The following report is what I remember from the 2005 National Homebrewers Conference. It's incomplete, inaccurate, and poorly constructed. Just like its author.

On Thursday afternoon I rode the Light Rail to Baltimore - the city that breeds. At the Holiday Inn, homebrewers from all over the nation were attending seminars, sampling beer, and talking about the weekend ahead ("I sure hope Ben doesn't show up!") The registration table was manned, or, rather, womanned, by a couple of hot AHA babes, one of whom Grover hit on as though he or any of us trolls had a snowball's chance in Hell of getting anything from such young lovelies except maybe a restraining order.

I would be sleeping on the floor in the volunteers room, so I dropped my stuff in there and blew up my inflatable. Uh, mattress, that is.

BURP was doing their shift in the Hospitality Suite. We sampled and schmoozed, and then someone had the bright idea to go to Max's next door for a while, because the 200 kegs at the conference just wasn't enough.

Max's has 32 taps, and that's nothing compared to the 76 taps at its Fell Point location. The seven of us got appetizers and Belgian brews, including Rodenbach Red. The waitstaff were a bit indifferent toward us. People who came in after we did got served before us. Apparently they have still not forgiven my "farting the alphabet" incident.

The Star Spangled Brew Fest featured an array of American microbreweries. I don't remember much, and in fact Joel and I passed out in our room before the festivities ended. Somehow I managed to wake up some time after 11:00, which was fortunate because I wanted to catch the Pub Shuttle. I tried to wake Joel up, but my kicks and shouts were futile. I'd seen more responsive corpses.

I arrived at the Fells Point Duclaw around midnight, assured by the shuttle driver that he'd be back a little after 1:00 a.m. The pub has the same sort of open, modern, artsy look as the other locations. I hung out with brewer Jim "Elephant Man" Wagner until after 1:30, the shuttle never returning. It seems that the driver had found something - or someone - better to do. Fortunately Jim was driving home anyway, so he dropped me at the hotel. As I fell asleep on my inflatable mattress, I thought of how this was a lot like MASHOUT, except without the sodomy.

After a solid 4 hours of sleep and a hotel breakfast buffet it was time for some seminars. Phil Markowski, author of "Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition", gave a very informative discourse, followed by a book signing. Farmhouse ales are simple ales brewed on a farm with available ingredients. They are brewed for refreshment and energy, not for sale. They are most common in the French Flanders and Hainaut regions of Belgium, and the Nord and Pas de Calais* regions of France (not to be confused with France's Pass the Contraband region where they sell arms to Iraq).

France and Belgium don't get caught up in beer styles. They identify particular beers with geographical regions, not styles. Uniqueness is the name of the game.

France has a long history of low-alcohol brewing (3-4% ABV), the pansies. Most of their beers are lagers or malt-accented specialty brews.

There are two families of Farmhouse Ales: French biere de garde and Belgian saison. Biere de garde is malty, not hoppy, well-attenuated (82-87%), and 6-8% ABV. It does not have a Belgiany character; it's fermented with a neutral yeast strain. It is cold conditioned for 4-6 weeks before bottling, and it's usually corked. OG is 1.060-1.076 and FG is 1.008-1.012. By the way, "garde" is French for "lager". And all this time I thought it meant "ingratitude".

Saisons have a complex fruity/spicy character which is produced by a highly expressive yeast strain. They are very well attenuated (89-96%!), have definite hop character (15-32 IBUs), and are 4-7% ABV. Bottle conditioning adds more flavor. OG is 1.048-1.066 and FG is 1.002-1.007. After bottling they are warm conditioned at 72-74 degrees for 6-8 weeks, often sideways because that provides more surface area for settled yeast to contact the beer. Saison Dupont is fermented at over 90 degrees and is at the high IBU end. Dupont hot-side aerates the boiled wort (!) and then centrifuges it.

Charlie Papazian did the introduction at the luncheon while attendees whispered about him in reverence ("Give me another beer - I can still hear him!") Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery gave a great keynote address. A Massachusetts native, his "dumb jock" manner of speaking belies his intelligence and dedication to the art of brewing. The gourmet chefs at the Holiday Inn served a wonderful lunch of overcooked pasta and a handful of lettuce. Luckily we were treated to Dogfish Head's Worldwide Stout; otherwise we were all gonna go to Denny's.

Neva Parker from White Labs gave a very educational session about Brettanomyces. This organism, which gives us the horseyness we desire in many lambics as well as Orval, is difficult to kill and will infect other beers if not removed from your equipment. Iodophor and bleach often fail to kill it; caustic or PBW is needed. Glass and stainless give Brettanomyces much fewer nooks and crannies to hide in than plastic does. Brettanomyces lives on grape leaves and is a bothersome spoilage organism to the wine industry. It prefers 60-90 degree temperatures and an acidic environment (pH of 2.0-4.5). It's a slow-growing microbe that eats dextrins that Saccharomyces can't. After other yeasts have eaten the easily digested sugars and acidified the wort, the Brettanomyces takes over. Allow at least three weeks for it to do its work. It has a lag phase of 3-7 days, and likes to have oxygen when it ferments. It produces mostly acetic acid and some lactic acid. It is best to underpitch when using this yeast. The speaker brought Ommegang Witte, which believe it or not contains some Brettanomyces. I enjoyed serving it to the attendees, except no one tipped me, even when I took my shirt off. In fact, someone gave me a dollar to put it back on.

