[tschmidlin]

For me, my local club represents community, camaraderie, friendship, and regular interaction.

You realize that this is exactly the same thing that BN members get from their involvement?  It's just typically not face to face.

[brewta2]

For me, my local club represents community, camaraderie, friendship, and regular interaction.

And that is what the BN Army Homebrew Club is for me and many others. I will venture to say that we know more about our fellow club members and have more interaction than most other club members do. I was a member of the Oregon Brew Crew for 7 years and with a couple of exceptions, could not tell you anything about my fellow club members except if they could brew or not. Not so in my four years with the BN. The BN Army Homebrew Club is so much more than a homebrew club. We are a club, not an organization, association or company. I will grant you that we are more than a club; we are a community to some and a family to others. Maybe this has damaged our perception since we are open to all. The BN Suite at NHC is open to all, we don't have a password or secret handshake, we only accept people that want to have fun and share a few beers. That works pretty well for us, and I for one want to keep it that way.

It pisses me off when I hear that we are a virtual club and don't know each other. I don't get too pissed with the folks that don't go to NHC because it comes from ignorance, but when it comes from people that have been to any of the last three NHCs or Brewing Network events, it must me based on some agenda that I don't get. Many of us go to NHC, GABF, BN Winter Fest, and meet up at regional events. We know each other! How many of you have paid to help a fellow member come to the NHC from another country? Hands? 60? Thought not. Hell, if one of us is just spending the night in a town, chances are we'll arrange to meet up with at least one BN Army member.

JP has described us as being from the Island of Misfit Brewers, and I think that is spot on. Do me a favor. Go through each region and look where the the brewers with advancing beers hail from. For the most part, they are like me - miles from any club. And the ones that have a club close by? They just might be Misfit Brewers and don't want to associate with the local club. Listening to some of the comments directed at the BN, I can understand this.

To the point of an unfair playing field - Bulls***. DOZE had more beers advancing than did the BNA Club. Yes, DOZE has a higher percentage of Great brewers, and those Great brewers sent more great beer per-capita than the BN. Personally, I figure Nathan Smith got screwed by flight position or bad judges, otherwise they would have beaten us again. The BNA Club isn't a juggernaut. We are not the dynasty that the Sonoma Beerocrats were, maybe if the AHA makes us get organized we will be...

As we go forward our members will reach out to other brewers in their area and form their own clubs or discover clubs they want to be a part of. This has happened since the BN has come onto the scene, and it will continue. We BNA Club members do see the value in a well run local club and as Justin said when he accepted the award on our behalf "If you have a local club - enter for your local club." For those that don't yet have a local club - there's the BN Army Homebrew Club. Join us and pretty soon you might find a few other brewers in your area that you wouldn't have known otherwise, then you can form your own club and pick your own goofy acronym-name.

It's beer, have fun.

[zen_brew]

For me, my local club represents community, camaraderie, friendship, and regular interaction.

And that is what the BN Army Homebrew Club is for me and many others. I will venture to say that we know more about our fellow club members and have more interaction than most other club members do.

 I get what you are saying, but the BN forums list over 8000 members. Can you name 10% of them? I have been a member for almost 2 years, what do you know about me?

 I have no agenda against the BN. As I said I love Justin and what he has built and accomplished. I am a monthly doner, and  I will continue to support the BN. I attended the BNA6 event, and it was a great party. I am not speaking against the BN, but rather against the current scoring structure in regards to national clubs. In my opinion the COTY competition operates on a less than equal playing field, and affords advantage to national clubs, and to a lesser extent large clubs entering multiple regions to avoid competing against each other in the first round. It's a simple question of math. If the BN makes a conscious decision to defend COTY, then under the current structure there isn't much the rest of the clubs can do. If each BN member chose to brew one beer, than there would be over 8000 entries. You could literally fill every entry spot if you so chose. That is a pretty serious advantage.

[dbeechum]

This way if club X has 5 incredible IPA brewers, rather than knock each other out in the regionals where there are only 3 medals available, they could enter in 5 different regions where there are 15 medals to compete for. In effect they could garner 5 gold medals, where previously they would have been limited to 1 gold.

Just stopping by to point out again that there's a rule in effect that prevents any club from getting more than 12 points for their beers. It is impossible by the rules to garner more than a gold, silver and bronze set of points.

[zen_brew]

This way if club X has 5 incredible IPA brewers, rather than knock each other out in the regionals where there are only 3 medals available, they could enter in 5 different regions where there are 15 medals to compete for. In effect they could garner 5 gold medals, where previously they would have been limited to 1 gold.

Just stopping by to point out again that there's a rule in effect that prevents any club from getting more than 12 points for their beers. It is impossible by the rules to garner more than a gold, silver and bronze set of points.

Thanx for pointing that out again Drew. My bad, that was an extreme example. That looks to be a good rule.

 On a side note, thank you for a great presentation on Saisons at the NHC. Looks like that ECY yeast will be unavailable till the fall as they don't want to ship it in the heat. Drats!

[alan_marks59]

Here is what I posted on the BN forums, take it for what you will...


Lets take a step back for a moment and take a look around us, notice how there has been a fundamental shift in amateur brewing? Many years ago the only way to learn about the hobby was to buy Charley P's book or join a local club or know someone who did it or a newsletter composed on an old IBM Selectric...get it?

Then the computer bulletin board came into vogue, tying up telephone lines all over the country while the geeks among us spent hours writing columns and memos and the newest thing, e-mails, to each other to try to learn more about brewing. the Homebrew Digest came into being and still has many resources to this day.

John Palmer learned about brewing and decided to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the rest of us to follow, with the coming of the World Wide Web wrote "How To Brew" and gave us a context to figure out the technical details with his nomegraphs and instructions on basic brewing. This too has stood the test of time.

