We’re trying to get a sense of AHA members’ and forum users’ connection to homebrew clubs. Take the poll above and choose an option that best describes your relationship to homebrew clubs!
Feel free to leave comments in this thread to elaborate on your experience and relationship with clubs. ex: Why are you a member (or not)?
If you’d like to take the poll to the next level, let us know which club you are a member of in [u]this form[/u].
Cheers!
Duncan
Are you a homebrew club member? Choose an option below that best describes you:
I am an active member of a local/online homebrew club.
I am technically a club member, but rarely participate in meetings/events.
I am not a member of a club, but wish I were.
I am not a a member of a club, and don’t want to be.
At least option 2 (online community) is not mutually exclusive with all other options.
May I suggest you take it off the list, and if you wish to know, ask it as a separate question.
In my case Option 1 would be the answer but Option 2 represents me equally well.
I just moved to Crescent City, CA and there is a small homebrew club here that I’d like to join (Orca homebrewers).
I checked the request to join icon well over a week ago on their Facebook page and no response yet.
Mountain Top Mashers represent! Flagstaff Arizona.
I joined the club maybe 6 years ago now and barely brewed, when I did brew I wouldn’t bring my beer to club competitions. Now I am Vice President and homebrewer of the year.
Our club is semi active in our community, we get asked to serve and judge beers at events. Some of us are BJCPStyles certified. Some ciecerone.
If anything, I wish the AHA had more information for clubs, and or, had a club section on the webpage to help with club facilitation. We are a smart bunch, I suppose I wish the AHA offered bits of education or lesson plans that clubs could use.
I went with not a member, don’t want to be, which isn’t exactly accurate. It depends on the day whether I would like to join a club or not. I’m generally a loner with no need to “belong” to groups and such. But some day I might choose to join one.
Raising 4 kids and working for a company that considers 60 hours/week to be part time I’ve never had the spare time to spend in a club. Like I say, someday.
Like all the current members in my club, I’m very active. The Manty Malters of Manitowoc, Wisconsin are a very energetic bunch of about 20 guys AND gals (and we just had 2 more join last night – yay!). I’ve been the competition director for almost 10 years (minus when I took one year off in the middle). We have little informal contests almost every month. Last night was more of a biggie where we had 9 porters and stouts facing off at “The Dark Ale Competition”. My “oatmeal stout” (which actually contained no oats! and used 99-cent Munton’s ale yeast) did very well and took 2nd place! :D Last week we had the good fortune to be able to tour one of the primary Briess malting houses here in downtown Manitowoc, and it was just fantastic – very informative, and the aromas at different phases of the process were unbelievable. Now I would love to work there! In August every year we do also have a BJCP-sanctioned competition for the Manitowoc County Fair, entries capped at 100, with idiots like myself judging there – check it out.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts here too. I work a lot and have 2 little ones at home, so my brewing time is time to do my own thing alone. I also don’t think there is a club in my vicinity. Just moved to my area about a year ago. I’ve looked a little online and can’t find one. Not a big deal.
I was a member of the most local club but I didn’t feel I was getting anything out of membership. It felt like guys getting together as an excuse to drink. I don’t have kids and my wife happily drinks with me so I don’t need to leave the house just to drink. Add to that the club took a turn for the negative in how it was run and they moved the meetings to an inconvenient location and that was the end for me. There are other clubs in the Dallas/Fort Worth area but they are a long drive from my current house.
I’m moving to Denver next month. When I get fully moved in and brew a little I might look at local clubs to join.
When I was in San Antonio and hoping to find a group of like-minded people I went to a craft beer event and found a table that was run by a local homebrew club. Despite me talking with them at length about having brewed for a few years and then doing partial mashes BIAB due to pot size restraints all he was interested in was coming to my house with his equipment and showing me how to brew along with charging me what I felt was a steep price for dues.
I wasn’t interested in anything like that. What I was hoping to find is people who brew beer wanting to meet up, share beer, talk beer, and possibly discuss improvements, ideas, or figuring out what went wrong. Moving near Austin I found such a group but it quickly disbanded. I became friends with two fellows there. One who brews and one who was just interested and who I had come by a few times to see what all-grain brewing was like and to share beer and talk. He still hasn’t jumped in despite my offering him some small stuff to get started and offering to help him brew his first few so as to make him feel more confident.
After I retired, I was a member of a local HB club for 3 years.
I stopped attending because it was just a bunch of guys that got together to drink each other’s beer.
No interest in learning more about brewing or figuring out what was good/bad about the beer that each person brought to the meeting.
Then the meeting location was moved to a location that was about 50 miles from my house.That was the last straw and I stopped attending.
Pretty much the same here. There are times when I’d like to participate in a club meeting and get to know other brewers in the area, but I work 50 hrs a week plus 10 hrs of commute time, have a farm which sucks up another 20 to 30 hrs a week, sit on the BOD for a not for profit org, and family commitments… Yeah, sleep is very over rated.
I think this forum provides what I seek most in a homebrew community – exchange of information, and a little camaraderie – without what I’m not interested in: competitions (I will always be a far harsher judge of my own work than anyone else;) projects diverting my brewing efforts to styles or subjects that don’t really interest me; or, worst and what seems a regular theme in this thread, devolution into a drinking club. So, not a member, don’t want to be.
I have been brewing for 28 years, and have seen two clubs start up and fade away in my town in that time period.
In that time, I have observed that there are two basic types of club members, who don’t get along well together.
Member Type A likes a structured meeting following Robert’s Rules of Order, a clear agenda, technical presentations and discussions. These are usually older types.
Member Type B just wants to get together and drink each other’s beer.
Bookcliff Hombrew Club, Grand Junction CO!!!
So happy to finally live close enough to a club to participate!
Couple things…the survey doesn’t show up on Tapatalk and when I went to the linked form it won’t recognize Yes as an answer for the are you in the states question.