See the forums for the zoom link if you can’t make the meeting in person tonight.

The May meeting will be back, in person, on this upcoming Wednesday the 26th. In case you’ve forgotten how this goes (its been a while), bring a tasting glass, some homebrew to share if you have it, and some money to buy a pint and support the brewery that’s hosting us. The location is:

Cloud’s Brewing
1233 Front St.
Raleigh, NC 27609

There are multiple Clouds locations, so be sure to type in the full address. The taproom will not be open to the public, just to us. The meeting starts at 7pm, but get there 15-30 minutes early if you’d like to do some sensory tasting of leftover Shamrock competition beers. We will have a laptop setup running zoom if anyone cannot make it or is still not comfortable with an in-person meeting, zoom link to follow closer to the meeting.

On a final and bittersweet note, this will be my (Andy’s) last post as club president. My wife and I are moving down to Charleston, SC this upcoming Thursday. It has been an absolute honor and pleasure to lead the club these last two years. I wish the last half of it was under better circumstances, but I still very much enjoyed our virtual meetings and brewery tastings as we all did our best to navigate a difficult time. I’ll do my best to make the meeting this Wednesday, but that rides entirely on how quickly I can pack up the apartment. Just in case I can’t make it, I just wanted to thank everyone for being so welcoming and supportive.

See the forum for the link to tonight’s meeting. Starts at 7pm!

Our April meeting is fast approaching, so I wanted to get some information out.

First, the meeting will be on April 28th, 7pm. Virtual meeting link will be sent out late Tuesday/early Wednesday both via this email list and on the club forums.

Second, this month we’ll be trying something a little different. We have a bunch of non-placing beer left over from the recent Shamrock competition. We’d like to use the beer as a learning and analysis opportunity for the club. Between now and the day of the meeting, if you’d like to participate, you can pick up 2-3 bottles of non-placing homebrew from the competition on James’ Hopson’s front porch. The address is can be found in the forums.

There will be a cooler on the front porch with beer in it, please take 2-3 bottles from the cooler (no more than 3, please). Note that the speed limit in the development is 20 mph, with several curves and children in the neighbor hood. Please be careful and respectful when picking the beer up. If you are planning to pick up beer for more than yourself, please email both CarboyPresident@CarboyClub.com in advance so James knows to set extra beer out. If you choose to participate we’ll expect you to taste the beer during the virtual meeting and provide feedback to the rest of the group. Optionally, you can fill out an official BJCP score sheet as well. This can be an excellent opportunity to hone your tasting skills!

Besides the meeting information, I also wanted to take the opportunity to spread the word about a big brew day event coming up. Bull City Homebrew passed this information on to the club:
“Hello! I’m sure most everyone’s aware that the AHA’s Big Brew Day is just around the corner, two Saturdays from tomorrow on May 1st. As we’ve done in the past, we’re hoping to make this an opportunity to reach out to the local homebrewing community and to get together to make some beer! Please consider this an invitation to join us at the shop with your equipment–we’ll be partially subsidizing ingredient cost, and we’ll have water, ice, and the other incidentals.
After a long year, it looks like there is some sort of progress being made toward controlling the pandemic, and I’m looking forward to a busy summer of events, demonstrations, and brewdays. We’re still taking efforts to keep everyone as safe as we can: as far as that goes, we’ll be set up in the parking lot, and there will be plenty of room to spread out and relax. The big brew days we’ve hosted haven’t historically had a massive turnout–we’re not talking about Disneyworld or Mardi Gras–but I’d like to cap the number of active brewers at 8-10, just so we can ensure everyone’s personal space. So if you’re interested in coming out, please let me know!”

Feel free to circulate this to fellow club members, neighbors, anyone who’s interested! This is a great way to get normal people interested in the hobby, and a fun time to talk to some of the Triangle’s other passionate brewers. Or if you find a couple minutes on Big Brew Day to stop in and sample a beer or two, all are welcome. As always, I appreciate your support and hope to hear from you soon!”

