Homebrewers Association | AHA Forum
General Category => Events => Topic started by: denny on May 06, 2015, 09:29:28 PM
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Matt is working on a time and place where we can meet up at NHC. Keep checking this thread for developments.
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Boom!
Thank you Denny.
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Always fun, and I hope that I can remember who I talked to last year. It was a little hazy,if you know what I mean!
Please don't be shy, come up and talk to anyone you think you connect to on the forum. We all are homebrewers and it has been fun putting the names, internet names, and such together.
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Sweet!
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I support this.
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Might be one of the biggest reasons to go! I'll be there next year!
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Wait. I am? J/K
First time at NHC. Really looking forward to meeting everyone... 'cept maybe Marshall who may or may not be holding some oxidized beer I made.
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Wait. I am? J/K
First time at NHC. Really looking forward to meeting everyone... 'cept maybe Marshall who may or may not be holding some oxidized beer I made.
Funny stuff mchrispen
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Looking forward to it. This will be my first NHC.
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Wait. I am? J/K
First time at NHC. Really looking forward to meeting everyone... 'cept maybe Marshall who may or may not be holding some oxidized beer I made.
Shall I taste them tonight or wait for the weekend and share them with friends? Hmm...
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I was great last year meeting everyone and I hope this tradition continues and grows year to year so it becomes a recognized event at NHC.
Hopefully I'll make the one next year (where ever that may be) and it will be close enough so I can bring some homebrew to share.
Have fun and take pictures!
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I'm ready to rock out with my... bock out...
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Meetup will be Fri. from 11:15AM-12:15 PM. I'll post the room ASAP!
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Slightly OT, but I redid the conference seminar sheet I made last year for our club members. If it is of help to you guys, go ahead and use it.
Organized by day, time, with seminar descriptions and rooms in the comments of the cell. Italics means that the seminar is repeated at another time during the conference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-LTsieC1oCbGo1aGxHRk0yUlE/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-LTsieC1oCbGo1aGxHRk0yUlE/view?usp=sharing)
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Slightly OT, but I redid the conference seminar sheet I made last year for our club members. If it is of help to you guys, go ahead and use it.
Organized by day, time, with seminar descriptions and rooms in the comments of the cell. Italics means that the seminar is repeated at another time during the conference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-LTsieC1oCbGo1aGxHRk0yUlE/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-LTsieC1oCbGo1aGxHRk0yUlE/view?usp=sharing)
This is fantastic, I'll definitely be printing it out. Thank you!
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Meetup will be Fri. from 11:15AM-12:15 PM. I'll post the room ASAP!
We'll be in the San Diego room. That means that we will be able to share homebrew but not commercial beer. Due to CA laws, the AHA needs to maintain a strict separation. Is that OK with everyone, or would you rather be in a room with commercial beer but no homebrew? You have until the end of the week to register your opinion so Matt and I can decide. There will be blank nametages so you can wrote your forum handle on them to ID yourself. Anything else we need?
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Meetup will be Fri. from 11:15AM-12:15 PM. I'll post the room ASAP!
There will be blank nametages so you can wrote your forum handle on them to OD yourself.
;D
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We'll be in the San Diego room. That means that we will be able to share homebrew but not commercial beer. Due to CA laws, the AHA needs to maintain a strict separation.
I'm fine with that for the forum meetup, but really confused as to how that's going to work for seminars and the banquet.
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Meetup will be Fri. from 11:15AM-12:15 PM. I'll post the room ASAP!
There will be blank nametages so you can wrote your forum handle on them to OD yourself.
;D
HAHAHAHA! Corrected!
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We'll be in the San Diego room. That means that we will be able to share homebrew but not commercial beer. Due to CA laws, the AHA needs to maintain a strict separation.
I'm fine with that for the forum meetup, but really confused as to how that's going to work for seminars and the banquet.
AFAIK, most seminar rooms will be commercial only and seminars that serve homebrew will be in SD room. No idea how that's gonna work for the banquet.
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AFAIK, most seminar rooms will be commercial only and seminars that serve homebrew will be in SD room. No idea how that's gonna work for the banquet.
So, they're going to tell people not to share homebrew during seminars in the 'commercial' rooms?
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AFAIK, most seminar rooms will be commercial only and seminars that serve homebrew will be in SD room. No idea how that's gonna work for the banquet.
So, they're going to tell people not to share homebrew during seminars in the 'commercial' rooms?
Most likely have security at the front door. Does the CA law allow them to bring their own commercial beer into the banquet or does it need to be served by the resort? We used to argue with guests about that when I worked in the MA hotel business years ago.
