Ale Street News Online

A phenomenal three-pronged sword, this year’s Brewers Association Craft Brewers’ Conference, BrewExpoAmerica and 2008 World Beer Cup offered a huge array of events.

Brewers from 58 countries filled San Diego’s Town and Country Resort in mid-April for three and a half days of camaraderie, business and rip-roaring celebration of brewing by and for craft brewers.

Opening night at Stone Brewing Co.’s completed facility offered an expanded list of Stone beers and featured guest beers from other local legends such as Alesmith, Pizza Port, Russian River and more. Brewers wandered about the lush gardens facing the restaurant, behind which towers the new brew plant. Old friends and new acquaintances, well-met in the half light of tall gas torches, grabbed a taste and a bite from seemingly random kiosks, then repaired back to the main bar for music, more beer and a stroll between the gleaming tanks. This is craft brewing on its day off.

For a late finish (four nights of it in fact), Town and Country hosted the California Brewers Pavilion between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., offering 100 different libations for delectation including Surf’s Up Symposium IPA from Green Flash (Festival Beer), Alpine Pure Hoppiness, Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme, Sierra Nevada Chico Double IPA, and the list never seemed to end.

Next morning held the Welcome from Charlie Papazian, State of the Craft Brewing Industry from Paul Gatza, and then the Brewers Association Awards: BA Recognition Award (to Dr. Richard Lewis, Prof. Emeritus of Brewing Sciences, UC Davis), the Russell Scherer Award for Innovation in Brewing (Vinnie Cilurzo, Russian River Brewing Co.), and the F.X. Matt Defense of the Industry Award (John Carlson, Exec. Dir., Colorado Brewers Guild).

Keynote speaker Richard Doyle, President/CEO of Harpoon Brewing, argued for opportunities to educate wholesalers, build stronger political relationships ("outgunned politically…, we’re treated like kids at the grownups’ table: to be sent home when decision making starts"), and face the challenge of exporting innovation, shortening expiration dates and pulling old beer from shelves. He finished with a plea to educate teenagers ("different states, different solutions") so a kid’s first beer is with his dad, not sneaked at the back of the garage with his pals.

Thus began two days of BrewExpoAmerica, our pre-eminent industry trade show and three days of BA pro seminars. BrewExpo featured, along with the expected malt, hops and yeast tables: tanks and tuns, vessels and fittings for fermentation, clarification, filtration, and flash pasteurization; glycol chillers, counter-fillers, keg cleaners, line cleaners; flip-top bottles and snap-on taps; half barrels, quarter barrels, firkins, pins. Buy your keg, wash it, sterilize it, fill it, insure it, ship it and replace it without ever leaving the room, to the fluorescent glow of your own logo reflected off the brim of your very own hat. You could even take home a small brewing plant. And, of course, you must keep cool at no fewer than six scattered drink stations, one of them devoted entirely to craft beer in cans. And if you’d done all that, there were local brewery tours.

In counterpoint to buying, selling and speculating in the Expo hall, 40 BA Seminars covered a vast diversity of topics, from Brewery Management and Marketing to Brewery Operations, from Technical Brewing to Beer and Health. For example: Brewing Weissbier from Hans-Peter Drexler of G. Schneider and Sohn; Federal Compliance Training for the Brewing Industry with Charlie Tull, US Tax and Trade Bureau; Building the Correct Lab with Mike Joyce of Coors and Ruth Martin of Sierra Nevada; Bottle Conditioning with Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver; and on to Hop Aroma Fingerprinting, Beyond Lovibond (Understanding Beer Color); and Hop and Malt Supply panels.

All throughout, familiar figures moved by in a haze: Charlie Papazian, Ray Daniels, Sebbie Buhler, Chris Black, Carol and Ed Stoudt. And Saturday’s seminars culminated in the Beer and Food Pairing Panel, where authors Garrett Oliver and Lucy Saunders and Chef Rick Martin of Free State Brewing revealed the menu for that evening’s 25th World Beer Cup Awards Dinner.

Here winners from 2006 were paired with Chef Bruce Paton’s gourmet dishes prepared by Town and Country Chef Josh Philips. Uinta Cutthroat Ale supported the significant heat of chipotle salsa with duck; the honey in Dogfish Midas Touch complemented blood orange vinaigrette over sweet day boat scallops; the extra hops in Green Flash Nut Brown picked up on a Belgian Dubbel reduction over pork loin; and (not too sweet) chocolate bread pudding with balsamic-accented compote of fresh berries were a perfect marriage with Ommegang Three Philosophers.