[z-jeep]

How have your clubs been staying relevant during isolation?
We've done monthly Zoom meetings.  Had some presentations. Did elections.  Had a club comp where beers were dropped off way ahead of time and a couple judges worked on them while doing a zoom meeting.

But, generally, it seems to be fizzling.  Like most clubs, we go thru phases of gaining and lacking interest, but isolating adds one more very real challenge to the situation.

So, how do you stay engaged, relevant, social, and productive?

Looking for any ideas that might help moving forward.

Thanks,

Z

[goose]

Two of my brew clubs have been doing Zoom meetings, the third used the Microsoft meeting software.  It seems to work for the club although there is lower participation from the members with an online meeting.  One of the clubs in my hometown of Wooster, OH has some members that meet in person and check in with the rest of us on Zoom (we have a few members that are in the high risk category, one of which is my wife) so some of us stay with Zoom and it works for this particular club.  The Mansfield Brew Club, in which I am secretary, is having an in-person meeting tonite, the first one in about three months, and I will be checking in by phone.  I agree that in-person meetings stimulate the people to brew and discuss their beers and it can be done without getting too close to each other.

The thing to remember is to maintain physical distancing and wear a mask when you are not tasting beers.  Also it is a good idea to have the person who brought the beer follow these three steps.  Pour it into the taster's glass by having the taster sit the glass on the table and back up to a distance of six feet from the pourer.  Pour the beer without touching the glass.  Then have the taster pick up his/her glass.  This helps eliminate close person to person contact.  Also it is a good idea to have someone bring hand sanitizer to in-person meetings. Just remember, alcohol lowers inhibitions and people tend to forget the distancing guidelines when they have had a few.  So beware and take appropriate action, if necessary.

Good luck.  We are all experiencing these problems right now.  But we can get through it with a common sense approach.

[kramerog]

One club I'm in, BOSS, now virtually tours breweries.  The club organizes a tasting with a local brewer/mazer of 3-4 of their beers/meads. Many people pick up the a sampler pack of the beer at the brewery and others pickup a variety of 4-packs/6 packs of the beers at liquor stores.

Another had a Lallemand person talk about yeast.

[riceral]

My club, Hogtown Brewers, is starting a bottle swap. Three people will "seed" a cooler with 2 or 3 beers to start. So, about 8-9 beers to start. Then people can come in to a common place (for us, the LHBS) and swap bottles of beer, taking out the same number of bottles they contribute, to a maximum of three. We use an honor system and that each person will select three beers from different brewers. For example, if you contribute 2 bottles, you take out 2 bottles, each from a different brewer. Feedback is given by email.

We also do weekly zoom meetings on Friday nights and an educational zoom meeting on Wednesday evenings.

[Cliffs]

we swap beers for tasting monthly and then taste them together over zoom, the drop offs are socially distant and safe. We are doing a BJCP certification program over zoom. we've had folks from breweries and yeast labs do zoom presentations. Im lucky that a friend and fellow brew club member and I are in each others social bubbles so we brew together every week or so in his backyard.

[ravenwater]

Yeah, these are tough times. We have an annual winter competition for a club traveling trophy and will do so again this year with beers dropped off at a LHBS & judged by staff there. We've been hyping up the competition. See the current Zymurgy issue pg 9 for the "brewers thumbprint" project we did in the summer - following this model might be a way to keep folks invested. Members who participated in this did a lot of talk on a text chain to keep each other apprised of what they were doing, send pics of brewing, etc. We've had an option for Zoom at meetings for months now. Yes, overall participation is down. I will be announcing tonight that we're canceling our annual winter potluck/party this year  because COVID numbers here in New Mexico have hit the roof. I'm going to do a brief talk tonight on shaken not stirred yeast propagation and see if I can get a volunteer to try it along with myself then give feedback next meeting. We'll also be going around the group to have folks identify a favorite commercial beer they'd love to share with others and want folks to know about - talk a little about why they love it. As club president I've also occasionally been sending emails with what I hope is interesting content on brewing as well as general pep talk type stuff - "yes this year sucks for the club, hang in there, be good to each other...".