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There are 50 states, 50 sets of alcohol laws. The AHA needs to make the rules clear to the Conference attendees so it is understood upfront.
The banquet will have beers on the table from Sam Adams (if sponsoring again this year), so that will be a commercial beer venue.
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We'll be in the San Diego room. That means that we will be able to share homebrew but not commercial beer. Due to CA laws, the AHA needs to maintain a strict separation.
I'm fine with that for the forum meetup, but really confused as to how that's going to work for seminars and the banquet.
I believe the seminars are on lunch break at that time.
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There are 50 states, 50 sets of alcohol laws. The AHA needs to make the rules clear to the Conference attendees so it is understood upfront.
The banquet will have beers on the table from Sam Adams (if sponsoring again this year), so that will be a commercial beer venue.
Even though there are 50 states, I'm willing to bet there are at least 55-60 sets of alcohol laws.
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I believe the seminars are on lunch break at that time.
I was referring to the practice of people bringing homebrew to seminars and the banquet for impromptu sharing. It was completely normal last year. There was a mix of commercial and homebrew being shared at our table at the banquet. If this isn't legally allowed in CA, I expect that's the law that was being mentioned as a hurdle that still had to be jumped to be able to hold NHC in San Diego this year.
Even though there are 50 states, I'm willing to bet there are at least 55-60 sets of alcohol laws.
Honestly, there are going to be a lot more than that. Generally speaking, there are federal and state laws which will get you to 51. That's not even considering the local laws in states like mine, where there are dry and wet parishes/counties as well as lots of other local restrictions like blue laws restricting things further.
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Yeah, the Federal laws, and DC which is sort of the Wild West.
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I'm gonna go rogue here with my thoughts. This is the American HOMEBREWERS Association. It's the National HOMEBREW Conference. If there's a conflict between homebrew and commercial beer, 86 the commercial beer. I can live without it. I'm there for the homebrew, after all. I realize this viewpoint won't be widely shared and sure, like everybody else I'd love to have both. But if having commercial beer is gonna limit access to homebrew, ditch the commercial beer.
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I'm gonna go rogue here with my thoughts. This is the American HOMEBREWERS Association. It's the National HOMEBREW Conference. If there's a conflict between homebrew and commercial beer, 86 the commercial beer. I can live without it. I'm there for the homebrew, after all. I realize this viewpoint won't be widely shared and sure, like everybody else I'd love to have both. But if having commercial beer is gonna limit access to homebrew, ditch the commercial beer.
Brilliant! If I were going, I'd say double hell ya!
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Point of fact: Rogue is a commercial brewer. ;)
That being said, yeah. If I can't share homebrew at a homebrewers conference seminar, what's the floccing point?
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I'm gonna go rogue here with my thoughts. This is the American HOMEBREWERS Association. It's the National HOMEBREW Conference. If there's a conflict between homebrew and commercial beer, 86 the commercial beer. I can live without it. I'm there for the homebrew, after all. I realize this viewpoint won't be widely shared and sure, like everybody else I'd love to have both. But if having commercial beer is gonna limit access to homebrew, ditch the commercial beer.
Hell yes! 100% this! A resounding AMEN!!
If my opinion isn't clear, I vote for homebrew over commercial.
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This will be my first NHC. Will most people be bringing homebrew, or just those that drive in? I've flown with wine bottles and both times there were broken bottles >:( . So I've been thinking I wouldn't be bringing any. Is there something I am missing?
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I'm gonna go rogue here with my thoughts. This is the American HOMEBREWERS Association. It's the National HOMEBREW Conference. If there's a conflict between homebrew and commercial beer, 86 the commercial beer. I can live without it. I'm there for the homebrew, after all. I realize this viewpoint won't be widely shared and sure, like everybody else I'd love to have both. But if having commercial beer is gonna limit access to homebrew, ditch the commercial beer.
Hell yes! 100% this! A resounding AMEN!!
If my opinion isn't clear, I vote for homebrew over commercial.
Amen!! 100% agreed Denny & Marshall.
If we can't have homebrew at the homebrewers conference, I won't be going back in 2016. The best part about many things is the homebrew. The best part about the banquet is the homebrew. I will not be happy if I can't sit with my Iowa/Minnesota/Oklahoma/Nebraska friends at the banquet and drink glorious homebrewed ciders/meads/beers.
I hope this is cleared up ASAP.
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Yes! There will be homebrew. Its just that we are seeing another case of alcohol law dumb-assery. We can't mix the two classes of beer.
