We had an eventful third meeting this week! We visited Matt and his perpetually upgrading basement brewery in Cambridge where we exchanged beers for our first annual homebrew advent calendar, had a hop bulk buy, and of course sampled many delicious beers brewed by our members.

 

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Matt’s homebrewery!

 

This year our homebrew advent calendar had 11 participants – many more and we would’ve needed to find a larger location to carry out the exchange. Here’s just a portion of the bottles organized for pick up.

 

A portion of the homebrew contributed for our first annual advent calendar.
A portion of the homebrew contributed for our first annual advent calendar.

 

Participants can look forward to a tasting a huge variety of beers this December – IPAs, Belgians, Stouts, and others. Participants can also look forward to receiving some detailed feedback on the beers they contributed!

 

Some members listening very closely to Matt's instructions for the advent calendar exchange
Some members listening very closely to Matt’s instructions for the advent calendar exchange

 

This meeting we had Scott Hayhoe, of Hayhoe Hops visit us to discuss his process of setting up a hop farm in Aylmer, Ontario, and also to buy some of this year’s crop. Scott brought us Chinook, Centennial, Cascade, and Glacier hops. 13 members got their hands on close to 40lbs of hops total (at some very nice prices!). We look forward to brewing with the hops and an even larger crop in 2017!

 

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Pelletized and vacuum sealed. Can’t wait to taste what members brew with these fresh hops!

 

As always our meeting included the sharing of many recent brews by members, and discussion of brewing techniques, equipment, and the beer industry. Keep your eyes on our forum and join us in January where we’ll do it all over again!

 

True Grist members sampling and discussing some brews!
True Grist members sampling and discussing some brews!