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Highlights of Lincoln Lagers Home-Brew Club

Club History

Lincoln Lagers Homebrew Club was conceived by a few home brewers in November of 1993. Our purpose is to foster an environment where club members can share ideas and knowledge, thus improving the fun and success of each member’s brewing experience. Our club consists of all levels of brewers, from novice to expert. We have both extract brewers and all-grain brewers. If you have questions relating to beer styles, equipment, recipes, grains, brewing techniques, etc., our club is a great resource.

In December, nominations are taken for new officers and voting takes place. Our officers include president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, events coordinator, membership coordinator and communications czar. These officers, along with input from the club, set the agenda for the year.

When it is deemed necessary, the officers can select club members to fulfill two non-elected coordinator roles, which distributes the administrative work load across more people, and helps the club to run more smoothly. These roles are: Events Coordinator, Competitions Coordinator, Brewers In Arms Coordinator, and Sower’s Cup Coordinator. The Event Coordinator helps to manage the details pertaining to arranging club meetings and social meet-up dates, Learn-to-Brew Day, and more – and the competitions coordinator helps manage and communicate information about upcoming competitions that the Lagers are entitled to enter, such as the High Plains Circuit. The BIA Coordinator helps plan and organize the quarterly Brewers In Arms projects. The Sower’s Cup Coordinator is in charge of organizing our annual homebrew competition.

We hold monthly meetings and participate in special events through out the year. We are designed to be a family friendly club, that supports and educates brewers, and promotes safe and responsible consumption of beer.

Meetings

We usually hold our club meeting on the first Thursday of every month. The most current information will always be published on the Lincoln Lagers Facebook page and/or website. Typically, home brew is allowed at our club meetings. Pay attention to any restrictions noted in each month’s meeting announcement.

At a “normal” club meeting when the meeting agenda permits us to, we try to keep things interesting, by offering lectures or demonstrations of educational beer-related topics such as:

  • Evaluating a particular beer style
  • Observing yeast strain differences
  • Comparing varieties of hops
  • Building DIY gadgets or maintaining your beer equipment
  • Diagnosing off-flavors in beer
  • … or any other topic that our members want us to talk about.

If you have a brewing-related question or just want to see what is going on with the club, please come to one of our meetings! We would be glad have you!

Club Social Meet-Ups

Once a month, we get together at a taproom or other business and shoot the breeze over a few beers. Typically, home brew is NOT allowed at our social meet-ups; it’s just an opportunity to get out, enjoy each others’ company, support our local taprooms and breweries, and try new beers together.

Each month’s social meet-up will usually be published on our Facebook page and on our website.

Club Bus Trip

Each year, we charter a private bus and take a trip to visit one or more breweries in the region. We typically schedule this event in March. In past years, we have traveled to brewpubs in Columbus, Omaha, and Kearney, Lawrence, Kansas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Kansas City, Missouri. Some of these trips have been joint ventures with the OmaHops Brew club. The trips are terrific fun, and  educational and interesting. We’ve received special behind-the-scenes tours, valuable brewing advice from some big names in craft brewing, and more. Some members claim to still have recurring dreams of the amazing hops freezer at Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City.

Members of the club are given the first opportunity to claim their seats on the bus, before opening it up to the public to help fill the bus. When we can, the club subsidizes part of the ticket cost in order to offer a reasonable price for our club members.

Club Picnic

We host a club picnic every year. Spouses, siblings, and member’s friends are welcome. We typically schedule the picnic to take place in August or September, and the location alternates between members’ houses. The club supplies the meat and everyone brings a covered dish or side — and their homebrew, of course!

The club picnic is also home to the annual Lincoln Lagers Mead Contest — and we conscript our wives, girlfriends, and ladies within our club to lend their excellent palates to serve in the role of mead judge. These Lady Lager judges are discerning each year and are determined to select the best mead they possibly can! It’s rare that there’s any mead left on the table once they’re done judging the entries. Winner simply receives bragging rights and the satisfaction that your mead must’ve been really good.

