The 41st annual National Homebrewers Conference (aka HomebrewCon) was held on June 27-29, 2019 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence.
Wednesday June 26. I rode up a day early with fellow CRABS members Rob and Trevor in order to hit some breweries along the way. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and not too hot out. The traffic near NYC sucked, especially around and on the George Washington Bridge. This was at midday, midweek; we could only imagine what it was like at rush hour.
First brewery of the day: New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge CT. It was a festive place. There were families and dogs. All the beers were well made. We sampled:
On the next leg I caught a nap in the back seat and before I knew it we were at
Proclamation Ale Company in
Warwick RI. We tried 6 hazy beers:
A half hour later we arrived in Providence. They dropped me off at the Hotel Providence, where I would be rooming
with CRABSter Les, while they went over to the Omni Providence. After we checked into our respective hotels we
caught shuttles from the Convention Center to a pre-conference event that was put on by
Country Malt Group
at a brewing co-op in Pawtucket called The Guild, which makes its own beers and also lends its space/equipment to 8 breweries who brew their beers there. We met 5 other CRABSters and
collectively tried:
There were hundreds of people, a great band called Future Dads, and giveaways. There was a VIP area for industry people with free beer, so Chris, Mike, and Ed were allowed in since Chris owns Maryland Homebrew and Mike and Ed work there.
Afterward we caught shuttles back to Providence. The Maryland Homebrew folks had another event to attend. Trevor
and I met Les, who had been visiting breweries throughout New England with two other Marylanders for the previous 4 days,
at a restaurant called Black Sheep. We had some great wings with various
flavorings and tried:
We left around midnight and crashed.
Thursday June 27. Slept pretty well -- almost 6 hours, which is a lot for me. Was it the beer? The wings? The
roofie? Anyway, Les headed out early to judge at the final round of the
National Homebrew Competition,
which had 9189 entries this year, with 1327 advancing to the final round.
I worked on this page for a while, then went to a couple of grocery stores to pick up some wraps, hummus, and bread
to keep in the room. It was a nice sunny day. The streets of Providence are narrower than in Baltimore/DC, and
less trafficky, making it pleasant to walk around.
After dropping the food off I walked over to Trinity Brewhouse, which
wasn't open yet, and took a few photos of the exterior.
After that I headed to the Convention Center, checked into HomebrewCon, and spent several hours looking at the
various brewing equipment and ingredients, drinking free beer, and stuffing my swag bag with about 4½ pounds of
free hops. Of course, "free" is a loose term since each attendee pays hundreds of dollars to attend this event.
Melvin Brewing had a neat speaker case.
I went back to the room to nap and eat, then returned to HomebrewCon for the Kickoff Party, which featured beers from dozens of breweries. Here is what I sampled alphabetically by brewery name:
Afterward a bunch of us hung out at Blake's Tavern til the wee hours.
Friday June 28. Mostly sunny and warmer than yesterday.
Went to the Convention Center and walked around the trade show,
picking up a couple of pounds of free hops. Vendors must have given away hundreds of pounds of hops throughout
the weekend. Didn't take many photos since I'd taken plenty the day before.
Around mid-afternoon, Maryland folks, mostly CRABSters, poured 8 homebrews at Social Club.
After that I went back to my room for a much-needed nap, ate some food, and returned for Club Night. Dozens of
clubs served beer at theme-decorated tables and wore creative costumes. The two groups representing Maryland were
BADASS and
Free State Homebrew Club Guild. Austin Zealots had
11 taps of barrel-aged sours. Rhode Island Brewing Society (RIBS) offered 54 different beers and meads, including
a carrot mead, a garlic mead, a taco mead, a peppermint cocoa nib mead, a cotton candy mead, and a cherry cheesecake
mead. I spent an entire hour at RIBS.
Saturday June 29. Went to the trade show to get free stuff that vendors were giving away because it was the last day and they didn't want to lug it back home. Yakima Valley was selling 8-ounce cans of hops for only $5 each so I got a pound of Citra for $10. This brought my hops total to 8 pounds. Melvin Brewing had finalist homebrews from their Boil Rumble contest, in addition to some of their own beers.
I dropped the loot in my room and returned for the Knockout Party, which featured leftover homebrews from the
National Homebrew Contest, as well as food.
Afterwards, Les and I napped and then hosted a beer share in our room, where close to 20 of us shared
dozens of craft brews.
Sunday June 30. The pack-up-and-ship-out. Rob and Trevor picked me up. Rob and I were in rough shape.
It could have been the food at the Knockout Party. Or the 17 gazillion beers we had. Anyhoo, we made it back safely
to Maryland. Another successful HomebrewCon in the books.