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We can't mix the two classes of beer.
So how does this work for the banquet? Right now I am imagining that there is no beer-sharing in the line to get in and there are security guards at the doors to take away our homebrew.
Mr. Glass? Care to weigh in?
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Yes! There will be homebrew. Its just that we are seeing another case of alcohol law dumb-assery. We can't mix the two classes of beer.
It's dumbfounding, the amount of dumb-assery...
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I hope the laws for venue next year aren't this screwed up. Where is that going to be again? ;)
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I hope the laws for venue next year aren't this screwed up. Where is that going to be again? ;)
Mars?
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I hope the laws for venue next year aren't this screwed up. Where is that going to be again? ;)
Mars?
Well damn...I better leave now to make it on time. :)
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Everyone please keep in mind that I was just expressing a fever-driven opinion. As much as I'd like it to be that way, it really isn't practical. How could enough homebrew for the banquet be produced? There really is no choice but to have commercial beer and I'm grateful for the brewery sponsorships. However, that doesn't change my feelings about the fact that this is a homebrew conference and there shouldn't be limitations on bring the beer we make and that are the basis of the existence of the AHA. So, maybe the solution is we don't return the conference to CA until things change?
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Here's my reasoning on all of this:
It sucks if we can't have homebrew in the banquet. Hopefully there are ways zoning and licensing and the rest can be swung to work.
After last year's fight to get homebrew at a "festival" event legalized, the AHA sure as hell can't thumb their nose at the rules laid down by the legislature and hope to ever get anything passed in the state again.
Want to know who's to blame? After all - the ABC really couldn't care less about homebrewers in general. We're not a big enough potential issue to worry about with all the other crap they have to deal with in our state. But you know who they deal with when they do deal with homebrewers? The guys who are pretending to be commercial breweries and pouring at a beer festival or bar. Maybe their local really loves their beer and wants to put it on tap - doesn't matter, it's a no-no. Maybe they're in the midst of a kickstarter campaign to open a brewery and what better way can there be to drum up funds than through a festival tasting? Still really doesn't matter. But those are the two classes of homebrewers that the ABC deals with on a semi-regular basis. Hence the explicit stipulations in the law concerning separating homebrew from commercial beer. Normally for a day long beer festival, not a big deal - the conference is it's own special beast with extra complications.
Still sucks though.
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Here's my reasoning on all of this:
It sucks if we can't have homebrew in the banquet. Hopefully there are ways zoning and licensing and the rest can be swung to work.
After last year's fight to get homebrew at a "festival" event legalized, the AHA sure as hell can't thumb their nose at the rules laid down by the legislature and hope to ever get anything passed in the state again.
Want to know who's to blame? After all - the ABC really couldn't care less about homebrewers in general. We're not a big enough potential issue to worry about with all the other crap they have to deal with in our state. But you know who they deal with when they do deal with homebrewers? The guys who are pretending to be commercial breweries and pouring at a beer festival or bar. Maybe their local really loves their beer and wants to put it on tap - doesn't matter, it's a no-no. Maybe they're in the midst of a kickstarter campaign to open a brewery and what better way can there be to drum up funds than through a festival tasting? Still really doesn't matter. But those are the two classes of homebrewers that the ABC deals with on a semi-regular basis. Hence the explicit stipulations in the law concerning separating homebrew from commercial beer. Normally for a day long beer festival, not a big deal - the conference is it's own special beast with extra complications.
Still sucks though.
Thanks for the background info. Have any of those types you mentioned gotten their hands slapped for those actions? Curious due to some local thing that are borderline.
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Thanks for the background info. Have any of those types you mentioned gotten their hands slapped for those actions? Curious due to some local thing that are borderline.
Nary a clue. Just know the CA ABC has a real jaundiced view of homebrewers due to what makes up the majority of their interactions.
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Of course, it's obvious that that AHA did not cause the situation with the law. The law is what it is and we have to comply. But I would hope that in the future more consideration would be given to something like this when selecting a conference site. I fully realize that due to the growing size of the conference there are increasingly limited choices about where it can be held. But I hope that accessibility of homebrew becomes a more major concern in the future. And I can say that because I'm not on the GC any more and YOU guys have to deal with it! :)
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There will be blank nametages so you can wrote your forum handle on them to ID yourself.
I was actually planning on wearing one of those all weekend, since I will know absolutely no one by sight (well, other than you and Drew perhaps).
