Presentation ideas for brew club

BIAB overview, serve / describe / compare a split batch (half plain base beer, other half dry hopped or fruited or zested or fermented with a different yeast) , take a base beer and compare a plain sample vs. one spiked with gypsum vs. one spiked with calcium chloride, do seibel off flavor kits, talk about batch sparge vs. fly sparge, etc.

 

Water chemistry, building various items, BIAB, honey varieties.

 

Yeast!

 

I haven't seen this one, but I'd like to... Brewing Software Demo and/or Comparisons.

 

Depends on how long they have to be - part of my duties are the creation of short demonstrations, so I've done things like (looking through my notes) - french pressed dry hopping, the dry hopped commercial beer presentation, canned starter wort, pressure driven racking, how to make British Brewers Invert Syrup, insuring proper yeast health, tincture creation, keg cleaning, yeast washing, recipe development (which eventually led to this talk), etc, etc. I just look around at what I'm doing what I've tried to fix, etc and use that. I also grab others, like the club's tinkerers and get them to show off stuff as well.

 

The most effective (and easy) presentation I've seen is the Dry-Hopped Bud Light Tasting. Solicit flavor/aroma hops from club members and plop them into a bland beer. When my club did this the drinkers were also issued a note pad . . . I referred to my "hop tasting notes" for a couple of years. If you really can't get over the thought of drinking Bud Light, substitute Amstel Light which is about equally non-hopped.

 

Water saving techniques. Temperature control. DIY projects, i.e. stir plates, keezer, ferm chamber, brew stands.

 

Make sure to spread the good news about the Great Pumpking, who rises out of the pumpkin patch and halloween and gives toys to all the boys and girls, and beers to their moms and dads.

 

As a new Club member...it may be best to hold off making a presentation until you've seen a few... discovered what ground has already been covered...and have a good understanding of your audience.

 

I'm assuming the club has some leadership.. a president or leader of some kind. Touch base with Him/Her and see if they have thoughts or plans for the upcoming meetings, or see if they have a slot open that you can fill.

I'm the president of our local club and I would be THRILLED if a new member came up and volunteered to do a presentation... and trust me, I have LOTS of ideas you can do!! HAHA

 

Yeah, I would never refuse any help with folks. In fact, people have to be careful cause I'll shanghai you in two seconds if you look interested at all.

 

you could also do a presentation about beer tragedies. Show footage of footage of gravity readings being off, forgetting to add the priming sugar at bottling, exploding bottles, putting too many chipotles and habaneros and accidentally turning your pepper porter into cave creek chili beer, recipes for bud light clones, infected batches, that tragic shocked look when you realize you just ran out of propane halfway through a batch and you left the brand new spare tank sitting in the garage at home*, your failed recipe for chardonnay barrel aged peanut truffle boysenberry chipotle smoked double IPA, broken carboys (mixed in with footage of world war I), your state's regulations for beer labeling... and don't forget to have Sarah McLaughlin playing in the background.

*yeah don't ask about that one