The Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale and Lager Enthusiast Society

The WHALES is an AHA registered homebrewing club based out of Central New Jersey. The club aquired its 60th member in  October 2009 which marks the largest membership in its 13 year history. Despite the beer-centric name, the club is also equally involved in the production of mead (fermented honey), ciders and wines. The club promotes an ongoing education of various brewing techniques through brewer presentations (both peer members and professional brewers alike). Membership is also encouraged to develop their palettes through regular tastings of home brewed and commercial examples of all the BJCP recognized styles. Many of the members regularly achieve at least bronze medals in regular brewing competitions and a WHALES cider project even took a gold medal at the 2009 NHC. While most of the activities are geared towards promoting and growing the home brewing hobby, it remains a great social network for folks who share at least one passion; taking a hands-on approach to the beverages we love.

JJ Bittings brewpub (Main Street) in Woodbridge, NJ h

as been the WHALES home base and meeting location for about 10 years. We are grateful to have such generous hosts. Regular club meetings occur the 3^rd Tuesday night of every month at 8pm. Depending on the agenda and the number tastings we do, most members filter out by 10:30pm. Official business usually takes an hour or so.

The club also meets for club projects at various members’ homes and has been known to move a meeting or two to a surrounding brewpub for a temporary change of scenery and an excuse to drink more beer.

Membership consists of people from all walks of life, all ages (21+ of course), and many areas of professional expertise. We’re happy to say that we also have two BJCP certified judges in our midst.

NOTE: As the club grows in size, it's especially important for new visitors to introduce yourselves to someone so that you're not lost in the shuffle. It would really help to show up at about 7:45 before the bulk of the membership arrives.

The WHALES encourage you to please enjoy homebrew responsibly. For more information about alcohol consumption, please visit the CDC website.

If you'd like more info about the club, don't hesitate to contact us.

2012 January Meeting #159

Details

Written by Joe Jannuzzi

Hits: 6

The WHALES Newsletter and Minutes - January 2012 - Issue #159

Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiasts Society 

Crafting Award Winning Beer, Mead, and Cider Since 1996

The January 2012 WHALES meeting was attended by 35 members and 0 visitors.  We had 5 entries into the dark lager Club Only Competition and 5 items on the flight list.

Holiday Party

January 21st will be the club's anual holiday party at the Linden VFW (the same location as last year).  Visit the forum thread to see who is bringing what, so we do not have any duplicates.

 Website Updates

The website has been moved to a new and faster server with unlimited space and traffic.  Most of the site is back to fully functional.  There is now no reason not to feel free to post as many pictures to the forum and photo gallery as you'd like.

Bobby asked the members to update their profile to change their listed email address to one you use normally since we are eliminating the @whalesbrewclub.com addresses for the users.

Members will start seeing emails from Frank about competition news and meeting newsletters from Joe Jr as they are published.  The emails will include an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom if you no longer wish to receive that type of email.  If you ever want to get back on those mailing lists, you can resubscribe by updating your user profile.  These emails will go to whatever email address you have set in your profile.

Library Database

The library database is being moved to the discussion forum since most people hang out over there.  It will work in a similar way.  Just post a reply stating which book you ant to borrow and Dave will be emailed immedaitely so he knows to bring it to the next meeting.

New Members

The Steering Committee approved 2 new members, Brian Marquis and Greg Rose.  Please give them a warm welcome into the club.

Steering Committee Update

Bobby gave a quick rundown of this month's steering committee meeting.  Check here for my minutes.

Homebrewers Of The Year Presentation

Bobby presented the 2011 Homebrewers of the Year award mugs to the Boyle Brothers, Don & Stepehen and Jim Schreyer

Competition Corner

Frank took a couple minutes to review the upcoming Competition schedule as it relates to the HBOY for 2012. The events are as follow:

War of the Worts submissions were collected by Don Boyle at the meeting (Thank you for volunteering to deliver the club entries). If you have an entry but were not able to bring it to the meeting, get it to Don before the 28th (the day he is delivering them).

Frank reminded the club the next months CoC for Stouts is coming fast and their is still time to brew and enter. Please keep an eye out for the Registration notice on the site and in your email. That brings up an important notice about entering the CoC's this year, to participate you MUST register on the website before the meeting so proper preparations can be made. If you need assistance registering or are having issue please notify Frank W or Jay Buchanan and they will make sure you are registered to compete.

Another important thing to make note of. Any entries you have for outside competitions please notify Jay Buchanan of your entries before the comp by email of the Competitions official thread on the website. If you ask to have submission credited at the end of the year you will need to provide score sheets to confirm the entry. Right now any WoW entries need to be communicated to Jay or the thread located at http://www.whalesbrewclub.com/forum4/9-competition-corner/11123-2012-war-of-the-worts

Dark Lagers Category 4 Club Only Competition

We had 5 entries.  4 were Schwarzbiers and 1 was a Munich Dunkel.  The Boyle Brothers edged out Nick Fox only by a few votes to win with their Schwarzbier.

Projects
The WHALES Framboise will be racked in May. We should start thinking about Funky Barrel Five no later than March.

WHALES Burbon County Stout team 2 is rallying to plan the brew day which has been set for January 28th. Craig Easton has foolishly graciously volunteered his place for the event.  If you're on team 2, get involved in the forum thread.  The date will be here soon!

Flight

That's it for this month.  Hope to see you at the party on Saturday.  Don't forget your stout entries for the February meeting. -Joe Jr.