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The 2008 National Homebrewers Conference was held at the Sheraton North in Cincinnati on June 19-21.
You might have heard a few things about the conference already. Well, this is my side of the story, and
it is 100% accurate. For all you know.
Joel, Ty and I drove out there on Tuesday the 17th, stopping to pay $4.15 per gallon for gas in West Virginia. The trip took about eight hours. We dropped Ty off at his hotel, and Joel and I dropped our stuff at the Fairfield Inn in the room we were sharing with Les and MALTster Tim Sauerwein. Hereafter our room will be referred to as Shart Central. Want to know what a "shart" is? Let Joel tell you:
The five of us, plus FOAMer Marty Miller, went out to Skyline Chili. Apparently Cincinnati is known for chili, so we had chili for dinner. I saw no logic in loading up on chili while sharing a room with a bunch of guys, especially when the window didn’t open.
After dinner we went to nearby BJ’s Brewhouse. (Heh heh. I said “BJ”.) It has a pretty interior with lots of wood. (Heh heh. I said “wood”.) We got samples of 14 draught libations, including 9 house and 5 guest. Their Jeremiah Red (7.3% ABV) was so-so. Nutty Brewnette (5.8%) was good for a nut brown. Brewhouse Blonde (4.5% ABV) was clean, crisp and light. Harvest Hefeweizen (4.8% ABV) had a nice clove/banana aroma and flavor. PM Porter (6.4% ABV), on nitro, was tart and blah. Tatonka Stout (8.5% ABV), also on nitro, was good. Piranha Pale Ale (5.5%) was nice and hoppy. Nit Wit, their seasonal, was nice. Their BerryBurst Cider was also nice. The guest selections included Thirsty Dog Old Leg Humper Robust Porter (good), Boss Cox Double Dark IPA (good), Buckeye Hippie IPA (good and crisp), Lindemans Framboise (great) and Wyder Pear Cider (nice and champagny). They also make root beer. Only the root beer is made there; their other quaffables are made at another location. They had many bottled Belgians, at reasonable prices. They sold 750-ml bottles of Rodenbach for $4.95 apiece, so naturally we ordered one. (Several BURPers went there the following night and drank all the remaining Rodenbachs.)
Afterwards the six of us went back to Shart Central to act like teenagers:
We also drank more beer. Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale was nice and hoppy with some oak flavor. Stone Old Guardian (a barleywine) was quite hoppy and nice. Stone Smoked Porter was just okay. So was Fraoch Heather Ale. We also had some of Marty’s ESB and Duclaw Naked Fish. For once I was not the first person to pass out; Joel earned that dubious honor.
Wednesday the 18th. No bad flatulence from anyone during the night, but Les snored at 3817 decibels. Even the combination of ear plugs and ear muffs designed for firearms did not protect me from his jackhammer-like noises. We had our complimentary breakfast, then went about our various activities. Les and Tim did the Bourbon Trail tour, in which they visited Buffalo Trace and Wolford. By law they could only get one ounce of bourbon at each place. Joel and I drove down to a store called The Party Source in Bellevue Kentucky, which had a great beer selection. We bought about a dozen kinds. It was my first time ever in Kentucky, and I didn’t lose any teeth! Some of the bridges crossing the Ohio River were painted pretty colors such as periwinkle and bright yellow. Apparently the engineers were gay.
We iced the beer in the Shart Central cooler and then hopped on the bus to the Historic Brewery tour. Marty took the tour as well. The guide’s great grandfather started a brewery in Cincinnati in the mid-1800s. There used to be over a hundred breweries in the Cincinnati area, and now there are none except for a Boston Beer Company plant that produces more Samuel Adams than its Boston location does. We went to Mecklenburg Gardens, which opened in 1865, for lunch. It has a nice outdoor biergarten, and the interior has nice wood and what looks to be original brick. We were treated to a fine German food buffet featuring knockwurst, bratwurst, spaetzel, kraut, bread and pretzels. There were 4 German beers on tap, keeping in line with Cincinnati’s rich German heritage. We tried the Franziskaner Dunkelweizen, Optimator Dopplebock and Spaten Oktoberfest. We also got a bottle of Briem 1809 Berliner Weiss. It had a good well-balanced semi-sour flavor. It was highly effervescent and refreshing. It was served with raspberry syrup, which would sink when added to the beer so it had to be stirred.
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After lunch we visited the site of the Bruckmann Brewery, which the guide’s great-grandfather had started. It survived Prohibition by making a cereal beverage that was prescribed to nursing mothers. The brewery itself no longer exists so we didn’t get a tour, but we got to see the house that the guide’s great-grandfather built.