The Big Brew

We try to hold this event in May of each year, when it becomes warm enough to brew outside comfortably. Brewers bring their own boiling equipment, and we usually prepare a giant all-grain mash, split up the wort from it, and then we boil our wort on each of our brew rigs, while we hang out, eat, drink and enjoy each others’ company.

This is usually an all-day event, but you are welcome to drop in and visit for a while even if you’re unable to participate for the whole day. The brew club often provides some of the food for the event with members asked to bring side dishes or snacks. This is a great opportunity for new and old members to see how fellow brewers produce their outstanding beers and to pick up handy tips to help streamline their own brewing process, see the latest and greatest equipment or observe different brewing processes that fellow members use.

Learn To Brew Day Demonstration

We try to hold a demonstration of All Grain brewing techniques (non-extract) at least once a year. Sometimes, this is as a part of the larger Big Brew activity. In 2011 and 2012, we held this demonstration on the front patio of the Downtown Misty’s restaurant – and in 2013, it moved to Zipline’s driveway. This is a great opportunity for new and old brewers, or even future brewers-to-be, to watch a brewday in action and to observe how fellow brewers produce their outstanding beers, You may even pick up handy tips to help streamline your own brewing process. Usually, this event is held in conjunction with the annual AHA “Learn To Homebrew Day” in November.

Contests

Participation in contests is not required of any club member. However, they provide an excellent venue to have your beer evaluated by independent BJCP certified judges.

Most months, we will conduct a Club Only Competition at our club meeting – Select styles will be designated, and any club member can enter beer of that style for feedback and evaluation.

In 2001, the Lincoln Lagers club and the Omahops club started an annual beer rivalry contest, called the Nebraska Shoot-Out. Today, this event continues as an inter-club competition held between the Homebrew Clubs across all of Nebraska.  There is a traveling trophy awarded to the winning homebrew club each year. There is also a traveling trophy for the Best Damn Beer (BDB) called the “Rusty Capper Award”.
Clubs that have participated with us in the past include the Brew Man Group, the Omahops, the Railroaders Brew Club, KAB (Kearney Area Brewers), Malt Masters (Columbus), Motley Brew Crew,and SOB (South Omaha Brewers). Past results for the Nebraska Shoot-Out are available to view online at http://www.lincolnlagers.com/shootout/.

We’ve been involved with other regional competitions as well, at events such as the KC Biermeisters, Hoppy Halloween, River City Roundup, and more. In past years, members of the Lincoln Lagers have entered in the National Homebrew Competition, have won medals at regional festivals across the United States, and have even brewed and entered a Pro-Am entry at GABF.

Starting in 2014, the Lincoln Lagers are proud hosts of our own invitational homebrew competition, The Sower’s Cup. It is a member of the High Plains Brewer Of The Year and Club Of The Year competition circuit, as well as the Midwest Home Brewer Of The Year award circuit.

Becoming a Member

Our 2020 membership dues are $25.00 per year for brand-new or renewing members. It includes a T-shirt or hat or some perk that you can order during the club merch ordering period. We use these dues to pay for things like…

  • Contest judging fees and shipping costs
  • Club supplies such as banners and business cards
  • Fun things, like buying a bunch of meat for the annual club picnic!
  • Offering periodic commercial beer tastings/challenges/etc. at our club meetings without an additional cost
  • Offering discounted ticket prices for members on the annual bus trip
  • … and more!

Club members receive discounts from local businesses – Check out our Member Deals Program to learn more!

The EASIEST way to join the club is to COME TO OUR NEXT MEETING.

Once you get there, just look for the guy that looks like Tommyknocker’s mascot. That’s Terry, our club treasurer. Here’s a picture to help you find him:

Tommyknocker_Terry_pic

Go back to the home page of the blog, or to Facebook and check where and when our next club meeting will be held!

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