Pilgrimage to Homebrew Con

Homebrew Con, formerly known as the National Homebrewers Conference (NHC) is the American Homebrewers Association's (AHA) largest event of the year. Spanning three days of seminars, exhibitions, and trade shows Homebrew Con is truly an epic event.

When I first learned of the NHC it didn't sound like something I would be interested in. Traveling to another city for a conference felt a little stuffy. I wasn't advanced enough in my brewing that I would want to sit down and listen to highly technical seminars about beer I might not understand. From reading Brulosophy and other blogs, and the BeerSmith podcast it became clear the NHC was not what I thought it was. Other brewers felt the same way which was why the AHA re-branded the NHC as Homebrew Con.

As soon as I saw that Homebrew Con 2016 would be in Baltimore I decided we had to go. I spent the summer of 2004 in the area and looked forward to going back. Baltimore is a manageable eight hour drive which made attending more affordable. The AHA lined up discounted rates at numerous hotels within walking distance of the convention. We were able to book a suite a ten minute walk away for less than $200 a night. When I saw how much it would be to park my car at the hotel we decided to take Bolt Bus down.

In addition to Homebrew Con itself, there were numerous other events going on in Baltimore during convention week. The final round of judging for the National Homebrewing Competition coincides with Homebrew Con week. Additionally the Beer Judge Certification Program organizes several events of its own.

When we decided to go I wanted to do everything! Who knows if I would ever be able to attend another Homebrew Con? The convention was in Baltimore this year and it will not likely be back on the East Coast again for several years. I wanted to make the most of the entire experience.

The week went by so quickly. For two days after it was over I was actually, literally sad. There's a lot to cover. Check this space for all the details this week! 

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Pilgrimage to Homebrew Con: Wrapping up the Conference

In my first entry of the series I talk about the trip and what Homebrew Con is about. Click here

In my second entry I discuss the first couple days of our trip. Click here

In my third entry I recap judging at the NHC final round. Click here

As I write this, Homebrew Con ended about ten days ago. A few things are abundantly clear: this now four-part recap is entirely too long, my recap is no longer timely, and there is a fair chance people have lost interest. I think it is time to wrap things up.

The conference consists of numerous seminars, a keynote address, a homebrew expo, a Craft Beer kickoff party, Club Night, and a Grand Banquet and Awards ceremony.

After I finished judging and ate lunch, Jennie and I checked out the expo. The expo consisted of dozens of vendors with various displays, promotional swag, contests, and give-aways. By the end of Saturday I had several samples of malt, a bunch of different bags of hops, several sachets of dry yeast, stickers, and various other items. I was lucky enough to snag a Northern Brewer extract kit which I will probably brew up in the fall. I was happy to win it, but it was heavy carrying it around all day. The expo had numerous homebrew clubs and craft brewers pouring. Self-control was the only thing keeping anyone sober.

Also in the expo the AHA was selling merchandise and books from Brewer's Publications. Next to the merchandise various authors were scheduled to have signing sessions. I brought most of my brewing books with me just in case I had the opportunity to get them signed.

I got to meet John Palmer author of two books that I owned, the seminal book How to Brew, co-author of Brewing Classic Styles. He also wrote the book Water as part of Brewers Publications brewing elements series (Yeast, Hops, and Malt being the others).  I took the opportunity to purchase Water and have all three of his books signed. Palmer was very polite, cordial across the same way he does in his books.

Two days later I wanted to have Gordon Strong sign my copy of Modern Homebrew Recipes. After waiting in line for about 15 minutes I realized that I left the book back at the hotel and accidentally took my already signed copy of How to Brew. This was the morning after Club Night. It was a miracle I remembered to wear pants. More on that later.

As casually as possible I left Gordon Strong's line and hopped into Michael Tonsmeire's line to have him sign my copy of American Sour Beers. I bought the book when I purchased Water. I told Tonsmeire that I had just started dabbling in sours with the Dawson's Kriek and another kit. He was gregarious and gave me some great advice to learn about brewing sour beers so I can start designing my own recipes.

Sam Calagione, owner and founder of Dogfish Head made the keynote address and supplied Biere de Provence for the toast. The Craft Beer Kickoff featured several craft brewers from the Mid-Atlantic region.

