NHC Day 5: Club Night!

Day 5 of an epic trip to Grand Rapids, MI for the 2014 National Homebrewer's Conference!

I forced myself to get up at a decent hour this day, to take advantage of the cool homebrewing talks going on at the convention center.  Sj stayed in bed like a lucky slug.  My first lecture was Keeping It Simple: What Monks Can Teach Us About Brewing, by Stan Hieronymus.  I love Stan's books and have read Brew Like a Monk twice.  Because of my familiarity with the subject and having now traveled to Belgium twice, I feel that I probably didn't learn a ton from this lecture.  It was still entertaining and not a waste of time.

The second lecture I went to was Mitch Steele from Stone Brewing discussing herbs, spices and botanicals in beers.  Stone has been doing a ton of unusual spices and ingredients in the past few years so this was a cool talk.  I've used many of these ingredients over the years, but some have slipped my net!  I appreciated that he gave some hard numbers for amount to add as a starting place based on their experimentation at Stone.  He also had big bags of herbs in the back for people to take samples of, but I lacked anything to carry them in so left them behind.  Volunteers passed along pitchers of Stone Saison that includes lavender and habanero!

After this it was back the riot that was the exhibits hall/expo.  We drank samples of Moonlight Mead Last Apple and a cool sour beer  from New Holland.  Sj tried to win us a Fast Rack, but failed.  I didn't try since my sausage fingers would likely result in broken glass everywhere.  We gathered more stickers and bottle openers (I think I have hundreds now.)

The Bob

Meeting up with fellow JABber, Mike Lebben, the three of us headed across the street to have lunch at The Bob.  An acronym for Big Old Building, this is a large 1903 grocery warehouse turned into a strange collection of venues.  A small brewery lurks in the basement, Bobarino's pizza place is upstairs, a comedy club, dueling pianos, a steak house, and more!  The brewery was closed (they should have opened up for NHC!) so we went to Bobarino's instead.  We shared a sampler of their beers and those were all across the board: a nasty diacetyl IPA, but Crimson King Amber and Spaceboy Stout were both decent.  The food was also decent but not special.

Back to the exhibits for more free beer samples and to kill a bit more time playing ring toss with keg o-rings.  Then a lecture from Brett Vanderkamp and Jason Salas from New Holland Brewing, talking about using spirits barrels and doing sour beers in barrels.  This was a cool lecture, but so much of it was on a large production brewery scale that I don't know how much was directly useful to me as a homebrewer.  Still, some cool stories and background on the brewery though!  They also served us Dragon's Milk during the talk which made it all worth it!

After this it was nearing time to eat dinner, so we let the last lecture of the day go and headed to HopCat before the post-lecture rush arrived there.  We timed it just right, getting one of the last available outdoor tables (just under a fire escape populated by an angry pigeon by the way!)  We shared a rather expensive bottle of Rodenbach Vintage 2010 with dinner, but well worth it.

Back to the hotel for a quick rest and then back to the convention center for the peak of the whole NHC--Club Night!  Club night is perhaps one of the most fun beer events that I have taken part in.  Coming from a guy who has been to many festivals, beer dinners, etc, that is saying something!  The event was in the same space as the modified Pro Night from the previous day's festivities, but the place had taken on a whole new and crazy vibe.  The clubs who contribute will have jockey boxes, portable bars, MASH unit tents, and other background for their booths ranging from utilitarian to extravagant.  Many clubs dress up in outfits or have a theme to their attire.  Some clubs bring only great beers, others invite any member to contribute--as a result there can be a wide range of quality.  However, overall, I had much better beer at club night than the previous day!

I'll be honest the night was chaotic and a bit blurry.  I did not have my real camera and was busy drinking it all in (so to speak) so I didn't get many good pictures.  Some snippets:

1) The Carolina BrewMasters had a walnut Baltic porter that was one of the best things I had all night--the walnuts really came through!

2) A spicy and amazing poblano wit from someone in the Best Florida Beer supergroup.

3) Mike Lebben tasting a beer that he described as "Feels like someone shat in my mouth after they ate a bunch of aluminum fans!"

4) Having someone jump in front of me in line at the Mead Mamas booth and realizing it was Susan Ruud.  Since Susan is opening her own Prairie Rose Meadery I took this as a good sign that the meads were not going to strip the paint off my house and give my family a permanent orange aftro!

