The Spotlight is a series of interviews with the craft beer heroes behind local organizations who are helping grow the beer scene in our fine city. This week’s spotlight is on SF Brew
If your university years were anything like mine, drinking was part of the culture. I am very ashamed to say that I spent my time drinking Kokanee, Molson Canadian and, yes even Pabst Blue Ribbon. I wish I had had a more refined drinking culture to embed myself in. What I wouldn’t have given for a brew club to be a part of. This week, our highlight is on the Simon Fraser University Brew Club (SF Brew Club) – a group of home brewers and craft beer aficionados based at Simon Fraser University.
The SF Brew Club started about four years ago. Like most groups of its kind, it began with “a bunch of beer loving students that banded together in the name of making fine beer and enjoying good craft beer,” explains Brendan Grills President of the SFBrew Club. It is exactly as the name implies: a place where the beer lovers of SFU can get together and enjoy the craft, through drinking it, swapping homebrew recipes or just talking.
Brendan Grills is the current president of the Brew Club. As President, his job is to oversee operations of the club. Mostly, that involves setting up events, organizing brewery tours, pub nights and home brew sessions. He has a team of people helping run the operations from management to finances. Brendan credits a lot of how well organized the club is to its members. It is very much a community organization. “I certainly don’t do this on my own. Kyle Middleton covers the social side of the club and the organizing (of social events.) Many (of the) members help out and make it all possible.”
Outside of getting the exposure to members of the beer community, membership with SF Brew gets you a few perks. Brendan explains, “You get the benefit of being welcome to our home brewing sessions and getting all the help with brewing and recipe writing you need. This includes borrowing a range of equipment available, from cappers to stock pots.” Beyond equipment and recipe help you can even get ingredients. “Thanks to Hops Connect we are also able to offer 8 varieties of pelletized hops to our members at no cost.” (If you want to learn more about Hops Connect – check them out here!)
Coming up for SF Brew is their participation in the Hops Connect Cup II, a home brewing competition between the brew clubs of SFU, UBC, Capilano University and Kwantlan. Beers will be judged on November 3rd, and awards handed out on November 8th. The winning brew will be made into a 15 hL Production Batch at Deep Cove Brewery. Besides the Hops Connect Cup, the biggest thing to look forward to within the club is the development of the brewing sciences at SFU. “The university ran its first iteration of a beer science course last spring and received a lot of positive feedback on it.” Brendan tells us. “We hope to see the university develop this class into a course or program – a program in which we would like to see the club be a part of.”
David Perry – @davidjp87
Community Liaison – CAMRA BC, Vancouver Chapter
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Sounds like there are interesting things a-brewing with the Simon Fraser University Brewing Community. Who knows what could come from this group of young beer lovers and their passion for brewing and education. You’ll have to stay tuned in to their soon to be released website for all the updates moving forward or check out their Facebook.
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