Join the Brew Scouts and drink in the world

[Wombatpix]

Absolutely, there will be "requirements" for each badge. Have any suggestions I'm game.

[aleguy]

I'm pretty sure the BN badge would be violating some copyright or trademark law. For our troop badge I think we should be TROOP 1 WOMBAT (Waste Of Money Brains And Time) with a wombat in the middle. Individual merit badges, I don't know. Maybe we could give the pyro badge to Trip as a badge for lack of proper burner maintenance or something. But I think the real badges should have something more representative on them. Of course I've never been a boy scout, so I don't know what they look like.
As far as merit badges, we started off pretty strict. For the brewstand build, you have to build a three-vessel stand from scratch, and you have to do the welding and other fabrication yourself. (A sore point for me, I was going to trade some homebrew for my welding.) I'm not sure if automation is part of the build badge or if it deserves its own badge. I think it should be separate, and you should have to do all the wiring, etc, yourself, though I think it should be allowed to have an adviser present so no one electrocutes themselves or fries a controller.
For myself, I think I've already earned the instigator strip.

[aleguy]

It just occurred to me that we don't need embroidered patches necessarily. Those who choose to could always embroider them at home. They (I don't know who they is) sell fabric sheets that can be run through a color printer. I'm not sure how that stuff works, (iron on I think) but we could just print out badges as needed once we get the artwork done and in the computer.

[Mob_Barley]

Instead of merit badges, call them "brew badges"??? You could get plain bottle caps, put a design on them (however), spray them with polyurethane, glue magnets onto back (or epoxy pins)...

[aleguy]

We'd need some pretty big bottle caps!

[thebuddrik]

I love the idea and all but we should probably just have the badges for personal profiles on the site. Like in each persons sig. I dont have any where to put any badges.

Bottle caps with magnets, cool idea but that would be small.


This will end up being pretty cool!

[aleguy]

You put the badges over the welding holes in your tee shirt of course!

[Wombatpix]

Oh, I'm sure we can come up with sashes or something tacky for the badges. I think magnets to put on your freezer or chiller would be cool.

[aleguy]

Hophead hats! We could put the badges on the individual petals of the cones!

[redtail28]

Hey I was just thinking that the
Brew Scouts where co-brewers on
my Green Monster II Ipa and it took
3rd place in the club competiton

The Brew Scouts rock

[aleguy]

Yeah!

[aleguy]

Gordon got back to me with a preliminary price quote for embroidered merit badges. The basic patches are $3 each with a minimum order of 50. The embroidery costs will depend on the designs (Number of colors, fully embroidered, etc.) I'm not sure, but it sounds like we order fifty patches and he can make up separate designs so we don't get fifty of each design. In any case, I expect the scouts to pay for their own badges, so the cost is probably going to be fairly reasonable per each.
Again, I told him I would talk to him about it at the next meeting, much of this may simply be wrong information. Regardless of how we do our merit badges, we need some designs people.

[positiverpr]

this will be great- just like the hells angels except our ftw stand for ferment the wort and 10percenter stands for that great quadruple we have aging. i cant wait to walk around with a big pine (trustee) plank hanging around my neck. we can go trash and burn winemakers clubs and beat up bmc drinkers. i'm gonna earn the patch for biggest starter and hottest ferment. i'm pumped- how did i miss this topic?

[aleguy]

We don't want any trouble with the winemakers. They are kind of our allies. Our true enemies are the legions of people who think tasteless watery lager is "real" beer. Maybe we should have a mindf*#k badge for messing with them and switching their beer for the good stuff.

[gordonbl]

Sorry Aleguy. Patch making shops usually have really large machines.
Like 25 or 50 head machines. The quote I gave you is for 50 patches
of the same design. You will need to find a small shop that has patch makeing capabilitys. With multiple designs your talking setup charges
for each design. I would think it will end up costing more than I quoted you.