The Midnight Homebrewers' League is based in Carroll County, Maryland which is about thirty-five miles northwest of Baltimore.  Our membership ranges from beginners to brewers with 20 years of experience. 

Organization

Our club's annual dues are $15 for an individual and $25 for couples.  We use those dues for the benefit of our members for such things as subsidizing the cost of events, club T-Shirts, and personalized engraved club mugs.

Structurally, we have by-laws which set out the elected officers.  We hold elections every year, but terms are for two years, with elections for President/Treasurer in one year and Vice President/Secretary on alternate years.

We have a Tax I.D. number which was required in order to open our checking account.  But we are not incorporated, nor are we officially organized as a not-for-profit.  No one in our organization would have the interest in putting in the time, aggravation and cost of doing so, and then maintaining it.  After all, we're supposed to be a hobby (i.e. fun) and incorporation, information returns, and having even one conversation with the I.R.S. are all the opposite of fun.

There has been a lot of talk on the AHA forums (and in TechTalk before then) about liability insurance.  We've never worried about, or even considered, that.  Maryland law does not impose liability on a social host if a guest gets drunk and causes injury or damage.  We look out for each other to help us avoid leaving an event unable to drive safely and legally, and we've never had an incident which prompted us to be worried about liability for personal injury occurring at one of our events.

Public Events

We are fairly well known in our community for the public events we either host or participate in.  Our own public events are generally large outdoor brewing events such as the Big Brew and an annual Brew-Ha-Ha.  We also participate as an exhibitor at other public events including an annual Fiddlers Convention, the Sustainable Living Fair, and the Maryland Microbrewery Festival.

National Homebrewers Conference

The Midnight Homebrewers' League has been a Club Night participant at the National Homebrewers Conferences held in Baltimore, Orlando, Denver, Cincinnati, Oakland, Minneapolis, and next year in San Diego.  If it's close enough, we'll drive and bring our beers with us.  But for Denver and Oakland, we shipped our beers with our club's treasury helping to offset those costs.

Projects

We are fortunate enough to have a small microbrewery in our home base of Westminster, Maryland.  A number of years ago, the brewery was Clay Pipe Brewing Company.  The brewery was sold and is now Dog Brewing Company.  Both breweries have been very supportive of our club, and have allowed us to brew large-scale club batches on their equipment, with the labor and cost shared by our membership.  When we celebrated our 10th anniversary, Clay Pipe brewed a commercial batch based on the recipe of our 10th anniversary competition winner.

Another current club project which was facilitated by Dog Brewing Company, is learning about aging beer in bourbon barrels.  We recently acquired a fresh, wet Jack Daniels bourbon barrel through Dog Brewing Company.  The first beer to go into the barrel was a Biere de Garde.  The "Quad de Garde" will be in the barrel for probably a month or so until it picks up the desired bourbon and oak character.  Next up will be a Belgian strong ale patterned after Westvleteren 12 (yeah, we have some of that).

Every year, our club also organizes and runs a state-wide homebrew competition as part of the Maryland Microbrewery Festival, an officially state-sanctioned festival which showcases Maryland microbreweries.  On festival day, we host the homebrewing pavilion which features live homebrewing demonstrations, and ingredient, equipment and literature displays.  Judging of the Best Of Show round of the competition also takes place then.  The grand prize awarded to the Best Of Show brewer is to have his or her recipe brewed commercially by Dog Brewing Company of Westminster, Maryland for draft sales at Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants, as well as bottled sales in area liquor stores.  In 2010, the competition received 40 entries from around the state, and the Best of Show winner was our club's own Gary McNamara who won with a German Pilsner recipe.  The commercially brewed beer has also been entered each year in the Pro-Am competition at the Great American Beer Festival.

Shown below are the bottle label of 2009 winner Steve Kranz's 80 Shilling Scottish Ale, and 2010 winner Gary McNamara adding hops at Dog Brewing Company while his winning German Pilsner, BBC Remembered, is brewed.