The National Homebrew Conference (NHC) is happening this week, running from Thursday (6/19) through Saturday (6/20). This event is not unlike many of the other conferences you may have attended for business, only it’s beer related. I will be attending NHC this year primarily because it’s in my backyard. Because I registered for the event months ago, I’ve had it out of my head until this week. But now that I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at the Conference Schedule, I’m pretty excited.
While registration will officially begin on Wednesday, the actual conference and sessions will not begin until Thursday. Here’s a tentative list of sessions I plan on attending.
Thursday
- Wood Aging with Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker.
- Brewing Great German Lagers: Finding the perfect balance of traditional and modern techniques in your brewery with Michael Ferguson of BJ’s Restaurants.
Friday
- Great Brewery Tours Around the World: How to make the most of your beer travel experiences with Peter Symons
- Funkification: A 100% Brettanomyces Spontaneously Fermented Mind Dump with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River.
- Mead Panel moderated by James Spencer with Charlie Papazian, Byron Burch, Curt Stock and Harold Culbransen
- Going Pro Panel moderated by Justin Crossley with Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Sean O’Sullivan, John Pinkerton and Keith Lemcke
Saturday
- Troubleshooting Panel moderated by James Spencer wtih Tomme Arthur, Vinnie Cilurzo, Michael Ferguson and John Palmer.
- All About Proteins… or how to get great head retention and more with John Palmer
- Maintaining Ideal Yeast Health: Nutrients yeast need with Dr. Tobias Fischborn
- Chocolate and Beer with Timothy Childs
- Ingredients 5-10 with Tomme Arthur
This is just a tentative list and I may change what sessions I attend as I learn what each session will be about. I’m looking to learn a lot about brewing, the brewing industry, connect with fellow brewers and hopefully make meaningful connections with people. Here’s a link where you can view the rest of the speakers at the NHC.
As important as the actual sessions are, many attendees are mainly there for the social activities. Wednesday has a few pre-conference social experiences in the works, such as beer tours, MLB baseball game and a BJCP judge reception. Thursday night as the Pro-Brewers Night, which is basically a brew fest for homebrewers with many of the Bay Area local breweries, if not all, participating as well as breweries. Friday night features Club Night, where many local homebrew clubs get to show off their beers and skills. From what I’ve been hearing, none of the homebrew clubs I’m loosely affiliated with will be participating. Not sure why. Lastly, Saturday features a Grand Banquet and NHC Awards Ceremony. I’m hoping to have enough beer to have fun but not to much where I can’t remember all the good times. It’s a fine line that gets finer as I get older.
The Trappist
If you are a craft beer lover and have not yet visited the Trappist, you are missing out. I’ve written many posts in the past about this bar. They specialize in Belgian ale and have one of the best Belgian beer portfolios I have ever seen. They are my barometer by which I measure other Belgian beer bars really.
In honor of the NHC, the Trappist is having beer specials from Wednesday, June 17th through Sunday, June 21st where there will have ten special and rare beers on tap. Here’s the list:
- Cantillion Kriek, 100% Lambic, 5% ABV – $7/5 oz
- Allagash Hugh Malone, 8.5% ABV – $8/25 cl
- Allagash Confluence, 7.5% ABV – $8/25 cl
- Allagash Victor, 10.4% ABV – $8/25 cl
- Allagash Victoria, 9% ABV – $8/25 cl
- Russian River Sanctification, 6.5% ABV – $8
- Russian River Mortification, 10% ABV – $8
- Russian River Consecration, 10% ABV – $10
- Russian River Perdition, 6.1% ABV – $6
- Russian River Benediction, 6.75% ABV – $8
In addition to serving all of those good beers, Duvel will be releasing Duvel Green on June 25th. Green is a “sessionable” Belgian golden ale that weighs in at only 6.8%. This is going to be an epic week of excellent beer. As I type this, I am getting more and more excited.
One last thing, BetterBeerBlog friends Beer by Bart, in conjunction with the Mad Zymgists, are holding a BJCP Beer 101 event where you can learn how to judge and appreciate beers similar to how a beer judge (like myself) would approach a beer. I helped them the last time they hosted this event and it was a blast and worth it. If they’re not yet sold out, you should check the event out. Here’s the registration page.
Without meaning to, this post got longer than expected. Thank you bullet points, ha! Anyway, if any of you will be attending, I’d love to meet up in between sessions, during lunch or at the various social events. You can contact me by leaving a message in the comments section and I’ll get back to you!
Hooray for beer!
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I’ll be there, since I live right down the street I can’t imagine missing it!
I want to hit up the talks by mosher the most, all his books are easily my favorite to read. and the extreme fermentables sounds interesting as well.
I’m not affiliated with a homebrew club so I’ll curious to meet the local groups to see if I can glom onto any of them in the future.