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Just curious, the conference was in San Diego a few years ago (was unable to make that one). Have the CA beer laws changed since then to cause this sticky commercial/homebrew situation? I will be at this year's conference and forum meet-up, BTW. I hope some sort of compromise can be worked out.
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Just curious, the conference was in San Diego a few years ago (was unable to make that one). Have the CA beer laws changed since then to cause this sticky commercial/homebrew situation? I will be at this year's conference and forum meet-up, BTW. I hope some sort of compromise can be worked out.
Yeah, the laws have changed. And in fairness to the AHA, I have discovered that this law was implemented after the conference had been booked. I should have known better, huh? I let my fever (Brazilian crud) and prejudices (favoring homebrew over commercial beer) cloud my thinking. It's an unfortunate situation this year that we'll all deal with one way or another and hope that it doesn't happen in the future.
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Yup. Laws have changed.
What happened was two years ago a non-profit group (non-beer or wine affliated) up in the Bay Area decided to check with the CA ABC to make sure they were in the clear to auction off homemade beer and wine from members at a charity auction to benefit Firefighters. The ABC said "wha? no, that's an illegal sale of an unsaleable product". So, the group worked with the CA Legislature to change the law and make it allowable for the benefit of a non-profit to auction/offer your beer to members of the organization/event.
Problem is - the law that got passed explicitly forbade organizations mostly made up of homebrewers or for the promotion of homebrewing from taking advantage of the new law. It was, in effect, to prevent someone from setting up a non-profit like "Drew's Cure for His Wallet" and then selling my homebrew via the law as a loophole to avoid all the commercial controls on brewing.
So - that killed the Southern California Homebrewer's Festival because the ABC said "nope, you're a homebrewing organization and this would be a felony." (Seriously, criminal charges were threatened.)They had been looking for a reason to shut down the fest because it rubbed someone the wrong way. It would have shut down the AHA conference as well. The ABC also clarified that to their interpretation of the law - these events would have always been illegal, they just hadn't commented on it before.
New law passed last year - allows homebrew orgs to host festivals and tastings, etc with some restrictions - largely around clear separation and labelling of homebrew from commercial brews.
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Homebrew will be plentiful at the National Homebrewers Conference!
We do have to deal with an unfortunate law that was passed after we booked the conference, but it's not a huge issue, and I still think that San Diego is a great place to host the National Homebrewers Conference.
The legal issue is that homebrew and commercially produced beer cannot be served in the same place. Either can be consumed anywhere within the conference. For the Homebrew Expo, half the hall will be dedicated to vendors serving professionally brewed craft beer, the other half will house the Social Club and vendors serving homebrew. You can walk between them with beer in your glass no problem, it's just a matter of what gets serve where.
Likewise with seminars, we will have seminar rooms where homebrew will be served and other rooms where commercially-made craft beer will be served. What is in your glass when you walk into those rooms is your business.
We are looking into the situation for the banquet. As Denny mentioned, there's no way we can manage a multi-course beer paired meal for 1600+ people solely with homebrew. With Lagunitas sponsoring this year's conference I'm confident there will be great tasting beer served during the banquet. While I am doubtful that California ABC will be amenable, we are looking into whether attendees bringing their own beers to share with their friends (i.e. not serving to random attendees as with Club Night) during the banquet is okay.
Every state has laws that create challenges for hosting a conference that is all about beer and where both commercially made beer and homebrew are served. No state will allow us to do everything we'd like to do if we could. We can deal with that.
Seriously, San Diego is going to be awesome. The logistical issues we have to deal with due to California law will be minor and I really don't expect it to have much if any impact on the great time attendees are going to have at the conference.
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I've not been to NHC yet. Are the commercial beers for sale? Or do the breweries just give it away?
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Yes! There will be homebrew. Its just that we are seeing another case of alcohol law dumb-assery.
My impression as an outsider is that by California standards, this legal dumb-assery is fairly benign.
I've not been to NHC yet. Are the commercial beers for sale? Or do the breweries just give it away?
There hasn't been beer for sale at any of the conferences I've been to.
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gonna bottle some stuff in still-labelled Undercover Shutdown bottles.
"that's weird; I'm not sure why these caps are gold either" ;D
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Problem is - the law that got passed explicitly forbade organizations mostly made up of homebrewers or for the promotion of homebrewing from taking advantage of the new law. It was, in effect, to prevent someone from setting up a non-profit like "Drew's Cure for His Wallet" and then selling my homebrew via the law as a loophole to avoid all the commercial controls on brewing.