I enjoyed the seminars. For the most part they were informative without being too dry. I didn't have time to take in all of the seminars I would have liked, but happily they are recorded and available on the AHA website to all AHA members. Two of the seminars gave me an idea for a fun project for Jamboree; we'll see if I have enough time and money to brew the four beers I want to make, and if there are enough draught lines at the event.

The highlight of Homebrew Con for me was Club Night. All AHA affiliated clubs are invited to attend and pour at Club Night. More than just showing up and pouring beer, clubs build elaborate displays and dress up in costumes. One club build a jail cell, dressed up in orange jumpsuits with D.O.C on the back (Department of Consumption), and were pouring beer out of a prison urinal. A club from Lancaster, PA wore Amish costumes and had taps coming out of a cow's udder. Another club dressed up as pirates, built a "pirate ship" bar that they wheeled around the convention floor. I enjoyed the beer on Club Night more than I did at the Craft Beer Kickoff.

Club Night was on Friday and I felt it all day on Saturday. The one seminar I was most looking forward to was the Beer Bloggers Rountable at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. I barely made it there at 9:15, and had to get up and use the facilities about 10 minutes after sitting down. As you can see in the picture, the panelists weren't feeling much better than I was. During one seminar on regional IPAs I struggled to drink the samples provided as part of the presentation. Jennie and I went on a tour at Heavy Seas lead by brew-master Chris Leonard. The tour was excellent, but I struggled to finish the samples that came with the tour.

From Heavy Seas we took an Uber to World of Beer and slowly I started to feel better. We met a couple of brewers from St. Louis who were buying and sharing the rarest beers from World of Beer's impressive selection with us and the awesome staff.

After several hours we ventured off to Max's Taphouse. I ran into a homebrewer named Vinny from the South Shore that I had met over Twitter. He was partying with John Palmer and the Brulosophy guys. I ended up in some epic pictures with Marshall, the original Brulosopher, and everyone in the group.

The next morning our Uber's GPS made us miss our bus from Baltimore to New York. With no chance of making our connecting bus from New York to Boston, the only way we could make it home was to take the train to BWI airport and buy the last two seats on a flight to Logan. Luckily it was a direct flight and the added bonus was we made it home that much sooner.

The week was an absolute blast. Every serious homebrewer should make it to Homebrew Con at least once. Homebrew Con 2017 is going to be held in Minneapolis. That is the closest major airport to Jennie's family in Wisconsin. Hmmmm.....we may have to go again next year!

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More catching up

Every writer has their own creative process. For me it was easier to sit down and write when I was sitting down at a cubicle 40 hours per week. I would bang out posts during lunches and breaks. Now most of my desk time is spent researching breweries, managing inventory, and working on forecasts. Although I haven't been posting, I have been brewing, drinking, traveling, and judging.

I judged four flights at the first round of National Homebrew Competition (NHC) judging in New York. I was fortunate to judge some really strong flights, and judge one flight with a master judge. Brooklyn is an area I need to spend more time in as that is the real center of craft beer in New York.

Entry of Convenience, enjoyable but missed the mark.

I managed to enter two beers into NHC. Entry of Convenience scored a 29 which I think was completely fair. The judges thought it lacked the richness of malt flavor to score more highly. I thought the beer tasted like a fudgcicle. My second entry was Thomas Brady's Ale (2017) which scored a 37. That a score that high didn't even advance the beer to mini-Best of Show indicates how strong that flight was. The judges thought the beer was aged on the wood for too long. All I have to do is bottle the next batch sooner, easy enough!

At the end of June I made my return to Homebrew Con in Portland. Oregon. Manning a booth was a bit of a different experience; I didn't make any of the seminars. It was still a lot of fun. Portland is a great beer city. I found the Pacific-Northwest IPAs to be bitter compared to other regions, and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of styles I found at the bars and breweries we visited. Next year Homebrew Con will be in Providence! All of the local homebrewers I've spoken with have been very excited.

