Went to the Homebrew Convention in Portland this year with Jacob. He happened to get two beers into the first round. Portland is close enough that it seemed automatic that we should go. If he did medal, it would be super cool to see his name up there and get hardware. I couldn't let him go alone.
We got tickets out of Vegas and drove over Wednesday night and stayed at a "brewery." Not sure about that. Maybe a contract brewery. The beer wasn't great. Then we woke up in the morning and got on a plane to Portland. It was really cool seeing home and then Owens Valley. Then eventually you see things you aren't familiar with. Anyhow we got to the airport no problem and met Tim.
Tim was probably the most entertaining part of the trip. This guy was high off his mind. He was the Lyft driver that Jacob picked up. He drove a white Prius. He was a little chatty and mentioned he was a chef so we started asking him where the best places to eat where. And bless Tim's heart, he had a real hard time trying to remember the names of anything. Because he was high AF. He started to have a hard time driving since he would forget that what he was doing. He would recognize that he needed to get off the freeway, turn on his turn indicator, and while waiting for traffic to make it safe to switch lanes would start talking to us and forget that he was supposed to change lanes. Then the guy suddenly realizes he needs to move over and does so unsafely in a rush. And this repeated the whole drive. He got us there but I wanted out of the car so badly I forgot my backpack. I ran back to the car as he was leaving to retrieve it.
At the hotel Jacob and I tried an early check-in with no luck. They let us check in the luggage which was nice. Then we made our way to the convention center which was about two blocks away. Once there, we got checked in real smoothly and had some time to kill before things started. I think we found our way to the crappy burger joint near the convention center and had a burger and then hit up the expo.
The expo is where the various vendors are to peddle their wares. There were some companies that are automatic to be there and seeing them was no surprise (i.e. White Labs, MoreBeer, etc.). Jacob really scored getting a crap ton of grain, hops, dry yeast, and a giant Blichman metal sign. I can't recall if he left it behind. It was a little big and unwieldy. Some of the coolest stuff are the little guys or guys you don't expect. There was a company there selling a canning system. It was one of the first ones I've seen that looked easy and was reasonably priced. Expensive as hell but that's just what those things cost. There were some yeast companies I had not yet heard of. One from the mid west was super cool. They claimed to have found brewer's yeast in some Nordic country while traveling the Earth like Kane in those Kung-Fu movies and brought it back. It is apparently super hardy and ferments clean in crazy high temperatures. I'll be buying that for sure. I saw the Brewing Network guys. Beverly was not as fat as I thought she would be. Justin is taller than I thought he would be. I shook Justin's hand and told him I enjoy the show. He said thanks for listening. I asked if it was growing old for him yet. He said no. So that's nice that the show will continue on for a bit. I also stalked Mike "Tasty" McDole and said hi. That exchange was awkward. I just wanted to say I was a fan and move on. He asked about the location of Ridgecrest and I asked how well he knows California. I asked because it makes it easy to reference Ridgecrest to other things people know. Anyhow he seemed irritated by the question. In the end I excused myself and he gave me a sticker of him. I thought it was cool. But then later it felt like I was a little kid who bothers the adults so the adults give them meaningless trinkets to get them to piss off. So not sure how I feel about it now.
At some point I bought a shirt and the water book. I wanted to meet John Palmer and get him to sign the book so I creeped around where he was supposed to be and he appeared to be a no-show so I started talking to other authors. There was the lager guy who agreed with me that lagering really doesn't add all that much to the beer. I shared with him that White Labs fermented Mexi Lager at ale temps and I sampled it in their tasting room during a beer trip and it came out clean. Then I moseyed on over to Jamil Z. and talked with him for a bit. I asked how Heretic was and if he had any regrets. He didn't answer it directly and mentioned that he is running a business now. And that if I like brewing beer, then to keep on doing what I'm doing now. I asked a little about my ester problem and he didn't immediately seem to know what it could be. He threw some things out there but nothing really resonated with me. He didn't feel like a high pH would be the reason which my most recent pH experiment sort of backs up. But one thing he did say that was super cool was the best way for him to know what it was would be for him to taste it and that he was willing to do that. So someday I plan to brew shitty beer and find Jamil wherever on the Earth he may be, and take him up on that offer. I gave up on Palmer and went to the expo for a bit and when I came back Palmer was there. But first I stopped to say hi to Chris White. He also didn't have an immediate thought to my ester problem. And he also didn't think that a high pH would be suspect. I would think of anyone, he would know. Lastly I made my way to Palmer and got him to sign the book. All the authors were chill and receptive. Palmer was the most chill. He knew about China Lake. I guess his wife worked there. He also didn't think a high pH would cause fermentation issues and didn't have any immediate thoughts on the cause. So there you go. I got three guys who are well respected all telling me not to look at pH for ester issues. Back to the drawing board I guess.
