Matt, Tom and Jeff left Fort Worth at 2pm on Sunday and began the long drive to Minneapolis, MN where the 2010 National Hombrewers Conference is to be held. Along the way we stopped at Hog Wild in Wichita Kansas for BBQ. A rack of ribs and some pulled pork later there was brief discussion about another half rack of ribs, but we decided otherwise just because we were comfortably full at that point. A few hours later we found ourselves in Emporia, KS. Emporia Kansas? You say? Yes! After checking into our hotel we decided to search for beer. We found a place called Bruff's. It was a sports bar that had a few surprises for beer. They had Boulevard Wheat and Boulevard Pale along with Boulevard Dry Stout, which we each had a Pale and a sample of the Stout, then we finished out with a Wheat and a Stout. Our beer sampling was cut short when the owner came by to inform us that storms were a-c'mn so we needed to head home. We soon made our way back to the hotel and made ready for the evening's end and the next day which will quickly come.

The next day came quickly. On Monday we made it back on the road by just after 7am for the remainder of the trek up to minneapolis. The drive was for the most part uneventful, save for a roundabout detour just north of des moines as we sought out lunch. Some jimmy johns sandwiches later and we were back on 35 headed north once again. We made it to the hotel a little before 4, got checked in and then headed over to the Four Firkins to do a bit of shopping for interesting bottles to bring home with us. There were many interesting bottles to be had as well, and it didn't take too long to build up a sizeable haul. After finishing there we found our way to the Hirkimer, a place specializing in German beers. We worked our way through the tap list, trying the handy lager, the koelsch, the alt, the heffe, and the kellerbier. Generally at such places there will be a few standouts, but in this case everything we sampled was quite outstanding. We grabbed some food there and finished up, then walked a few blocks over to the Bulldog.

The next day came quickly. On Monday we made it back on the road by just after 7am for the remainder of the trek up to minneapolis. The drive was for the most part uneventful, save for a roundabout detour just north of des moines as we sought out lunch. Some jimmy johns sandwiches later and we were back on 35 headed north once again. We made it to the hotel a little before 4, got checked in and then headed over to the Four Firkins to do a bit of shopping for interesting bottles to bring home with us. There were many interesting bottles to be had as well, and it didn't take too long to build up a sizeable haul. After finishing there we found our way to the Hirkimer, a place specializing in German beers. We worked our way through the tap list, trying the handy lager, the koelsch, the alt, the heffe, and the kellerbier. Generally at such places there will be a few standouts, but in this case everything we sampled was quite outstanding. We grabbed some food there and finished up, then walked a few blocks over to the Bulldog.

At the Bulldog, we suddenly came face to face with Steve Buscemi, or so we thought!

Attach file:

---

  IMG00056-20100615-0005.jpg (36.47 KB)

On the pub crawl for NHC, here are some action photos from the Town Hall brewpub.

Attach file:

---

  IMG00068-20100616-2013.jpg (61.12 KB)


  IMG00069-20100616-2013.jpg (68.31 KB)


  IMG00070-20100616-2013.jpg (68.09 KB)

You may be thinking, what happened to Tuesday? What about Wednesday morning and such? Well, here is a quick summary to get things up to speed.

Tuesday we drove to a bottle shop in Hudson Wisconsin and picked up some more bottles, especially some of the beers from New Glarus which cannot be purchased here in MN. Afterwards we took a tour of Summit Brewing. Decent brewery tour with a tasting of beers at the end. The Extra Pale and the Porter were quite good at the source. After Summit, we went to Northern brewer and found they were having a promotional event with Jamil Zainasheff. While there, two of us made some major purchases and then we went off to Great Waters brewpub for some food, beers, meat sticks and then called it a night.

Wednesday, we began a brewers brunch at the Happy Gnome. There were a number of really tasty breakfast items paired with Schell beers. The tastiest items were the Cajun Potato Hash, Beer Braised Sausages and a Cinnamon roll. These were paired with some really tasty offerings form Schells, their Hefe, a lager called Hopfenmalz and a nice Stout. After the brunch we walked down to the Muddy Pig where we had a couple more tasty beers.

