Recording from the January 2023 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
In January we were happy to have GTA Brews Member (and former club President) Eric Cousineau back to give us a presentation this month on water chemistry!
Recording from the July 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.(NOTE: The club is still figuring out how to best record these in person sessions so please bear with us until we can sort out getting better quality video and audio available)
We were back to IN PERSON meetings at Muddy York Brewing!!! For the East End of the GTA, this was the first time we have been back in person at Muddy York and we were so happy to hearing from our good friends at Escarpment Labs! Jonah Greenbaum-Shinder came to the meeting to give us a talk on Wild Yeast Capture and Testing!
Recording from the July 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada. (NOTE: The club is still figuring out how to best record these in person sessions so please bear with us until we can sort out getting better quality video and audio available)
Emily was in-person for her final “Style Of The Month” presentation for July! If you missed June’s meeting you’d realize that Emily couldn’t make June’s meeting so we’re hopeful she can get to Muddy York for the final category: Mead! Emily looked at the mead style guidelines in more detail. We’ll miss seeing Emily and hearing the various styles!! Thanks for all your hard work on this Emily!
Recording from the May 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we were exceptionally excited to have Tariq Ahmed join us from Revel Cider talk to us about cider brewing! His presentation focused on Revel Cider, their cider brewing philosophies and a guided tasting of two of their ciders.
Recording from the April 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we were exceptionally excited to have Calum and Lauren join us from Sonnen Hill Brewery talk to us about lagers! Their presentation focused on brewing lagers and included a guided tasting of four of their beers
Recording from the April 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
Emily returned with April’s BJCP Style Of The Month! This month, Emily looked at smoke, wood, and specialty beers (aka the beers that don’t fit nowhere else).
Recording from the March 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
As we Marched towards spring this month (you see what I did there?) we were excited to have GTA Brews Member Lauren Richard (pronounced akin to “Rocket Richard”) with us to impart her knowledge on something our club has never looked at before – Beer / Food Pairings!!
Recording from the February 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
In February we were happy to have GTA Brews Member Stephen Rodermond give us a presentation on opening up a brewery (yes… a legal brewery) in his garage!
Recording from the January 2022 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
In January we were happy to have GTA Brews Member (and former club President) Eric Cousineau back to give us a presentation this month on water chemistry!
Presentation: Those Czech (and now Italian) Pilsners with Annie Johnson
Annie Johnson
We are fired up to have the 2013 American Homebrewers Association Brewer Of The Year winner, Annie Johnson, here this month to give us a presentation on Czech and Italian Pilsners and to do some Q&A with us on these styles! Not only is Annie a winner of the AHA's Brewer Of The Year award but she also won Pilsner Urquell's Master Homebrewer competition in 2012 and has been actively involved in professional brewing since 2014. Annie is also a BJCP Nationally Ranked judge, the current president of the Seattle chapter of The Pink Boots Society and was elected to the AHA's Governing Committee in 2020.
Recording:
Recording from the November 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
In November we were exhilarated to have Annie Johnson, an American Homebrewers Association Brewer Of The Year award winner, give us a presentation this month on everything pertaining to Czech (and now Italian) pilsners!
Recording from the October 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
In October we were over-the-moon to have Dr. Richard Preiss, co-founder of Escarpment Labs, give us a presentation this month and take a Q&A on all things yeast related!
Recording from the August 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we were thrilled to have Bebo and Chris from Third Moon Brewing! They spoke to us about a topic we have not yet had tabled at our meetings; Pastry Stouts!
Recording from the June 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we were excited to have Nina Houts from Imperial Yeast with us to give us a virtual tour of their propagation process and facilities, discuss best practices for yeast handling and more!
Recording from the May 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we were excited to have not one but two presenters! Both Mary Beth Keefe and Tim Burnett from The Granite Brewery & Tied House joined us to talk a bit about The Granite's history and open fermentation using Ringwood yeast culture!