The highlight of Homebrew Con in Portland for me was meeting this man:

The living legend Charlie Papazian visiting our booth! He talked about how Muntons was one of the first vendors to support #HomebrewCon first attending in 1981!! Charlie also had fond memories of visiting our maltings at Stowemarket in the UK. #homebrewcon2018 . . . #beer #craftbeer #legend #livinglegend #homebrew #homebrewing #RDWHAHB #cheerstocharlie

A post shared by Muntons North America (@muntons_north_america) on Jun 29, 2018 at 7:56pm PDT

Charlie Papazian founded the American Homebrewers Association, Great American Beer Fest, and wrote one of the bibles of homebrewing The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Charlie had announced his retirement effective January 2019 and was chosen to give the keynote at Homebrew Con. I had seen Charlie in passing at other events, but knowing this could very well be my last chance to meet the man. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing was the first brewing book I owned and was the only book I brought with me to the show to potentially have signed. Not only was I lucky enough to get my book signed, someone had the presence of mind to take the above photo.

Hazy, but not quite turbid.

I brewed my first New England IPA at the new house. It was a blend of Muntons Pale, Wheat, and Caramalt hopped with Exp Stonefruit hops. On a friends advice I steeped the whirlpool hops at 140F. The resulting beer was quite tasty. It maybe could have used a touch more hop bitterness and haze, but the three gallon batch went fairly quickly. I want one of my four taps to have a NEIPA on all the time.

You can make a great beer with little effort!

Easiest beer I've ever made! All the ingredients are here!

Playing around with some of Muntons homebrew kits, I took Muntons Mexican Cerveza kit and made it my own by substituting amber and dark dry malt extract to make an amber lager. The kit contained hopped extract. That meant there was no boil. All I had to do was boil enough water to dissolve the extract in the kit and the dry extract, then top off with cold water. The top off water was cold enough to bring the wort down to pitching temperature. No need to run a wort chiller. The whole thing took 15 minutes. The resulting beer was a fair approximation of Dos Equis Ambar.

I learned how important mash pH is with a decoction mash.

Trying my hand at another beer inspired by Pretty Things, Modern Mower was my first attempt at a decoction mash. A traditional European method of mashing, decoction mashing invovles removing a portion of the mash, boiling it, and adding it back into the main mash to increase the temperature. Brewers who use decoction mashes now do so because they feel it imparts a richer malt flavor.

In my experience the decoction certainly gave the beer a richer malt color. The fatal flaw of my beer was I let the pH of my mash get too high. This extracted tannin and chill haze. The finished beer was slightly stringent and hazy. It was drinkable, but it missed the mark. Next time I need to add an acid rest and add a decoction, use some acidulated malt, or just acidify my mash. The good news is that these are easy fixes. That doesn't change the fact I should have known better.

Less is more with some spices like chamomile.

Jennie wanted to name a beer after our cat Fredward. Being a white monochrome short hair cat a witbier was an obvious choice. I wanted the beer to be slightly sweet like our kitty is. I tweaked the spices from my house witbier recipe adding vanilla and chamomile. The chamomile dominated the one pint of the batch I was able to try. It reminded my why I stopped brewing with chamomile. I want to make another witbier, but I think Walk-Off White will be coming back.

The reason I only enjoyed one pint of Fredward Wit was because the keg, along with Modern Mower, Cerveza Ambar, and Entry of Convenience froze. I was moving kegs inside of my keezer and inadvertently left the temperature probe outside of the freezer. The temp controller picking up the ambient temperature kept the compressor going. I tried defrosting the kegs, but they just didn't taste the same. I dumped everything in there.

In a couple of weeks we are opening our home to guests for the first time. I brewed six different beers for the occasion. Dumping those kegs at least freed up space. Check this space for details on all six brews.

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The United States of IPA, a project

Last year I brought one beer to the New England Homebrewers Jamboree, a Galaxy IPA part of the North Shore Brewers single hop project. For 2016 I wanted to bring more beer, and more importantly I wanted to bring some unique beers. As jamboree loomed over the horizon I racked my brain trying to think of beers that would stand out in the crowd. Standing out among the 100 beers the club will probably bring, plus beers poured by the other clubs there is not easy. My beers tend to be fairly traditional in style and ingredient selection. In comparison to some of the out-of-the-box beers other homebrewers make, my beer can sometimes feel boring to me by comparison.