5) Susan and Sarajo getting molested by Hop Man!

Hop Man!

6) Travis Scrotch from MASH letting me try his great maibock and very Pliny-like double IPA.

7) The crews from Midwest and Northern Brewer all dressed up like enormous gnomes.

Sj and a drive-by gnoming...and getting photo-bombed by BrewToad!

8) The ANNiHiLATED booth from NJ serving up Poltergeueze--a two year blended lambic that was as good as nearly anything I had in Belgium.  I believe the brewer was Adam Juncosa.  I went back for several "samples" of that one!

9) Seeing the BrewToad mascot navigating the urinals in the men's room, while everyone laughed and tried to take pictures of his junk.

10) Mike Sutor (another long lost Facebook friend from Seattle NHC) sharing his homebrewed cherry sour that knocked my socks off!  Might have to drive to Wisconsin to try some more of his beers!

11) Watching one poor drunken sot trying to shove messy gloopy nachos into his mouth but getting them all over his face instead.

12) Finishing up the night with one last sampler of Poltergeueze and heading back to the hotel before things get messy.

Up Next: NHC Days 6-7 The End!

NHC Day 4: The Chaos Begins!

The official NHC always starts on a Thursday.  The morning of that first day is the start of judging for the National Homebrewing Competition--the biggest homebrew competition in the world!  Some quick background on the competition:  Over the past few years there has been an explosion of homebrewing interest and the AHA (American Homebrewer's Association) has had to make some big changes in order to limit/make fair the entry into the competition.  In previous years they allowed many entries (20 or so) per person but cut that to less last year.  This year they actually started a lottery system to get in (after last year's internet stampede crashed their servers) and I managed to get 4 entries in.  Many people I know were disgusted by the new system and refused to attempt it at all.  The first round of judging is split into 10 regions and if you manage to get a medal in that round your beer moves on to the final round at NHC.  The total number of entries this year was a whopping 8,172!  My coffee stout actually took first place in our region and was in the running for the big prize this year, so that was pretty cool.

So Thursday morning, Sj took off to meet with a beading friend who lived in the area while I headed down to the convention center to help judge the second round beers.  In order to do this I had to wake up at 6:30 AM!  Please see my previous day's post to see why this was such a rough thing for me.  Guzzling gallons of coffee along the way I ended up making it in time for a free breakfast they had arranged for the volunteers.  Sated on bacon and caffeine, I was as ready as I'd ever be to judge in this epic competition!  I was judging the Scottish and Irish ales with a group of 9 other BJCP judges.  Not a bad category to judge in the morning, as malty beers are easier to drink for breakfast than say, Light American Lagers or IPAs.  I was a little intimidated at first.  I'm a National ranked judge, but this was the biggest competition in the world!  Who was I to tell these great brewers what was wrong with their beers?  What I discovered was that the group was very laid back and everyone was thoughtful, but trying to have a good time as well.  In Minnesota we have a large community of highly ranked judges and host the Upper Mississippi Mash Out which is as cutthroat and tough as any competition I can think of, so I figured this would be even more hard core!  The great part about judging second round was that there were no bad beers.  All of these beers had won a medal already so this was the cream of the crop, without poorly thought out recipes, infections and wrong category entries like many other competitions.

Once the judging was over for the morning I headed down to officially register for the conference.  I picked up my badge and was directed to pick up a big bag of mixed homebrew swag.  They also do one or more commemorative beers each year and I had to lug those around with me as well.  This year's were an Oak Aged Rye IPA from Founders and an all Michigan ingredient Barleywine from Bells.  Both were made in collaboration with homebrewers and were available to taste later in the conference.  I was able to bring our bottles home with us to share at the next Jack Of All Brews meeting.

