Historic Water
The range and variety of beer styles from around the world were in large part the products of the local water they were brewed with. The local water chemistry made some styles more suitable for brewing or the water enhanced beer flavor. Unfortunately, some brewers make the mistake of trying…
Hop Growing 101: An Introduction for Everyone, Including Non-Gardeners
The goal of this seminar is to demystify hop growing and give participants the knowledge and confidence to grow their own. While there is a lot of information online about growing hops, it is scattered. The seminar will offer one-stop-shopping for anyone contemplating growing hops. This talk is suitable for…
Hops vs. Malt: A Smackdown with Cheese
Two brews go mano a mano in this tasting, competing for your vote. In the ring: a hoppy ale and a malt-focused brew. On the plate: five artisan cheeses. Guided by Cheese & Beer author Janet Fletcher, you’ll learn to identify the cheese styles that respond better to hoppy beers…
How to Improve Club Events and Empower Leaders
There is a lot of good homebrewing talent out there, but more often than not, those organizing events have difficulty tapping into it. This session aims to empower club leaders, elected or otherwise, with tools to make their events successful. We'll talk about classic pitfalls, the fear of failing in…
It’s Not Done ’til it’s Done: Post-Fermentation Mead Tweaks
Mead fermentation can be unpredictable, especially with unusual ingredients. At the end of primary fermentation you may be left with a problematic beverage. Learn techniques you can employ to deal with those issues and transform a lifeless mead into something enjoyable.
Mastering Mead
An engaging discussion on mastering the mead making process, from the perspective of a homebrewer gone professional. Learn how Michael Fairbrother formulates new recipes and refines the basic elements, and what's involved to make great mead time and time again. This presentation will include a sampling of several of meads…
Mead and Chocolate: Experience Excellence
Join Berniece Van Der Berg of Moonlight Meadery for an overview of mead and chocolate pairings—samples included. Learn about taste perception, flavor hooks, and why mead works so well with a wide range of chocolates.
Methods of Creating and Maintaining a Wild House Culture
This presentation aims to help homebrewers create unique, complex and enjoyable beers using a house culture—a cocktail of non-traditional yeasts and bacteria from any number of sources. Several methods of creating and maintaining house cultures will be discussed and compared, each of which has been developed to make brewing with…
Practical Malting
Craft malting is emerging as an industry that directly supports craft brewers and homebrewers. Andrea and Christian Stanley from Valley Malt discuss what motivated them to start a malt house in Massachusetts and share their equipment and process. Many homebrewers possess an inherent DIY attitude toward their craft. Andrea will…
Process Improvement and Beer Enhancement: The Nano Experience
This seminar will address several topics of interest for advanced homebrewers, nano brewers and those pondering going pro at the nanobrewery level. In August 2012, the partners who own and operate Market Garden Brewery in Cleveland opened a new concept called Nano Brew Cleveland—a 24 tap beer bar and brewpub…
Serving With Style
The time has come. You have been honing your brewing craft, reading Palmer, Noonan and Zainasheff. You have tweaked your brews, entered the competitions to get guidance and pored through the forums. After brewing your best stuff, controlling your fermentation, lagering and aging, you are about to serve your pride…
Stand on Your Two Brewing Feet
Join George Hummel, author of The Complete Homebrew Beer Book and Mid-Atlantic Brewing News’ homebrew columnist, as he illustrates taking the next steps from beginner brewing. Drawing on almost 30 years of brewing experience, he’ll show how to extract the most flavors from malt extract-based beers. Leveraging the vast array…
Step Up Your Starters: Insight into Yeast Propagation for Homebrewers
This presentation, intended for advanced homebrewers, will not be your ordinary talk about making yeast starters and how they can improve your beer. Drawing on research in yeast growth and fermentation performance , this seminar will provide insight into how yeast grows and what affects yeast growth and health in…
Stepping Up Your Sensory Game: How to Be a Better Taster