As we made the trip down to Homebrew Con I had a couple of ideas kicking around, but nothing I had put pen to paper to. Jamboree is the second weekend of September, it was getting close to time to plan out what I want to brew. During my Homebrew Con recap, I glanced over the seminars for the sake of brevity. I enjoyed all of the seminars I attended, but there were two seminars that gave me inspiration for jamboree.

The very first seminar we attended was How to Brew Like An All-Star presented by Denny Conn and Drew Beechum. Denny and Drew co-authored the book Homebrew All-Stars, and run the blog Experimental Brewing. I wasn't sure exactly what the seminar would be about, but I had seen Denny on the BeerSmith Podcast several times and figured it would be interesting.

The seminar was a blast! Denny and Drew have great rapport, and Denny kept breaking out his ukulele. Jennie got a kick out of it too. I think that's when she realized that she would have at Homebrew Con too.

During the seminar, Denny and Drew broke down the four brewer personality types they identified.

• The Old-School Masters: These are brewers who focus on brewing and mastering classic, or at least conventional styles and techniques.
• The Scientists (The Process Nerds): These are brewers who continually tweak with and experiment with their brewing process.
• The Wild Ones: Brewers who will ferment anything fermentable liquid with any organism.
• The Recipe (And ingredient) Innovators: Brewers who continually push style boundaries, or use new and innovative ingredients.

They had attendees take a short quiz to determine his/her personality type. Before finishing the quiz I would have thought I was a recipe innovator. I am always working on recipes. For every batch I brew, I probably have made four times as many recipes. However, according to the results I am an old-school master. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. A recipe innovator is a brewer who invents the first pumpkin peach ale and that's not me. I came to realize that there is nothing wrong with being an old-school master, I am far from the only one out there, and being one doesn't make me a bad brewer.

How to Brew Like an All-Star was a seminar I knew I wanted to attend from the beginning. Unfortunately, it is impossible to attend every seminar because there are several different ones going on at the same time. At 10:15 a.m. on Saturday there were about four seminars I was interested in. At the last second I decided to check out Regional American IPA: What's Up with All the Crystal Malt?. The seminar was presented by Favio Garcia, co-founder of Lost Rhino Brewing in Ashburn, VA; Carrie Knose, co-owner of Living the Dream Brewing in Denver; and Paul Sangster, co-owner of Rip Current Brewing in San Diego. This seminar was awesome!

All three of the presenters discussed the regional differences in IPAs in their respective areas. They discussed the IPAs their breweries make, other prominent IPAs from their regions, and discussed some of the common characteristics of IPA within their region. To further illustrate the regional differences, each brewer brought an IPA to represent their region: Face Plant by Lost Rhino, Empty Trophy Case by Living the Dream, and What's Up with All the Crystal Malt?, a collaboration by Living the Dream and Rip Tide to represent contemporary West Coast IPAs brewed just for the seminar.

The presenters did briefly discuss hazy New England pale ales and IPA. Being from New England, visiting Trillium, Maine, and Vermont it is certainly a style I am familiar with. I have also brewed Fort
Dummer and Alan's Stepchild in the "New England" style.

Sometime after the seminar I realized exactly what I wanted to brew for jamboree: The United States of IPA! I will brew all three regional variants discussed in the seminar along with a New England IPA. Instead of trying to come up with the craziest recipe, ingredient, or process, I could stay in my wheelhouse and be the "old-school master" that I am. All four beers will be original recipes, no clone brews.

By grouping four distinct IPAs to jamboree, grouping them together, attendees will be able to taste the regional differences first hand. It should be a great way to brew and bring "regular" beer and present it in an engaging way people can be excited about.

As an added wrinkle the four recipes will all be completely different; none of the beers will have any ingredients in common. There will not be a single malt, hop, or yeast in common. This is partly to account for the regional differences, but primarily it is a way to have fun and use different ingredients.

Jamboree is the weekend after Labor Day. To have these done in time I need to get brewing!

Audio recordings and PowerPoint slides of the above Homebrew Con seminars are available here to all American Homebrewers Association Members.

