It might be helpful to plan for an intermediate class or gathering at a future date. Give your beginning students something to look forward to, and it gives you the opportunity to get more in-depth.
For that matter, it gives you a way to increase attendance at your club meetings, as well as attract prospects: have an interesting program for every meeting.
One of the clubs to which I belong discovered several years ago that attendance (and paid membership) was dropping off precipitously. After some acrimonious trustee meetings, it was discovered that people weren't renewing their memberships because they weren't getting anything out of membership. So they decided to bring in interesting, vibrant, interactive programs each meeting. And membership started coming back. My LHBC has an interesting program each month. Recently, we had programs on advanced mead, yeast washing, and others.
I suggest you get your students to join the LHBC, and take the reins to start making the club worth joining! Have fairly basic programs at first:
1. Specialty grains. Get a variety of specialty grains and have a tasting. Teach what pale malt, Crystal malt, chocolate malt, etc. taste like, smell like, discuss what they'll do in beer - alone and in conjunction.
2. Hops. Get a variety of hops and have a sensory evaluation. Get some pellets, but especially some whole hops. Have the attendees rub the whole flowers between their hands, stick their faces in there and inhale (just like Jim Koch on the Sam Adams adverts). Teach the difference between the flavor/aroma descriptors, why Cascades are citrusy, why Saaz are spicy, so the students can identify what "citrusy" and "spicy" are really like.
3. Sharing. Have every attendee bring beer to share. Homebrewed is best, but n00bs or idiots like me who run out can bring commercial beer. Get a tub of ice to chill the bottles and a supply of small, clear plastic tasting cups. No one can grab any bottle but his own, and the brewer gets to decide who to share with. All tasters are required to give constructive criticism (though good-natured ribbing amongst good friends is lots of fun, too!).
4. Yeast analysis. At a meeting, give everyone a bog-standard recipe, like a Blonde Ale or something. Have different people use different yeasts to ferment their beers, but use the same malt and hops. If you can't gin up enough interest amongst all the members, you'll probably get one or two fellas to want to do it; let those guys split the batch into 1-gallon jugs and ferment each gallon with a different yeast. Then repeat 3.
5. Visit a local brewery. Arrange a private group tour at a local packaging microbrewery or brewpub. Arrange to have the brewer(s) there to answer in-depth questions from students/members. (Nothing sucks more than arranging a tour of a cool brewery only to have the tour conducted by someone who doesn't know beans about brewing.) It's often eye-opening to homebrewers how commercial brewing is
the same process - I used to call it "homebrewing writ large"; the pro brewers just have more and often shinier equipment.
6. Arrange to procure yeast or wort or something special from your local brewery/brewpub for the students/members to experiment with. Have the attendees bring a sanitized container to take home pitchable yeast. Then repeat 3 with their beers several meetings later.
I gots lots more idears.
Make it fun, and you'll have a full class, as well as club meetings.
Bob
Teaching a Class on Brewing
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