The necessity of being able to accurately describe your beer, whether you’re a judge or simply an aficionado, cannot be overstated. As the community continues to grow exponentially, homebrewing competitions are popping up around the globe, requiring more and more qualified judges. We will discuss topics including the identification of…
The Science of Beer Flavor
Join West Chester University Chemistry professor Dr. Roger Barth as he discusses the science behind what you taste when having your favorite brew. In this presentation, Roger breaks down what the anatomy of flavor really is, from taste and aroma to the mouthfeel and flavor threshold of your beer. Go…
Waste Not, Want Not: Sustainable and Frugal Homebrewing
The intent of this seminar is to show varying sustainable brewing concepts for water use, chilling, heating and energy recovery, ingredient sourcing and waste disposal. The pros do this to maximize profits; homebrewers can do it to have more money to buy ingredients and beer, and lessen impact on the…
Yeast Culturing 101
A brief history of yeast and yeast culturing will be presented, as well as a host of information detailing how the average homebrewer can accomplish this task at home using a few different methods. Topics covered include making slants, starters, washing and growing yeast to pitchable rates. Methods for storage…
2012 Keynote Speaker
2012 National Homebrewers Conference Keynote
A Perspective on Brewing Berliner Weisse-style Beer… with Beer!
Berliner Weisse can be a tough beer to produce. This presentation will cover the process the speakers have examined over the years and also provide a practical description of how they brewed and fermented this beer at a 7 bbl brewery.
AHA Members Meeting
Back in Control: Using Electric Immersion Heating to Save Time and Add Fun to Your Brew Day
What if your brewing system could provide instant, on-demand hot liquor, precise, rapid step mashing and responsive boil control with no more boil-overs? Using diagrams, schematics and photos of an operating electric brewing system, Joe will walk you through (or talk you out of) the process of building a safe…
Beer in the USSR
Ali will take you on a journey from a small number of early, surprising and distinct styles in the 1920s and 1930s to a Cold War Era replete with beer (some of which survives today) with influences from across Europe but adapted to the Soviet Union, complete with well-defined style…
Beer Tasting
In this seminar, Ted will explore the nuances of tasting beer, the wide range of perceivable flavors, how to taste and ways to improve your tasting ability.
Brew in a Bag
A discussion of the brew in a bag brewing method, its advantages and how to use it to brew all-grain beer.
Brewgyvering Your Brew Day
Kent discusses how to build gadgets to make your brew day easier and serving your brew more fun! This talk covers automatic HLT temp control, the easy way to mash in big batches without help, brew rig frame construction, continuous hop feeding, making a Randall, and more!
Brewing Beer with Fresh Hops
What are fresh hop beers and how can they be brewed? Jamie will discuss the many aspects of this under-researched topic, how to use fresh hops, what to look for, preparing for the brew day and many other topics related to this wonderful annual tradition.
Brewing Better Beer: Practical Applications
Join author Gordon Strong as he discusses how to apply favorite reader tips from Brewing Better Beer. Understand the decisions and reasoning used to create two new all-grain recipes. Learn the approach, not just the recipes, as you see how your target beer preferences affect the decisions you make throughout…
Brewing on the Ones
Homebrewers today are lucky! We're awash in a sea of ingredients, making recipe design a tough battle between ingredients we know and trust and new shiny toys. Sometimes we even give in to our neophilic lust and throw it all in the mix. But it doesn't have to be that…
Brewing Techniques for Historical IPA
India Pale Ale has gone through several stylistic revisions in its 250 years of existence. In this presentation, a brief summary of the history of IPA will be reviewed, along with two complete recipes taken from brewlogs from the 1800s and one more recent recipe. The recipes will be compared…
Cider Loves Beer
The cider renaissance is directly related to the beer industry's phenomenal growth. Beer drinkers and brewers that are discovering cider. Ron Irvine, lecturer and cidermaker, teams up with cider maker and consultant Drew Zimmerman to explain the role of cider apples in producing traditional cider.
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