The "Drew's Cure for His Wallet" charity isn't any more ludicrous that the Patriot fans's GoFundMe campaign to pay off the team's Deflate-Gate fine.
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Makes you wonder if at some point there will be folks sitting around firing up the bong and commenting on the sketchy dude with the pager who is obviously trying to score a 12er of home brewed RIS
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
Old is the new cool!
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Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
Speak for yourself! Where's my AARP card? :P
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
Old is the new cool!
And here's proof!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toasMKQ5ivc&feature=player_embedded (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toasMKQ5ivc&feature=player_embedded)
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
Old is the new cool!
One can hope....
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Thanks for clearing things up, Gary, I'm just stoked to hangout and drink (mostly) homebrew with all you cool folks!
Some of us are just old folks! See you at the NHC!
Old is the new cool!
One can hope....
Hey, I like all you old guys! 8)
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Hey, I like all you old guys! 8)
In a granddaughterly kinda way, huh? ;)
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the split between commercial and homebrew reminds me: Let's try to not let the extra bottles of NHC Finals entries go to waste! Can we arrange them to be put in one of the "homebrew rooms"...? Shared among the banquet line? something else?
(Friday at lunch in the San Diego Room would be one way to ensure a good turnout for the AHA meetup, haha!)
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I know I don't post here much, but I think I'm going to join you folks for the meetup.
Will there be food or can we get it delivered or something? Looks like the meetup time is right during lunch.
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There will undoubtedly be liquid bread. ;)
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I would imagine we could get something like Jimmy Johns delivered pretty easily. I had to peace out early last year because we needed some food. I don't plan on leaving early this year! :)
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What's Jimmy John's?
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What's Jimmy John's?
Similar to Subway. Sandwich shop.
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I assume we'd be allowed to bring in food, but we should check to be sure it's OK.
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OK, just heard from Matt...they're printing up 100 nametags. Should be enough, right? I asked about food and also some signage/listing in the official schedule.
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As always you rock Denny!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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even more info....the meetup in on the schedule online and in the new AHA NHC app. There will be signage. It's OK to bring in our own food. They didn't budget for any food for us this year, but if the meetup is big, they'll try to have food for us next year.
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Heh.. Funny this if the first I've heard of the app... Installed it and it looks pretty good.
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I just saw the meetup in the schedule. I'll try to drop in as well. :)
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even more info....the meetup in on the schedule online and in the new AHA NHC app. There will be signage. It's OK to bring in our own food. They didn't budget for any food for us this year, but if the meetup is big, they'll try to have food for us next year.
Excellent. Thank you Denny! (and AHA!)
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Heh.. Funny this if the first I've heard of the app... Installed it and it looks pretty good.
I installed the app yesterday and love the idea too.
g
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Yeah I've added all my seminars and stuff to the agenda in it... Worked really well for them (though I did notice 1 seminar missing from it). I wish more of the pre-conference events were pre-loaded, but it's easy enough to create your own entries in the agenda... I am curious to see how the mapping feature works out... It looks like it's more or less based on you telling it where you are instead of using the GPS or something though.
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Just filled my agenda this morning, I like it.
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Yeah I've added all my seminars and stuff to the agenda in it... Worked really well for them (though I did notice 1 seminar missing from it).
Which one is that?
In your other post, you said it looked like the Menage a Myces seminar was missing, but I think it's actually just been moved to 3:15 on Friday (switching places with Managing Yeast which is now at 12:45).
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Yeah I've added all my seminars and stuff to the agenda in it... Worked really well for them (though I did notice 1 seminar missing from it).
Which one is that?
In your other post, you said it looked like the Menage a Myces seminar was missing, but I think it's actually just been moved to 3:15 on Friday (switching places with Managing Yeast which is now at 12:45).
If you're on the agenda and you go to add an event... Menage a Myces is not listed.
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It was nice to meet everyone today. Thanks for trying my scotch ale with kelp.
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It was nice to meet everyone today. Thanks for trying my scotch ale with kelp.
It was a great time, thanks for sharing that very interesting and rather tasty beer!
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Always good to shake hands and look another in the eyes. I learned that from my German friends.
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It was nice to meet everyone today. Thanks for trying my scotch ale with kelp.
I enjoyed it; thank you for sharing. Your Irish Red was nice as well. Good luck with it tonight.
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Great to meet everybody! We had a great turnout.
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It was nice to meet everyone today. Thanks for trying my scotch ale with kelp.
I enjoyed it; thank you for sharing. Your Irish Red was nice as well. Good luck with it tonight.
Thank you. Hope your drive home wasn't too bad.