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Brew Day: Maximilian Lager (Vienna Lager)

The last Homebrew Con I attended with Muntons was 2022 in Pittsburgh. At the time Muntons had made a lot of exciting updates and additions to their range of homebrew products. The new Muntons Flagship Range featured more modern, American craft beer styles as opposed to traditional English styles. Also released was a range of Premium Malt Extract which included Maris Otter Pale, Wheat, Oat, Sour, Munich and Vienna Malt Extract.

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I brewed 40 gallons of beer for the show and drove all eight kegs from my home outside of Boston to Pittsburgh. Marketing wanted to do a side-by-side of the Flagship Range Hazy IPA kit, the same recipe made as a partial boil/partial mash with the Oat Malt Extract, and the same recipe all grain. All three of the hazies came out great. The kit beer was noticeably the darkest of the three. The partial mash and all grain were very close. I also made a Passionfruit Sour with the Sour Malt extract; that was a recipe designed by the Muntons Product team.

With room for one extra keg, I suggested highlighting one of the other new extracts and ended up brewing a Vienna Lager. 

Is beer-flavored-beer making a comeback? Observations from Homebrew Con 2022

Homebrew Con 2022 is in the books. Taking place in Pittsburgh, I made the drive from my Boston-area home to mule beer and other supplies for the show. The first in-person Homebrew Con since the Covid pandemic, the show was smaller than in the past. The Craft Brewers Conference, the main industry trade show for professional brewing, was also smaller in scope. From speaking with other vendors, attendance at large festivals and conferences are down across the board. The Pittsburgh RV show only needed one room at the convention center.

The highlight of the show for me was the chance to present a seminar on brewing English-style Ales. I was also working the show with Muntons. While the topic of brewing traditional English styles didn't exactly coincide with the products we were featuring at our booth, this is a topic brewers have asked me about. In the past I struggled to clearly articulate my approach. The process of sitting down and creating a presentation allowed me create a narrative that hopefully made sense. 

As I put the seminar together, and as I was driving across Pennsylvania I had two lingering thoughts in my head: Would other homebrewers like the seminar and find it informative, and how many people would actually care enough about the topic to show up? Thankfully I received plenty of positive feedback from the talk. As far as interest in the topic, here is a picture taken as I was being introduced:

As a few late arrivals walked in and stood against the wall as all the seats were full. English-styles haven't been setting the world on fire the last several years on the craft beer market. If beer drinkers haven't been buying these styles, would homebrewers want to listen to me talk about how to brew them. The answer at least with this crowd was an emphatic yes.

I brewed four, 3-gallon batches to serve during my seminar.  The recipes and my presentation slides can be viewed on the Homebrew Con app. The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) will publish a recording available to AHA members in coming months.

I thought that would be more than enough beer for everyone to taste as I discussed them. That clearly was not enough beer. I don't think anyone was able to try all four beers. Most were lucky to try two, and some attendees didn't get to try any at all. Several people went to the Muntons booth after the seminar hoping to be able to try the beers there.

The Homebrew Expo opened shortly before my seminar ended. Homebrew for Muntons is ran globally out of the UK. The team over there wanted to promote Muntons new Flagship Range of kits and our expanded Ingredients Range of malt extracts. The UK asked me to make the Hazy IPA kit from the Flagship Range, brew the Hazy IPA as a partial-mash with Muntons new Oat Malt Extract, and brew the Hazy IPA with all grain. At the show the plan was to do a side-by-side and challenge brewers to guess which is which. 

The grist for the all grain was
75% Craft Pale Malt, 25% Oat Malt

Sparging the partial mash Hazy IPA

I made ten gallons of all three versions. Making two of the beer kits was simple enough. For the partial mash, I used the "Palmer Method" of a partial boil and late extract addition. The all grain was actually the first ten gallon all-grain batch I've brewed at home. I dusted off my old 8-gallon kettle from my apartment brewing days as my Hot Liquor Tank. When that wasn't quite large enough, I heated up some extra water and topped off the HLT during the sparge  

To add some variety I also brewed a Passion Fruit Sour ale recipe created by Muntons' NPD Brewing Technologist Nick Piper with Muntons Sour Malt Extract, as well as a Vienna Lager with Muntons Vienna Malt Extract. The lager recipe borrowed heavily from Jamil Zainasheff's recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. The Passion Fruit Sour was a partial mash, while the Vienna was all malt extract.