Sometime in here Jacob and I went back to the hotel to check in. They lost his luggage that we checked in earlier in the morning. I mean really. Come on. They eventually found it. Anyhow, we check out the room and empty out the swag bag a little and make it to the hotel restaurant. I had salad.
Thursday afternoon I found myself attending a session on having a bio lab in the house. It didn't seem that hard. Not sure if I would get a huge benefit with it in my beer since I just plan to buy fresh yeast every time but you never know. Maybe I could use it to check the health of my starters or something. The other session was on next level homebrewing. These were two guys that won the Ninkasi the year before. This was very satisfying to see that they weren't doing much more than I am now.
After that we went to a pizza place. I'm pretty sure stoner Tim eventually told us about it. It was good. Jacob and I split a pie. Then off to the Kickoff party. This party brought commercial breweries to us and lots of them were local. Jacob and I bounced around a little and after a while it starts to all look the same. And that's when we found them. Rosenstadt! If you're not well versed into the west coast beer scene let me educate you on what you will find. IPAs. That's really all you need to know. Oh one brewery may have a stout. One may have sour beer. I can almost guarantee they will be hopped to all hell cause that's how we do here. And I'm not hating on IPAs. I like them fine. I also like vanilla ice cream. And if every time I had dessert, I had vanilla ice cream I eventually be rolling me eyes about it. Especially if everywhere I went someone was trying to shove some of it on me. I mean how interesting can you make the same thing over and over. Rosenstadt makes traditional German beer. They brought a kolsch, a helles, and a dunkel. We tried them all. A couple of times. The tough part was figuring out where they were. They didn't have a tap room. We had to ask multiple times for some damn reason.
Anyhow Jacob and I thought it would be best to cut out early and not get after it too hard. There were still a few days left. So we got back to the room and got to bed. Next morning we found ourselves at the biscuit place for breakfast. That was awesome. We got there just in time. The other Homebrew Con folks were rolling in as we were leaving. We got back to the Convention Center for the morning sessions.
The first session of the morning that I attended was the low O2 session. I honestly thought this was going to be how to brew good beer without infusing the wort with O2. Instead it was about how to keep O2 out of beer during the brewing process. I guess hot side aeration is a thing. And these guys claim it changes the malt profile of your finished beer. It was educational. I didn't feel compelled to adopt anything there. Second thing was boiling science. The big take away on that was that you didn't need a big, open, aggressive boil to drive off DMS. DMS could get driven off by just 20-30 mins of open boil. It was more about a turbulent boil which can be achieved in other ways. Cool. Ok then we sat in the mead talk for a few minutes until Brent called. There wasn't a whole lot to this. Folks who made mead gave us mead to drink and talked about it a bit. Mead is about to be a thing. Mark my words. I'm putting that out there right now. Wanna make a shit ton of money? Start a meadery. I'm serious. It's about to explode. If I wasn't so risk adverse I'd do it tomorrow. On a more practical note, I'll make more mead and enter into competitions.
Then Brent called. He is still driving the same Subaru as when I saw him last. It is on its last leg. Brent drove us to a parking lot downtown and we went to sushi. Here's a pic of us at sushi:
We had a great time catching up. I miss him. This guy hasn't changed. Not a bit. I got worried at some point that Jacob was not involved and maybe felt left out and I felt bad about that since the next hour was just me and Brent chatting it up. He later told me it was cool and he had fun. He may have just been nice. Who knows. After this we went to Ground Kontrol. It's an old school arcade with a bar. If I was in Portland all alone and nothing else to do and no one else to hang with, this is where I would spend my entire day. It was so fun! After that, I made the decision to hit up the location of the Rosensadt beer. I didn't even really bounce this off of Jacob. I just decided that we were doing it! If Jacob is reading this now or ever, hope you didn't mind bro. I got Brent to drive us there and wasn't sure if he was going to hang with us or drop us off and was happy to hear that was going to hang for a bit. We walked on over to said establishment and drank German beer all afternoon chatting the day away. It was seriously one of the best afternoons I've ever had. Drinking good beer with a couple of bros on a beautiful day chatting about whatever came to mind. I had a sampler:
We found our way to another place for food about a block away. I think the guys may have had more beer but I was getting a little drunk and decided to abstain. I did eat meat pie. Then Brent drove us back to the Convention Center and we said our goodbyes. It honestly hurt a little. I know I may never see him again. Not that he's dead or anything. It's just that life happens and I'm probably never making it to Portland again. He's not making to Ridgecrest even though he said he might. Why would he? Although if this is the last time I ever see Brent this was the best memory I'll ever have of us. And that gives me a kind of joy that makes me all teary eyed as I type this now. I hope it's the same for him.
