United We Brew: Cool Homebrew Clubs
In every corner of the world, homebrewers gather to brew, drink, chat, learn, and have some fun in that most ancient and simple vehicle of camaraderie, the club. Some homebrew clubs have dozens of members, formal meetings, bylaws, and dues. Others consist of a handful of friends getting together to brew once a month or so. Whatever the format, the common bond is the same.
“The club gives beer lovers a regular place to get together and talk beer. You can drink beer anywhere, but talking beer is another matter,” says Craig Corley. Corley is president of Pacific Gravity, a Culver City, Calif., club with 75 members that meets at a local homebrew shop.
“We’ve got lots of people from the entertainment industry, professionals, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and everything in between. I don’t think these folks would be getting together in another forum, so it’s nice to have beer as a common thread between us,” he says. “It’s a great opportunity for networking and problem solving and just getting together with our own kind.”
Silver Anniversary
Among the senior members of the college of homebrew clubs is another Southern California club, the Maltose Falcons, based in Woodland Hills. The Falcons have been together since even before homebrewing was legal. This year they mark their 25th anniversary, and “Grand Hydrometer” Maribeth Raines-Casselman is planning the celebration — the mother of all beer parties, scheduled for September at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center.
“It’s going to be big. We’re trying to get a bunch of current and former Falcons to come, along with guest speakers, food and, of course, beer,” she says. There are plenty of former Falcons around — not that they left the club because they didn’t like it; they just graduated. The list reads like a who’s who in the brewing industry, including Ken Grossman, co-founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, Calif.; John Maier, brewmaster at Rogue Ales in Newport, Ore.; Marty Velas at Smoky Mountain Brewing Co. in Gatlinburg, Tenn.; Alex Puchner of Brea, Calif., director of brewing operations for the BJ’s Chicago Pizza brewpub chain; and beer author Darryl Richman of Seattle.
With more than 200 current members, it’s one of the biggest clubs in the country and possibly the oldest — several years older than the American Homebrewers Association.
The Falcons have taken Anchor Brewing Co.’s homebrew club of the year awards three times in California. Their ribbons and awards list occupies page after page of local, state, regional, and national awards at both the club and individual-member level.
With so many members, several groups of style enthusiasts have formed over the years. Nearly every kind of beer, mead, and cider has been made by Falcons. “We’ve also got a die-hard bunch of American light lager guys,” says Raines-Casselman.
“They make a Budweiser clone, Dougweiser — and a lot of it. They have perfected the technique of the concentrated-wort boil, so they can make gallons and gallons in no time flat. Plus they use rice, so it’s relatively cheap,” she says.
The Falcons have their own band, the Maltose Falcons Brews Band, that plays at Falcon events. “It started really accidentally, about 10 years ago, during Anchor’s annual festival. Anchor has a band and an impromptu bunch of Falcons sort of grabbed the Anchor band’s instruments during a break and started improvising,” she recalls.
The club owns a three-vessel system at the supply store, which members often use for group brewing activities, giving novices the opportunity to learn to brew all-grain, hands-on.
More Than a Club
Another of America’s oldest and largest clubs is Brewers United for Real Potables, known to members and friends simply as BURP, based in Rockville, Md. BURP’s been around the Washington, D.C., metro area since 1979. The club was founded by a newsman from the Washington Post, Dan McCoubrey, who loved his pint of Irish Stout and decided the best way to guarantee a constant supply was to brew his own. This was before the days of Guinness in every taproom.
“Dan was a real colorful character who we consider our founding father. He and six or eight other guys got together to start talking about forming a club. Somebody burped; the name was born,” says Bill Ridgley, a computer specialist with the Food and Drug Administration and BURP’s membership coordinator.