Recording from the April 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we had Devin Huffman, founder and head maltster of Barn Owl Malt in Belleville, join us to talk about different varieties of barley, how to read and use a malt Certificate of Analysis, and more!
Recording from the March 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we had Niagara College’s Victor North joining us, to talk about the Tropical Stout style as well as to walk us through tastings of local versions of this style from Little Beasts Brewing and Saulter Street Brewery!
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!
Recording from the January 2021 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we had renowned beer author and Certified Cicerone/BJCP Jordan St. John join 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 were thrilled to have him join us.
Recording from the November 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month, we had famous homebrew author John Palmer share 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.
Note: This was our first time sharing the zoom link publicly, and we ran into some "zoom bombers". It took a few minutes to get a handle on it, but the presentation was able to proceed well.
Recording from the October 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
We had our very own Marcelo Paniza share his knowledge with a presentation on making Hard Seltzer! This alcoholic beverage is seeing a surge of popularity right now, and homebrewers can make their very own using equipment you already have! Marcelo will show you how, and why, to homebrew them while sharing his best tips.
Recording from the September 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month, we had our very own Luke Van Oort share his knowledge with a presentation on Raw Ale! This is a technique inspired by historical brewing processes that has the potential to shave hours off your brewday by skipping the boil!
Recording from the August 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month, we had our very own David Chang-Sang share his knowledge with a presentation on Pressure Fermenting. If you’ve been looking for an easier way to brew tasty lager-ish beers, this is the presentation for you!
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the video.
Recording from the July 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
This month we had two very special guests join us all the way from California and Oregon! This presentation from our favourite podcast hosts and authors, Denny Conn and Drew Beechum, was a big hit with club members.
Recording from the May 2020 meeting of GTA Brews Homebrew Club in Toronto, Canada.
Our trio of bread baking experts (James Kennedy, Clayton Hoy, and Luke Van Oort) walked us through the basics of baking several kinds of bread at home!
GTA Brews Members: You must login to see the video.
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.
At our July meeting we announced that Lars Marius Garshol (of Larsblog) will be attending our September club meeting (Sept 9th). He'll be in town for Escarpment's Kveikstokk on Sept 10th, and agreed to come check out our club meeting and taste some homebrewed kveik beers!
Escarpment Labs' Richard Preiss will also be in attendance, making this a double Kveik whammy! As many of you know Richard has been a huge proponent of kveik, and have driven significant research into this exciting family of yeast.
Lars is responsible for the popularizing this workhorse yeast in the home and craft brewing world. This article from Good Beer Hunting does an excellent job telling the story about how Lars documented and popularized Kveik yeast.
Monday 14 May at 7:00 PM Muddy York Brewing Co.
22 Cranfield Road, Toronto, Ontario, M4B 3H1 MAP
For this meeting we're going to try something new in lieu of having a second presentation. Based on a topic chosen in a poll on the website, the meeting will have a panel discussion/Q&A involving selected members from the crowd interested in sharing their knowledge and opinions. Based on where the poll is at right now it looks like we'll be discussing session/low ABV brewing, so if you're passionate and experienced with that sort of thing please feel free to volunteer to be on the panel! And if you're interested in something else, there's still time to vote!
After a record attendance and an incredibly informative March meeting, we knew we had a hard act to follow. Well beer geeks, we think we've done it. We're very lucky to have not one, but two great guest speakers and presenters:
Exam consists of writing scoresheets for 6 beers, with 15 mins given per beer
Bring mechanical pencil, erasers, and other writing items you want
Only basic calculators can be used, no smartphone apps
This is a closed book exam, referring of the guidelines is not allowed
The exam only covers categories 1-26, specialty categories are not included
Be prepared to write neatly and firmly to ensure the graders can read your writing clearly when scanned, also do not write to the edges or on the back of the pages
At the GTA Brews January Club meeting Eric presented this intro to water slideshow. It has been asked for a few times so here it is in a publicly accessible place! This presentation is meant to somewhat basic, it also makes some generalizations that hold true for Toronto water but may not hold true for other water sources.