Everyone I talked to I asked what is the one thing I shouldn't miss. They all said the same thing. Club Night. Brent dropped us off just in time. We make our way in and start checking it out. Right outside of the entrance we stopped at the restroom and ran into Palmer again. I shouted at him (as drunk me might do). I think Jacob found it a little endearing. We chatted him up a bit. Anyway, Club Night! It's just a bunch of homebrew clubs pouring their beer. This was valuable in that I tasted the best beer these clubs had to offer and felt a little vindication. My beer is just as good as all this beer. Maybe I will make a run at this competition some year. I retired early. I guess I just went after it a little too hard with Brent and Jacob. I thought sleep was probably the best thing for me. I went back to the room and went to be bed. Oh, I hit up that burger joint on the way. Jacob stayed. I asked if I missed anything and he said no. But he did drink more at the hotel bar and talk to some people.
Saturday morning! Jacob doesn't look good. He's hung over. But he woke up and ran! WTF! We get some breakfast at the hotel downstairs. I thought he might puke. We get to the Convention Center and he hit up the expo to hopefully find beer and drink his way back to life. Which he did. We got there a little late and so missed the first round of sessions. I made it to the second of the morning which was the water talk by Palmer. He really simplified water in brewing. This was the one talk I actually feel like I'm going to incorporate some of into my current brewing process. So from that perspective, it was the best. From another perspective, that of being the most enjoyable, the next session was the best. Ken Grossman is the Sierra Nevada brewing guy. He recounted his tale of becoming a pro brewer. It seemed like it sucked really, really bad. I was extremely impressed by the guts and grit this man had to overcome all the obstacles he came up against. His drive and passion was infectious. He had no money. I never heard him bitch or moan about his situation. Just factually what the situation was and what he had to do. Something he touched on in the Q&A was that he must have had no time for friends or family. His wife and kids would have been strangers to him. I'm surprised she stayed married to him. He told a story about him and his adult son riding a bike race together a few years back. So clearly his son doesn't hate him. He has become "successful" but what did it cost him? I think this is the other barrier I have in life concerning starting a business. Not only am I risk adverse but I want balance in my life.
Then I found my way to some food downstairs and went to the expo for a bit. I linked up with Jacob at some point and we killed time until we got to the awards ceremony. That's what we're here for! Here's us waiting for the results:
He didn't medal in anything. I could tell he was bummed out. He really wanted some hardware. The event wasn't even half done before he wanted to bail. I said sure and we found our way to the knockout party. What's the beer at the knockout party? All the homebrew beer from the competition. That was cool. We drank a little. We ate a little (they had salmon). Then I went back to the room. He stayed for a bit. Once he got back to the room, we went out for some ramen. It was good. Then we went to sleep.
Next morning we get some breakfast at the hotel, get packed, and take the light rail to the airport. Tim was enough. TSA took Jacob's malt extract. Come one TSA enough already. Go away. Are you really keeping me safe. Or are you just an allusion of safety to appease to masses? We got through security and I had some craft spirits at the terminal. And some Dramamine so life was real good. I think we even got sandwiches. Then we got on the plane and sat together in the emergency isle.
Once in Vegas we got to the truck no problem and elected to drive home via Death Valley. This was a first for me. Happy I did it. Maybe never again.
Once I got home I hopped on the scale and found that I was 12lbs heavier than when I left. If you don't know me, I eat pretty clean and workout a lot. So it doesn't take much for the scale to move up. Most of that was water weight from the salty food and salty Pedialyte packets I was jamming down. 8lbs of that that was back off in two days. Anyhow, that's my first Homebrew Conference. I'm glad I went. Not sure if I'd go again. Thanks to Jacob!