Social events are also de rigeur. BURP throws the occasional chili cookoff, crab feast, or barbecue, and it sponsors Mashout, a multi-club camping weekend each summer in the hills of Maryland. Clubs within 200 miles are invited. The event drew more than 200 for its 10-year anniversary in 1997. Participants are expected to donate beer to swap with others during the weekend. To keep the tent city of brewers quenched, one part of the grounds is designated “Keg Row.” Dozens of campers regularly fill their glasses at a long line of soda kegs, each dispensing a unique brand of homebrew.
Ridgley says BURP’s membership — now 350 strong — is its strength. “They’re a great bunch. Easy to get along with, mellow. The club’s taught me more about brewing than I thought I was capable of learning. We’ve got a lot of experience. One of our members has been homebrewing since the 1940s,” he says.
The Great White North
Zymurgists Borealis — the Homebrewers of the North! is one of America’s northernmost homebrew clubs, based in Fairbanks, Alaska. “We’re probably the most loosely knit homebrew club there is,” says Roger Penrod, who says his title is “Founder and President for Life.”
“We’re real low key and not big on organization. In Alaska nobody wants to act like the government, to be responsible for other people’s money. So we have no dues. We meet four times a year and pass a hat,” he says. Meetings are scheduled on the equinoxes in March and September and the solstices in June and December. The club has 25 or 30 members and has been meeting formally since 1991. As you might expect, their March and December meetings are indoors. It was “pretty warm” at times this winter — eight below zero, according to Penrod. “Even 20 below is warm after a few weeks of 40 below,” he says.
But summer and fall bring a respite from the cold. “Our June and September meetings are traditionally outdoors. In June we have a picnic on the river and watch the river boats, full of tourists watching us. June can be frosty, but we’ve had it as high as 60° and 70° F in some years.
“In September we have a picnic in a public campground. In a good year we’ll have clear skies, sunshine, and 50° F. Of course, we’ve had a foot ofsnow on the ground some years. We do it outdoors anyway,” he says. “At a few of our outdoor brews, we’ve rigged a pump to use river water to cool the wort through an immersion chiller. The water temperature hovers around 36° F or so.”
Penrod says being involved in a club is a constant learning experience. “In this hobby, the more you scratch, the less you know. Right now, I’m at the point where I know enough to make what I enjoy. That’s good enough for me,” he says.
They’re Making Our Jets?
After a hard day’s work building airplanes, firing up the old brew kettle is a perfect way to relax. Some of the folks who design and build aircraft for Boeing also like to build the occasional homebrew. The Boeing Employees Wine and Beermakers Club in Seattle is one of many clubs officially sanctioned by Boeing’s recreation department. Tom Del Pozzi, a technical designer on the new F-22 fighter jet, has been a Boeing employee 23 years. He’s the Seattle club’s president.
Boeing’s beer and winemakers’ group includes 130 employees in Seattle. Another 50 or so make up a newer club in Everett, to the north. “The Seattle club started with just a handful of winemakers in 1971,” Del Pozzi explains. “They realized that if they pooled their resources of expertise and equipment, it would make it easier and less expensive to enjoy the hobby. They petitioned the company for club recognition and seed money, which was used to buy the club’s first crusher-stemmer.
“There was no homebrew component until the late ’80s, about the time I joined. I was one of 10 or so brewers. We were sort of shunned at first, but some of the wine people got interested in beer, especially after tasting some well-made homebrew,” he says. The pioneer brewers converted a few winemakers and others started asking questions. Before long they were accepted in the clubhouse, a facility on Boeing’s campus that is shared by other recreation clubs. The club has also inherited a nice walk-in cooler, a hand-me-down from one of Boeing’s laboratories.
They’re Making Our Cars, Too?
Boeing’s club isn’t the only brew club with corporate sponsorship. The Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsmen, FORD, is made up predominantly of employees of the Ford Motor Co. in and around the Motor City. “The word ‘renaissance’ refers to the renaissance of homebrewing, not to any period in history,” says Rich Byrnes, a systems analyst and Ford employee of nine years. He’s also a co-founder and the club’s secretary. “We wanted to use a FORD acronym and held a name-the-club contest to get the name. Of course we called Ford’s office of general counsel, the legal department, to see if it was okay to use the word ‘Ford.’ As it turned out, the person we spoke to was an old homebrewer himself and was very sympathetic to our cause,” he says.
