Scottish Craft Brewers AGM - Sun 17th April

[Dunfie]

Notice is hereby given of the Scottish Craft Brewers Annual General Meeting in the Prestoungrange Gothenburg Tavern, 229 High Street, Prestonpans, EH32 9BE http://www.prestoungrange.org/gothenburg/ on Sunday 17 April at 11 am. The location can be found at http://tinyurl.com/6d6ps8m . The best bus available is the Lothian 26, leaving St Andrews Square(NW corner)[SMSCode:36232382] at 10.15 or 10.30 - or leaving Haymarket Terrace opposite Haymarket Station[SMSCode:36232657] at 10.05 or 10.20. If you are taking the train, you can get off at Haymarket(!) or Waverley. These buses arrive at the car park[SMSCode:58232352] opposite the pub at 10.54 or 11.11.

Invitations are invited from members who wish to stand for the SCB committtee. Please also be aware that there will be no press-ganging of members to stand! If you are interested, then please let me know by April 14.

The format of the day is that the AGM (including brief reports from the President and the Treasurer) and elections will take place before lunch. Their will be an opportunity to sample members' beers (bring your own beer an get involved).

After lunch we will be learning about some of the faults that can affect you beer buy using the FlavorActive Enthusiast Kit and also Speciality Grain discussion where we will have an array of different speciality malts available to sniff and chew on along with advice on when to use them in your own beer making.

 

[TheMumbler]

How was the kit Dunfie? I mentioned this on the thread about judging

 

[lancsSteve]

And how much was the kit? Am very confused by their website and pricings and lack of the 'beer enthusiasts tasting kit' on the price list.

Could be good to get a few regional CBAs to club in on some maybe.

 

[Dunfie]

I've just looked at the web site and they have changed it all. They used to publish all the information on the faults included but obviously felt that they were giving too much away.

Its been over a year since we bought ours. I got the Scottish Craft Brewers to agree to the £140 that covered the published price plus VAT and P&P. For your money you get three capsules of each of the eight faults so you can run the session up to three times (we have only done it twice so far). The following Faults are included:

Metal Contamination
Spoilage by Acetic Acid Bacteria
Bacterial Growth in the Mash
Spoilage by Wild Yeast
Bacterial Growth in Fermentation
Insufficient Boiling of Wort
Poor yeast health
Use of old or degraded hops

The idea is that you take a bland beer (we have used Carling and Tennents) and you simply pop the contents of each capsule into each glass/jug. You can then take a small amount and get the idea of what the fault is all about. The instructions card also gives some guidance on whether the batch is salvagable (ie blend with a good batch).

We have had good fun with it but I think it falls short of what the homebrewer really needs to know and also from a judging perspective it isn't the complete package either as some of these faults are never going to make it through to a competition (at least I would hope not).

Faults like Acetic Acid Bacteria and Bacterial Growth in Fermentaton were fairly obvious and most heads were thrown back when they sniffed it. The Metal Contamination is not something I have ever tasted from homebrew and unless you have rusty fermenters I doubt it would be a problem. Insufficient boiling of wort was simply DMS but as we were using Tennents Lager which was not chilled it was difficult to tell the difference. Old hops was just cheesy. The spoilage by wild yeast was Brettanomyces, however we all agreed that by injecting Brett into Tennents lager we actuallt had a much improved drink :).

Where it lacks is around some of the more common problems that are exerienced along the way. Not making expected FG, issues with too much diacetyl or acetaldehyde, problems from fermenting at various temperatures (basically the stuff that trips up the novice brewer).

So to sum up I think if you are able to use your local brewing groups funds to share the cost of the kit then it is useful. Its not an insignificant investment so it is good to get as many as possible in a room and have a bit of fun going through each fault and discuss them. It won't cover everything and that is where you need experienced brewers with a good nose tasting your beer and giving feedback.