One can of Sour Malt Extract made a tart beer,
and replaced approx 5lbs of base malt.

The grist of the Vienna Lager...plus
an extra 0.5 lbs of Light DME

Our booth was so busy it made it difficult for us to tally responses to the side-by-side. The response was positive. Even brewers who picked out the beer kit, or selected all three correctly tended to need several sips. I didn't see anyone wretch or dump the kit or partial mash beers. The exercise at least demonstrated that brewers can make quality beer with malt extract or a beer kit.

I was really happy with the Passion Fruit Sour. When I kegged it, the fruit flavor seemed to have fermented out. Once the beer was cold and carbonated the fruit flavor was quite nice, if not quite as intense as a commercial brewery adding fruit post-fermentation. 

The Vienna Lager was excellent. I didn't have time to lager the beer for several weeks, so it wasn't as clear as a commercial example. The flavor was damn close. The response from attendees was quite strong.  One master judge who has brewed the style a lot really liked the malt flavor. His only minor critique was that he wanted a little more hop bitterness. 

We had four taps at the booth. The first day of the show we served the three IPA variants and the sour. The second day was the Hazies and the Vienna Lager. We went through the entire keg of Vienna Lager in one day. Having a classic style on tap scratched an itch for a lot of attendees.

As the show wrapped up I looked at the winners of the National Homebrew Competition. For each category the AHA listed how many entries there were for that category. The most entries by category:

• Pilsner - 146 entries
• Strong Belgian Ale - 124 entries
• American IPA  - 117 entries
• Fruit Beer - 113 entries
• Pale Malty European Beer - 110 entries
• Amber European Beer - 110 entries
• New England IPA - 110 entries
• Dark European Lager - 108 entries
• Pale European Beer - 102 entries

New England IPA in a three-way tie for fifth. Regular, old fashioned clear IPA was in third. The lager categories were some of the most competitive in the competition. 

Most craft brewers I talk to started as homebrewers somewhere along the way. NHC was inundated with lagers, my seminar on English ales was standing-room only, people left the seminar looking for more of the English ales I made for the seminar, and the most popular beer at our stand was a Vienna Lager. Homebrewing has been considered a bellwether for commercial brewing.  Is beer-flavored-beer making a comeback? If homebrewing is a leading indicator on where craft beer is going, the answer is yes.

People in beer have been predicting that lagers or classic styles will be making a comeback for years. A lot of it might be wish-casting as craft brewers have continued to pump out New Englannd IPA. I'm not ready to say with certainty that beer-flavored-beer will make a comeback. I am leaving Pittsburgh with a little bit of hope for at least a modest resurgence. 

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Pilgrimage to Homebrew Con: Judging at the NHC Final Round

In my first entry of the series I talk about the trip and what Homebrew Con is about. Click here

In my second entry I discuss the first couple days of our trim. Click here

Wednesday was the final round of judging at the National Homebrew Competition. The AHA and BJCP were looking for judges and stewards. Not knowing if I would ever have another opportunity to judge in the final round I really wanted to do it. I also didn't want to ditch my girlfriend for an entire day during our vacation. I ended up volunteering for just the morning session so we could spend the afternoon together.

   

Given my low rank, I figured I would be paired with an experienced judge. I sat down at my table, and saw I would be judging with Mike Dixon. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it right away. Once we started judging I realized he is the admin for the BJCP Facebook Group. When I asked if that was him, he confirmed that he is the Communication Director of the BJCP. During a later seminar, author Denny Conn gave Mike a shout out as the first friend he made in homebrewing.

Mike is a great guy. He is laid back, with a great sense of humor, and will use some colorful language if you meet him in person. It was a great experience to work with a judge that experienced. We were assigned Strong Ales which consisted of American and English Strong Ales and Barleywines. It was reassuring to me as a judge that my scores and thoughts were generally close to Mike's, even if I was usually a couple of points higher.

