San Diego Bound!

We are less than a week from the 33^rd Annual National Homebrewers Conference. This year it is being held in sunny San Diego California. I am really exited about this because it will be my first one. The National Homebrewers Conference is Comic-Con for homebrewers. Not quite as large of course, but since there is plenty of beer I bet its more fun.

The fun begins before NHC even gets going. My buddy and I will taking a few days to drive down to San Diego so we can do a few side trips along the way. We also have booked a couple of Pre-con events, such as the BJCP Judges Reception some brewery tours and BNA6. If our driving plan works out I will have an afternoon to kill and might even try to get down to Tijuana for a bit.

NHC itself has an interesting set up, technical seminars by day and rowdy social events at night. I have been to other conferences that have a similar set up, notably the Midwest Aquatic Plant Management Society, but the social stuff was off-book there. At NHC there are organized activites so attendies don't need to worry about cabs and such.

The day sessions are serious though, there are panel discussions of what it takes to go pro, advanced meadmaking, hop boil chemistry, beer trouble-shooting, and German brewing techniques. I have already picked out the sessions that I want to attend and put them on my calendar so I won't miss them.

One of the nights is Pro-Brewers Night, this year there will be 48 breweries pouring beer for the 1,900 attendees. The really cool thing is that many of these breweries will pull out the stops not only bring their best beers, but also a selection of really cool one-off small projects and rare beers too. The second night is Club Night. In this case there will be 48 clubs pouring homebrew for the participants. There is also a hospitality room that is running for most of NHC that is also stocked with homebrew. Between Club Night and Hospitality there are supposed to be over 700 kegs of homebrew to be served. The final night of NHC is the Grand Banquet and Awards dinner. The banquet will be done by Sean Z. Paxton, the Homebrew Chef. Mr. Paxton is the leading expert in the area of combining beer and food and his dinners are legendary.

Since I will not be taking my laptop I will try to give a detailed report once I get back.