Thank you to everyone that attended the meeting and a big thanks to the Victoria Pub in Colchester for hosting us this year, as always was a warm welcome (even if the room was a bit chilly to start with) and a great selection of beers for the afternoon.

Chairperson Update

There will be no changes in chair or vice-chairs for this year, Tony Tilbury will continue in the role of chairperson supported by Richard Swindells as Vice Chair.

Review of 2022

We started the meeting with a quick review of what we had done in the previous year, Everyone agreed it was really good to get back to having a full calendar of events. Highlights of the year were the various festivals (Shed Brewers, NAB and the Briarbank) and the Fullers Brewer tour.

Norfolk update

Ashley had already announced that he was standing down as organiser for the Norfolk region with no immediate replacement, this was made official during the AGM. There was some discussion on where these leave Norfolk as a part of the ACB which was covered more in the follow sections.

ACB ‘The Future’

We moved on to discuss where we see the ACB fitting in with the move towards local brewing groups and how we keep the ACB relevant and engaging for members who attend local meetings, but not regional meetings. A lot of idea were discussed, with suggestions on reducing the number of ‘regional’ meetings to the ACB only being used as a way to organise large scale events (festival, tours, competitions).

We settled on not changing much in terms of schedule, and will continue to have at least one event planned per month. This could be the usual Saturday meetup or some other large event. Dates and times for meetings need to be flexible to accommodate unforeseen issues (like rail strikes!) but most would be on the usual first Saturday of the month.

Norfolk and Cambridge would struggle to commit to 3 meetings a year, so they will have less on the agenda but with the gaps being filled with other events.

Meeting and Events Schedule

It was requested that a single page on the site, with a list of what is planned for the year would be useful as the current system of the events only appearing once published didn’t give people enough of an idea of what is coming up, managing this (and agreeing final dates) isn’t possible to do at the start of the year, but, we will be able to provide an outline plan for the year ahead. As dates get closer the meeting or event will get publish with full details in the usual way.

You can find the summary page here https://angliancraftbrewers.org.uk/2023-meetup-and-events-schedule/

Meeting content

To get people engaged, we discussed the need to have informative content planned for any regional meetups to differentiated them from local mid-week meetings. Previously we had talks and presentation from ACB members and other industry experts, This type of format was lost last year so more focus needs to be put on getting this type of content back. It will be up to regional organisers to plan these for their region and we will work on some ideas for upcoming meetings (we will reach out to members to find out who is willing to contribute)

Regional Organisers

The follow people have agreed to co-ordinate for the regions.

• Richard Swindells and Justin Dean will coordinate Essex
• Nick Davis and James Pettifor will coordinate Suffolk
• Peter Jones will coordinate Cambridge (with we hope greater input and support form the wider ACB)
• Steve Bennett had agreed to take on duties for the Norfolk region

2023 Events

Shed Brewers Festival

This will be back sometime late in May, we are in the early planning stages so look out for more details and a call for Brewers to provide beers in the coming weeks.

ACB Competition

After the success of the previous competition we have agreed to run one again, a few changes are being discussed the first is moving it to a more suitable venue, the Briarbank Brewery and Tap room has been suggested and also changing the date to later in the year. As with the festival above we are in the early planning stages so more info in the coming weeks.

NAB Festival

This is going to be held in June at the Coachmakers arms in Norfolk, Keith and Martin will give us all more details when they have it.

Brewery Tour

For the annual brewery tour two breweries were suggested (in order of preference)

• Oakham
• Adnams

Colin Miller will be in contact with Oakham to start the discussions, dates not fixed yet but likely to be in July (as the competition is due to be moved). We will of course be running a clone challenge, beer decided on was JHB as with the other events, more info to follow.

End of meeting

As the meeting drew to a close there was a brief discussion on the web site and general communication to members, nothing really needs changing and the web site and email are still the preferred way of keeping members informed of up coming news, events and other information, We swiftly moved on to tasting a few beers that members had brought along, some interesting fruity ones from what I recall.

Finally we retired to the bar area for a well earned pint or two.