Hello, Whats the best way to trade homebrew? I would love to try others beer and let others give my stuff a try. Whats a homebrew club like, do they mostly try each others creations? Has anyone had success finding other homebrewers locally on forums to try each others stuff?
You can try the beer-trading forums: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/#beer-trading.24 or your regional forum: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/forums/us-new-england.13/
My homebrew club has a general meeting once a month. First ten minutes is spent on announcements, discussing club business, soliciting volunteers for upcoming beer events, etc. Last two hours is spent milling around sampling homebrews and talking beer. I usually bring 2 half liter bottles to share. I think this fits your requirement. We also do a tech session once a month. We schedule topics in advance, then we get a professional or, in many cases, someone from the club who has a unique passion for a topic to prepare a presentation, with tasting samples, as appropriate. Then there's the frequent gatherings - picnics, holiday parties, etc, where the homebrew flows freely. We also do a once a month social night, where we choose a local-ish beer bar with a strong emphasis on craft beer. We have a good reputation among these bars, so we're generally treated pretty well (we're also well behaved, which helps)
Homebrew clubs. http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/community/clubs/find-a-homebrew-club/ We have a format similar to @mikehartigan -- 30-45min of socializing, 15min of business, presentations by members or guests (brewers, yeast biologists, tech from the local water company, buyer for the LHBS), then we adjourn to a local pub.
Brew Shuffle BrewShuffle.com is a place where home brewers can share their beers with others. The idea is to allow a home brewer to more easily swap their home brew.
