BrewCommune

BrewCommune is an Orange County, California based club with a healthy web presence. The club boasts more than 35 paid members and growing. Two members are also professional brewers at The Bruery that were club members before successfully pursuing the professional path.  The web community boasts over 400 registered users, an active open forum area with discussions around equipment, techniques, ingredients, recipes, competitions, and other areas of general interest. BrewCommune.com also has an online recipe database where users can upload ProMash or BeerXML files and/or enter recipes manually. Further, recipes can have ratings added by the community. Downloads directly from the recipe database are available in BeerXML format.  The site also has a photo library where users can upload and share pictures of projects, fermentations, brew-days, meetings, or whatever needs to be shared. Other links are available for purchasing BrewCommune T-Shirts, and joining the club (we take PayPal!). The crew at BrewCommune truly act communally in that guidance and recommendations are free for the asking. It is not uncommon to have multiple answers/recommendations to questions posted the same day. Club members are also seemingly always "on call" when a fellow club member needs a hand and frequently "come to the rescue" for each other with grain, yeast, hops, equipment, etc.

Cofounders Dave, Sean, and Geoff started BrewCommune in 2002 as a technological means to overcome relative remoteness. As one might expect, BrewCommune (the name) was a direct result of relaxing, and having a homebrew!  The main goal of the early BrewCommune site was to remotely collaborate the brewing hobby via "communal sharing" of recipes, techniques, blogs, and the like. Wanting to expand "the commune", the founders posted "here we are" messages on some of the brew supply affiliated forums like MoreBeer and Northern Brewer. It wasn't long before registration grew and the nucleus discovered their relatively close proximity and started getting together for brewdays. Meanwhile, the brewing knowledge the site contained in the forum entries grew and was indexed by the major search engines allowing users to get brewing questions answered via the web. As such, the online community grew to achieve international status. In early 2004, BrewCommmune registered as a club with the AHA. In 2005, club officials were elected and the club has continued to grow at a steady pace. To this day, BrewCommune.com remains a totally independent set of forums maintained by the club membership but with members all over the world. 

BrewCommune members are by and large very active (and successful) in the competitive arena. Aside from the numerous gold medals won by club members, BrewCommune members have taken Best Of Show honors at the Orange County Fair four years running, the inaugural 2004 MoreBeer forum competition, 2006 San Diego Fair, 2006 California State Fair, and the 2007 Pacific Brewers Cup.  Members have also fared well in several of the Sam Adams and AHA sponsored National Homebrew competitions. The club also recently sponsored a BJCP study group that generated two new recognized judges in addition to the club's existing judges (one at the National level). The club also maintains a strong tie to the mead community and is represented on the committee that recently collaborated with the BJCP to form the Mead Judge Certification Exam criteria. Additionally, BrewCommune maintains an important role in the annual Home Mead Maker Competition in Boulder, Colorado. Several club members have also won gold medals in sanctioned BJCP competition mead categories.

Membership in BrewCommune includes access to the club-only forums, a club discount at some LHBS, the opportunity to participate in club bulk grain buys, and special projects like a collaborative barrel aged beer. As a club, BrewCommuners assemble monthly: club meetings are bi-monthly in odd number months, typically at a local brewpub, and club brew days are bi-monthly in even number months. Brew days are typically held at club members' homes where there are frequently multiple brew sessions happening concurrently.

Visit us at BrewCommune.  We look forward to having you join our "Commune"ity!

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