If you’re interested, please reach out to Cole at cole@bullcityhomebrew.com

Finally, I have some CARBOY officer news. I (Andy) am moving out of the Triangle at the end of May, which means the club will need a new President. I was hoping to make it until June which would align with normal elections, but events have forced us to move the move date up. If you have any interest in the role, please reach out to me (CarboyPresident@CarboyClub.com) or another club officer. I’ll save my goodbye email for next month, but know that I’m going to genuinely miss this club. Its been a wonderful experience working with everyone these last 2 years.

If you brewed a beer for the Pink Boots/CARBOY collaboration, and you are planning to attend the bottle swap next month on April 11th at Bull City Homebrew, please fill out this form. It will give us a better idea of how many bottles everyone should bring. https://forms.gle/yUs8Tyk6nGQK3sNU8

Sorry for the late communication, but the link to tonight’s meeting is in the forums. It starts at 7pm tonight:

Unfortunately we did not line up a brewery for this month, so this will be a casual meeting. Crack a beer and hang out with us for a little bit!

The Shamrock Competition page is posted … Having issues with getting it loaded to the Menu … Use this link for now …

Shamrock Open XXVI

Just wanted to share the information for this Wednesday’s meeting, and a few other club-related things. First – the meeting. We weren’t able to secure a brewery-partner for this month, so February’s meeting will probably be a casual social event. If you’d like to, pick up one of your favorite beers and give us a run down on it during the meeting. If not, you’re just as welcome to show up and have some great beer and brewing conversation! The link to the meeting can be found in the forums, or in the club newsletter.

An organizer of The Hoppy Possum homebrew festival asked me to pass on information about it –  https://www.hoppypossum.com/news/2021/1/22/brewer-applications-open-february-1st. Signups have already begun.

Phil, the brewer from Black Fire Brewing, contacted me to let me know he is selling some fermenters. He has between 8-10 5 gallon stainless steel Chapman fermenters. Some have ports, some don’t. Used but in good condition. You can contact him at Phil@blackfirebrewing.com for more information.

Finally, we finally have the details surrounding the Pink Boots Society collaboration. The recipe(s) and dates are finalized. I’ll give some more information at the meeting, but the basics are:

• You can find the recipe and purchase the ingredients through Bull City Homebrew. https://www.bullcityhomebrew.com/product/5-gallon-knocking-boots/1551?cs=true&cst=custom
• There are a few ‘suggested’ variations if you’d like to go a different path, or come up with a unique one of your own (different yeast, specialty malts, spice, etc)
• On April 11th, from 3-4 pm, we’ll be hosting an ‘exchange’ of all the finished product at Bull City Homebrew. The idea is you would bring some number of bottles of your brew and get one of everyone else’s brew to take home and try
  • That gives everyone a little over a month and a half to brew the beer
  • We’ll be putting together a signup sheet in advance so that you know how many bottles to bring
  • Try them in your own time, or join us for an organized zoom afterwards to taste through some of them as a group. Info on this zoom to come

That’s everything, hope to see everyone on Wednesday!

The meeting starts at 7pm tonight, and the link to the meeting can be found in the forums or on the email list. If you aren’t on the email list, please send a message to CarboyPresident@CarboyClub.com with a request to be put on it!

The first meeting of 2021 is fast approaching, and I wanted to get some information about it out there. It will be held on Wednesday, January 27th at 7pm. The link to the virtual meeting will be sent out later next week via our mailing list and the forums at www.carboyclub.com. If you are not part of the mailing list and would like to be, email CarboyPresident@CarboyClub.com and ask to be added!

We’re going to resume our series of supporting and learning from our wonderful local breweries. This month, Black Fire Brewing has been kind enough to work with me to create a 4 can variety pack (16 oz cans) of beers for the club. The pack will cost around $20 and include a brown ale, a Mexican lager, a mint stout, and a mosaic IPA. Black Fire Brewing is a nano brewery and a relatively new addition to the brewery scene, lets give them a warm welcome and some support! Their brewer, Phil, will be joining us for the meeting to tell us a bit about the brewery and the beers we are tasting. They’ve canned up at least 10 mixed packs for us and may be able to can more if necessary, but don’t sleep on picking up your mixed pack just in case. Take note of their hours, they are only open 3 days a week:

Friday 5-9
Saturday 1-9
Sunday 12-5

They are located at:

2043 Progress Ct, Raleigh, NC 27608

This is going to be a fantastic meeting, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there!