We went through our flight fairly quickly. This was aided by the modified scoresheets we used that employed check boxes for the different characteristics of the beer, with space to add any comments or feedback a judge might have. Most competitions require the judge to write everything out. At one competition I judged seven Northern English Brown Ales in a row and one every one I wrote out by hand "caramel malt flavor, with a dry finish". That is what the beer is supposed to have, but writing it out on almost every score sheet is tedious.

There were three flights (three pairs of judges) at our table judging the same category. The judges at each flight selected one to three beers to advance to a mini-best of show (BOS) round. The highest ranking judges will taste the beers that advanced to the mini-BOS and determine which beers place first, second, third, and if any other beers deserve an honorable mention. This is done whenever there are multiple flights to ensure consistency.

For example, let's say I gave Beer A a score of 38, and another judge judging another beer in another flight gave Beer B a score of 36. If the award places just went by score Beer A would have placed higher based on scores generated by two different judges. Who's to say that I wouldn't have given Beer B a 39 if I had judged it?  With a mini-BOS judges can taste the best beers side-by-side and discuss which ones are the best and why.

I wasn't selected to participate in the mini-BOS due to my relatively low rank. Initially I was going to observe Mike and the other highly-ranked judges do the mini-BOS, but after waiting for several minutes I decided to eat some lunch and start taking in the rest of what Homebrew Con had to offer.

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Pilgrimage to Homebrew Con: Tuesday and Wednesday

Jennie and I both went to the conference. Initially I felt that Jennie was hesitant about going. Not that she wasn't going to go, but I don't think she was convinced she would have fun. Homebrewing started as something for us to do together, but over time I became more consumed with the hobby. It became more my thing than our thing. She wanted to do a some touristy type things on our trip.

Jennie wanted to visit Washington D.C., attend a Washington Nationals game, and attend an Orioles game in Baltimore. The schedule didn't work out for us to visit Nationals Park, but we did spend a night in Washington. We took the Bolt Bus from Boston to New York to DC. We had just enough time to walk around the National Mall and all of the monuments before dark. After walking and dealing with screaming kids, we went to Meridian Pint and enjoyed several beers off their superlative draft list including Abraxus by Perennial Artisan Ales.

The next day we took the train up to Baltimore and just made it to the BJCP Judge's reception. We grabbed a couple of seats in the dining car and drank a couple of Yuenglings to justify sitting there. At the reception I particularly enjoyed Peter Jones and Michael Stein's presentation about Pre-Prohibition Porter. After the reception wrapped up we checked into our hotel, unpacked, and relaxed before heading down to Camden Yards to see the Orioles and Royals.

Before the game we stopped off at Pratt Street Ale House for food and drinks before the game. The bar was formerly the production facility and brewpub for Oliver Brewing Company. I enjoyed their traditional English styles. Any brewery that produces a Dark English Mild gets a thumbs up emoji from me! Located across from the convention center where Homebrew Con was held, we actually went back to Pratt Street the next night when we wanted a quick bite between events.

We had great seats in the lower bowl behind home plate for the game. The craft beer situation at Camden Yards compares favorably to Fenway Park. The park had plenty of craft beer stands featuring numerous beers from local staples Heavy Seas, Flying Dog, and Du Claw on draught, as opposed to Harpoon, Sam Adams, or Wachusett maybe having one or two beers to choose from. One Heavy Seas stand featured "Firkin Fridays" that featured Heavy Seas beers on cask. Beyond that, there were beer vendors in the stands throughout the park, as opposed to Fenway where they are only in the first few rows. Prices were similar to Fenway. The concourse at Camden Yards are at least three times the size of Fenway Park which probably gives the Orioles more room to serve more beer.

Inside the old B&O Warehouse over the right field fence is Dempsey's Brew Pub and restaurant. Open after the game ended, we figured we would check it out. The place was really nice with lots of TVs, great staff, and some solid local craft beers in bottles. The house-made beers were disappointing. We tried the IPA and Golden Ale. I honestly think these recipes were designed to make oriole orange beer, and everything else was an afterthought.

We probably made it back to the hotel by midnight. I had to be up early to judge at the final round of the National Homebrew Competition!

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