up next month.
July 27th - Baseball Os vs Rays Group Outing
The club decided to move this outing to July 28th as Saturdays are generally easier for most of the members. We will be looking to get a block of 30 tickets in the outfield bleachers, likely cost will be $17 dollars a seat. Options for a pre-game beer include the new Suspended Brewing in Pigtown.
August TBD - Balitbrew Bus Brewery Trip
Jacob and Greg are getting quotes for the bus trip. There are a few possible destinations in play, including DC, Columbia, and Eastern Shore breweries. More information to follow. We will likely open up registration to guild members.
Update to Quorum Rules - The eboard suggests changing the quorum rules as follows:
Individuals shall be considered members of Baltibrew upon payment of dues. One is considered a member in good standing if current dues are paid in full. One is considered an active member if they have participated in at least 50% of votes from the previous calendar year. New members will be considered active upon the meeting following their initial payment of dues.
A quorum shall be considered the participation of a minimum of 50% of active members in good standing for a vote.
Changes to Baltibrew charter, bylaws, or articles will require a quorum of ⅔ of active members in good standing.
The goals for this change were to:
Drop the quorum requirement in the short term.
Encourage vote participation and provides mechanisms for the quorum requirements to rise over time.
Not bar any good standing member from casting a vote.
Prevent members from stacking a vote at the next meeting with new signups.
Not create an unreasonable burden on the eboard to manage.
The rest of the draft amendments will be brought before the club for comment in future months.
We will vote on the changes after the club has had a chance to discuss all the draft language.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
We should assume that all the competitors for this first year will be Baltibrewer and we need six.
Please get the word out! Jon and Nate will get the word out to other clubs via the guild and their contacts.
Caiti volunteered to work with Jon to get a flyer up in some local bars and breweries.
Diamondback Brewing in Locust Point releases dry stout with cacao, Friday, March 16th
The Baltimore Whiskey Company’s first Epoch Straight Rye Whiskey Release, March 17th (https://www.facebook.com/
Mashout!!! August 16-19, 2018 (www.campmashout.com)
Nepenthe’s Apples to Apples @ Blue Pit on April 15th (https://www.nepenthehomebrew.
Iron Brewer - Tea @ the April meeting!
Meet the Ed Czar!
2018 Ed Topics
March
Topic - Get to know your Ed Czar
Activity - Baltibrewer Survey
April
Topic - Baltibrewer Survey Results
Activity - Passing out wild yeast collection jars
Activity - Send in Water Survey Samples
May
Topic - Water Survey Results
June
Topic - Discussion - Fault and Flavors/Post -Mortem of Jon’s Tasting Panels
July
Activity - Sour Hour
August
Activity - Baltibrew Neighborhood Yeast Tasting
September
Topic - Brief History of Commercial Brewing in MD
Activity - Historical Beer from Baltimore
October
Topic - TBD
November
Topic - Apples and Honey - How Beer and Cider are different
December - Holiday Party - No Ed Topic
Baltibrewer Survey - Watch for an email with a link to the survey.
February 15, 2018 @ Nepenthe
Malt has provided a code for a discount to Guild Members. Let’s get out there and support another club’s event! Purchase tickets @ https://maltbusbalt.brownpapertickets.com/.
We are looking to start a spring event for BaltiBrew. Jon is going to coordinate an event, hopefully at De Kline Duvel, in April. The idea is to pair a brewer and a baker and produce a siason and a baked good featuring the spent grain from the beer. The baked good must be 10% spent grain by weight. Looking for 6-8 competitors. It will be an Sunday afternoon event with the attendees choosing the winners. More information to come.
Nepenthe is not sure they will be hosting a Big Brew event this year so we may need to either find another venue or join up with another club.
Jon is going to do his sensory classes again in June. This year Siebel has released some new flavor profiles specific to barrel aging which Jon will evaluate and may incorporate into the sessions. Price will be set to recoup costs and should be close to 40 dollars for both sessions. More information to follow.
Kris and Detter will coordinate a block of tickets for the Friday night Os game. We could potentially drop in on Suspended Brewing in Pigtown before the game.
Jacob/Greg will be coordinating a brewery trip with the destinations TBD. Ideas include a trip to check out the DC scene or visiting Key and some Baltimore suburb breweries. This event will be open to Guild members.
A potluck BBQ and Brew at Jacob’s in Towson to kick off the fall season!
Ciaran and Jacob will be leading the ChiliBrew charge this year. The event will be run similar to previous years.
In the past we had sent a pretty large contingent to Wootown’s honey buy in White Hall. It’s a great event on a big farm/apiary and they have great quality and affordable honey. Additionally, our cider buy from Weber’s was a big success last year so we’re going to reciprocate by opening it up to Guild members. More details to come later in the year.
A potluck in place of the monthly meeting. Business will be light and the event moved forward a week so members do not need to choose between this event and other holiday obligations.
The current bylaws have set the definition of quorum high enough to where the club can no longer hold a votes. A proposal was made among in those in attendance to redefine a quorum as “any dues paying and interested member” where interest is loosely defined as “has attended a meeting, conversed on the listserve, or generally expressed interest in the club in the last several months.” The in attendance membership voted to accept this new definition. The specific language of this change will be brought before the in attendance member next month.
The following bylaws changes were proposed in order to simplify club business and to reflect the smaller member count. Members discussed the potential changes and each change will be formally drafted for an individual vote at future meetings.