In the early afternoon, we went to the Mall of the Americas where we grabbed an early dinner and rode a couple of roller coasters.

That evening we went on the pub crawl where we drank beers....rather quickly....at Rock Bottom, Town Hall, Barley John's, Happy Gnome and Herkimer.

Then after a day of MANY tasty beers we returned for the night amongst many attempts of leading sing alongs on the bus.

The trip has been quite a whirlwind, hard to find time to post updates. Thursday brought the official start of the conference, which for us began with breakfast at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis. After we had our fill of pancakes and peanut butter and wandered the outdoor market area for a bit, we made our way back to the hotel in time for the opening toast. Evidently our attendence there was immortalized in a picture on the AHA site, which BelgianHorse spotted and linked to on the other thread. We also spent a bit of time investigating the display setups and sampling the beers being served in the hospitality room, which gave RH and WH a chance to talk to John Blichmann about techniques for using the purchases they had made a few days prior. After the toast we began the technical sessions. I attended one on malting while WH and RH checked out Blichmann's homebrew setup demonstration, after which we met back up for a presentation on aging and maturation of beer. The final session was an in-depth talk on the science and chemistry of hops.

Once that was complete, we ventured out to seek food and found a noodle place not too far from the hotel that was pretty good. We then returned in time for the joy that was Pro Brewer's night.

Upon entering the ballroom for pro brewers night that evening, we were presented with a wide array of selections from across the country, all lined up around the outer walls of the large room. In the middle was a table set up by White Labs, where we got a separate half-pint tasting glass for the occasion. There were a significant number of brewers present, more than I can name here, and with a small handful of regrettable sample choices (tip: don't put watermellon in your beer), all were quite enjoyable. One somewhat local meadery was in attendence which had some fantastic offerings; of particular note were the black currant mead and a straight dry mead. It's perhaps something of a testament to the quality of the offerings that the beers that stood out most were actually the bad ones, since there were really very few that weren't excellent. With limited time it was difficult to try all the samples we would have liked, though it was entertaining to watch WH bounce from booth to booth in rapid succession like a bumblebee in search of nectar. It was interesting to note that Shiner had a booth and were sharing the flagship Bock and the 101 Pilsner, though we didn't really see the need to stop by for a sample of these when so many others were available that can't be found at home.

During the pro brewers evening we once again met up with a pair from the Seattle area that we had first encountered on the pub crawl. As none of us were quite finished with the evening at the conclusion of the pro event, we decided to share some of the mead that we had brought with us. The sweet prickly pear mead has continued to mellow out quite well with age and was very well received. Once the bottle was depleated we went back downstairs to check out what was being offered in the hospitality room. The choices here were not quite as delicious as those we had just sampled, so after a time we headed back to the room.

The next morning came a bit earlier that we might have liked it to, but after a time we managed to make our way out of the hotel and to the local Burger King across the parking lot for a bite to eat. With said bite eaten, we venetured back for the morning technical conference sessions. For us, this was a panel discussion and tasting of various varietal meads-- nothing quite like kicking off the morning with a bunch of mead samples after liberally sampling beers the night before. Lunch followed, and to save time and avoid complicating things we decided to hike back across the parking lot to a nearby Subway-- actually a double subway, as the place evidently did so much business that they installed two separate sandwich lines. More technical conferences followed in the afternoon: WH attended a discussion from Ken Schramm on Beer and Mead and the Human Sensory System, while RH and I caught a very scientifically detailed discussion on the chemistry of hops in brewing. After that we met back up for another panel discussion, this one hosted by previous Meadmaker of the Year award winners discussion various techniques and ingredients. All this was followed by dinner at the greek place right next door to the noodle place from the night before.

