April 2017 Meeting Minutes

[karl]

Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts
General Meeting Minutes
2017 April 20

Meeting was called to order at Iowa Brewing Company. Twenty seven people in attendance.

Reports

(none planned)

Old Business

Club Competitions:
April: style 24A Belgian Wit - Members are invited to volunteer as judges and stewards. Date of judging is TBD.
July: style 20C Imperial Stout
October: 6A Marzen

Member-sponsored competitions: Pat McCusker is sponsoring “Mad McCusker’s Mead Melee” including putting up a prize of one pound of excellent Basswood honey. Turn-in is approximately nine months from now. You need aging time so get busy!

Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts Festival Planning
Date: Third Saturday in August: August 19
Location: Benz Beverage Depot.
Promotional cards, magnets, posters, etc.: Cards and magnets have been printed and are being made available to members at club meetings and events. Mark Jensen submitted receipts and was reimbursed for purchase of the cards, magnets and materials for chalk boards. Fifty posters have been printed and many were distributed to members to post at various locations throughout the local area.
Simplified advert design for printing on T-shirts. Plan is to keep the cost low so that advertizing shirts can be given to members. Get a count of those to wear them at next general meeting.
Event has been set up on EventBrite will be set to “go live” just before Benz Fest begins. We will pass through the $2 fee for advance sales but not for credit card sales at the gate. We will get 300 printed tickets.
Looking for volunteers to walk around at C.R. Farmer’s Market with sandwich board and handing out publicity cards and magnets.

National Homebrew Conference
Registration opened on March 07 at 11:00 CST. Hotels are likely filling up fast. There will likely be plenty of available capacity, but registration fees will increase on April 30.
Club transportation - Car pool will be most efficient. Remember, you can park your car and not need to worry about transport during the conference. Watch the for threads on the club forum discussing times carpools are traveling.
Hospitality suite & Beer supply: We are guaranteed refrigerated storage for 20 (corny) kegs. Event staff will make sure these are delivered to the hospitality suite and convention hall for club night.
We are looking for a new theme. Perhaps twisting Minnesota icons might be fun. We’re looking for suggestions that might be biting humor but not offensive.
Herokuapp has been set up. Members hoping to bring beer should list their beers, the type of container, and the quantity.
Jim Potts pulling the trailer. Some consideration for the extra fuel consumption will be made.

Beer Nuts Happy Hour
Last Sunday of the month (January through October) at Lion Bridge Brewing
A forum post has been made to invite brewers to participate. Contact activities chair Daryl McCall for more information.
Had very good turn attendance and interest from the public. This is a fun event.

Club Trips/Tours
Great Taste of the Midwest - No officially organized club presence. But, many members will be camping at Lake Farm Campground for event Friday and Saturday night. Several club members going up May 6th, camp in parking lot of Steve’s Liquor, come home Sunday, May 7th after the noon ticket sales take place.

Wort Rally 2017
Daryl has arranged the major details with Lion Bridge Brewing
Wort will be a pared-down version of the Yard Sale wort.
Vessel drop off will be Thursday, May 4th with pickup on Friday, May 5th. Alec is hoping to have the wort ready for pickup at 3pm, but that is tentative.
Price is $30 for a volume of 10 gallons. Fees will be collected through the club.
There will be a hard cutoff date (TBD) to register.
T-shirts for this year are pending.

Club Bulk Grain Buy
Invitation posted on club forums -- Due date is April general meeting. If you haven’t gotten your order in, please hurry
Participation is open only to members with dues paid
Please order base grains only -- For specialty grains please visit our friends at BIY.
Pricing is as per catalog but is subject to change. Actual shipping charges to be divided across the orders.
Iowa Brewing Company working with us to make this order possible. Please thank them and bring some business their way.
Some former members have contacted to rejoin, grain order is a trigger for sure

Big Brew Day
Big Brew Day is May 6th
NewBo Market has invited us to brew at the market that day. However, with NHC and other events on the calendar, we are planning to skip this year in favor of 2018
Club members who wish to participate in this brew day are encouraged to volunteer. If there is enough interest we may be able to participate.
Seeing little availability of members to participate, the Beer Nuts is not planning an official participation.

Lager ‘Lympics Festival
Date is June 3.
Enquiry from Metro North Rotary Club to participate in pouring (our own homebrew) beer at this festival
Further information at this link.
Problem is that it is between Benz Festival and NHC and is a stretch for many of us to provide beer.
A call has been placed on the forums for those willing to provide beer and/or pour at the event.
Mike Hora plans to pour, we suggest sending some leftovers from Benz Beerfest

Use of the Club Tap Box
Members are permitted to borrow the club tap box for use at parties
A refundable $20 deposit will be charged to cover cleaning if returned with the beer lines (or other portions) of the tap box unacceptably dirty.
The club is purchasing equipment for cleaning and supplies for cleaning
Instructions for cleaning and blowing dry lines to be authored by TBD.

New Business

Cabinet meeting dates and locations
May - Need Pizza - May 9, 7:30 pm
June - TBD - Intent is to hold meeting one week early

General meeting dates and locations
May - Lion Bridge Brewing - May 18, 8:00 pm
June - Conflicts with NHC - Intent is to hold it one week early on June 8 - Tentatively at Sag Wagon outdoors