January 2020 News
Happy Brew Year BURPers! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and got to celebrate the new year with some homebrew in hand. We got some fun things in store for 2020! See the end of this posting for a rough calendar of the year.
January Meeting: 1/11 @ 12pm
Our first meeting of the year will be next weekend on Saturday, January 11 from 12pm – 5pm in Wheaton. This is our annual joint meeting with the BADASS group. Please park in the county garage next door (it’s free) in lieu of using the parking lot. The entrance to the event space is on the side of the building towards the back–don’t use the main entrance. Please remember that no commercial beer is allowed at this meeting. Also, bring your bottles & growlers in bags. For those who can’t bring homebrew, bring some extra food instead. Remember: always bring more food than you can eat & more beer than you can drink!
We’re kicking the year off with a Belgian Ale competition at the meeting. Any Belgian Ale style (categories 24, 25, or 26) will be accepted. This will be a BJCP judged competition, so you only need two 12oz bottles (or the equivalent) to enter. To register, click here: Belgian Ale Competition.
December Recap
December’s holiday party was a blast and it was nice to celebrate the season with a fantastic spread of food & a great lineup of Winter Warmers. Thanks to Silver Branch Brewing (and Christian Layke & Brett Robison) for hosting us. Chuck Hughes took 3rd place in the competition with a Winter Seasonal called “Santa’s Getting Crunk.” Steve Marler’s “Ald Arseholed,” a Barleywine, came in 2nd. And the Cannons & Crowes took 1st with a Spiced Belgian Dubbel with a phenomenal name: “Friar Dominics Spiced Christmas Donkey Dong Dubbel.”
We also elected our 2020 officers corp at the meeting. Yours truly is staying on as Fearless Leader for one more beer. Jeanne Burns & Matt Scholfield are your new Ministers of Culture. Chuck Hughes & Matt Peppe are staying on as your Ministers of Enlightenment. Dan Rozman is sticking around for another beer as Minister of Membeersip, as is Pam Leifer as Minister of Prosperity. James Wisnieski is your new Minister of Propaganda along with Lon Holland as Webmaster. Thanks to all the new officers for volunteering their time this year!
Upcoming Events
- Spirit of Free Beer (SoFB): Our big annual competition will be held on April 18 this year at Silver Branch Brewing. Check-in will be the weekend before on April 11.
- HomebrewCon: This year’s AHA HomebrewCon is on June 18-20 in Nashville, TN. It’s probably a bit far for a strong BURP presence, but the Guild may organize a booth there for those interested. More to come!
Merch for Sale!
We have merch! Please reach out to Dave White via email or at a meeting if you’d like to buy anything. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Merch Survey last month–we’ll be using the results to guide what we stock. Expect to see some fresh new merchandise in the coming weeks!
That’s all for this month! I’ll see you all on Saturday to kick of the Brew Year (I’m brewing an American Brown Ale as I write this for our February meeting).
Cheers, Prost, & Sláinte,
Mike
2020 Calendar
| Date | Host(s)/Location | Theme | Competition | Enlightenment |
| January 11 | Wheaton, MD | BADASS Joint Meeting | Belgian Ales | TBD |
| February 22 | Washington, DC(tentative) | JamBEERee Joint Meeting | Best of the Americans(any American style) | TBD |
| March 21 | Annandale, VA | St. Patrick’s Day | Stouts | Off Flavor Training |
| April 18 | Silver Spring, MD | Spirit of Free Beer | Spirit of Free Beer | N/A |
| April 25 | Silver Spring, MD | Free Beer! | None | Judge Training |
| May 16 | Fairfax, VA | Chili | Best Beer With Chili | TBD |
| June 13 | Silver Spring, MD | None | None | SMaSH Beers |
| June 26-28(tentative) | Popenoe Mountain | BURPOUT | N/A | N/A |
| July 11 | Silver Spring, MD | TBD | Session Beers | TBD |
| August 8 | Rockville, MD | TBD | None | Group Recipe Brew |
| September 26 | Gaithersburg, MD | Oktoberfest | German Beers | Blind Tasting |
| October 10 or 17 | Falls Church, VA | TBD | Harvest Ales | TBD |
| November 7 | Rockville, MD | Real Ale | Real Ale | Real Ale |
| December 3 or 10 | TBD | Holiday Party | Barleywine/Strong Ales | None |