Recording from the February 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we had our own member Matt King joining us, to talk about mead! Join us to hear Matt talk about the different types of mead, what the process looks like, how the fermentation differs from beer, some of his recipes, and more!
Date: Monday February 8th, 2021
Time: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the link and password. If you have logged in and cannot see them, please refresh the page.
This month we have our own GTA Brews member Matt King joining us, to talk about mead! Join us to hear Matt talk about the different types of mead, what the process looks like, how the fermentation differs from beer, some of his recipes, and more!
As with any conference call, please mute your microphone if you aren’t speaking, this really helps cut down on background noise. During Q&A segments we will make use of the “Raise Hand” feature.
Continue reading February Meeting: All About Mead with Matt KingPlease RSVP using the form below to help us track expected attendees and make sure we hit our required quorum!
Date: Sunday February 21st, 2021
Time: 8:30 PM – 10:00 PM
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the link and password. If you have logged in and cannot see them, please refresh the page.
This first annual GTA Brews AGM will be conducted from 8:30-10:00 PM on Sunday Feb 21st. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this will be hosted virtually using Zoom, however we hope to make this an exciting annual in-person event in the future. To reach the quorum required to hold the meeting we need 40+ members to attend, so please mark your calendars and plan to attend!
The meeting will be chaired by outgoing President, Eric Cousineau (message from Eric).
Continue reading First Annual General Meeting of GTA Brews – Feb 21stThe GTA Brews Board of Directors consists of 5 seats, each elected by the members for a 2 year term. Our current Board of Directors (Eric Cousineau, Bear Alberico, Jim Bruce, David Larocque, Rob Towle) were installed at incorporation in December 2019, and are now at the end of their terms.
Our Founding President, Eric Cousineau, has opted not to seek re-election as President this term, and will instead seek election as an At-Large Director. See his message to members here.
The President is an Executive Director, Chair of the Board, and has general supervision over all affairs of the club. Along with the rest of Board, they are responsible for setting the vision/direction/priorities of the organization, and making sure things get done.
The Vice-President is an Executive Director, Vice-Chair of the Board, and is responsible for assisting the President in managing the club.
The Treasurer is an Executive Director, and responsible for managing the finances and transactions of the club. They also make sure that the club complies with our annual filing requirement as a non-profit corporation.
The Board also consists of two non-Executive At-Large Directors. These individuals are full Board members that participate in setting the vision/direction/priorities of the organization. They may have other duties as designated by the Board.
The next Board of Directors shall be elected by the voting members represented at the GTA Brews AGM on Feb 21st.
Continue reading GTA Brews Board Elections 2021Date: Monday January 11th, 2021
Time: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the link and password. If you have logged in and cannot see them, please refresh the page.
This month we have renowned beer author and Certified Cicerone/BJCP Jordan St. John joining us, to talk about collaborating with local breweries to re-create historical beer styles! Jordan wears many hats in the Toronto beer scene and we are thrilled to have him join us.
As with any conference call, please mute your microphone if you aren’t speaking, this really helps cut down on background noise. During Q&A segments we will make use of the “Raise Hand” feature.
Continue reading January Meeting: Recreating Historical Beers with Jordan St JohnDate: Monday November 9th, 2020
Time: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the link and password. If you have logged in and cannot see them, please refresh the page.
This month, we have famous homebrew author John Palmer sharing his knowledge about Brewing Water, followed by a Q&A session! This time last year John joined us as a special guest at Brew Slam, and we are very excited to have him back.
For this meeting we will open up attendance to both members and non-members. Members will have first rights to join using the link above between 7:30 – 8:00 PM. At 8:00 PM we will share the public link on our social media to welcome in non-members (up to 100 people total).
As with any conference call, please mute your microphone if you aren’t speaking, this really helps cut down on background noise. During Q&A segments we will make use of the “Raise Hand” feature.
Continue reading November Meeting: Brewing Water with John PalmerOver the years, GTA Brews hasn’t really taken an active role in advocating for diversity in the homebrewing community. We’ve mostly taken a passive approach by trying to remove barriers that may hinder a feeling of inclusion for women and racial minorities. The vast majority of our club leadership is composed of white men, and in the past we didn’t feel like it was our place to speak out.
After witnessing the racial injustices that have been brought to light over the past few weeks, we have decided we can no longer be passive on this matter. We are ready to help in the fight for real change.
Black is Beautiful is an initiative founded by Weathered Souls Brewing in San Antonio, TX. This initiative is mainly focused at craft breweries and beer drinkers, and encourages them to collaborate in raising awareness and funds for local charities fighting against racial injustice. The initiative is centered around a single stout base recipe, and each participant is encouraged to put their own creative spin on it.
CAFCAN is a registered charitable organization whose primary focus is on building and strengthening the service framework for African Canadian children, youth and families through culturally safe individual and group counselling supports, case management services, employment services, youth mentorship, and youth outreach programs.
