piddledribble said:
I seem to remember years ago there was a weekly/monthly ? newspaper for Home Brewing... Can't remember much about it now. I don't think there's anything published now for wine/beermaking
You would be thinking about
Amateur Winemaker . . . .
and Brewer . . . Which was published by Andover Press . . .The owner of which was one CJJ Berry and which folded around 1985. Since then there has been an attempt at a quarterly paper from the retailers which was funded by advertising . . . this too folded due to cut backs in advertising revenue.
I've been trying to stay out of this one as I don't want to see negative, but I do have some experience of trying to bring about an 'evolution' of home brewing in the UK.
It is important to remember that there are significant differences in the approach to the hobby by UK and US brewers. In the US the AHA is a commercial organisation with upwards of 50 staff, which is funded primarily by its retail activities (Brewers Publications and the NHC) along with subscriptions from home brewers, they also recieve significant advertising revenue from Zymurgy. . . This I feel is driven by the fact that in the US people tend to spend significantly higher on their hobbies than we do in the UK, plus there is more of a 'joining' culture in the US as a whole (Just look at the number of clubs and associations they have) which is not reflected here in the UK.
Let us consider the sate of play here in the UK, we currently have
The Homebrew Retailers Association (Trade)
National Association Of Winemakers and Brewers (mostly based around wine circles)
Craft Brewing Association (UK) Produce a Quarterly Magazine available to subscribers, Assist regional clubs with holding the CBA National Homebrew Competition, Plus also help with other competitions run by local groups under their own rules.
Scottish Craft Brewers
UK Home Brewing Association Who want to start a revolution in Home brewing
Forum Wise we have
UK Homebrew - Originally a mailing list, now with a web forum, but has more or less died a death
Jims Beer Kit - Really took over from UKHB as people were more web savy and Mailing lists were seen as old hat Active with 9000 Members
The Homebrew Forum - An alternative to JBK with a different 'feel'. Active with 7000 members.
The CBA has just started it's own members only forum for the discussion of brewing related topics. No offence guys but the signal to noise ratio on the public forums is very low, which contributes to a feeling of not being able to find the advice you need in 'one place'. One thing that the CBA is considering as time goes by is to build the forum information, plus Brewers Contact articles into a Wiki, and then to publish a collaborative book . . . but to do that we need a lot of input from members.
I found
this Blog post interesting. I too would love to see a home brewing magazine in the shops, but without an understanding of how the magazine retail trade works you could be spending a lot of money to go nowhere (for example if you have 50 issues in a shop and only sell 5 . . . you have to buy back the other 45!!) . BYO and Zymurgy in the US have the advantage of being heavily supported by advertising (as well as subscription), and most of their 'retail' sales go through LHBS, this is something that the CBA is looking into at the moment, but these things take time, especially when you only have a very small group of people involved who also have other lives. . . if you had paid staff then all sorts of innovations could be tried much more rapidly . . . but then you become a business and do things for a profit, rather than for members.
Since last year the CBA has become much more member focussed and doing things for members, but with only 5 committee members willing to stand up and actually do things it is a slow evolution. (
If anyone is interested in the posts of Chairman, Membership Secretary, Secretary, Treasurer, and Group Liason Officer please contact me or the CBA committee - of course in order to do so you would have to be a CBA member . . . but that is only the case of coughing up 15 quid
)
