Homebrew Club

I live in Dracut, MA and there are no home brew clubs close to me, so I was wondering if anyone knew how to go about starting a home brew club? I mean I know I could call my friends to my house and call it a club, but I want an official club.

Check this out.

Starting and Running a Homebrew Club

That link is good stuff. If you want to run it right, try to establish a rigid time and place for your meetings. The best places are homebrew shops, brewpubs followed by beer bars but you'll have to get permission to bring your own beer in for tasting. It's sketchy but it can be done if you don't bring so much that you don't buy. Make a habit of buying a pint and some appetizers while you're there. Build a website. Make flyers for local HBS window. Even with only a few members, elect leadership roles; prez, treasurer, secretary.

The Worts are in Boston... not too far... The Boston Wort Processors

and the Wizards are in Marlborough... The WIZARDS Home-Brew Club @ BrewBeer.org

FOAM is in Fitchburg... www.foambrew.com

North Shore is in Beverly.. www.northshorebrewers.org

All four would be less than an hour from you


http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/listings.asp

I don't want to have to drive more then 20 minutes, there is the problem. All of those clubs, besides the Wizards, have their meetings somewhere different every time as well so it could be more then an hour. I want something local that will be easy for me to get to and that is not available so I figured I would look into making one myself.

EdWort said:

Check this out.

Starting and Running a Homebrew Club

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Thanks Ed that was helpful.

thedude123 said:

I don't want to have to drive more then 20 minutes, there is the problem. All of those clubs, besides the Wizards, have their meetings somewhere different every time as well so it could be more then an hour. I want something local that will be easy for me to get to and that is not available so I figured I would look into making one myself.

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I can dig it.... I guess it just depends on what you're looking for. I think all of the clubs I listed cover some pretty wide areas but don't have huge memberships. My club (South Shore Brew Club) stretches from Boston to Newport, RI, has been around since '94, is pretty well know around the south shore brewing community and we only have about 40 members. The Worts are a little bigger than us (although not by much I don't think) but they cover all of greater Boston. I just don't know how big of a club you're going to be able to build in Dracut when you've got three other clubs surrounding you (FOAM, North Shore and the Wizards) not that size is what you need be shooting for.

All I'm saying is if you're looking for close and small, I think you could definitely do it and it would be a lot of fun and not a lot of work to set it up... but if you're looking to have a good-sized 20+ member club that's going to hold competitions, etc, I think you're going to have a lot of competition in the area.

Ehhh.. who knows though. Those clubs might suck. You might highjack a bunch of folks. I only know one guy in any of those three.

Ya I have heard good things about the Worts and North Shore but nothing about FOAM or Wizards.

I really just want to have 10 people or so to start. I am going to look into it some more. It is just hard for me to travel to far with my son so I am trying to keep it local.

man i wish we were into this when we were at school.

Ya, It would have been nice but I only know of one event that FOAM hosts each year. Plus we really didn't have the money when we were at Fitchburg State.

Just the other day I was wearing Google out trying to find some sort of club close to home for me. Think the closest I found is over 2 hours away....Grrrr!

Thanks for all the info in this thread. It's got my old noodles churning a bit with some ideas.

I've been wishing for a local club too... count me in if you go with this. So...now there's 2

Bobby_M said:

... If you want to run it right, try to establish a rigid time and place for your meetings. The best places are homebrew shops, brewpubs followed by beer bars but you'll have to get permission to bring your own beer in for tasting. It's sketchy but it can be done if you don't bring so much that you don't buy. Make a habit of buying a pint and some appetizers while you're there. Build a website. Make flyers for local HBS window. Even with only a few members, elect leadership roles; prez, treasurer, secretary.

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We have met in restaraunts - look for one that serves draft beer (several craft beers is ideal) and has a separate meeting room. We have had to switch a couple of times due to closures - Damn this recession! Most restaraunts are cool with bringing in beer to sample if you are also buying meals and pints from them. As Bobby noted, be sure to ask them in advance if that is acceptable.