From here I went just across the hall to the Homebrew Expo.  In previous years they have had a Hospitality Suite where a few vendors or sponsors display their wares and homebrew clubs serve up homebrew to thirsty conference-goers.  This year they have really expanded this to a large conference hall filled with around 70 vendors and plenty to look at and do.  I found myself returning here frequently in between events and lectures throughout the weekend.  I went ahead and bought Michael Tonsmeire's new book on sour beers right away since they were 40% off for AHA members.  They completely sold out of huge stacks of those by the next day!  Midwest/Northern Brewer both had a strong showing and I knew several of the cool guys working those booths.  Rahr/BSG were serving up some cool beers ranging from commercials to my friend Chris German's wonderful pilsner and Juniper beer.  Bells, New Holland and Lagunitas were constantly serving up rotating tap lists of great beer as well.  There was always a huge line for tastes of Michael Fairbrother's Moonlight Meads--I tried several and they were well worth the wait!  Morebeer had a few kegs of Pliny the Elder and that caused quite a stir!  Many of the display booths had swag giveaways and raffles, prompting us to sign our lives and e-mail addresses away for the chance to win some cool brewing stuff.

Met one of my Homebrewing idols, Randy Mosher in the Expo!

Wait, I'm here for the conference itself!  I broke the spell and with full taster glass I headed to the lecture halls for a talk on Obscure and Ancient Beers by Geoff Groff & Mark Pangle.  Having been involved in the Byggvir's Big Beer Cup (MN Renfest) for several years, where they have a special category for historic beers, I have been intrigued by these for some time.  The speakers did a pretty good job talking about sahti, gose and steinbeer.  Kudos go to them for serving up homebrewed examples of the first two!  Last year I brewed a gose (winning second place at Byggvir) and I have to say that mine was better.  But I still appreciate getting to taste along--and hey beer makes any lecture better!  I might need to try my hand at Kvass this year...

The next block of talks didn't wow me and I was tired by this point.  I walked back to the hotel room for a quick Disco-Nap.  Sj showed up shortly after and told me all about her meet-up and field trip to Virtue Cider (see her blog post on that HERE.)

Hoards of beer enthusiasts!

Our next stop was the Welcome Reception.  This seems to have taken the place of the old Professional Brewer's Night.  The event was in a large reception hall with terrible acoustics, and none of us could hear the official greeting toast.  Oh well, there was beer to be had!  They had a lot of local Michigan breweries represented, but apparently the beers had to be poured by the convention center staff.  Unfortunately those staff often didn't know how to pour beer well, struggling with jockey boxes and CO2 lines.  They also didn't have any info about the beers...something I miss about interacting with the brewers and reps at Pro Night.  We had several good beers like Calabaza Blanca from Jolly Pumpkin, Acadia Scottish Ale, Dark Horse Fore, and Mad Cow Milk Stout (I think from Blue Tractor.)  Some not so good ones were a peanut butter porter, a Belgian Quad, and a Kombucha beer.  I won't mention names on those.  Overall, most of the beers were average, but still cool to try lots of things.  Some iffy appetizers were available but not worth the lines to get at them!  There I met briefly with Jason McLaughlin, a guy I've been Facebook friends with since we met at NHC in Minnesota several years ago.  We also ran into a bunch of Minnesotans from back home!

As opposed to Pro Night, this swoire didn't run very late.  Mike, Sj and I all decided we needed some food after all that beer and with help from Yelp found a nearby tapas place called San Chez.  The restaurant had a small beer list but did have the pleasant Solitude Belgian style ale from Vivant.  We split a bunch of excellent tapas including dates stuffed with meat and topped with a very spicy harissa.   Also a wonderful dish of crawdad in cream sauce with red peppers.  Yum!

Apparently that was the end of the day!  A fun one for sure with a good mix of NHC events.  The next day things really get going!

Up Next:  NHC Day 5!

Lucid AHA Rally

This past weekend Lucid Brewing in Minnetonka hosted the third American Homebrewer's Association (AHA) rally to be held in Minnesota.  The first was held by Surly several years back and they pioneered a new trend in rallies of giving away freshly brewed wort to the attendees.  The second rally was last year at Summit and included plenty of free Summit ales, raffles and tours of the brewery.  This year Lucid has opened up their doors to us humble homebrewers in a most impressive way.

Lucid has been around since 2011, started by John Messier and the appropriately named Eric Biermann as a production brewery.  With the advent of the Surly Bill for on site tap rooms, they quickly began serving pints at the brewery as well as continuing with growler sales.  Currently they are distributing beer all over the state in bottles, and on tap at a growing number of pubs and restaurants.  These guys were in the early wave of Minnesota breweries and have not let up their lead on the market.  They currently share brewing and fermenting space in a large warehouse with Badger Hill and Bad Weather brewing companies.

