The days are getting longer and at times warmer. That means the brewing season will be winding down as we sit back, relax and watch the long sunsets while sipping brews we made during the cold winter. Of course, I hope to keep brewing as much as possible during the nice cool Edmonton summer. Compared to summers in the States south of the Great Lakes from Toronto, it will be still nice enough to brew a few Belgians.

As Roxy has noted and you will see from other articles, we are in the middle of the competition season. Besides the knowledge gained from feedback provided by the judges from sending your beers to an event, I am finding my "network" of homebrewing colleagues is expanding beyond Edmonton. With the upcoming 1st Annual Conference of the Western Confederation of Brew Clubs, this is a prime opportunity to expand your own network of homebrewing colleagues. Mark you calendars and plan to attend. Also, set aside some time to help with the conference. We want to make this a success and show all of Canada that the Western Provinces have the best homebrewers in the country out to make the best beer possible by any means, be it all-grain, extract or boxed wort.

Extract mini-competition for April

You will notice that there is no Style of the Month for this month. Our monthly theme tasting and mini- competition is Extracts – All Classes so we can select the best beer made from extracts to send down to the AHA Club Only Competition. The competition is open to entries with extract making up at least 50% of the fermentables in the recipe. So, if you have any beers sitting in the closet that meet the AHA requirements, bring them to the meeting on Monday. It should make for an interesting and fun time.

BURRP! Two

Also, the second club-only BURRP! Competition is near. The May meeting will be big tasting of the results of adding cold breakfast cereal to a brew. Later in the newsletter, you will find the details of the new "best-dressed bottle" contest.

See you on Monday…