Category Archives: Regular Meetings

As most members are aware, our usual haunt —Muggsy's Mughouse— is closing tonight, a week before our scheduled July meeting.

A fair number of us will be there this evening to usher them out with a bang, feel free to drop by.

With Muggsy's closed, and short notice to find a new venue, the club has decided to move our meeting to July 14th. There are a couple candidates for new spots that have made the short list, and we're solidifying plans now, but will save you members the trouble of speculation and worry, and promise that wherever we meet, it will be a good meeting place with the same high-caliber beer selection, it will allow us to bring in our homebrew, and —as far as we know now— we will still be holding regular meetings on the first Thursday of every month.

Hope to see you at Muggsy's tonight for the farewell, and we'll be in touch regarding a venue for July 14th.

Bastille Day beers, anyone?

Regular meeting takes place on Thursday 6-2, with us going over a few things in prep for the generally less active, less busy Summer months. I say generally, because at Baltibrew, we don't really close up shop the way many clubs do.

We'll be talking about the following things tomorrow at our usual Muggsy's location at 8 p.m. I'm betting they'll have another brewery there to visit like they have the last two months. Always a surprise as to who it will be.

1. Guild Picnic which takes place on Saturday at the Patapsco State Park just past Ellicott City. We'll coordinate carpools, etc. and prep for the Wheat Beer Comp!
2. June Brew, which is 6-25 at John Jester's house with Rob Perry from Brewer's Art
3. Baltimore Beer Week — including Chilibrew IV, and other possible events we will run during this year's big 10 days.

If you've got other items to be discussed, please post them in the comments!

Hope to see you there.

As noted last post, our regular May meeting falls on Cinco De Mayo this year, and we will be at our normal Muggsy's haunt. That's 8 p.m. tonight, folks!

Basic Agenda items (more to be brought up at meeting):

1. June meeting/brew
2. Guild picnic
3. Mashout
4. Baltimore Beer Week 2011
5. Regular meeting scheduling
6. Transportation to extra-city brew days
7. Summer activities

Lots to talk about so please do your best to come out.

It's time for our monthly meeting. At Muggsy's as usual. 8 p.m. as usual.

We'll be discussing the following:

• Sunday's Brian Strumke-led brew day, and what we'll all be bringing to eat, and who will be bringing it.
• Chilibrew 3.0 on 4-17
• Upcoming events, including the Spring version of the Real Ale Fest at the newly expanded Pratt St. Ale House
• Plans for BBW 11.

Bring beer, and let us know if you have other items to discuss in the comments section.

Hope to see you here.

The regular Baltibrew meeting for March is this Thursday 3-3-2011. Same brew-time, same brew-channel, Muggsy's @ 8 p.m.

Our dues vote resulted in a popular decision of $20 per member per year. This can (and should) be paid to the treasurer, Greg Slack, at the meeting.

Remember: Payment of dues gives you the right to vote on the future of the club, a 10% discount at MDHB or the Thirsty Brewer, the right to take home club brewed beer from club brews, and — eventually — the ability to rent starter kits from the club, among other privileges.

Agenda items include:

• What to do with dues? Kits or volume expansion? What's the priority?
• April Brew — At this point tentatively scheduled for 4-10 with Brian "Stillwater" Strumke at the home of Kevin Berry. More on that at the meeting.
• Chilibrew III — Ian will fill us in on details, and help us help HIM prepare for the event.
• Clone Wars entries: We'll taste the beers produced for our entry into the Pratt Street Ale House Clone Wars competition, as well as the genuine article, and decide how to proceed.

If you've got anything you need to add to the agenda, post it in the comments.

Great brew today at Slack's house. Two extract batches of 3 Lions, and a supplement boil for Ian's stout. Good times.  Meeting minutes below. Dues vote to be up soon.  Safe travels Boddy. God Speed. Continue reading →

I've heard from a number of people who have expressed trepidation about meeting tonight when we will also be meeting to brew on Saturday, and just met a few weeks ago. Admittedly, this makes the week pretty Baltibrew-centric for some of us, but there are a number of reasons why meeting times should remain as regular as possible — and more importantly — as separate from brew days as possible.

So Why?

Regularity of meetings do a number of things for the club:

• They allow what we say on the website about meeting dates to remain mostly true, which means casual, prospective members who find us via the Internet are more likely to show up to a meeting without having to contact us, or us having to contact them.
• They help us to support Muggsy's which is important if we want to continue to have a regular meeting place at which we can bring our homebrewed efforts. Without a regular meeting place, we similarly affect the likelihood of new arrivals.
• They get us on a schedule. The more lax we are about meeting regularly, the more likely we are to just let them fall to the wayside in favor of lackadaisically doing business at brews when we should be focused on  brewing.

Doing business at brews breaks our focus on brewing at the brew, and reduces time at the brews that could be better spent instructing members about what we're doing. It also limits our ability to do style and technical presentations during down times at brews since we have decided not to do these at meetings.

There will be times when we have to move or cancel meetings to accommodate other events — like Opening Tap of BBW/Chilibrew II, this past year — but it makes sense to minimize this as much as possible moving forward to ensure that we don't lose the privilege to meet at Muggsy's, and to make certain we get the important business of running the club done.

So show up if you can. If you can't, comment on this post if there is business you want done at the meeting.

Current agenda after the jump. Updates if we see comments. Continue reading →

This week:

1. Tuesday 2/1 6 p.m. at Pratt St. Ale House — 3 Lions Clone War event.
   This was an RSVP event, but I know a number of Baltibrew members inlcuding John Jester, and myself will be in attendance. Hope to see some of the rest of you there.
2. Thursday 2/3 8 p.m. at Muggsy's in Federal Hill — Regular Monthly meeting.
   We'll go over last month's business and prepare for a vote on dues.
3. Saturday 2/5 after 9 a.m.  Greg Slack's house — February Brew day.
   Being that we did not have any other nominations for a brew, we'll be cloning 3 Lions as part of the Clone War competition mentioned above.
   Bring something to eat, and beer to share.

Hope to see you all there. If you've got questions, or comments to make, here's your thread.

Baltibrew holds its rescheduled January meeting at Muggsy's beginning at 8 p.m. this evening, 1-13-2011.

Lots of stuff on the docket to be discussed.

Continue reading →

Tonight is our rescheduled regular December meeting at Muggsy's.

There are a few topics to discuss:

• What/Where to brew in January
• Last week's Guild Holiday Party — outcomes & opinions — plus! what about next year?
• Next month's regular meeting — January 6th work for everyone? Everyone back from holiday?
• How does Baltibrew proceed in 2011? Elections? Treasuries? — You tell us

The thought is that we'll try to take care of these items quickly, and then move on to some revelry.

Thereafter, let's hang out and share some holiday cheer against the frigid onslaught outside.

Bring your significant other and we'll all do our best to avoid alienating them with too much beer geekery. As usual, we are privileged, and welcome to bring homebrew to be shared upstairs — Holiday beers preferred! — but of course, don't forget Muggsy's fine selection of beers and eats!