Dave, Desiree, Beer & Wine

Dave and I are back from this year’s National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland California.  We had a great time and can’t wait to go back again next year.  To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect.  Even though High Gravity did some sponsorship last year, this year was our first time to attend.  I had high expectations and they were all met and then some.

The American Homebrewers Conference is very well organized with plenty of seminars and beer to go around.  This year there was a who’s who of speakers including Charlie Papazian, John Palmer, Ray Daniels, Randy Mosher, Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River, Tomme Arthur from Port Brewing, and the list goes on. 

Next year I will be better prepared.  Dave and I booked tickets for Wednesday, the day before the conference was scheduled to begin, and we discovered that there is a lot going on the day before!  There was a trip to see the San Francisco Giants game along with a tour of microbreweries.  There was the BART Tour of Beers, a tour of St. Georges Spirits Distillery and last but certainly not least, The Beer by Bus Iron Liver Tour, organized by Kevin Pratt, which started at 10am and went till late in the day.  Whew! All that and the conference hadn’t even started yet!  The events change from year to year, but I’m sure that next years will be just as intriguing.

Thursday was not only the first official day of the conference, it was also the final round of the National Competition.  This was my first time to judge in this event and I enjoyed the experience very much.  I even made a new friend, Chad McNicholas, a fellow homebrewer from Carmichael California.  If you have never judged in the finals I recommend it.  You are playing a role in deciding the Homebrewer of the Year! 

Classes start in Thursday afternoon and continued through Saturday up till the Grand Banquet and National Homebrew Competition Awards Ceremony.  The classes ranged from technical to informational, such as getting the most out of beer tour vacations.  All the classes I attended were well presented with a balance of seriousness and humor.  I’m told these presentations are going to be posted to the AHA website.  I’m looking forward to seeing the ones I missed.

Two of the many highlights of the conference were the Pro-brewers Night and Club Night.  This year there were over 35 breweries showing off their elixirs.  On club night over 35 homebrew clubs shared their brews along with some very clever booth setups.

But the BEST part of the event was the commemorative glass, sponsored by High Gravity!  Over 1000 homebrewers walking around with taster glasses promoting our homebrew store.  Awesome!

All in all this was a very positive experience and the next conference will be just as memorable I’m sure.  I encourage everyone to try and make it to next year’s event, to be held in Minneapolis. Mmmmmmmm, beer…

Check out our photo album of the conference on our Facebook page.

Desiree Knott, the BrewGoddess
desiree@highgravitybrew.com
http://www.highgravitybrew.com

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This entry was posted by Desiree Knott on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Homebrew Related Posts, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.