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Next we were taken to the Cincinnati History Museum. It has a miniature of how Cincinnati was in the 1940s, with a running train, model cars, and a building that simulates catching on fire. There are also other miniatures of other parts of Cincinnati in earlier decades, including the baseball stadium. We got to board the last remaining streetcar from the days before automobiles took over. Another part of the museum contained artifacts from an old brewery called Washington Fire Company #1.
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The bus took us past the old Houck Brewery, then we stopped at the house that owner John Houck had lived in. First we were treated to a corny keg of Southern Tier Cherry Saison, which was very nice and smooth. Then we got to walk through the house. It has all the old furniture from way back when, and also a few 18th century stereoscopes, which simulate 3D. The street on which the house is located has several Linden trees, whose tiny flowers bloom and smell great for one week every year in mid-June, so we were lucky to experience that. Lindens are traditional German biergarten trees, so maybe they were planted by Germans in the 1800s.
We boarded the bus and passed several old breweries, then stopped to walk through the old Clyffside Brewery. It’s a big old building with many dirty, musty rooms that are empty now. We descended to the very dark and musty lagering tunnel. Before Prohibition there was a law stating that bottling and brewing operations had to be separated by a public thoroughfare. The law was designed by Prohibitionists to hinder brewers. In order to avoid crossing public streets and running into traffic, the brewers had a tunnel dug that crossed under the street. It was all done with hand labor. The building is destined to go condo, with the lagering tunnel to be made into a gym. The building has a star near the top that looks like a Star of David but is actually a brewer’s purity star.
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We passed a few other breweries such as Jackson and Hudepohl. Our last stop was a bar called Grammer’s, which was one of the biggest bars in its day. It opened in 1872. The mural on the wall was painstakingly restored with nail polish remover in order to get rid of the tobacco smoke staining. We ordered a Moerlein Double Dark Lager, Moerlein OTR Ale (OTR stands for “Over-the-Rhine”, a term coined by German immigrants), Bell’s Oberon, and Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock (which was $8.50 a pint). Adjacent to the bar was a giant room housing a sort of Trojan goat, with a beer barrel as the torso. It’s used in the town’s annual bockfest.
After our tours, Les, Joel and I attended the BJCP reception while Tim went on the pub crawl. The reception featured dinner, a few beers, and many ciders and perries. We sampled Mann’s Brown Ale while an English guy gave a talk about the style. I personally hate brown ales but I kept my opinion to myself. We had some Weasel Boy Imperial Stout, which was good. For the cider/perry tasting, first we had some homebrewed ciders that were either doctored to have off-flavors or were just bad on their own, and the speaker taught us about ethyl acetate, diacetyl, acetaldehyde and mousiness. Then we did a commercial tasting. West County Cider Pippin was puckering and dry. Domain Du Minot Method Traditionnelle was good and champagny. Oliver’s Herefordshire Dry Cider was bad and sour, like cheap wine. Etienne Du Pont Organic Cidre Bouche Brut de Normandie 2006 was nice and musty, which would have been good for a gueuze but not for a cider. West County Cider Reine de Pomme smelled and tasted horribly of butter (diacetyl). Blossomwood Cidery Laughing Pig Perry had a so-so dill-like flavor and aroma. Oliver’s Herefordshire Dry Perry had a good light aroma but a mediocre sour/winy flavor. Eric Bordelet Poire Granit tasted and smelled like a crayon (and don’t ask me how I know that). Oliver’s Blakeney Red Single Varietal Perry had a spicy aroma and an acidic flavor reminiscent of cheap wine. Aspall Organic Draft Cider had a winy/sour aroma and a sour/acetic flavor. Gary Awdey was okay. It was “macerated” and “keeved”. Maceration and keeving are traditional processes used in French cider production. Maceration means allowing the milled apples to sit for a while before pressing, so the enzymes have additional time to demethylate the pectin into galacturonic acid. Keeving (which means defecation!) is the enzymatic clarification of the sweet juice prior of fermentation. Calcium salt or calcium carbonate is added, and the positively charged calcium attracts and crosslinks the negatively charged galacturonic acid chains into a gelatinous precipitate. Small fermentation bubbles lift the gel and compact it into a crust called the brown cap (har!). Leave it to the French to defecate their cider into a brown cap. After the commercial tasting we had some homebrewed meads, including an orange blossom mead (solventy), an orange blossom pyment (sweet and sour), and an elderberry melomel (plummy).