I went to the Hospitality Suite, where the Brothers and Sisters of the Suds were serving their beer. A short while later it was time to set up for Club Night. We schlepped well over 100 kegs from the refrigeration truck into the hotel, while other volunteers did their thing and more than 20 clubs set up their tables.

There were all sorts of themes, costumes, food, beer and mead. One club (I think it was Hop Barley and the Alers) was dressed in Rastafari garb, complete with dreadlock wigs. A Web-based club had a tap tower made from a computer tower. Three clubs, including MALT, employed instant dry hopping: as beer left the keg, it passed through a water filter case filled with whole hops. BURP had a German theme. And then there was CRABS, who showed perverted movies. I can't understand why we didn't win the Best Club Night award.

After the three and a half hour shindig it was time for five more hours of partying Baltimore style. MALT took the Hospitality Suite helm for a few hours, showcasing their "hop transducer" with four different hops for instant dry hopping. CRABS took the final shift of the day, carrying us until after 3:00 a.m.

I should also mention the National Homebrew Competition. 721 qualifying entries from an original field of 4128 first round entries were judged during the conference (each qualifying entry had to place at least 3rd in the first round in April).

On Saturday morning David Myers of Redstone Meadery gave a very good talk about commercial meaderies and some of the things he does at Redstone. We served "meadmosas": a mixture of orange juice and a Redstone mead. He had brought a few boxes of mead, which could not be located by the folks in charge of the truck, but happily the keg we used for the meadmosas lasted.

There was a special tasting of Dogfish Head's Chateau Jaheau, a musty malt beverage made from a 9000-year-old recipe discovered in China. Once again he was very entertaining, informative and humorous. He gave us anecdotes about his brewery and his run-ins with the BATF. He also showed a funny video he had made in the same absurd genre as "Reefer Madness". It showed the ridiculousness of MADD, which has taken its original purpose of preventing drunk driving and distorted it into an anti-alcohol campaign.

The State of Franklin Homebrewers, from Tennessee, were now hosting the hospitality suite. They said that they got their name from a region around Tennessee that at one time hadn't been parceled into any U.S. states and that people who lived there wanted to call the State of Franklin.

Next was a seminar on brewing with wild yeasts, given by Jeff Sparrow. We served two Flanders red ales. Logistics made having everyone line up with their convention glasses impractical, so we used two plastic cups for each person. I hadn't seen such a waste of plastic since Michael Jackson's last surgery.

The final seminar I went to was about whiskey. We served a number of single malt scotches. I tasted a few and all I got was a burning sensation. It reminded me of the time I picked up that hooker in Manila.

The Cross Street Irregulars (one of my many clubs) hosted the Hospitality Suite next. In order to preserve their image as a respectable club, they would not let me serve beer. But I got even. I don't want to go into details about what I did. Let's just say I added new meaning to the term "dump bucket".

The Grand Banquet and National Homebrew Competition Awards Ceremony was held a few blocks away, at the Wyndham Inner Harbor. The line of people waiting to get in was longer than Rodney King's arrest record. My comrades and I walked to the end of the line - in Dundalk - and waited. Eventually we all filed into a room the size of Delaware. We were treated to several beers from Rogue Brewing. My favorite was their Imperial Pale Ale. The meal was little better than the prison food we had gotten at the Holiday Inn. Coordinators Les White, Tim Sauerwein, Paul Quick and others were honored for all the hard work they did in making this great event happen. Great job, guys!

All National Homebrew Competition placewinners were announced - a procedure that took about nine hours, or so it seemed, because there were 29 categories. Megacongratulations to Dave Pyle of BURP, who won Best of Show.

The Cross Street Irregulars won the Golden Urinal award for bringing the most homebrew to the conference. We were invited up on the stage to receive an actual gold colored porcelain urinal. After the dinner one of our club members, Jay Spies, walked back to the Holiday Inn wearing the urinal on his head while a few of us sang "Urinal Man" (to the tune of "Particle Man" by They Might Be Giants):

Urinal Man, Urinal Man,
doing the things that a urinal can.
Is he a toilet? Is he a can? Urinal Man...

FOAM got the last shift in the Hospitality Suite. In addition to their beers, we were treated to leftover entries from the homebrew contest. I had the pleasure of tasting about 30 of the best gueuzes and lambics from across the nation.

Sunday morning saw all of us shipping out. It had been a fantastic time, and we were quite tired. There were lots of beers left over from the homebrew contest. I snagged about a case as we cleaned out the Hospitality Suite. I need that beer, as I'm down to my last 58 cases of homebrew.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm still recovering from three straight nights of staying up until the wee hours. I need a beer...