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.
Topic: NHC forum meetup (Read 8643 times)
