True Grist held out annual Holiday Season extravaganza in true 2020 via zoom on Friday evening, December 18. At its peak, we had over 30 active participant screens, some with more than one person!
The meeting opened with informal discussions and “live critiquing” about some of members’ favourite True Brewer entries. Justin officially opened the meeting with some announcements and club updates. Jamie let us know that he would be dropping off entries for the Rorschach homebrew competition, where all proceeds are going to Thunder Woman Healing Lodge Society and that members should get their entries to him by January 10 at the latest. Short Finger’s Mike gave us an update on Holiday Hours and also let us know that Short Finger will be moving back to curbside pickup if Ontario goes into lockdown in January. They are continuing Red Truck deliveries, but there will be no “End of the World” sale this year. In its place, they will be posting some sale prices on malts on their website in the near future. Justin ended the announcements by letting us know that 2021 Membership Dues are now being collected on the club’s website, with our PWYC policy still in effect.
Jamie opened up the evening’s festivities by giving us instructions on how to play a number of rounds of Beer-based Trivia competition, with themes ranging from Local Brewery Trivia to Flavour Compounds, Hops, Zymurgy, and more! Prizes included a number of free yeast pitches from Escarpment Labs, as well as gift cards for a number of local craft breweries.
During a break in the heated Trivia contests, Justin gave another one of his much anticipated Powerpoint presentations, summarizing True Grist’s 2020 Year in Review. He noted that a number of club members did well in brewing competitions in 2019, and that we are still hoping to be able to run our own Blazing Paddles competition in June 2021 in some capacity. Despite some limitations due to the pandemic, the club still managed to run successful hops, honey, and malt buys. Justin also noted that the club made a number of charitable donations to local charities during the year, totalling $2100. Finally, Justin announced that ballots for the True Brewer competition will go out early in January.
Presentation slides can be found here.
The evening resumed with more rounds of Trivia, finally ending when our beer glasses were dry and the prizes ran out! Thanks to all who attended the meeting. Due to the great turnout, the club donated $250 each to the Waterloo Region and Guelph food banks!