January's Barleywine meeting was a success! Excellent beer (55 at last count!), and excellent food. A special thanks to those who brought homebrewed barleywines...

The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) National Homebrew Competion (NHC) is just 2 1/2 months away! Yes, thats a mere 84 days. Take a look at your calendar and choose your brew session now. With the NHC awards ceremony being held in Bellevue (a.k.a The National Homebrew Conference), it would be really great to have a bunch of WSB brewers do well in the competition this year. We'll post more information about drop-off locations as details become available. 

Complete info here, important dates below:

Online Registration: Available mid-February 2012

Entry Shipping: March 19-28, 2012

First Round Competitions: March 30-April 22, 2012

First Round Results: May 4, 2012

Jan
15   Sun   WSB Annual Barleywine Meeting
20   Fri     Start of Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Fest in Anchorage
22   Sun   New Year Beer Fest at Kitsap Conference Center 12-3pm and 4-7pm
27   Fri     Start of Strange Brew Fest in Pt. Townsend
31   Tue   Kitsap Brewers Night at Der Blokken 4-10pm
Feb
1     Wed  National Homebrew Conference registration begins
2     Thu   Hale's in Silverdale releases Tres Femme
4     Sat    Belgian Beer Fest at Bell Harbor International Conference Center Pier 66
5     Sun   Super Bowl Game events at Silver City, Hale's and many other pubs
14   Tue   Valentine's Day dinner at Hale's in Silverdale
16   Thu   Avery Brewery dinner at Tizley's Europub
25   Sat    Ted, Vic and Mary beer dinner/fundraiser for Mike Myers
                 Washington Beer Open House at many breweries
                 Hops n Props
                 Start of Beveridge Place Pub Barleywine Bacchanal
 March
3     Sat    Hardliver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer's
31   Sat    Washington Cask Beerfest at Seattle Center
 

Thank you John for hosting our Dec. meeting. Our new election officers are - Pres. is Kenny. Vice Pres. is Jason. Co-Secretaries are Mike and Brad. Treasurers are Vic and Alan.      Our Jan. Meeting is our Barleywine Fest!
 

The annual American Homebrewers Association event "Learn to 
Homebrew" will be hosted by Jason, Corey, Aaron and Kenny

When:  Saturday, Nov. 5th starting at 10am

Where:  Jason Glasgow's home - Contact Us for directions.

Who:  West Sound Brewers and friends are welcomed to stop by.

REMINDER  !  REMINDER  !  REMINDER  !

The November WSB Meeting will be on the 19th.

The December WSB Meeting/Elections will be on Sun. Dec. 4th.

The National Homebrew Conference "Brewing with Bigfoot" will be held in Bellevue next June and registration is coming up soon. Check out the American Homebrewers Association website. Last year almost 2000 homebrewers attended. A few WSB club members are interested in participating in 2012, especially in the "Club Night" event - which is reserving a space along with all the other homebrew clubs in the Hospitality Suite. "Club Night" is usually the Friday night and lasts about 4 hours. The homebrew clubs bring beer to share - or mead or cider.            If you are interested in BWB (Brewing with Bigfoot) - there will be a get-together on Sunday Oct. 9th at 3pm at Hale's Alehouse in the Silverdale Mall to discuss our theme, brews we want to offer, a future date for judging those brews and how many kegs ot bottles will we need for June. Look for us in one of the back rooms or back patio. Bring a notebook plus any info you might have on the NHC.              Start brewing for Bigfoot!
 

The December WSB meeting will be hosted by John and it will be a Winter Beer Fest. So start brewing your winter themed beer, mead, cider or whatever.      Our next WSB meeting is scheduled for Oct. 22nd and the Nov. meeting will be our Learn to Homebrew event. The Dec. meeting is also our "Bring a Beer - Take a Beer Exchange" and our elections for next year's officers.        There will be a WSB get-together (most likely at Hale' Alehouse in Silverdale) soon on a Sunday afternoon to discuss the WSB participating at the National Homebrew Conference in Seattle next June. What will our theme be? Which brews, meads or ciders? We would like to have a judging soon - maybe in November?        Thank you for your contributions to the WSB - we are stepping up our game with the Cask Fest, BJCP judging for the Fair, Beerstock and with the upcoming Homebrew Conference.
 

The results of the Kitsap County Fair Home Brew Competition are available HERE. Congratulations to Kenny Davis, winner of the Robert Allen Award for Excellence in Homebrewing with his Oak Aged Bourbon/Vanilla Porter. There will be an awards ceremony for the participants at Silvercity Brewery in Bremerton, Friday September 2nd at 6:30pm.

The August Meeting will be held in the Ogden Garden on August 20 in Bremerton (Erlands Point).  To celebrate the bounty of summer, the theme this month will be "Garden and Fruit Fermentation".  Bring homebrew, cider, perry, etc. that has been made with garden and/or orchard ingredients.  It will be an open house type party with the Westsound Brewers Meeting 2pm-5pm. The grill and smoker will be fired up and cookin as well as a 3 tap  jockey box with at least Valholl root beer on tap.   There may even be a gathering of the Kitsap SMAK Society (Single Malt and Kilts) starting around 5pm.
Contact us for directions.

The drop-off window is now closed for the 2011 WSB/KCF Homebrew Competition.  See this post for complete info.