| Wednesday, June 10, 2015 |
My alarm was set to wake me up at 5:30am. I was up at 5:15, naturally, excited to hit the road. Brewing buddies Matt Humann and Aaron Collier arrived an hour later, and after some goodbyes, we were on our way to our first destination: Brülosophy contributor Ray Found’s house.
While Ray was unable to make it to NHC this year due to paternal obligations, he invited us to stop by on our way down to San Diego to check out his new digs in Corona, CA. Perhaps predictably, this included participation in a new xBmt (for Matt and Aaron) he’s working on, then we shared a bottle of Partial Eclipse, a phenomenal dark sour made by fellow beta tester for The Yeast Bay, Brian Hall, from the Brouwerij-Chugach blog. We hung out for about an hour before mounting up and heading to our next stop.
We arrived at the White Labs Tasting Room just before 1:00pm, planning to connect with a family friend of mine who lives in the area. To my surprise, a bunch of rad homebrew folk happened to be there at the same time. We chatted with American Sour Beers author Mike Tonsmeier of The Mad Fermentationist blog, creator of the best refractometer calculator on earth, Sean Terrill, and the Basic Brewing Radio crew. Within the hour, we were met by Brülosophy contributor Malcolm Frazer, Eric Cousineau of the Eric Brews blog and his awesome wife, Derek Springer from the Five Blades Brewing blog, and a few other cool people. A couple flights and a facility tour later, it was time to head to the hotel to check-in and register.
Most of the aforementioned group had purchased VIP tickets to The Brewing Network’s 10th anniversary party, aka BNA10, which was also a celebration of White Labs’ 20th anniversary. After checking into the hotel, we had some time before the shuttles arrived, so we shared a growler of Ray’s delicious IIPA with Chip Walton, mastermind behind Chop & Brew. Such a cool guy!
The time had come to go to our first real function, BNA10. We loaded the bus where I met a surprising number of really cool people I’d only ever known by their online monikers. Good conversation was certainly had. Once at the site of the party and the doors opened, we began drinking samples of beer from some incredible commercial breweries including The Rare Barrel, Russian River, Rip Current, and a whole host of others. A particular favorite of mine was Bagby Brewing’s Kölsch… glass after glass after glass of that stuff. Live bands, endless beer, and really cool people. It was a fantastic time!
I caught up with John Palmer, one of my brewing idols, and talked for a bit about how water adjustments have such a huge impact on beer flavor. I’d heard he was a nice guy, I learned last night this is a huge understatement.
The party ended and we shuttled back to the hotel where a small group of us attempted to go swimming. The water was too cold for me, though our friends from the Great White North found it to be nice.
We headed back to the room around midnight and crashed, the only responsible thing to do given the agenda for the next day. After about 7 hours of much needed sleep, I awoke, head throbbing as expected, and headed to breakfast with Matt, where I’m typing this now, hoping a full belly and 3rd cup of coffee soothe my battered liver.
The plan for today includes xBmt data collection, attending a couple seminars, Milk the Funk meet-up, and recording an episode of Basic Brewing Radio. Stay tuned for more updates. Cheers!
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10 thoughts on “NHC 2015: Day 1 | And so it began…”
Jealous.
That’s awesome. All the big shots in one place!
Looks like a great time. Stay hydrated!
While you’re down there, if you have time, check out 2Kids Brewing (right down the street from White Labs). They specialize in a lot of malt-forward, sessionable beers. I’ve been really impressed every time I’ve visited.
Good on you – I’ll be there next year for sure. Let us know if it’s possible to drink too much beer.
Awesome to finally meet you in person Marshall! The pool wasn’t that cold…
An awful lot of selfies; you were afraid we would forget your smooshy face? 🙂
????
You need to get Chip to do a Brulosophy episode of Chop & Brew.
He probably first needs to recover from the molestation treatment I gave him on the bus after BNA10…