FORD, based in Dearborn, Mich., is about 110 members strong. In addition to a lending library of books and periodicals, FORD maintains an equipment bank from which members can borrow. The club owns a Pico three-vessel brew system and a portable, 10-tap beer bar with jockey box and CO2 system. One member volunteers to be equipment manager and stores the stuff in his garage.
Although FORD has taken a few ribbons over the years, Byrnes says the club is not very gung-ho about competing but instead devotes most of its energy to education and socializing. For a few years FORD has held Big Brew, a group brewing event at a member’s home. At a recent Big Brew, participants made some 65 gallons of homebrew, including batches of barleywine, California pale ale, porter, alt, and one beer, dubbed “Strange Brew 2,” made from second runnings of some of the higher-gravity creations.
Byrnes considers Tyler Barber, FORD’s homebrewer of the year, a real club success story. “Three years ago, Tyler was one of those people who thought brewing had to be complicated and difficult, basically rocket science. He came to one of our demos and was amazed when he saw us dumping extract and hops into a boiling kettle. In three short years, he’s become a true expert. He’s won almost all the club’s recent competitions. And he’s now our resident expert in Belgian styles,” he says.
Who’s Got Time for Cars?
Though small, the club that spawned FORD is still going strong. The Detroit Car Boys, in Royal Oak, Mich., has nine active members. According to Secretary Ed Marsh, “We brew beer, enjoy beer, and drink beer.” The club was established in 1991. Marsh is a driver for UPS and has been a Car Boy for five years. “We meet in members’ homes. Our average meeting is between four and eight people. We get something to eat and share some beer,” he says. A reliable Motor City source indicates that a bit of cigar smoking goes on at Car Boys meetings, too. The Boys occasionally make a local brewpub a meeting venue. “Right now we’ve got two beginners. Everybody else is advanced. We’ve won a few ribbons in regional competitions, like the Michigan State Fair,” he says.
Despite the club’s name, none of the members are real car nuts. “Our new president works for General Motors. I guess that counts. We don’t have any ’57 Chevy owners or cool Thunderbirds,” says Marsh. “We’re brewers. Who’s got time for an old car — unless you’re getting in to go buy some beer?”
Ain’t Technology Grand?
One homebrew club has no headquarters. No meetings. No club house. The Virtual Village Homebrew Society exists in cyberspace, on CompuServe. Members pay no dues, receive a monthly newsletter — via e-mail, of course — and participate in regular club tastings and parallel brews.
The VVHS has around 40 members, all of whom are CompuServe subscribers. Dave Evans, club president, is a nuclear medicine technologist with the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C. “We pick a style for our monthly swaps and members ship the beer to one another. We then meet on-line for a real-time tasting conference,” he says. Instead of meeting monthly for a few hours, like real-world brew clubs, the VVHS is an ongoing meeting, 24 hours a day, says Evans. “One of the advantages of this forum is that members can get help anytime, from anywhere. If you have a question, all you need do is post it and you’ll get a response usually very quickly,” he says.
Their big annual competition and fundraiser is Networt, held in the spring. “Networt draws around 100 entries. Results are posted on the bulletin board as soon as each judge is finished. Although they are posted by code, you can often figure out which beer is yours based on the style and comments,” he says. When all the judging is done, the names associated with each code are released and prizes are awarded.
The VVHS does throw the occasional real-life pub crawl. Club members have met for socializing and beer tastings in Baltimore a few times. The majority of members are on the East Coast, and Baltimore is centrally located for many. “When we got together in Baltimore, it was the first time a lot of us met face to face,” Evans says. Evans says the online forum allows people to participate regardless of their schedule and travel commitments. “It’s easy. Just sit back with your computer, and you’re there,” he says.
