National Homebrewers Conference (long overdue)

Though it was over a month ago, I'm finally getting around to writing about my trip to the National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland, CA at the end of June. The short story is: It was AWESOME! It was such an incredible experience to be in the presence of so much beer and brewing information for 3 full days. Without writing a 30 page thesis, here's a summary of what I did at the conference, the people I met, and the beers I drank:

Wednesday, June 17
I flew into Oakland, checked into my hotel, and without a minute to spare headed over to Pacific Coast Brewing for a bite to eat and my NHC inaugural beer (Pacific Coast's Ultra Yellow, a "double maibock" style beer). An interesting note on Pacific Coast is that they brew all the beers extract, not all-grain. I'm not sure the exact reason for this (extract is more expensive), but I suspect it has something to do with available space for a full brewhouse. After the Ultra Yellow, I tried their Leviathan Imperial Stout for a night-cap and then it was off to bed.

Thursday, June 18
First thing in the morning, I headed over to the registration table to get my conference credentials, tasting glass, welcome kit (a bunch of freebies from different homebrew supply companies), and commemorative conference beers (an IPA and a Saison brewed specially for the conference). I started off Thursday's festivities by stewarding at the National Homebrew Competition for the Specialty Mead table. I've never really tried meads before, so it was an interesting experience. Since this was the second (and final) round of the competition, there were some top notch meads there. Among some of the more unique varieties was a raspberry-chipotle mead with a distinct spicy/smoky characteristic and a mint-lime mead that was crisp and refreshing. After the morning of stewarding, the conference officially began with the Opening Toast. Among the speakers were Jamil Zainasheff (award-winning homebrewer, beer author, and Brewing Network brewcaster), Gary Glass (director of the American Homebrewers Association), and Charlie Papazian (founder of the AHA and the "godfather" of homebrewing"). Following the toast, there were two sessions of seminars--I attended Water Kemistry with Colin Kaminski (brewmaster at Downtown Joes) and Funkification: A 100% Brettanomyces Spontaneously Fermented Mind Dump with Vinnie Cilurzo (brewmaster/owner of Russian River). I'm not gonna go into detail about the seminars here because it'll take way to long. If you're interested, shoot me an email and we can talk. I also don't remember much, because during the entire conference we were served beer from 9am till bedtime. Drunken lullabies indeed. Thursday's evening event was Pro-Brewers Night, a 3.5 hour beer festival with professional breweries from all over the country--though mostly California establishments, since we were, well, in California.

Friday, June 19
Friday morning brought two more sessions of seminars. I hit up Extreme Fermentables with Sam Calagione (brewmaster/owner of Dogfish Head) and Making Better Beer II: Advanced Homebrewing & Science with homebrew gods Ray Daniels and Randy Mosher. Early that afternoon was the Keynote Address given by Ken Grossman, the founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (and a beerlebrity in his own right). Following Ken's speech I attended two more seminars: Yeast: Taking It To The Next Level with Dr. Michael Lewis from UC Davis' brewing program and a Going Pro Panel that was moderated by Justin Crossley (founder of the Brewing Network). That evening was Club Night, a 4 hour homebrew extravaganza. Instead of professional breweries having booths, different homebrew clubs setup booths and served their members' beer on tap. Some clubs had over 20 taps going at once! Club Night was a lot of fun, especially because each club had their own theme going on (check out some of my pics--link at the bottom of this post).

Saturday, June 20
After barely recovering from Club Night, I made it to two more seminars in the morning: Troubleshooting Panel moderated by James Spencer (host of Basic Brewing) and The Equipment Geek with homebrewer and self-proclaimed equipment geek, Kent Fletcher. In the afternoon, there were three tracks of seminars--I only made it to two: Maintaining Ideal Yeast Health: Nutrients Yeast Need with Dr. Tobias Fischborn from Lallemand (a yeast company) and Chocolate and Beer, a delicious event with Timothy Childs of TCHO (a chocolate company) and Roger Davis (brewmaster at Triple Rock). I skipped the third seminar session that afternoon because nothing looked that interesting and I was thirsty--I headed over to The Trappist for a beer, an awesome Belgian beer bar near the hotel in Oakland. Saturday evening was the Grand Banquet, which meant at end to the conference. The banquet was a three-course beer pairing dinner prepared by Sean Paxton, the homebrew chef. Each dish was brewed with beers from Rogue and was paired with a specific Rogue beer during the meal. The highlight for me was when the chocolate mousse (made with Rogue Chocolate Stout) came out garnished with real crystal malt (a sweet, caramel-like malted barley used in brewing).

Overall, the conference was a great success...for my mind and my liver! I learned a ton of new information about beer and brewing, and I tasted a bunch of awesome beers. I will definitely be attending again next year (in Twin Cities, Minnesota) and hopefully I can drag some friends with me (here's to you Sully/Mose!). If you haven't seen them already, here are some photos I took at the conference: NHC Pics

I'll hopefully have some additional post(s) later this week about my visit to the Sam Adams brewery last weekend, my brew-day yesterday (I brewed a hefeweizen), and the homebrew competition I judged today for the NJ State Fair. Also, this coming weekend is Belgium Comes to Cooperstown, a Belgian beer festival and camping extravaganza at Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY...more on that later! Cheers!