Had we been aware of the gastronomical opportunities that awaited us at the club night, we likely would have elected to skip the gyros and simply graze on Italian Beef sandwiches, gourmet cheeses and White Castle sliders. Club night was set up in the same fashion as the pro night had been the evening before, but was vastly more elaborate as the creativity of the sponsoring clubs was in full evidence. In the middle of the room was a booth where a webcast radio show was being broadcast live. We began at one end and started to slowly make our way around to check out all the booths, endevoring to try at least one beer from each of the clubs. Deciding which beer to select was sometimes difficult, as some stations had as many as 24 taps going, many of them on engine or nitro. There were wood beers, sour beers, barleywines and stouts, fruit beers, hoppy beers, spiced and smoked beers, german beers, belgian beers, scottish beers, english and american beers, big beers, little beers, braggots and meads aplenty. Most clubs had fairly elaborate booths, some with games or giveaways and many with costumed club members serving their wares. It was about all we could do to get around the room once to hit each of the clubs, but we managed the task with about an hour to spare and then spent the remainder of the time drifting around trying other samples from those booths that had impressed us the first time. And to the credit of the clubs that were in attendence, most did; the quality was surprising and welcome. Once last call had been declared and the evening concluded. we retired back to the room straight away rather than revisiting the hospitality room as WH would be leaving for home early the next morning and we were plenty satisfied with the sampling we had accoplished over the evening.

On the final day of the conference, WH woke up quite early and left for the airport before the sun arose. Those of us who remained got up a bit later and headed across the familiar parking lot to a Caribou Coffee located next door to the Subway. A bit of breakfast and good coffee later, and we headed back over to the next set of technical conferences. RH caught a discussion on lesser known English beer styles while I attended a discussion on how to make mash efficiency more predictable. These were followed by a lively panel discussion from a collection of homebrewers that had gone professional who shared their advice and experiences. Afterward was lunch, and for the sake of convenience we took lunch at the same subway as before. The first of the afternoon conferences was presented by a particularly odd husband and wife team that enjoyed dressing in outlandish outfits, and went through a talk about properly pairing beer and food peppered with digressions on any number of marginally related topics that was quite entertaining to watch. A number of other technical discussions followed, covering such topics as using scientific method in brewing experiments, adjusting yeast character of certain strains by modifying temperature and other variables, exploring long-forgotten english beer styles documented in centuries-old journals (at which the aformentioned odd couple attended dressed as Nacho Libre), and disecting the differences that using assorted types of sugar can have on the flavor of a Belgian Trippel. At the conclusion of these, RH went back to the room to begin consolidating our belongings while BH attended a BJCP member meeting. Upon meeting back up after the meeting, we loaded a few boxes into the car and then got into the quickly growing line to get into the grand banquet. We happened to encounter our friends from Seattle one again, who were rather farther ahead in line than we were and agreed to save us some seats at their table.

The banquet, to put it simply, was quite grand indeed. A three course meal, each one both using and paired with different beers from Rogue Ales which sponsored the event, was assembled and presented to us with an explanation of each of the dishes along with how the beer paired with it. We were quickly convinced that this meal must be far superior to the banquet that the wedding party down the hall was having. Following this was an introduction of the various committees that had organized and orchastrated the conference and a presentation from next year's host city of San Diego, and the presentation of the AHA award to Randy Mosher for his contributions to the craft. Afterward came the announcement of the national homebrewers competition winners, which, for us at least, was punctuated with the announcement of Stacy's first place medal for his most excellent German Rye ale. There was really a solid Texas representation at the awards, with people from BAM, NTHBA and C&H all taking medals, and it was truely gratifying to have HotH counted among that list. At the conclusion of the festivities we quickly retired back to the room, stopping just long enough to talk with the rest of the Texas contingent and to pick up scoresheets and a few 6-packs of 2nd round beers, as we had a significant amount of driving ahead of us the next day.

The next morning arrived as early as we feared it would, though we were none the worse for ware despite all the festivities from the previous week. We managed to hit the road just a little after 7am, stopping only for gas and once in Kansas City to have one last lunch of KC Barbeque. I was able to take advantage of the drive back from Minnesota to finish out this report on the conference, though without mobile internet there wasn't a way to post it until the next day. We rolled back into Fort Worth late that evening, having thoroughly enjoyed our week at the National Homebrewers Conference.