The National Homebrewers Conference in San Diego is underway. Although the weather has not been up to par for San Diego (where is the sun?), the conference is pretty much hitting on all cylinders. The Town and Country is a nice resort, however it is starting to show its age a bit. Getting around the grounds seems a little daunting at first, but we quickly learned our way around.
I attended two seminars on the first day. The first was on brewing with coffee. The seminar was put on by the folks over at Modern Times brewery and Michael Tonsmeire. They not only covered brewing with coffee, but also some information on home roasting. It was nice for me since I’ve started to dabble in home roasting as well and I picked up a couple tips there that I can put to use when I get back home. As for brewing with coffee, their recommendation was to dry-bean the finished beer with whole beans for 12-48 hours. The amount of coffee is what surprised me the most. They only recommended using 2-3 ounces per 5 gallons. I definitely recommend anyone who is interested to check out the recording of this seminar when the AHA posts it for members.
The second seminar was titled Brewing with Experimental Hops and was paneled by Jason Perrault of Perrault Farms, Karl Vanevenhoven of Yakima Chief-Hop Union and some guy named Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River. The talk centered around new hop HBC-438, code named Ron Mexico. Using this hop they gave information on hop breeding and what it takes for a new hop to come to market. The seminar ended with Vinnie Cilurzo talking about brewing single hop beers and how they do it at Russian River. If you are just looking for practical tips on brewing single hop beers then you can skip the first half of the recording when it is posted. At the end of the seminar they passed out packets of HBC-438. I’ve picked up a couple other hops so far and I think I will brew an IPA featuring NHC hops this summer.
The keynote address was delivered by Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/Lost Abbey fame. Arthur focused on the passion of homebrewing and how it has shaped his life. He gives credit to homebrewing for everything good that has come to fruition for him over the past 20 years (including meeting his wife). Arthur also confessed that he had never brewed an all-grain batch of beer when he got his first professional brewing job. He urged us all to follow our homebrewing passion and take advantage of the opportunities it presents us.
The first day was capped off with the welcome reception. About 50 breweries came to pour their beer for the homebrewer masses. Many of the breweries were from the San Diego area. The event was held in the courtyard areas of the resort which was great for the first couple hours. At the end of the event it became hard to read what was available at the different breweries. Apparently the availability of lights was not thought through. It will be interesting to see what club night brings. A couple beer highlights from the night were a Prost, a Kolsch from Old Hangtown Beerworks, and Jackie Tar, a brown stout from MacLeod Ale Brewing Company.