HomebrewCon 2017: The Last Day

It's over.

It's finally over.

Now I can dry out.

The last day was a bit of a scamper, with two seminars to hit before one last pass at the expo floor. Then there's acquiring some of the finest liquid souvenirs from the nearest liquor store. Oh, and I had to buy and mail a Father's Day card. No pressure.

The first seminar was "Recipe Development with Dangerous Man" and their three brewers, Alxndr Jones, John Leingang and Rob Miller. It was alright. They discussed how they, well, came up with recipes. Early on, it was a lot of trial and error. Their first batch of rye beer gummed up their mash tun, so maybe 40% is too much.

The next session was "Kinda Brown, Mostly Sexy: A Semi-autobiographical Account of the Actual History and Brewing of Porters and Stouts" presented by Kris England. He's head brewer at Bent Brewstillery in town and - perhaps more importantly - a BJCP Grand Master IV judge and co-author of the BJCP 2015 Guidelines. He's also a gonzo dresser. It's hard to make out in the picture, but he's wearing a blue blazer with white stars, red trousers and black wellies with a floral pattern.

Kris England, dressed to kill you with laughter

Kris said right off the bat that he's highly caffeinated, but he learned in grad school that people won't pay attention to your lectures if you're boring. "Delivery beats content," he said. And he's right.

He went over the history of stouts and porters while occasionally badgering his friends in the audience and imploring us to drink more of the beer. (Speaking of which, he was kind enough to say at the very beginning what the beers were - Bent's Nicked and Schell's Stag Series #10 Tropical Stout - so we can get our Untapped check-ins out of the way.)

If you're a AHA member, this is one of the seminar recordings you need to watch. It's simply that good.
On a completely unrelated note, I thought this shirt in the audience was hilarious:

I darted to the expo floor to meet some folks for a Northern Brewer giveaway. Everyone got one of four beer superhero trading cards in their bag. Form a superhero team and you got a small prize (a NB logo tasting glass) and entry into a drawing for a $250 gift card and a $1000 gift card. As it turns out, forming teams was probably more trouble than most people wanted to bother with, so there weren't a lot of entries. They haven't called or e-mailed me yet, so I'm guessing I didn't win. Oh well.

I nabbed some grain samples for the gang back at the homebrew shop. Then there's the pillaging of the leftover swag bags. If you want another pen or cleaner sample, this is the time.

I made it to the post office with less than two minutes to spare, and I had to jog several blocks to manage even that. On the way back to the hotel, I detoured to Haskell's ("The Wine People!") for some beer to take home. The selection at this downtown location wasn't great, but it had more than I could fit in a duffel bag.

Souvenirs. #homebrewcon2017 pic.twitter.com/jNta7O4GYm

— Zymurginian (@zymurginian) June 17, 2017

Did all the beer, grain, hops, and tchochke fit? As they say up here, "You betcha!"

Will it all fit? Yeah! #homebrewcon2017 pic.twitter.com/wrmiXlikyG

— Zymurginian (@zymurginian) June 17, 2017

And that was how my second HomebrewCon went. Hard to say if it was better than Baltimore, but I'm definitely glad I went. Next year's event is a bit later in June in Portland. There's a beer city for you. I might even get the Mrs and the boy to fly out ... and find other things to do.

Meanwhile, it's back to the real world, and getting my home brewery space built!