I am thinking you should consider cancelling or reworking this site. There's few people who stick around, as you can see from the introduction people sign up, get excited, then say hello. That seems to be the extent of it.

I read a few posts of the most active members and it seems like you guys live out near UBC and the west side of Vancouver is your world? Just guessing, don't shoot me, but you really might want to consider broadening your focus. I'm in Surrey and you'll find me from Chilliwack to West Van. Really, how many homebrewers are there around UBC who are going to brew more than a few times? If the site appealed to everyone throughout the Metro Vancouver, ie. to Langley and Abbotsford, Maple Ridge, maybe there would be more activity. One good thing about having a geographical centre is that people can actually meet, in addition to chatting on these boards.

Bc the site is small, no need to post recipes we can find elsewhere, but having some sort of group of 10-20 metro vancouverites who get together every 2 weeks to taste and exchange each others brews would be fantastic. Myself, I find my friends are my friends for some reason other than homebrewing, only one of them even likes homebrewing (I feel sorry for them). But what would be cool would be to chat about different stouts this week for instance, ask as many people as possible (five plus?) to choose a specific recipe, post it online, then start the batch. After 1 month or 6 weeks, have a competition for the best one where everyone has a pint of each others stout and can discuss differences. I love stout but have little experience and would like to find the best recipe for me. In one evening now I can do that.

I have 2 primaries and three or 4 carboys, so there is always room to do at least one special batch each month, and I'm sure there are lots of people out there who have some extra room to experiment too.

Anyone think its possible to start a small group of constant brewers to meet and exchange? I'm going to post on some other homebrew sites and see if any locals notice it and come check out deterra.

There is a group that meets every month to taste each other's homebrews and review them.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107165103956

http://vanbrewers.blogspot.com/

The Vancouver Homebrewers Guild.

They meet for a tasting the last Wednesday of every month. I was at the last tasting, but didn't manage to make it to the one that just past.

I do wish this board was more active than it is, and I try to post stuff here regularly with the hope that it'll encourage others to post here more often.

I setup this board a few years ago just to see what would happen and if it would help foster any connections between homebrewers in the area. Since then I saw it grow from a few members to now 70. I never planned for it to become the centre of activity for all things homebrewing as there are plenty of other more established sites for that. Even if it isn't that active it still has some useful resources for new brewers about where to get CO2, kegs, supplies and so on. I already pay for the site hosting for other projects so don't see any reason to delete the site. I don't think the format of the site is what is making activity low, it's mostly just a lack of users that want to spend time on a computer talking about homebrew that live in BC.

I don't have time to do any sort of major revamps of the site as it's not really a priority for me right now. If you have any simple changes you think would help I'm all ears but that is about all I can offer right now.

Cheers,
Scott

Hi, thanks very much for the info on the tasting group that operates monthly here in Van. I normally don't go around suggesting websites to change how they operate, etc, I guess my enthusiasm was damped after hours and hours online searching for any sort of brew club around here and finding not too much activity. Thanks, and hope to meet you guys someday soon.