This week I take a look at homebrew clubs, and why joining a homebrew club may be one of the best moves you can make as a brewer.
A Brief History of Homebrew Clubs
Homebrewing in the US started when the first English colonists arrived on the New World, though there is wide evidence many native tribes brewed beverages from various base grains, and many South American countries still make a style of beer from corn. After an 80 year dry spell starting with Prohibition, homebrewing in America was legalized again on October 14th, 1978 by President Jimmy Carter.
Only a few weeks later in December of 1978, Charlie Papazian founded the American Homebrewer’s Association (AHA) (affiliate link) which is the National organization in the US dedicated to amateur brewing. The first national beer competition was held in 1979 with only 34 entries. The National Homebrewing Competition continues to this day, organized each year by the AHA.
As soon as homebrewing was legalized, small local brewing clubs started to pop up in major metro areas. In a time before the YouTube and the internet, these clubs played an absolutely critical role in developing, promoting and educating new brewers in how beer is made at home. Equipment was often hand made, ingredients were of poor quality and there were only a handful of books, mostly from England on brewing.
Over the next 46 years these clubs grew and evolved to play a variety of roles including for social gatherings, education, sharing, experimenting, competing and just having fun making beer as well as related beverages like mead, wine and cider. One of the oldest, the Maltose falcons, celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2024.
Why Join a Homebrew Club?
Though some clubs took a bit of a membership hit during COVID, many are enjoying strong growth now. There are many benefits to joining a homebrew club to include:
- Education: Clubs provide both formal and informal education for members. This can take the form of presentations by members and outside guests, but there is also a lot of informal education that happens at meetings including exchanging samples of your beer, evaluating beers, discussing new equipment options and techniques and much more. I would be hard pressed to come up with a meeting I attended without learning at least one or two new gems.
- Informal Feedback on your Beer: Virtually every meeting I’ve ever been to finishes with a sharing of beers. Members bring in their latest creations and pass them around in an informal setting. You can ask for feedback, evaluate other brewers and learn how they achieved a certain flavor or effect.
- Meet Other Brewers: Brewing at home is still a relatively small hobby. Though everyone seems to know a brewer, the AHA estimates there are around 1 million homebrewers in the US and many of those do not brew on a regular basis. That may sound like a lot, but in a country of 346 million, that’s less than 1 in every 300 people. So the local club is a great place to meet people who live nearby and share your passion for brewing beer.
- The Social Aspect: Though some brewers are introverts, there is a social element to almost every homebrew meeting. Meetings usually end with an open sharing of beers, opinions and stories and after only a few meetings you do get to know the other members. Some clubs also have organized social events whether it be an annual Holiday dinner, local brewery tour, picnic, pub crawl or even unrelated activities. You will almost certainly find new friends.
- Competition and Judging: Though competition may strike fear in the hearts of new brewers, the competitions for local clubs can vary from very informal to very formal. Some clubs just have a style of the night like Pale Ales and ask members to bring their best Pale Ales. Others organize more formal city or regional competitions one or more times a year where beer judges, score sheets, and medals are awarded. No matter what your skill level, you can learn a lot by both entering and judging beers in a competition.
What to Expect at a Club Meeting
Most meetings I’ve been to have followed a similar format. Typically they start with a short discussion of upcoming events and business followed by a presentation of some kind. This could be a formal presentation from a guest speaker, or an informal presentation from a club member describing new equipment, techniques or even a beer he brewed. After this the meeting usually transitions to an informal sharing of beers where you get to share the brews you made and sample beers others have made. This is the social part of the meeting, and a good chance to learn about beers, beer-making and judging from other members. It is also not uncommon for people to bring along a little home made food or snacks to share to go along with the beer. As the social hour (or two) progresses, people come and go at will, so there is no need to shut the place down unless you want to.
How to Find a Local Club
The AHA maintains a club finding tool here which lists clubs by state and also includes listings for many other (non US) countries. Their database includes over 1900 clubs and has links to each club’s website as well as contact email. Though not every club is great at updating their websites, you can usually get a response quickly from any active club by dropping them an email.
In addition, your favorite search engine is your friend. Just Google “homebrew club” and enter your local city or town and likely several sites will show up. From the club site you can find their meeting times, local membership contacts and upcoming event information.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s article on homebrew clubs. I would love to hear your comments on your local club. Thank you for joining me this week on the BeersSmith blog – please subscribe to the newsletter or listen to my video podcast for more great material on homebrewing.