Archive 2007
Meeting
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Details
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| 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/-.
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| 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!!!
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| 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...... |
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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.
Sláinte, Les |
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11 March 2007 Falkirk
Social meeting. |
Several members supplied their
beers which were served via hand pumps.
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|
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
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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. |
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