As a homebrew club, we don’t sell beer, so we aren’t able to dedicate a certain portion of each bottle sold. Instead, we will do the following:
As a small, non-profit, membership based organization, we don’t have deep pockets, so this $1000 is a considerable part of our bank account. Brew and/or donate before July 31st to qualify!
Update: Our good friend Toronto Brewing has joined the initiative, and will match what the club donates. This means that for every dollar donated, it gets multiplied by 3!
$2965
To make a difference, we need the help of you, our club members! We need you to brew the beer, and we need you to consider making a monetary donation if you are able.
Weathered Souls said it best:
Continue reading Black is Beautiful: Homebrewers Against Racial Injustice (Final Update)
Due to COVID-19, our annual Canadian Homebrew Day tradition of running Learn2Brew has been cancelled. We still wanted to celebrate Canadian Homebrew Day, so we’re excited to announce we’ve organized a virtual group brew session on Zoom!
Join On Zoom (link)
Password: GTA_Brews
Date: Sunday June 7th, 2020
Time: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Note: This will take the place of our June club meeting
Hosts: David Chang-Sang and Eric Cousineau will be hosting the virtual brew session
We were pleased to see lots of interest when we shared the plan on our Facebook Discussion Group a few days ago. We’re expecting at least 5 others to join the virtual brew session while brewing, so this will be a sort of virtual Learn2Brew!
Recording from the April 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
Cory Day, Canadian Homebrewer of the Year (2017, 2018, 2019), spills his secrets for Recipe Formulation. The presentation was followed by a legendary Q&A with lots of great questions.
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the video.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to require us to practice social distancing, so we will continue to postpone or go virtual with club gatherings until it is safe to return to normal.
This means we will not be able to host the hop split in April. We are still planning to split and distribute our hops as soon as it is safe to do so, and the hops are still safe and sound in the freezer at the suppliers. We don’t have any update about the May BJCP Tasting Exam or Learn2Brew yet.
In the meantime please continue to support our local homebrew shops during this difficult time. Toronto Brewing is online only at the moment, and is shipping orders as fast as they can. Homebrew Beer Academy is accepting online orders and allowing no contact pick up, and also doing drop off in parts of the GTA.
Please also continue to support our local breweries. So many of them have supported the club over the year, and the closure of bars, restaurants, and taprooms has a big impact on them. Most of them are offering online orders or local drop off, so if you can, please support them in this time of need.
David Chang-Sang has been hosting weekly (or more) Zoom hangouts with to provide a social outlet to discuss beer and other things. Keep your eyes on the Facebook Discussion Group for those. Our Social FB Chat has also been fairly active, feel free to join that if you want to hang out!
Monday April 20th at 7:30 PM
ZOOM Meeting (Online)
Due to the COVID-19 virus, we will be conducting this month’s meeting virtually over Zoom. We are thankful that we are still able to provide a strong educational component in the form of this month’s presentation.
This is our first time hosting a virtual homebrew club meeting, so please have patience with any technical issues that arise. As with any conference call, please mute your microphone if you aren’t speaking, this really helps cut down on background noise.
Continue reading April Meeting: Cory Day Spills His SecretsDear GTA Brews Members,
Out of an abundance of caution of the ongoing COVID-19 / CoronaVirus pandemic, the GTA Brews Board of Directors have decided that it is prudent to re-examine and adjust our schedule of spring events.
Hop Buy participants have already been notified that it has been postponed from the original date of Sunday March 22nd. We will announce a new date for in a few weeks, but we are aiming for mid-late April, depending on how the virus situation develops.
The hops will stay fresh in the freezer at the supplier, so we don’t lose anything by postponing. The cider part of the hop buy will not be postponed since it has already been pressed, frozen, and delivered to our temporary holding location (The Homebrew Beer Academy). Instructions will be sent to people that purchased cider once we work out the details.
(Updated March 16th, 2020)
The situation has continued to escalate, and many local businesses have closed, including our drop off locations. We felt it wasn’t appropriate to ask any new drop off locations so we have decided that we will put a hold on club shipping until further notice.
This includes the ALES Open shipping deadline that was set for March 21st. We will refund any shipping fees that have been paid to the club. At the moment ALES is proceeding with their competition, and not offering to refund entry fees. We hope they will change their mind, but this is outside the control of the club. If you would still like to enter the competition, you will need to manage your own shipping for the time being.
We will re-evaluate entry shipping for later comps in a few weeks.
Due to the Hop Buy being pushed back to April, we are pushing the Grain Buy back to May. We were almost ready to launch the sign up, but will now hold off until a new pick up date in mid-late May can be solidified.
The April meeting is currently scheduled for Monday April 20th, due to Easter Monday falling on our traditional 2nd Monday of the month. At this time there are no changes planned for this event.
