NHC Conference Guide, 2015 San Diego

After 4 years, the American Homebrewers Association's National Conference is back in San Diego this June.  Along with being my hometown, San Diego is a top craftbeer city, created by its homebrewing roots.  Why else do you think the AHA sent the conference back to San Diego only after 4 years?

The AHA has their own guide, which you should read if it's your first time, but you should also check out my guide below for the conference.  Which might be a little more focused than the AHA's.  (You can also read my Philly 2013 NHC recap if your interested.)

First things first, San Diego is a car city.  If you want to hit the local craft spots, you need a car and a DD or a Taxi/Uber.  The San Diego Trolley does work, only if the spot you're looking for is along its route.  Which, most of the time, it isn't.  If you do rent a car, the Town and Country Hotel has a great parking lot, which does happen to be next to the Trolley station at Fashion Valley Mall.  Which sadly is the only outside food within walking distance (more on that later).  

2014 National Homebrew Competition, 1st Round Results

The National Homebrew Competition was changed for the better this year.  Registering before hand and selecting any open competition site pushed me to Austin, TX.  I am happy to report all of my 3 entries made it to the Mini-Best of Show rounds and two advanced to Nationals in June. 

The beers I decided to send:

Silent Midnight, Braggot.   26B Final Score 37 (Advanced to Mini-BOS) 3rd Place

They Call me Porter, Robust Porter.   12B Final Score 36 (Advanced to the Mini-BOS) 3rd Place

Cucuy #3 (Aged on Caco Nibs) , Russian Imperial Stout.   13F Final Score 39 (Advanced to the Mini-BOS) 



Silent Midnight Braggot:  Scored a 37/50 Overall. Category #26B Braggot.  Mini-BOS Advancing to the 2nd round at NHC.

Judge #1, Professional Mead Maker/Certified Mead Judge 39/50

Bouquet/Aroma: 6/10 Estery.  Roast, chocolate, treacle, banana, blueberry coffee.  Not getting much honey - very soft neutral honey in backround.

Appearance: 6/6  Black.  Pretty, solid tan head, nice!

NHC Recap & My 2nd Round Results

As Philly fades into a memory I wanted to post my NHC 2nd round results.  As expected I got hammered a little by the judges.  If you follow me on Twitter, you might remember that I drank my remaining 12oz bottles of my Belgian Dark Strong before I got the NHC results.  So I was left with opening a couple 750ml's and racking the beer into smaller bottles.  Which overall went smoothly, but how much damage did I do to the beer?  Also if you've never attended NHC you might want to check out my thought's of this years conference. 

National Homebrewing Conference 2013 (Re-Posted)

Wednesday morning I'm flying out to #NHC2013, landing in Philly around 5PM and headed to Brewing Networks (BNA8) 8th Anniversary party.  If you want to go, it is the only event that is not sold out and I highly recommend attending.  After that you will find me wandering the halls inside the Downtown Marriott absorbing the most homebrewing information I can find.

National Homebrew Conference, Philly 2013

I was looking at the seminar's for the upcoming National Conference in Philly and I really didn't like the layout the American Homebrewers Association gave us.  It was listed, out of order and choppy to figure out what was happening and when.  I started to create a timeline for each day.  Nothing over the top, but I hope this will make your time at the conference a little easier.  

Here is the pemalink to my Google shared site.  Or if you want the excel file, Email me and I'll send it to you.

Feel free to pass this around and look for me at the conference. 

2013 AHA National Homebrew Competition

Drinking the beer that advanced while reading the Judges notes is nice.

This was my second year entering the National Homebrew Competition.  In 2012, I entered 3 beers.  All scoring well, but not all at the level I wanted them to be.  I want to say I was more prepared for this years competition, but the truth is that I wasn't.  I just happened to have more beers bottled this year vs last year.  Mainly because of my Blichmann BottleGun.  This afforded me to pick the beers I thought would be better suited for the competition.  Meaning I didn't want to deal with Pale Ales or any IPA's and what I had on hand.


The beers I decided to send:

Gail Belgian Dark Strong.  18E Final Score 41.3 (Advanced to Mini-BOS) 2nd Place

Farmer Daughter Flanders Red Blend #7  17B Final Score 40 (Advanced to Mini-BOS)

Cucuy Russian Imperial Stout aged on Coco Nibs 13F Final Score 33.5 (Advanced to Mini-BOS)

Farmhouse Saison w/Rayon Vert Dregs (Now named Dirty Gnome)  16C Final Score 32.5

Belma Trials: Saison 16B Final Score 29


I made a promise to myself to send 4 beers to NHC this year, but with the registration snafu, the 4th and 5th beers processed at the same time. (Yes, I had multiple browsers open)  Knowing the mess they were having I didn't want to "Rock the Boat" and paid for my entries before the system crashed.