Congrats to The Brewing Network Homebrewing Club

[Adam]

Yeah, someone's a little sensitive today.

[TheDarkSide]

That being said, I just read on Taren Howes' (JP's significant other) facebook page a funny and telling post: "It's so quiet in here that you can almost hear the rules changing."

I remember they said that happened last year, but I was there this year and couldn't believe how quiet it was. I was trying my best to shout from the back of the room. At least the guys sitting behind me had BN gear on so I don't think they minded too much.

[TheeMattSmith]

It was creepy quiet in that room. Standing up there on that stage was just bizarre. After I sat back down one of the TX club guys said to me that we weren't a club, we don't have meetings. Restraining myself from punching the Viking hatted fellow brewer. I just said "do you listen" he said no. "we'll you should try it, the meetings are every Sunday night and you can pay your dues through pay pal"
It was an odd way to end a week of awesome fellowship with homebrewers. Everyone in that room was a friend until the BN won. The room went silent and they became jerks Fuck them.

[Maltmaster1]

They are just jealous now. BN Army, and proud of it. I never miss a meeting and pay my dues. Listen to podcasts every day and try to do my part as a good soldier. Although I was 0 for 6 in the second round (I think I picked up Nathan's bad luck - I am 0 for 10 over the past 2 years!), I was proud to contribute in the first round in Philly and represent the BN in every competition I enter and every pouring where I participate. I will be pouring at the Harbor Yard brewfest in September in Bridgeport,Ct and I will be wearing a hop grenade. Congrats to the Army for repeating. Nice work! And thanks to Justin and the rest of the crew for the support and the great content to power this movement. Now if I could just find a GABF pro am partner...

Cheers,
Maltmaster1

[Dusty Peacock]

Congratulations BN for the well deserved club of the year.

My local club GEBL (greater Everett brewer’s league) brought it large to NHC.
GEBL works hard at beer education and having great speakers at club meetings as well as fostering friendships and providing feedback as requested for home brews. This is what the local homebrew club is good at. Those of us lucky enough to have a great local homebrew club get to be members of two clubs the LHC and BN.

For my other club, BN, I volunteered with fellow GEBL member brewchops (cider maker of the year) and had a really great time at BNA7.

As a brew club BN is on a whole different tier. The quality of the guests, the thought behind the answers, the clarity of the audio and convenience of getting the podcast at will make it a library of knowledge that allows brewers to gain an understanding and then grow and listen again for a deeper education as they are ready. It would be a shame for this to belong to one great local homebrew club privately. After gaining the knowledge and techniques and translating those to remarkable improvements in the beer, it is so easy to understand the desire to repay the BN by competing under their club name. So thanks for sharing and congratulations for strutting your stuff and earning the club of the year.

It was so good to meet Kate, Justin, Doc, Tasty, Jamil, and Push at NHC. Their passion for what they do is so infectious it is a constant source for getting me energized to improve and get out and brew. Isn’t this exactly what we want out of our homebrew club? I served up some popular peach and raspberry Berliner Weise at NHC and brew chops won cider maker of the year. There is no doubt that our brews would not have been as good without the help of the Brewing Network club – thanks.

[Nikobrew North]

I was lucky enough to attend this year and got to see the whole thing live. The only thing I heard-other than myself and the other half of the Nikobrew crew cheering- was booing from a table behind us. Sad. This is what happens when you start giving out participation ribbons to everyone who lost in the kiddie soccer league; a bunch of babies who get their noses tweaked out of place when they get whooped in competition. If these other clubs don't like it, then they have 10 more months until NHC 2013 starts the first round of judging. Get to work.

That being said, Justin's acceptance speech was very humble, and very sincere. Must be hard to get up in front of that crowd to extoll the virtues of being in a club-regardless of membership size or overall ability- knowing how much flak you're going to take from the same people that you are trying to promote cameraderie with.

I think the whole BN crew were very gracious winners, even though if JP told everyone in the room to suck a dick, I would have cheered him for doing so.

[San_Diego_Matt]

As I was looking through the list of winners today, I noticed that the Ninkasi winner this year was not listed as being part of a club.

[BDawg]

Hear, Hear-

I am in 4 clubs now, 5 if you count WAHA as a club (we kinda act like it) and I consider the BN as one of them (I wouldn't be an admin here if I felt otherwise).

I thought the week rocked. The BN party was great. I'm really looking forward to next year when I don't have to lift a finger and can sit back and just be a fucking attendee.
Highlights:

a) Guiding Dirk McLargeHuge & SGT Satan in via text message as they made their way across country. It was awesome when they pulled into the gas station right down the street from my house and I handed them 2 local beers. They then followed me right to the Taphouse for 160 tap handles of liquid dinner.

b) The BN party - My only complaint is that I didn't get to hang out with as many folks as I wanted, though I got to see a lot of them as I poured beers and popped cans a good chunk of the night. I was pleasantly surprised by the Churchkey Pilsner, too.
Moscow is a great guy and it was good to see Shat and Schuman again, too.

c) Most of the conference was a blur. Lots of pouring beers and fighting little fires (but compared to some of the forest fires some of the other guys were facing my job was a walk in the park).

d) Seeing Terrence The Black & Beevo's babies wearing a baby-sized Asshat made my fucking week. (I saw both of them wear the same asshat at one point or another during the banquet).

e) Talking to some guy in the hospitality suite for 20 minutes only to find out it was TheDarkSide and we've been shooting the shit together online for God knows how long. Great to finally meet you in person bro!

f) Just walking around and seeing so many familiar faces from past NHC's & GABFs, like Chaz, Brewtat2, Dirk, SGT Satan, Aquarium Drinker, Thuglas, etc, etc, etc. It's almost like time hadn't passed by since last time.

g) Being able to share my (and my club's) home brew with everyone is an awesome feeling, especially when it's the guys you learned it from, like Jamil. We used his stout recipe (but didn't scale it down to 5 gallons) and then ran it through a Randall filled with whole coffee beans, Cacao nibs, and Centennial. (He seemed to really like it.)

h) Seeing so many friends winning medals and club of the year - priceless

Downers:
Mylo, Whitebeard, Badrock, Bugeater, Rhino, Blober, Capt Carrot, etc, etc, etc - we really missed you guys. See you in Philly! I am not volunteering for jack shit next year, (other than judging the competition), so it's gonna be great to just be an attendee.

Prosit!