District Michigan

Meeting Minutes
January 12, 2007
Detroit Hilton Garden Inn

This is my last installment of meeting minutes as district secretary. It has been my pleasure to serve this organization in this important position.

This meeting, as was last year's at this time, held in cooperation with the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Conference. An estimated 120 were in attendance for some or all of the conference. MBAA District Michigan 's role in the conference was the technical presentations. The conference began with a lunch, Thursday January 11, 2007 at noon. The Technical Presentation began at 1:30 p.m. with an entertaining overview of beer packaging entitled Practical Packaging. The presenters were John Mallett, Production Manager, Bell 's Brewery, and Michael Fuerst, Packaging Manager, Bell 's Brewery. The next presentation was by Ron Jeffries, Owner/Brewer, and Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, who delivered a humorously spiked presentation on a sour subject entitled Small Scale Artisan Production of Sour Style Ales. The last technical session of the day was a sensory presentation delivered by Lauren Salazar, Sensory Analyst, New Belgian Brewing Company.

The Technical Presentation track resumed after the MBAA District Meeting Friday morning, January 12, 2007. The first presentation, Flavor Stability for the Craft Brewer was given by Paul Casey, Director of Brewing Services, Coors Brewing Company. Paul is noted for his “Fishbone” graphs, which contained much more information, then time allowed, however his presentation is available on the Internet . The next presentation was by the New Belgium team of Lauren Salazar, Eric Salazar, and Mike Peters who spoke of Acidification in Wood Barrels as practiced at New Belgium.

Concurrent with the technical track, the Michigan Brewers Guild ran a Business of Beer Track with an equal number of quality presentations. The whole conference concluded with a beer dinner held at the Detroit Historic Society a few miles from the conference site.

Board Meeting

A meeting of the board was called to order at 9:30 a.m. by president Alec Mull. In attendance were President Alec Mull, V.P. Chad McDaniels, Treasurer Marty Rapnicki, Board of Governor Representative Jan Muuse, Secretary Rex Halfpenny.

The brief meeting was called to review business for the general meeting to take place in the same location at 10:00 a.m. Alec quickly took us through election results, old business, principally the Summer Social and our sponsors and new business, which amounted to forthcoming meetings.

General Meeting

As members gathered a power point slide show entitled Ten Years of Brewing in Michigan was showing on the screen illustrating a short history of craft brewing 1997 to 2007.

The general Meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by President Ales Mull.

In attendance in addition to the board listed above were:
Ken Belau, Eric Briggeman, Dan Buonodono, Greg Casey, Konrad Connor, Scott Graham, Susan Graydon, Michael Grossman, John Haggerty, Scott Isham, Roy Johnson, John Mallett, Todd Parker, Brian Phelps, Dan Rogers, Ron Runstad, Mike Wachowski, Eric Walker, and Bill Wrobel.

Alec began by thanking everyone for attending and gave special thanks to our presenters and to our past and present event sponsors. He suggested we make a habit of thanking sponsors at every gathering.

Thanks to GW Kent, Briess, Hopunion, Capital Draft Service, Michigan Beer Guide, Enerco, Leonard's Syrups, LD Carlson, Brewers Supply Group, Cargill, Detroit Beer Co., Royal Oak Brewery, Rochester Mills Beer Co., Dragonmead, Wyeast, Micromatic, and the Michigan Brewers Guild.

Board Member Reports:

Secretary Rex Halfpenny explained the missing minutes from our last meeting of October 19, 2006 at Bells Brewery in Comstock. Notes from the meeting were misplaced and to date have not been recovered. Members were reminded to visit the Master Brewers Website (www.mbaa.com) for national and district member updates, related news, and events.

Treasurer Marty Rapnicki reported $5,381.22 in checking. A Certificate of Deposit in the amount of $7,583.63 matures on June 29, 2007. Marty estimated net from our annual fundraiser pig roast added $1,500.00 to our bank account.

Vice President Chad McDaniels reviewed our 2006 social events (Tiger Baseball Game and Feather bowling), and his membership drive and stated that the social event calendar should continue in 2007. Chad suggested a tour of the Canadian Club/Hiram Walker distillery in Canada be explored.

Board of Governor Jan Muuse reminded everyone of the BOG meeting scheduled for Feb 9 in St, Paul , MN . He said the local district would be having their meeting the day before at Summit Brewing Company. Jan said he will be driving and invited all interested members to join him.

Alec then summarized our recent elections explaining that all current board members will on this day advance to the next board position.

Alec Mill, Past President
Chad McDaniels, President
Marty Rapnicki, Vice President
And Rex Halfpenny, Treasurer
Jan Muuse continues as BOG

We had three members run for office: Ken Belau, John Haggerty, and Eric Kuhnhenn. Members voted Eric Kuhnhenn, so Eric is now secretary. John Haggerty was asked to continue as chair for the Technical Committee to which he agreed.

Alec thanked all members for their active participation, as well as each board member for their contribution. Rex in turn thanked Alec for his efforts as Chad presented Alec with a memento on behalf of the membership of Alec's service to the district.

Future Meeting dates announced:

March 22, 2007, noon
Spring Technical Presentation and General Meeting
Lumber Baron's in Bay City , Marty Rapnicki, host
989-971-0100
Technical Presentation will be by Roy Johnson.

August 4, 2007, noon
Summer Social Fund Raiser and Family Pig Roast
Fitzgerald Park , Grand Lodge
517-627-7351
http://www.eatoncounty.org/Parks/FitzgeraldPark.htm

October 26-28, 2007
MBAA 120th anniversary National convention
Gaylord Opryland Hotel
Nashville , TN
http://meeting.mbaa.com/

Fall Technical Presentation and General Meeting TBA
Traditionally on or about October 18 at Bells.

Reminder:
All member dues were due December 31, 2006. Renewal dues are $123.00 to the National and $15.00 to the District. Total $138.00.

Under New Business Alec told the membership that the board would stay the course. We will follow the same meeting program as established in the past few years of one meeting per quarter, summer social and $1,000 scholarship and to include a runner up award to cover dues for one year. In the event the scholarship s not enough to encourage a member to attend the MBAA National convention, as would be the case when the MBAA meets in Hawaii in 2008, the scholarship may be applied to another educational event, such as the Craft Brewers Conference.

District Cincinnati member Roy Johnson took the floor to congratulate District Michigan on their program. He encouraged members to participate in the national membership drive. He suggested a joint meeting between District Cincinnati and District Michigan at some future date and central to each district's location. Roy, who holds the BOG position for District Cincinnati, added that Jan Muuse works hard for our district, he speaks for us on the national level.

In closing Alec again thanked the board past and welcomed the new board.

Meeting adjourned 10:30am.

Respectfully submitted,
Rex Halfpenny
Past Secretary