ANHC

[Barry]

Wrap up of day 1 of the ANHC (Australia National Homebrewing Conference).

I'm in Melbourne on a family holiday, which happened to coincide with the ANHC. So I got a ticket.
First up this morning, after opening speeches (and after a quick chat to him myself) was Jamil Zainasheff, talking about how to make your beer the best it can be. Awesome. A fuller run down later. Next up a great historical walk through Australian pale ales (and pale ales in general starting from Burton on Trent IPAs and a pretty great selection of historical pale ale bottle labels including New Zealand ones) with a tasting of Coopers Sparkling Ale to boot.
A talk about large brewery product development, then another about malting,
Then a session by a chap commercially brewing gluten free beer, and home brewing better examples for himself (his commercial ones are for a broad audience). He spoke of coeliac sufferers reduced to tears after discovering there was a beer they could drink. Awesome.
Then John Palmer himself (whom I sat next to throughout) talking about hop utilisation and factors affecting bittering and measurement thereof.
Then a sensory session with 4 faulty beers (diacetal, DMS, skunked, phenolic) and panel discussion. Then another panel, going through a judging of 3 beers. 3 judges offering their insights as the audience tasted alongside (JZ one of the judges, with a ton of judging insight).
Then a drink or 2 at the bar before the beer and food pairing dinner, 4 wonderful courses matched with 4 wonderful beers - brewed by 4 Victorian brewers of high repute. Amazing beers all, and exquisite food.
Then club night, homebrewers from all over Australia pouring their creations from the keg and bottle. 30 or so different beers, some very very good indeed. Awesome night.
Time to get some sleep for tommorrow, another big day.
Cheers from Melbourne.

[martin townshend]

You lucky little sausage.....

[Barry]

Day 2 wrap-up (a day later once the fog has cleared):

First session was John Palmer talking about residual alkalinity and it's effect on beer (and how to adjust for it). John had done a bunch of research on Australian water reports and ran the numbers through his spreadsheet to come up with adjustments for every major Australian city. That's impressive, wish he had done the same for NZ.
This session was one of the only times I've ever actually gotten water chemistry, over the years John has honed not only the science, but how to communicate it so that non-chemists can understand it and apply it. I got a lot out of this. He had a bunch of experiment examples and talked about their results from a taste point of view - brewing a pale beer and a dark beer both with perfectly adjusted RA, and way out of whack RA, and said how the way off ones were still good beers, but the perfectly adjusted ones were excellent beers.

Next session was Chris White (Whitelabs) - the mad pirate of yeast (he had suffered an eye infection before leaving the states to attend the conference, so some helpful aussie found him a patch to wear on stage so as not to have it iritated by the lights. Arrgh me laddy).
Chris was talking about yeast consideration for high gravity wort. Things covered were oxygen levels, brewing and fermentation techniques for optimum yeast health, that kind of thing. Chris had gravity differences for a variety of test cases - temperature, pitching rates, dissolved oxygen levels, heaps of things. Very good stuff.

Following on with more yeasty stuff, Jess Caudill from Wyeast talked about brewing with bugs, specifically brettanomyces. Jess had a heap of information and experiment results that made a lot of sense. Wyeast had brewed brett beers using 2 different strains of brett, in 3 different regimes and a control. The control was simply brewed with a saccharomyces strain, test 1 was primary for 10 days with saccharomyces then brett pitched in secondary. Test 2 was saccharomyces and brett pitched side by side, and test 3 was only brett from the start. Jess had results for all including all gravities at different times up to 9 months. He went into great detail about the specifics of culturing brett and other bugs, making starters, all kinds of things. Awesome.

Then a panel discussion with Chris, Jess and Jamil - Q and A.

After morning tea (Wig and Pen Velvet Stout - YUM) Michael Day an expat pom and Camra member since the 60'sm now residing in Canberra talked about English bitter (and started with a dart to the BJCP for calling his favourite beer style "ordinary"). I had spoken to him that morning, nice chap.

After than the lively and animated John Herskovits ran us through all we needed to know about cleaning and sanitising - what products to use, the dangers inherent in some of them, and recommendations on which ones to use and why. Oddly he did all of this without once mentioning or "selling" his own products - Starsan. Starsan gave away a ton of free samples and were there throughout to discuss their products. John is a really really really nice guy.

After lunch 3 craft brewers took the stage to give the room their insights about making the move to professional brewing. Great information.

The the infamous Phil Sexton talked about his comings and goings, latest projects, and where he saw the industry going - for beer and wine. After his talk they rolled out a keg of Little Creatures Pale Ale. You should've seen the queue for a beer which I'm sure everyone there had tried many times before. Talk about a crowd favourite.

Lastly another panel session to wrap things up, JZ, John Palmer, Chris White, Jess Caudill.

My wife met me for the gala dinner MC'd by Paul Mercurio, including the announcement of the Australian Homebrewing Nationals. Eating, talking, and of course more excellent beer to drink.

I spoke to the conference organiser about having a larger kiwi presence next year, I'm sure plenty of you would really enjoy it and get a lot out of it.

Barry.

[Stu McKinlay]

Awesome Barry... I just got back from a training ride. This sounds like a better option for me late next year than another 320km bike ride. Though with three boys - 3.5yrs, 2.5yrs and 6 months - I'm thinking I'll be doing neither. I've got a 600km bike ride pencilled for September 2010 (with the oldest in tow, maybe the two oldest)... soooo maybe 2011?? A chance to get away during the overhyped nightmare that will be a NZ-hosted Rugby World Cup.

[Doublehoppy]

"...which happened to coincide..." yeah right!

Now that's what I call a family holiday, sounds like a great experience

[Sparky]

Thanks for the reports Barry and your time & effort put into them.

Now time to enjoy the "Family Holiday" with the rest of the Family ; )

Cheers