The venue is Werner’s Bistro in Boeing Road, Bedfordview. The restaurant is very close to the onramp to the R24 freeway which is handy. The food is typically German style food, and it is always good with ample portions. The meeting room is upstairs in our own private area. This is great for keeping an intimate environment and our guest speakers do not require amplified sound when speaking. The venue comfortably holds 60 people.
The East rand chapter is only 5 years old, but the meetings are always well attended and we put an emphasis on having fun and learning. Our typical format would be a craft beer on tap; a different one at every meeting, dinner and a guest speaker. The talks range from technical to informative, and always entertaining.
We have a committee that handles the running of the chapter. This includes a chairman, vice chairman as well as a treasurer. We give updates at every meeting on takings and attendance at all meetings. We believe it is vitally important to be transparent in our running of the chapter. The other committee members assist with tickets and cash on the evenings as well as planning for our annual Wort East Beer Fest that takes place in June/July every year.
We also put a big emphasis on league tasting where we encourage our members to bring along there recently brewed beers for tasting. We encourage members to introduce their beers and go into a bit of detail explaining how they did it. We also recognise previous month’s winners with a small prize; our way of saying well done! We typically have more than 10 beers to taste at meetings and it is not uncommon to have 20 or more. We believe this is the best place to learn about other beers and to get honest feedback on your own brews.
Our annual “Christmas in July” meeting is one of the highlights of the year. The members are challenged to brew Christmas or Winter style beers that would normally be drunk in the cold winter periods in Europe. We also enjoy a Christmas style meal with dessert and an appropriate darker, stronger style beer on tap.
We believe life is too short to drink bad beer and brewing your own beer is not only fun, but deeply satisfying too. We also encourage members to bring guests along to our meetings and learn about our fantastic hobby….home brewing. We look forward to welcoming you to our next meeting!
To join, contact Alan Jordan by email.
alan@alrite.co.za