Here's hoping you all get to spend your day with family, friends, and someone you love. We're truly thankful to have such a great cast of brewers involved with our club, and we look forward to brewing better, bigger, and badder beers with each of you.

What are you drinking with your Thanksgiving dinner? Let us know!

Remember that the Guild Holiday Party is a week from Saturday. Tickets are still available, and we hope you'll help us represent Baltibrew again this year at Heavy Seas Brewery. We're also doing a bit of holiday fun at our upcoming December 19th meeting at Nepenthe. We'll limit club business to 2014 officer elections, dues payment, and the January collective brew day. Hope to see you there.

The post Happy Thanksgiving, Baltibrew! appeared first on Baltibrew.

BUT! it's also still regular meeting time for Baltibrew at Dionysus at 8 p.m. tomorrow night and we have a lot of stuff to get worked out. We'll be meeting on the second floor again this month. While there's work to be done, we'll have a ton of homebrew to taste as well.

Agenda:

• Chilibrew VI
• Guild Holiday Party planning
• Guild meeting recap
• November Group Brew (Mead mazing?)
• Baltimore Beer Week
• Upcoming Events (Gruit comp, etc.)
• Member homebrew sampling

The post October Regular Meeting appeared first on Baltibrew.

These beers are in preparation for our Guild Holiday Party theme. Expect chocolate and caramel.

Hope to see you there.

The post September Brew Day appeared first on Baltibrew.

We did a great job this year, and let's do our best to keep it up for next year.

The post Baltibrew Wins Club Hour Competition!!! appeared first on Baltibrew.

Lots to discuss:

1. This Saturday (11/26) we're returning to Josh Rosen's house to keg our Guild Holiday Party beer. This is also a great time to finalize menu for our club hour and get things planned and sorted before we have to make the push to prep for the party.
2. This Sunday (11/27) a fellow club on the Eastern Shore (OCMHB) is holding their East vs. West competition in Berlin, MD. They still need judges and stewards, have about 67 entries, and will be putting up BJCP certified judges at a hotel for free. Details on their competition site.
3. A week from this Thursday (12/1) we will be meeting at Greg Slack's house to prepare for Saturday's Guild Holiday Party. More details on that to come.
4. And last but not least by any means, Guild Holiday Party is on Saturday Dec. 3rd. You already know if you're going, because tickets are sold out!

Hope you're having a great run-up to the holidays, and hope you get to drink some great beers with your Thanksgiving meal.

The post Turkey Talk appeared first on Baltibrew.

Minutes from last Thursday's meeting are after the jump. As noted at the meeting, please read these here. They're posted to the website specifically so we don't have to re-hash all aspects of old business from the previous meeting. This saves us time, and gets us down to the ACTUAL business at hand of drinking, sharing, and discussing homebrew.

In addition to the link to minutes, if you won't take my word for how fun the Guild Holiday Party is, I've included a more thorough description.

Annually on the first Saturday of December, the various homebrew clubs around the state gather to share their homebrew, compete for the honor of best "club hour" presentation, share a meal, and generally hang out.

There is a raffle, a silent auction, door prizes, and most importantly, the ten-plus clubs come up with a themed booth and presentation to affect a happy hour style atmosphere with a select committee voting on the best total presentation.

A themed meal is served — this year's is "Gourtmet TV Dinner," and as guests of the Heavy Seas Brewery, we can sample to our heart's content in their tap room, all of this in addition to sharing our love of libations with other clubs, as well as our own home-brewed products.

Tickets are $25 with proceeds to support various charities. Some of this year's beneficiaries include BARCS, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

Baltibrew's theme is "Nightmare Before Xmas," and features off-kilter, spooky Christmas scenarios just like in the namesake movie with some similarly not-quite-Christmas style beverages thrown in to keep it interesting.

Once again, you can purchase tickets beginning at 9a.m. Wed, November 9th (that's tomorrow!) at mdhomebrewers.com/holiday/. Hope to see as many Baltibrewers there as possible.

And last but not least: Minutes!

The post November Minutes + Holiday Party Tickets (Broken Attachment) appeared first on Baltibrew.

In addition to this Thursday's meeting, we have been invited to Wootown's annual Mead mazing at the home of Lloyd and Ruth-Ann Snyder. This is a bit of a hike up to White Hall, MD, but it's always a good time and an interesting opportunity to interact with another club, see how they brew, see how they conduct business, and also to take home some mead. Cost for a fermenter is usually around $30, so bring cash or your checkbook. I'll try to give a specific amount before the date.

Agenda after the jump.

The agenda so far is:

• Reiteration of meeting schedules/rules. No homebrew before we adjourn, etc. How to manage the noise in Alewife?
• Guild Holiday Party — When? Where? What we're doing. How we're preparing. Who's coming? Need a headcount.
• Guild Holiday Brew — Recap.
• Guild Holiday Party Prep — Who can get to Heavy Seas before the event?
• Action Items list — ensuring that tasks are completed. How should we run with this?
• Upcoming 2012 officer elections — Reminder about officer positions, start thinking about who should be our officers. More positions needed?
• Shirt Sales — Where? Who? How?
• Upcoming Competitions
• Our own competition?

The post November Meeting/Mead Mazing with Wootown! appeared first on Baltibrew.

We're only brewing 10 gallons, so there will not be any available for club purchase. If you have your own rig, feel free to do your own brew.

Brew day starts early as usual, bring food, beer to share, chairs, etc. We're meeting at Josh's place to get started at 9 in the a.m. Check the phone list if you need to get a hold of Josh by phone.

The post Guild Holiday Party Theme, and Brew Day appeared first on Baltibrew.

We brew on the 30th at Josh Rosen's house, so we'll need to have this locked up tight by Friday in order to formulate a recipe, and pick up ingredients.

The post Guild Christmas Party Club Hour Theme appeared first on Baltibrew.

The theme for the party is "TV Dinner," so basically comfort foods from the 1950s, not necessarily actual TV dinner items like Salisbury Steak, etc.

As it went last year, there will be a club hour, and this year we can pick any theme we want, but it has to be tightly produced. The beer has to be consistent with the theme, as do the appetizers, etc.

We've come up with a few ideas, but we would like you to vote on them. We NEED you to comment when you vote on which theme you like with supporting ideas for each theme. Let's do our best to win this year's club hour competition with the most interesting, and cohesive theme. This poll will close in a week, and we'll RE-vote on the top two theme ideas that are best supported with your own ideas for them.

First, MINUTES!

Then the poll.

The post October Meeting Notes/Holiday Party Theme Poll (Broken Attachment) appeared first on Baltibrew.