Washington Home Brewers Association

I'm not sure Tim Hayner and Mark Emily ever take a rest from tackling amazing feats when it comes to promoting and getting people involved in home brewing, and organizing some prety great competitions.Along with the help of many other Washington beer making do gooders, we are about to see the Washington Home Brewers Association take flight. Here's what Tim had to say in an Email that I got today:

Gents

Thanks to all for a great first meeting to discuss WAHA. I’ve put together a few notes here to recap what was discussed and what is happening for the benefit of all, especially those who wanted to but could not attend. I also attached the agenda points and Mark Emiley’s first cut at a calculator for the Homebrewer of the Year.

First off, Tom will send an invite to all of you to join the Yahoo Groups “WAHA”. For now, we’ll use that as a central email list/forum.

Tom started out recapping his thoughts for this association which include promoting Washington Homebrewers and clubs, providing centralized information, providing a means to draw clubs and homebrewers together to share resources and generally help one another out. Something like what the AHA does on a national level, but at a local, Washington State Specific level.

Some other points discussed as purposes of WAHA include promoting beer education, providing a repository of information for new homebrewers, “Proselytizing & Evangelizing” that is promoting homebrewing in the community.

We talked about some of the functions of WAHA which will include forming a Washington Homebrewer & Club of the Year competition based on performance and participation in Washington competitions. It would also include some means of evaluating an individual or club’s involvement in the homebrewing community including holding competitions, workshops, working on other club’s events, educational events, etc.

Some things that WAHA can & should do include, putting up a website immediately including Washingtonhomebrewers.com & .org, WAHomebrewers.com & .org., provide a central calendar that all club websites can access and link to, be the central figure in the Pyramid “Wild World of Wheats” event beginning next February.

It was decided that since the BEWBMC is the most formalized in terms of club tax status (401c)?, these guys should be the keepers of the coin, that is, they would keep any funds coming and going for WAHA in their club account.

Some things that the Website should include in addition to the calendar, are contacts and links to the homebrewing clubs in the state and an easy way for a new homebrewer to search for a club in his area, current listing of beer-geek bars, pubs, breweries, brew-pubs, bottle shops and homebrew supply shops.

Some other things that WAHA should promote and be involved with include the bringing of the AHA National Conference to Seattle in 2009 or 2011 and flexing whatever political muscle available to help modify the onerous state laws as they relate to homebrewing, and specifically, beer.

Also sponsoring and hosting a table at certain events where beneficial. (ie, Homebrew Fair, WBG Events)

One thing that all WAHA members should be doing is compiling a list of Homebrew clubs and contacts. The clubs represented at the meeting are obvious, but there are quite a number in the Central, Easter, Southern and Northern part of the state. Please compile this information for future posting on the website.

We discussed the first event details, “The Wild World of Wheats” and concluded that 2-29-08 is the date to have all beer entries ready for selection by Pyramid. Each Washington homebrewer should enter his/her/it’s entry(ies) to their respective local homebrew club for initial evaluation; perhaps 1 week prior to the 29^th deadline. This evaluation would pare down the total entries to a maximum of (3) per club. Each club can charge what it likes, but suggested is $10 per entry. The clubs each put up $10 per entry which is payable to BEWBMC/WAHA. This will be one form of fund raising for WAHA. Because of the most excellent walk-in that Larry has, it is suggested that the clubs get their (3) max entries to Larry’s Brewing Supply for storage prior to the 2-29-08 deadline. Mark put together a hand out of his first cut at rules and advertising for the Pyramid event. (Mark, please pdf this to everyone).

With regard to action points, everyone will put together the contact information they have for clubs across the state, Steve & Nic will put together the website and post to the various brewer forums, and Tim and Mark will finalize the details for “The Wild World of Wheats” with Pyramid and try to glean any club info available off of Beertown.com. Jerome will put together 3 or 4 potential logos for WAHA prior to the next meeting for review and adoption. Everyone else should do their part by making damn good homebrew and drinking same.

We concluded the meeting by scheduling the next meeting to be Tuesday December 11^th, at Rogue Issaquah at 6:30 pm. There was no mention of the need to develop a secret handshake, but it is suggested by reference here.

Tim Hayner - President

"The Beer Engineer"

The Impaling Alers

It's very exciting, especially the thought of Seattle being the location for an American Homebrew Association Conference. There's a lot of work to be done though. Washington has some pretty ridiculous laws about transporting and consuming home brewed beverages.

It's going to be very cool to have some of the beers on tap down at Pyramid from the Wild World of Wheats competition. Especially since it's a five dollar cab ride from my house.