Afterwards I retrieved some of the beers that Joel and I had bought that morning and we drank them and some other beers with several BURPers and other folks, both outside and in a hotel room with several Alabamans. Kentucky’s Finest Horse Piss Beer was horrible. Just horrible. No false advertising in that name. Mad River Brewing’s Jamaica Brand Red Ale had a nice malty aroma and a pretty good malty, somewhat hoppy flavor. Bell’s Amber Ale was a bit caramelly. Bell’s Winter White Ale was pretty good. Moerlein OTR Ale was malty, caramelly and pretty good. Three Floyd’s English IPA had a nice hoppy, somewhat malty aroma and a nice hoppy, alcoholic flavor. Issaquah Brewery’s Bullfrog Ale was rather tasteless. Bell’s Consecrator Dopplebock also lacked taste. Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron was caramelly and cloying. Bosmo’s Imperial Cream Ale, which we all got a bottle of when we registered for the conference, was okay. Stone Imperial Russian Stout was good. Verhaeghe Echt Kriekenbier was a nice fruity, somewhat sour kriek. Bell’s Expedition Stout was good. Monk’s Sour Ale (made by Van Steenberge) had a nicy fruity, syrupy aroma and a good fruity, acetic flavor. We also had a little homebrewed Rogue clone and tupelo mead. Les, Tim and I all got back to Shart Central around 1 AM and Joel got in much later.
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Thursday the 19th. The homebrew contest judges and stewards were given a special breakfast that was not as good as the free breakfast we were offered every morning in our hotel. In the morning I stewarded the sour ale judging. For the second round of the nationals the field of sour ales was disappointing. After the session I went to the hospitality suite, where the St. Paul Homebrewers and SODZ (Scioto, Olentangy and Darby Zymurgists) were serving beer. There were several vendors selling all sorts of brewing-related items. Rogue was there, serving some of their beers. Brewer’s Ale, a strong ale named after brewer John Maier’s deceased dog Brewer, was a nice very hoppy beer. Imperial Pilsner, made with 100% Sterling hops, was malty, smooth, clean and good. Imperial Red Ale was hoppy, caramelly and good. In the afternoon I stewarded ciders. The only one I liked was spiced with cinnamon, raisins and nutmeg. It scored a 25. Afterwards I went back to the hospitality suite, where the hosting clubs were Red Ledge Brewers and SNOBS (Society of Northeastern Ohio Brewers), the latter of which had a great barleywine.
When I returned to Shart Central at 4:47 PM, Joel had still not left the room. The four of us, plus fellow CRABsters Don and Frank, went to daSha’s for dinner, where we met up with Marty and fellow FOAMer Paul Quick. I was fairly incoherent after stewarding and drinking all day, but somehow I managed to not pass out face down in my pasta. Afterward we went to Pro Brewers Night, which featured 26 breweries. Jolly Pumpkin was there with bottles of La Roja, Oro de Calabaza, and Bam Biere. All were nice funky beers. Dogfish Head Black and Blue was decent. Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard was good. Stone Smoked Porter was pretty good. New Holland Mad Hatter IPA was good and hoppy and light. New Holland Existential, a double IPA, was nice and malty and hoppy. Willoughby One-Hopper IPA (made with Warrior hops) was okay. Willoughby Blue and Black, a milk stout with semi-sweet chocolate and blueberry puree, sucked. Weasel Boy Dancing Ferret IPA was nice. Barrel House Hoppy Pils Hefeweizen had a nice aroma and good flavor. Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale (an IPA) was good. Barley Island Count Hopula Double IPA was grassy. Barley Island Bourbon Barrel-Aged Tavern Style Oatmeal Stout had an oaky aroma and flavor that was just okay. Alltech’s Lexington Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Ale bit the big one. Goose Island Matilda was okay. Goose Island Pere Jacques was rather sweet. Great Lakes Commodore Perry IPA was okay. Hofbrau House Weissbier was pretty good. Ommegang Chocolate (a stout) was too sweet. Ommegang Three Philosophers was good. Ommegang Abbey was smooth. Ommegang Rare Vos was good. Brew Kettle Summer Solstice Light was watery. Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale was good. Left Hand Milk Stout had a nice roasty aroma but was underattenuated. Rock Bottom American Dream IPA wasn’t bad. When I left the hotel around 1 AM, outside was a Yabba Dabba Brewmobile, which looked like the Flintstones’ vehicle. Two oak barrels were used for the front and rear wheels, and a white cloth was draped over the stick frame.
Friday June 19th. The beautiful weather continued as we ate breakfast and went to the hospitality suite where FOSSILS (Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libation Society), LAGERS (Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society) and KGB (Kuhnhenn Guild of Brewers) were pouring homebrews. I tasted a few, then talked to Charlie Papazian a bit.