Lucid has embraced the homebrewing community since the beginning, hosting big brews and contributing to homebrew events frequently.  For this I give them a lot of credit!  Hosting this large scale homebrew rally surely took a lot of effort, money and risk.

Crowds of thirsty homebrewers in their natural habitat...

The day of the rally began around 10 AM (earlier for the organizers I'm sure) with folks from several local homebrew clubs converging on the area and setting up their own brew systems in the large parking lot to brew along with the national AHA Big Brew Day.  This seems to have gone without a hitch and many were still working on their batches by the time we showed up, around 1 PM. 

Upon arrival, we were carded and signed in by volunteers.  We each received a Lucid pint glass, with a ticket for raffle and a ticket for a free drink or food item.  They had a stand selling food, a trailer with several Lucid beer taps, and a stand for buying more tickets.  Right as we arrived John Messier came out of the brewery and gave a quick speech whilst wielding a full glass boot full of beer.  I missed part of this as I was finishing up with signing in, but he and the crowd were certainly having a great time! 

Isn't that a pretty sight? 

I promptly used my drink ticket for a Foto IPA and enjoyed drinking that in the warming sun.  Jack Of All Brews was well represented at the festival, as were MHBA, Primary Fermenters and too many other clubs to mention.  A good turn out for sure!  There were scheduled lectures by local homebrewing gurus: I heard good things about Brett Glenna's earlier water talk, and caught snippets of Steve Piatz talking about meads.  The fine folks from Midwest Supplies (yo Brent and Randy!) were manning a booth, selling discounted plastic carboys and hop rhizomes, and it is always great to see those guys at events.  I also tried a bunch of interesting Kombucha flavors from a local producer.  Much homebrew was circulating, and several other commercial beers were shared as well.  Kevin M. from the River City Brewers let me sample some cool beers, including a wonderful Flanders Red that their club did in a barrel.  This was a veritable circus of beer stuff (minus the side show.) 

This is the first time I've actually been to the Lucid brewery and it was a great experience.  I was able to look into the brewery itself and ogle the enormous space they have available...no wonder they share with two other breweries!  A second serving station inside the brewery was active and pouring several different beers from those outside.  I ended up getting a Duo double IPA there, which was the best beer I've had from Lucid so far.  I'll be adding my description of that on an upcoming double IPA smackdown blogpost. 

Action shot of my friend Mark pouring me a Duo!

Of course I have to mention the fact that Lucid provided those of us who pre-registered with 5 gallons of freshly brewed wort to be used for our own nefarious purposes.  We dropped off our empty and sanitized carboys on arrival and then picked them up magically filled on our way out.  The recipe is a double black IPA.  I'm sort of a black IPA hater, so this is certainly not something I would have brewed myself, but I'm excited to see what I can do with the wort.  I added a smack pack of Wyeast American Ale yeast and rehydrated pack of dry American ale yeast as well once I got home that day.  The following day I opened the door into my basement and could smell the hops from the fermenting brew all the way at the top of the stairs!  I have a couple ounces of leaf Citra hops that I'll probably add as dry hops down the line as well.  I am very interested to see what everyone else does with their wort as well and hope to have a tasting event organized sometime in the next month or so.  The Surly brown strong ale wort from several years back keeps showing up in various forms at homebrew club meetings, but I think this hop bomb will need to consumed pretty fresh. 

Lucid paired with National Camera Exchange (this may have been where the Foto name came from) for the event as well.  They had photographers taking pictures of the event and also pictures of homebrewers in front of a Lucid backdrop.  I recently bought my first real digital camera from them and am about half way through the free classes they offer with purchase.  I have only good things to say about those guys.  In fact these pictures were all taken with my new camera!

JAB and Lucid shot by National Camera Exchange!

Overall I think this event was a great success.  When I heard that Lucid was planning the rally on the same day as their Big Brew event and with a wort giveaway, I thought they were certifiably insane.  The logistics are mind boggling, especially when trying to wrangle notoriously independent homebrewers into some semblance of order.  But they really pulled it off!  The Big Brews were smooth and relaxed.  The lines for tickets, beers and wort were all clearly marked and well run.  I want to thank Lucid for taking on this epic event and for volunteering time, tasty beer and swag for us homebrewers.  I am humbled.  Also thanks to everyone else involved as either sponsors or volunteers.