Post a flyer with your name and phone number at the local home brew shops and beer stores. Once you get a few members, get a website and fourm up and running - keeps members in contact in between meetings. There are a lot of brewers out there just like you - just looking for other brewers to share beers and techniques.

I am going to look into this further. The Christmas season is very busy and then I am taking a winter coarse for school so I am going to shoot for something by the end of January beginning of February. I will post something when I know more details.

Keep me posted.... I really am interested.

I live in Tewksbury. That's 3 and counting just from this site.

Cool I will keep a list of who is interested. If anyone else is interested please post here and I will put you on the list.

I'm a Wort Processors member out of Acton. Anytime you guys want to meet up, I'm around. We brew in Acton as well. There is a BYO italian restaurant on 2A in Acton that I know a few HBTers go to.

Nice that would be helpful. I was going to try to find someone that was in a local club to kind of help us through the process.

thedude123 said:

Nice that would be helpful. I was going to try to find someone that was in a local club to kind of help us through the process.

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Hey man, send me or Anthony a message anytime you want to brew. We mostly brew out of my garage but we have a pretty nice set up. We just got into all grain a few months ago. We usually brew with 4 of us. We are both also part of the Wort's. Its a great club and some great people.

We both live in Acton MA which is not far from Dracut. Im originally from Lowell and most of my family lives in Dracut. So I know your area well. We are only like 20 mins apart.

The big club in SD is full of a bunch of snotty asses. I refuse to join. We have a group of us that I suppose could be considered a "club" but we don't brew together or anything. We just drink together a lot.

carnevoodoo said:

The big club in SD is full of a bunch of snotty asses. I refuse to join. We have a group of us that I suppose could be considered a "club" but we don't brew together or anything. We just drink together a lot.

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Yaaaaaa the Wort's of Boston MA are nothing like that. We are a big club. Ya there are a few people who know there $hit and are stuck up but screw them. Most people are great and will talk about beer with ya all day.

I am was really thinking about joining the Worts but it is just to far for me to travel.

Also anyone that would be interested in joining the brew club that I am trying to plan should join the Merrimack Valley Brewers group on my profile so I can get a head count. We can also throw around ideas.

Let me know if you have any questions... even though a club is really whatever you want to make it. I'm the pres of South Shore and am more than willing to lend any info you want into terms of what's worked and what hasn't for us.

Good luck. I hope you guys get up and running. Maybe we can do a little inter-club competitions, pub crawls or something.

Sounds great, I will definitely be talking to you because I could use the guidance.

If anyone else would like to be part of the club that I am going to try to put together just post of this thread or join the club that is in my profile.

I have not done anything with this in a while because I was in the process of getting a new position and new hours. I would really like to get this going in the near future.

Bump

I am trying to get a meeting set up for anyone that is interested in the Homebrew club, so if you are interested please post in the group that is part of my signature.

I want the meeting to be within the next 3 weeks.

Bump

We have a tentative meeting place of the Tap in Haverhill. If anyone is interested let me know.

this would be great,but since I've never heard of most of these towns I'm assuming they are western MA.Nothing going on in the south shore?

This is in the Merrimack valley. We are right next to Lowell.

not worth the hour drive for me

Try this one South Shore Brew Club

For anyone that is interested in the Merrimack Valley club April 11th at 1:00pm at the Tap in Haverhill is the first meeting.

Thanks for the SSBC plug and good luck on the 11th! Hopefully you'll get a decent rurn out!

I am hoping to get between 7-10 people for our first meeting which I think is a good start.

All you need is one friend who brews to form a club. It will grow from there.

I'm in North Andover, and will see if I can arrange to make it on the 11th.

thedude123 said:

I am hoping to get between 7-10 people for our first meeting which I think is a good start.

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That would be a tremendous start. We typically get somewhere around 20 people per meeting and that is for a club about 40-members strong.. So, 7-10 for the kick-off would be a fantastic start.

We are official. We are now listed on the AHA club listings.