The hotel was running shuttles to Jungle Jim’s, so I went. Jungle Jim’s is a 6-acre shopping market featuring mostly food but also wine, beer and spirits. The place started as a produce stand in 1971 and the local following enabled it to grow continually over the decades. It has a fairly wide beer selection, but the Belgians are bombarded with fluorescent lights from two directions. There’s a very big wine selection, including a special locked room with very expensive bottles. A 2004 Chateau Petrus Pomerol or a 2005 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac will run you $1000. There is a small homebrew supply section, and a big humidor with a lot of cigars. The main attraction is the food. In addition to regular American foods there are special sections for many countries including Greece, Spain, France, Holland, Ireland, India, Australia, South Africa, England, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan and China. There are also kosher, Hispanic, Caribbean and Scandinavian foods. There are hundreds if not thousands of hot sauces with names like Butt Twister and Pure Death. There are coffees, chocolates, spices, and even a pet food/supplies section. There is an olive bar and a salsa bar. The seafood area has live lobsters, eel and several kinds of fish in addition to all the dead stuff. I got a great all-lump-meat crabcake for $4.
Back at Shart Central we enjoyed some Bell’s Cherry Stout; Alltech’s Lexington Brewing Company Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale; Traquair House Ale; and Hanssen’s Oude Kriek, which was a great sour, musty beer.
We headed out to set up for Club Night, where CRABS would have a table. Joel and I had a mishap on the way. We rolled a luggage cart full of stuff across the parking lot and managed to tip it over. Nothing broke except maybe a few toes, so no damage done. Inside we hooked up about 8 kegs, plus we served bottles of the CRABS Bourbon Barrel Stout, both oaked and unoaked.
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There were about 40 clubs participating. Many served food in addition to beer, and many had great presentation (serving setups, costumes, etc). The Urban Knaves of Grain (Illinois) had 3 hand pumps in addition to regular kegs, and served sandwiches and gumbo. I tried several of their beers, and I especially liked their Hannah’s IPA, which was made by former Ninkasi award winner Joe Formanek. He gave me the recipe if you’re interested. I also liked their Yet Another Imperial IPA. Long Shot homebrew contest winner Rodney Kibzey, also from Urban Knaves of Grain, was handing out Long Shot bottle labels with a likeness of him on them, and had the homebrewed version of his winning weizenbock on tap as well as bottles of the commercial version (his homebrewed version won best beer of the evening). Both were nice and sweet and clovey and quite similar to each other. Midnight Homebrewers League (Maryland) served crab soup. Anne Arbor Brewers Guild (Michigan) served meatballs and pork, and they had an 18-pound sourdough rye bread. BOOZE (Brewers Of Ohio Zymurgists Enclave) had a nice 100+ IBU beer called Hop Shortage IPA. They served another beer through their Hop Blaster, which is similar to the hops transducers that MALT used at the 2005 NHC. FOAM (Maryland) had crab dip. Hop Barley and the Alers (Colorado) wore Rastafarian clothing. CRAFT (Clinton River Association of Fermenting Trendsetters [Michigan]) had a hops transducer. Bloatarian Brewers League (Ohio) served pork sandwiches and several kinds of homemade cheese. They also had a hops transducer called Floatus Bloatus Hottus Mostest. DRAFT (Dayton Regional Amateur Fermentation Technologists [Ohio]) had many bottled beers. SODZ (Ohio) had a wooden tap structure sitting on metal kegs, and one of their beers was served from a bourbon barrel. Upstate New York Homebrewers Association had several dips (I could make a joke here but it would be too easy). There was a club called Salacious Homebrew In Toledo; nice acronym. Tippecanoe Homebrewers Circle (THC) had a nice accidentally sour rye barrel porter. Music City Brewers (Tennessee) had two very good beers: Darth Humulus IPA, and Hop Dog 228. The latter had 228 IBUs and was brewed on February 28 (2/28), which someone in Tennessee declared National Hops Day. Brew free or Die served a nice IPA through a metal whipping cream dispenser containing hops. Greater Huntington Homebrewers Association (GHHA [West Virginia]) wore yellow raincoats and had a sign that said, “Deadliest Batch” (after the TV show Deadliest Catch). BURP (Maryland/DC/Virginia) had 16 taps, my favorite of which was Dave Pyle’s Gueuzemosa: a mixture of gueuze and orange juice. Motor City Mashers (Michigan) had a nice pils. CARBOY (Cary Apex Raleigh Brewers Of Yore [North Carolina]) had a nice old ale and bourbon barrel stout. LAGERS was giving away bags of bourbon char; apparently they get barrels for free or very cheap. ASS (Antioch Suds Suckers [Tennessee]) was dressed like hillbillies. FBI (Foam Blowers of Indiana) had the guys dressed like the Blues Brothers and the ladies wearing shirts that said, “Property of FBI”. Rocket City Brewers (Alabama) had rockets for tap handles. BOCK (Brewers of Central Kentucky) had a corral with kegs around it and they served “burgoo”, a kind of stew/chili which was very good. Other clubs included FOSSILS (Indiana), KGB (Michigan), Prime Time Brewers (Michigan), BUZZ (Boneyard Union of Zymurgical Zealots [Illinois]), CASK (Cowford Ale Sharing Klub [Florida]), Red Ledge Brewers (Michigan), Cincinnati Malt Infusers (Ohio), MALT (Mountain Ale and Lager Tasters [North Carolina]), and Chicago Beer Society (Illinois).