Justin Crosley figured out a way to blend his passions, radio and beer, with his shows on San Francisco radio. When that was too constraining, he created a podcast and with the help of family and many friends, Jon Plise, Jason Petros, Scott Lothamer, created an concept called the Brewing Network, using this new idea called pod-casting and internet radio, where people were not constrained by the barriers of time and distance. His knowledge and talent for communications brought the brewing community past the tipping point; now anyone who cared to could learn about this craft from many modern masters. Who would have known of Jamil Zainacheff if it wasn't for Jon Plise and Justin?

So here we are today, on the leading edge of a new opportunity of amateur and craft brewing. Let those who have ears to hear and the foresight to understand that the genies out of the bottle, so to speak, and that groups of people can come together for a common goal and enjoy the pleasures of each others company without having to actually be in the same room, or town, or time zone. Seems to me that a bunch of folks made a decision a year ago after NHC2010 to become club of the year no matter what, with or without the help of anyone else but our own fellowship. Guess what? THEY DID IT!

Can't take it back now...

Brew better beer,
Alan

[SiameseMoose]

I have nothing to add except that I think it'd be funny if all of the Northern Brewer forum-ites started listing their club as "NB Navy".

And this could be their theme song... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw

I thought it was going to be this version:
http://youtu.be/MTwq1_9VH68

[jeffy]

Did the BN enter any of the club-only competitions in the past year?  If so, how did they chose which member had the best example to submit?

[fritzeye]

I have nothing to add except that I think it'd be funny if all of the Northern Brewer forum-ites started listing their club as "NB Navy".

AHA Coast Guard, anyone?

Great idea, and to play devil's advocate, maybe the larger brew shops could sponsor a contest pitting all the forums against each other such as:

The Brewing Network
Northern Brewer
More Beer
The AHA
The Brew Board

All enties need to be associated with a fourm, not your local club or as an independent.

[denny]

Did the BN enter any of the club-only competitions in the past year?  If so, how did they chose which member had the best example to submit?

Interesting question, Jeff.

[theDarkSide]

Did the BN enter any of the club-only competitions in the past year?  If so, how did they chose which member had the best example to submit?

I could be wrong but I do not believe the BN has entered club only comps in the past.  I'm sure there are tons of clubs that do not enter club-only comps as well.

In the past, we have done BN comps where we sign up to do a specific beer recipe.  Then tasting groups from around the country are formed, and the beer is judged, either by meeting up with the other members of your group or through Skype.  The best entries from those regional events are then sent to Pacheco for Justin and the crew to judge.  Seems like this would be a great way to get an entry if the BN club decided to enter club-only events.

[olllllo]

This supposed virtual homebrew club juggernaut is really a non-issue.

As I type this now, there is a homebrew forum much much larger than any of the ones listed. In fact there are almost as many registered members on-line right now than BN has in total.

homebrewtalk.com
734 members and 1213 guests
Most users ever online was 2763, 12-21-2010 at 12:17 PM.

There are 77435 active profiles on that site.

I know that some people have used Homebrewtalk Brewers as their club. Most use a local club or the BN. HBT is too large and decentralized for that sort of thing. Compare that to the BN where they have been fairly effective at mobilizing people and utilizing probably a core two dozen members to offer leadership to get things done. All of this despite not having office holders or physical presence, etc.

Lets just say for argument sake, they continue to grow members and entries. It's going to be harder and harder for an organization that size to keep momentum and keep people cohesive.

I say this because I am in arguably the largest homebrew club in the country-- The Arizona Society of Homebrewers (ASH). We have over 250 paid members for the calendar year right now. Historically our numbers will reach 500 by the end of October. Recent surveys indicate that about 350 of those members are brewers or have homebrewed.  By the way, I DON'T know all of the members by name or face.

In years past, most of our resources and energies aren't spent on the NHC. This year we spent a month or two promoting club night and getting people to enter. For the first time in a long time, our club got 7 entries in the final round and we took one gold. I also know that some of our members entered beers under other clubs and also the BN.

You see the larger you get, the more desire there is for some people to get small.  Going back to the Patriots example, it's hard to keep that momentum going repeatedly year after year. You lose people that want to start their own thing or stand out at a more local club.

[brewallday]

Just wanted to give my support to TBN.  I've learned more about homebrewing (and beer in general) from TBN than any other source. 

I do have a homebrew club within a 40 minute drive, but I simply don't have time to physically attend meetings. 

I think younger people are more likely to attend a "virtual" club on the internetz than a physical club so these online clubs should not be overlooked as far as competition goes.  My .02

[denny]

Just wanted to give my support to TBN.  I've learned more about homebrewing (and beer in general) from TBN than any other source. 

Well, no wonder...you've only got 8 posts here! 

[dirk_mclargehuge]

Since this dead horse as not been beaten enough, I'll add my two cents.

I live in a small town.  There are several homebrewers here, but none of them are interested in a club.  Sometimes, it's like we don't even want to say hello when we see each other in the grocery store, much less get together and brew!  There is a small club in a town about 25 miles south of here.  Then there are clubs in San Antonio and Austin, about an hour and a half from me.  I don't feel comfortable that far, having a few beers, then driving home.  I am an honorary (i.e., non-dues paying) member of a club in Midland/Odessa, four hours away.  But that's because I run their website.  While I wore the colors on club night, I entered my beers under the BN, because that's where I get most of my information. 

This whole argument seems to boil down to meetings.  I would agree that an annual party is not a meeting.  But I have entered a BN forum competition, did a judging on Skype, and we passed along the results to the greater community.  There were several of these judging sessions.  I would say that they qualify as meetings.