Saturday 17th November
McCowan’s Brewhouse
Fountainbridge
We had a good day with Ant Hayes from the Beer Judge Certification Programme and many of us now feel ready to undertake a program of study to allow us to participate in the exam. A number of beers were tasted during Ant’s talk and an interesting conversation was had on the short-comings, or otherwise of these beers. We also scored these beers with the help of the Beer Judge Certification Programme Score Sheets and I would be inclined to pass on these scores, could I remember them!!!
However, a fun day was certainly had by all and a number of us moved on to sample a variety of hostelries for the night including the Athletic Arms were we all enjoyed a pint of the Stewarts 80/-.
Thursday 14th June – Saturday 16th June
Scottish Traditional Beer Festival
The Assembly Rooms, George Street, Edinburgh
10 full cornies arrived on the Wednesday before the beer festival and great thanks must go to the people who set our stand up in preparation for the Edinburgh Beer Festival, which for the first time in its existence, was only serving Scottish Beer which I am sure that everyone will join me in applauding. I am the first person to grab a decent pint of English Bitter, but the Edinburgh Festival should be a celebration of Scottish brewing and I think that this years event certainly went down that road very well. It was also very pleasant to hear many of the people who came to sample our wares at this years event to ask questions such as “why aren’t you selling this stuff given that it is just as good as anything up for sale at this event?”. We also had a slightly different position in the hall this year but that did not appear to be a problem given that, come Saturday evening, which finished off the very last corny of beer, all of which went down very well indeed and there was not a beer amongst them which could be described as OK, there were all of an exceptionally high quality. The only problem with finishing the beer off was that our members who came to collect all the bits for our stand expected a pint for their efforts on the Sunday, ahh well, what can you do???
My thanks go to everyone involved in this years event for an exceptional time!!!
11 May 2007
10th Anniversary Celebratory Pub Crawl
Cask & Barrel, Broughton Street
Edinburgh
It was a night that certainly started relatively early at The Cask & Barrel in Broughton Street which were serving a very excellent pint of Bitter & Twisted on the evening of our celebration pub crawl. We then moved onto the Cumberland and had a very enjoyable, if somewhat student ridden, time. I do remember asking for a pint of the Greene King Mild, which I was, very much looking forward to and just at that point, it went off!!!! The Cumberland is a bar which I think many of us often miss out for one reason and another, most especially the large numbers of students in the area, but is still a bar which serves a very well presented pint of beer and I highly recommend it. We then moved onto Kays bar in Jamaica Street and it is here that my memory becomes a little vague although I do remember having a few half-pints of Tom Woods (I may be wrong about the name here) Old Ale at 10%. Kays owner, Dave McKenzie, is very proud of the standard of his beer, and rightly so. I do seem to remember that we may then have headed for either the Oxford or The Cambridge Bars but my memory is not strong on this one, so when I get an update on this one I will post it here……
22 April 2007
Harbour Bar, High Street, Kirkcaldy
Annual General Meeting
We all met on a bright and sunny Kirkcaldy morning to be greeted with coffee and biscuits, and the odd beer, of course!! Norrie Pedersen promised to be quick and then proceeded to take us well up to lunch-time. After reviewing the meetings of the year and our well travelled escapades into the areas as far afield as Troon and Glasgow, he thanked the entire Committee for support and help throughout his term. A presentation of Life Membership was made to Les Howarth in recognition of his services and to mark his impending departure. Bill Cooper proposed a vote of thanks to Norrie for his hard work as President. He had been very pro-active during more than two years as president. The proposal was received with acclaim.
Stewart Cail , Head Brewer at Harviestoun Brewery, gave us an entertaining discussion of the differences between the academic and practical approach to brewing and highlighted many of the variances that he had found between the big players and the smaller players within the industry. He outlined his path to Harviestoun , starting at the top so to speak at Vaux, the giant brewer, hardly getting tnear to the recipes and goods, through a big micro-brewery producing a single beer style, to Harviestoun where he now is in charge and can brew and experiment as he pleases – e.g. a different special every month.
A.O.C.B. The organisation of a Beer Judge Certification Program within the Scottish Craft Brewers was then discussed for a short period as was the possibility of a group outing to the breweries of Bamberg, further details on these to follow….
Message from Les Howarth
The web site update dated 20 April will (sadly?) be the last one by me as webmaster. Since I will soon be relocating over to Dublin for a new job I have passed the webmaster role over to a younger man: Roddy Beveridge. I hope that he has as much fun with this site as I have and I’m sure that he will do great things with it. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the members of Scottish Craft Brewers past and present for some great times, good friendships and helping me to improve the quality and consistency of my brews. I already have one brewing contact in Dublin and hopefully we shall be able to start a similar group in Ireland that will prove to be as successful and enjoyable as SCB has become. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my 10 years in Scotland and fully intend to keep in touch and hope to develop Irish craft brewing connections with Scotland, the rest of the UK, Argentina and anywhere else in the civilised world. Keep up the good work.
11 March 2007
Falkirk
Social meeting.
Several members supplied their beers which were served via hand pumps.
3 March 2007
Pub crawl
Edinburgh
Grace & Les
Les & Mara
Ian “Skudler”
John, Neil (visiting from Texas) & Roddy
28 January 2007
Elgin House, 6 Easter Road,
Edinburgh EH7 5RG
John Alexander gave a talk and slide show on his own brewery setup and his new book A Guide to Craft Brewing.
This meeting included a tasting of our “brewing technique” trial. I’m not sure that we learnt anything from this although there were clear differences between the sampled brews even though they all used the same starting materials and (supposedly) the same recipe.