Meeting Minutes

November 2020

After 3 months of in-person meetings at Checkerspot, we are back to Zoom meetings because of a spike in Covid-19 cases.  This will undoubtedly be a rough winter for everyone, with limited indoor gatherings, cold weather which will make outdoor gatherings tough, and reduced sales for businesses.
 

August 2020

We had our first in-person meeting since February.  Since Heavy Seas still does not have indoor seating, we met in the parking lot across the street from Checkerspot Brewing.  There were about a dozen of us.  There were also other groups scattered around the lot who had brought chairs and tables.  Rather than have a table for folks to crowd around, we kept socially distant by spacing chairs 6 feet apart and having folks walk around serving their beer to people one at a time.
 

July 2020

1) MASHOUT has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
 
2) We would like to have Crabs4CRABS in September.  Howard County Parks and Rec is opening at 50% capacity.  We could reserve the pavilion at Guilford Park as always.  Limit is 60 people which we definitely wouldn’t hit, but we want to make sure we’ll have a decent number of people before we pay for the pavilion.  So, please respond to the poll in the email message.
 

June 2020

1) Most events have been cancelled due to COVID-19, including:
  • MASHOUT
  • All BAM festivals
  • Howard County Fair homebrew competition
  • Wootown’s Mead Day
  • HomebrewCon
2) We’d still like to do the CRABS food and beer pairing, but we cannot set a concrete date at this time.  We’re leaning toward late summer or early fall.
 

May 2020

1) 2020 dues are due to our new treasurer, Rob Kiernan.  $25 for individuals and $40 for families.

2) Most events have been cancelled due to COVID-19, including:

February 2020

1) Big crowd, including a few folks who hadn’t been here in a while.

2) (From last month) Here is the recipe for May’s Same Grain / Same Hop competition (5-gallon recipe):

January 2020

1) BoTY awards were given to those who weren’t at the December meeting to get them.  Trevor Rose got his 1st place medal and Brian England got his 4th place medal.

2) This year’s Brewer’s Ball will be on March 28 at The Anthem in DC.  We have slots for 2 brewers to donate kegs and attend for free; everyone else must buy a ticket for $160.  We are not allowed to pour our beer due to regulations, so someone else will pour for us.  We need to apply by early February.  See https://events.cff.org/dcbrewersball for event information.

December 2019

1) Lots of folks, food, and beer.  We did our annual holiday 750 swap.

2) CRABS won the table theme at the Guild holiday party.  A big thanks and congratulations to all who participated.  We will have a T-shirt designed with Brandon DeStefano’s logo, which has a crab with a hop cone for a body.

November 2019

1) Congratulations to 4 CRABSters who won ribbons at the recent MALT Turkey Shoot.  Joe O’Keefe won the porters and stouts category with his porter. Joe Horne won the New England IPA category. Trevor Rose took 3rd in the strong beer category with his double IPA.Ben Schwalb took 3rd in the sour/wild/experimental category with his Brettanomyces beer.  See the complete winners list at https://turkeyshoot.brewcompetition.com/

October 2019

1) Jason Heinen’s winning beer from last month’s competition is being brewed today, Thursday October 17, at Checkerspot, until around 2:00 PM.It was originally supposed to be brewed on their pilot system, but they liked the beer so much they will brew it on their large system.Feel free to stop by either during or afterwards.

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