Each month we run two club meetings, one in person and one online (over zoom). You will find details of the next meetings in the announcements section.
Our in person meetings are held from 7pm on the first Monday of each month. We tend to focus these meetings on the tasting of members beers where they can get constructive feedback to help improve their brewing. Everyone is welcome to bring beer for the tasting session, but please make sure you bring at least 2l to ensure there’s enough to go round.
Our online meetings are also held from 7pm, but they normally take place two weeks after the in person events. These meetings tend to follow a similar schedule each month: news, introductions and questions, then a presentation or discussion on some aspect of brewing, followed by a general chit chat.
There are no fees, dues or entry requirements for LAB, membership is as simple as turning up to a meeting (either in person or online). After that, members get access to our Slack channel and mailing list.
Our meetings cater for a wide range of ages, and all levels of experience — from beginners looking to learn through to experts honing their technique. Although we tend to focus on beer, brewers of wine, mead, cider and other fermented beverages are also welcome.
LAB Open
Once a year the club organises and runs the LAB Open (formerly called the “London & South East Craft Brewing Competition”) and is one of the larger homebrew competitions in the UK.
The competition is open to anyone and everyone, and brewers of all skill levels are encouraged to enter. The competition is run according to the BJCP guidelines, and the event itself is an enjoyable day out sampling the competition entries.
Please see the competition website for more details:
https://competitions.londonamateurbrewers.co.uk/labopen
Smaller Competitions
In addition to the LAB Open we also run a number of smaller/themed competitions throughout the year, although these don’t all run necessarily annually…
- 11 Plus – The competition is open to all beers which had a starting gravity of 1100 or over.
- Black Friday – The competition is open to all beers which are black in colour – those intended to be in the 2015 BJCP Guidelines – Schwarzbier, Porters, Stouts, Black IPAs etc and any other black beer you have made in some categories we’ve made up.
- Lager Than Life – This competition is open to beers fermented using lager yeast exclusively (bottom-fermenting).