The 2009 AHA National Homebrew Conference is 156 days away from today. It's far away. It's relatively expensive. It will require a lot of time, money, and effort from the club. Why should I be there?

Going to an AHA conference is probably one of the most mind blowing experiences you can have as a homebrewer. Nowhere else can you be with so many like minded people, that enjoy the same great hoppy, and yet be as diverse as one can imagine. I attended the 2004 AHA conference in Las Vegas. At the time I was a member of SNAFU (Southern Nevada Ale Fermenters Union) and we were one of the three host clubs for the event. The renowned Maltose Falcons of Southern California, along with QUAFF from San Diego shared the distinction with us. SNAFU was a good sized club, comparable to that of the current COHO, but the Maltose Falcons and QUAFF were both huge. It was my first look at clubs that size, and it was impressive to see just how much brewing talent they had. There level of participation was also amazing. These clubs were based 240 miles away, yet the they came armed to teeth with staff, equipment, and an unbelievable volume of beer. At least 40-50 members came from each club and participated in every level of the conference - beer judging, manning the hospitality booth, huge displays at club night, and more.

I personally had the time of my life with the event, learned an insane amount of beer related information, and I had barely scratched the surface of the resources that were on hand. I went to several different seminars, on a variety of topics, and learned about these things from some of the best people in the brewing business. Peter Zien from Alesmith presented a talk on cask conditioned ales. Vinnie Cilurzno from Russian River spoke about the history of double IPAs and how to brew these hoppy beers. Chris White from White Labs spoke about yeast management. Geoff Larsen from Alaskan spoke about spruce beers. I also had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with master homebrewers Charlie Papazian, Ray Daniels, Randy Mosher. and John Palmer.

The biggest part of the event for me took place before the event itself. My club had been tasked with brewing a double IPA that was to be served at the Vinnie Cilurzno event, served along side several commercial examples. At the time I was the only person in the club that had ever attempted to brew an imperial IPA, unfortunately I was brewing extract beers at the time, and extract beers were not an option for this event. This is where I gained my first experience in putting together an all grain beer recipe. I formulated the all grain recipe based on an award winning extract batch that I had made previously. The beer was brewed on the SNAFU president's big system, and served several weeks later at the event. The uber hoppy brew was a hit with the crowd, and the recipe was posted for all to see.

Club night was a ton of fun as well. Imagine a microbrew festival with 40 plus breweries, and about 300 beers on tap. Now replace the breweries part with homebrewers and you get AHA club night. There was a huge diversity of styles on hand, and I think one could have sampled every known beer style (and then some) on one night, at one place. A large number of the participants in club night build mobile bars with extensive draft beer systems. Club members would also dress up in various themes. There were monks, pirates, priests, commandos, and many others. SNAFUs draft beer set up featured a giant fiberglass dog that peed beer. Yes, we were full of taste back then.

Pro brewers night is the night following Club night, and is your basic microbrew festival. All of the local Vegas breweries were on hand, with probably another 20 or so from California and Arizona. The brewers brought out their top shelf products for this event. There were a lot of rare, one-off high gravity brews that were served at the event, as well as many beers that were unavailable in the Las Vegas market. As it was pro brewers night, nearly all of the booths were manned by the brewers themselves. It was really great getting to speak with these people at this level. Recipes and techniques were passed freely back and forth between professional brewer and homebrewer.

Needless to say this conference was one of the biggest highlights of my 12 year homebrewing career, and I would highly recommend attending one of these events if you ever get the chance. San Francisco is not that far away, and the bang that you get for your buck is almost immeasurable. I can't even begin to imagine what crazy beers will be pouring on pro brewers night this year. There's also the countless number of brewpubs and great beer bars in the bay area. There will be tours at Anchor Brewing Company. There will be visits to the Toronado pub. In fact, the event organizers have partnered with the BART mass transit system to work on special routes that feature stops at such places. The homebrew hospitality suite at the host hotel will be pouring beers 24 hours a day during the conference!

I have confirmations from at least four COHO members who are willing to take on this event. COHO has also received a formal acceptance to host a booth during club night. If any of you fish are considering this please let me know as soon as possible so that hotel room arrangements can be modified. Participating in this largest of homebrew events would bring COHO to a national level of interaction with our fellow clubs. It may be years before the conference comes back to the west, so this may be our best chance for this.

Cheers!

BT