I'd just find a group on here that is really cool, and move closer to them.
On a more serious note, you might want to contact those in the group 100 miles away, let em know you want to start one closer to home. They may know others that are far enough away to not want to make the trip. You could then coordinate some larger gatherings less often. If you have local brew pubs, that is a great recruitment center. In ours there is always hop talk. You can tell who the brewers are. The bonus is you will have to spend a lot of time in the local brew pub.