April 18, 2024
Fossil Cove Brewery, Fayetteville, AR
- Attendance: 16
- Homebrews: 16
Meeting started at 7:10 PM by Kevin Elsken with an airhorn. Keith Linn gave a toast.
- Tim & Kim brought homemade barbacoa tacos with homemade sauces. Delicious!
- Kevin Elsken introduced a new meeting format, making time for drinking the homebrews at the beginning of the meeting for about 20 minutes instead of at the end to make it easier to take all the beers and facilitate better voting participation.
Meeting resumed at 7:37 PM.
Old Business
Last Month
- Brewer of the Month: Alex Smith
- Beer of the Month: Alex Smith’s Hazy IPA
- Ass of the Month: Randy Germann (for choosing family over FLOPS? Hm…)
Membership
- Membership fees for 2024 are due. Members should see Chris Abel if they haven’t paid up yet!
Brewer of the Year Points
- Kevin Elsken reminded members that if they do anything besides attend a meeting or win Brewer/Beer of the Month, they need to make sure to let Greg Newman knows about it so he can track the points!
AHA Membership
- Kevin Elsken asked members to consider joining AHA for the benefits it offers to both members and the club.
Iron Brewer Competition
- Entrees for Q1 2024: Specialty Cider (C2F) were collected at the meeting.
- Kevin Elsken requested volunteers for judging the ciders over the weekend.
- Planning to judge the ciders at Black Apple with Trey Holt.
Great Southern Beer Festival
- Coming up soon on Saturday, April 27th.
- Larry McCallister said they could use more volunteers. There is a meeting for volunteers on Wednesday, April 24 at Grove Comedy Club (next to GOAT LAB in Lowell, AR). If any volunteers can’t make it, they’ll need to show up early on Saturday, April 27th.
- Larry McCallister recommended bringing a tent if you have one, since there’s a 59% chance of rain at the event.
Club Pop-up Tent
- Kevin Elsken set it up to look at it and shared a photo, and it looks good!
New Business
Big Brew Day
- May the 4th be with you
- OZ has planned an event at Black Howler, and last month FLOPS voted to join them. Patrick Bohannan will be brewing the Dagobah Dunkel recipe and providing wort to interested brewers.
- OZ has requested $100 from FLOPS to help cover food costs. James Harvey made a motion to provide a hundred and one dollars for the event. Greg Newman seconded the motion, and members voted to pass the motion.
- OZ will share a SignUpGenius for food signups.
Weiz Guys Big Brew Day Competition 2024
- Opportunity for the club to enter up to 2 beers that were brewed for Big Brew Day.
- Winners will be featured in Zymurgy magazine and have a portion of their entry fees donated to a charitable organization.
- The club will need to decide which beers to enter and enter by June 15th, with beers due by June 24th.
- Judging will take place in July.
Club Administration
- Club social
- Kevin Elsken made a motion for the next club social to be Big Brew Day at Black Howler. Greg Newman seconded the motion, and the motion was passed by the club.
- Officer reports
- Greg Newman requested that members let him know if they will be hosting a brew-in or want to be a featured brewer.
- Miscellaneous
- Daniel Stubblefield reported no update on the CAF collaboration yet.
- David Johnson reported that the owner of Toppling Goliath Brewing in Iowa visited OZ, and they are hoping to have him back to do an education presentation in June or July.
- New breweries
- Big Brew Day will be the second soft opening of Black Howler. Official grand opening will be May 17 or 18.
- Brew Pig Sooie
- April 28th at Baum-Walker Stadium.
- Boston Mountain Brewing will be there and will be promoting FLOPS as well.
Upcoming Education
- May–December topics still to be determined.
- Presenters on deck:
- David Johnson to do a presentation on koji starter for brewing sake.
- Connor to do a presentation on building a keezer? Not present at the meeting to confirm.
- Randy Germann to do a presentation on ciders and/or lagers.
- Potential topics in need of presenters:
- Managing yeast
- Biotransformation in dry hopping
- Hops (bring in someone from U of A?)
- Water
- Lagering beer
- Oaking beer
- Impact of mash temperature
Education
- Kevin Elsken presented on water as a follow-up to Greg Newman’s Bru’n Water presentation last month.
Meeting was closed at 8:14 PM by a motion from Patrick Bohannan, which was seconded by Daniel Stubblefield and passed by the club.
Brewer of the Month
- 1st place: Randy Germann with 14 votes
- 2nd place: Larry McCallister with 11 votes
- 3rd place: Matt Daniels with 10 votes
Beer of the Month
- Larry McCallister’s Helles with 11 votes
Ass of the Month
- Daniel Stubblefield for showing up late, leaving early, and taking the banner.
Meeting concluded at 8:58 PM.