Our annual Spring Showdown competition was in the initial planning stages to take place in early May, but we have decided to cancel the competition. With the Grain Buy moving back to May, and the uncertainty around additional event schedule changes that may be needed, we felt this was the best choice we could make.
Planning and running homebrew competitions is one of the most effort intensive things we undertake as a club. Given the evolving virus situation, and the other events that have moved back, we didn’t feel we could still put together the kind of competition we want to run.
We would like to thank The Homebrew Beer Academy for offering to come in as our title sponsor for Spring Showdown this year. This gesture is very much appreciated, and we hope our members will appreciate it as well.
If the opportunity arises we may consider running another competition in the early summer. However it is just as likely that we may decide it is wise to focus our efforts on Brew Slam instead.
There is a BJCP Beer Judging Exam scheduled for Saturday May 23rd. At this time we aren’t planning any changes to this event.
Canadian Homebrew Day is scheduled for Sunday June 7th, 2020. Due to the static nature of the national date, we are planning to stay the course on planning this event. We are looking to run another multi-site Learn2Brew again this year.
Thank you for your understanding, we hope you can appreciate that these changes are the responsible direction to go. The health and safety of our members is important to us, and we felt that postponing our events would limit unnecessary exposure to others during our busy events.
One last note; please support our local breweries and businesses in these uncertain times. As more people are electing to stay in, our local breweries and homebrew shops will undoubtedly see a reduction in foot traffic through their doors. Please consider buying some beer to drink at home from their retail shops, or even from their online stores.
Thanks again for reading this letter! We are sending our best wishes of happiness and health to each of you, and your families.
Cheers,
GTA Brews Board of Directors
(Eric Cousineau, Bear Alberico, Jim Bruce, Rob Towle, David Larocque)
We are going back to our gracious host, Muddy York Brewing Co! We request that everyone spend some money to support our wonderful host. Don’t forget to buy some bottles from their shop!
If you haven’t checked out the club Swag Shop recently, you are missing out! We’ve got a bunch of club branded items available for order, some of them are even listed at new SALE prices! We also have a new shirt, see below!
Update: Club of the Year shirt pre-order closes March 4th!
To celebrate our club’s historic victory on the Brewer of the Year (BOTY) circuit last year, we have designed a commemorative shirt! Pre-order now, then these shirts will be available for pick up on Hop Buy pick up day (Mar 22nd)!
Not listed in the Swag Shop is our last stock of Brew Slam and Club Logo shirts. If you missed out on these shirts, order now to snag the last ones! Here’s the stock for these are time of publish:
As promised here are the medal winner photos we took at this year’s Brew Slam Awards Party! A full wrap up post is still in the pipeline, but hopefully these will stave off those that are getting antsy!
Big thanks to David Chang-Sang for taking these photos of our winners as they are awarded their medals!
This December we are being hosted by People’s Pint Brewing Company. Thanks for hosting us! We request that everyone spend some money to support our wonderful host. They have plenty of beer-to-go in their bottle shop!
Visit this page for the full details: gtabrews.ca/brew-slam/
Entry Registration Opens: Sept 25th, 2019
Entry Deadline: Nov 2nd, 2019
Judging Dates: Nov 8th – 10th, 2019
Entry Limits:
GTA Brews is excited is excited to build on last year’s massive success which saw 826 entries, from 191 entrants, in 8/10 provinces, judged by 75 judges, over just 3 days, making this the largest homebrew competition in Canada! We are ecstatic to have John Palmer attending as our guest of honour (Nov 8-10) to help ring in our 5th year!
This is a BJCP sanctioned competition, and also part of the Canadian Brewer of the Year (BOTY) circuit. The judging will take place at Amsterdam Brewery (Leaside) from Nov 8th to 10th. Judging will be performed by BJCP ranked judges and pro brewers, using the BJCP 2015 Guidelines and Provisional Styles.
This year we have implemented a few changes to the structure of the competition in order to encourage more entrants:
August 26th, 2019 – Toronto, ON
Inquiries about Brew Slam 2019 should be sent to: comp@gtabrews.ca
GTA Brews is excited to announce our fifth annual, nation-wide, homebrew competition for beer, mead, and cider; Brew Slam 2019 (#BrewSlam)! We are excited to build on last year’s massive success which saw 826 entries, from 191 entrants, in 8/10 provinces, judged by 75 judges, over just 3 days, making this the largest homebrew competition in Canada! We are ecstatic to have John Palmer attending as our guest of honour (Nov 8-10) to help ring in our 5th year!
This is a BJCP sanctioned competition, and also part of the Canadian Brewer of the Year (BOTY) circuit. The judging will take place at Amsterdam Brewery (Leaside) from Nov 8th to 10th. Judging will be performed by BJCP ranked judges and pro brewers, using the BJCP 2015 Guidelines and Provisional Styles.
Continue reading Announcing Brew Slam 2019 – Homebrew Competition