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After a great Club Night, several clubs including CRABS brought their beers to the hospitality suite. I thought our bourbon barrel stout was the best beer there. SNOBS (Society of North Oakland Brewers [Michigan]) had a beer called Fomunda Wheat (“the fomunda from down unda”). ASS brought bacon-flavored vodka. The hospitality suite ran until 2:30 AM, and we did not get back to the room until after 3 AM. We were so tired that even Les’s nuclear snoring didn't keep us up.
Saturday June 20th. After breakfast Joel, Les and I went to the hospitality suite and got a sales pitch from the Sabco guy who was selling a $6000 brewing system called Brew Magic. There was a video with Sam Calagione shilling for it. The system has a computer program that automates the brewing process. Two issues come to mind:
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In the early evening Joel, Les and I had a few beers at Shart Central. Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale was good. North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout had a great aroma and a nice flavor. Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner was nice and hoppy. We then grabbed our remaining beers and headed over to the Grand Banquet. We shared the beer while waiting in line. Stone Ruination IPA had a great hoppy aroma and flavor. Flying Dog Garde Dog, a biere de garde, was fairly good. Dogfish Head Aprihop was just okay. Clipper City Loose Cannon was nice as usual. Victory Weizenbock was nice and sweet and estery. Westmalle Dubbel was smooth and caramelly. Dogfish Head Olde School Barleywine was very sweet, like a mead. Clipper City Below Decks didn’t have much aroma or flavor. Dogfish Head Burton Baton Oak-Aged Imperial Pale Ale was good.
The Grand Banquet featured 4 Rogue beers. Morimoto Soba Ale (to accompany the salad) was light and okay. Hazelnut Brown Nectar (to accompany the main course) was good. Chocolate Stout went very well with the chocolate mousse dessert. Red Ale (the aperitif) was good. We also finished the last of the beers we had brought. MacTarnahan’s Amber Ale was okay. Dogfish Head Immort Ale (11% ABV) was smoky. Bell’s Expedition Stout (10.5% ABV) was good.
We listened to a little of what the speakers said between our drinking and laughing. More than 40 homebrewing clubs were represented at the conference, and they brought a total of 613 kegs of beer. The Pissoir d’Or (Golden Urinal), given to the homebrew club who brought the most beer, was awarded to the Rocket City Brewers, who brought 40 kegs. The club hails from Alabama, where homebrewing is still illegal. So they brought close to 200 gallons of illegal brew! After the banquet the Rocket City Brewers served several beers in the hospitality suite. My favorite was a nice Belgian golden strong. I tried some of the Atomic Fireball Mead that each conference attendee got a bottle of, and it tasted and smelled just like those red cinnamon candies. It was made with cinnamon oil. I also tried some Oregon Trail Bourbon Barrel Aged Porter, which was good. Around midnight they brought out all the leftover beers from the homebrew contest. More than 20 of us swarmed around the sour ales; they all got consumed, while many other styles were barely touched. I talked to a microbiologist from Wyeast named Greg Doss who is, according to the conference booklet, 8 feet 9 inches tall. (He’s probably about 2 feet shorter than that.) The day before I had talked to Chris White from White Labs. I infected both of them with Brett, so if your future batches taste a little funny, it’s probably my fault.
When I got back to the room after 3 AM, Les was snoring louder than ever:
Joel wasn’t there. Turns out he had left a little earlier to buy earplugs.
The next morning Joel, Les and I packed up and left, picking up Ty and Marty at their respective hotels. We dropped Marty off at his place in Pittsburgh and the rest of us made it back to Maryland before nightfall.