Homebrew Con Seminars
Homebrew Con is an annual event hosted by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA). The conference includes dozens of seminars on beer, mead, and cider. Join the AHA to gain access to Homebrew Con seminars dating back to 2012. You won’t find a resource like this anywhere else!
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 …More
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 …More
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 …More
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.
Club Panel
Homebrewing’s growth is affecting every aspect of the hobby, including your local homebrew club. This forum is less about talking to experts and more about helping everyone get a handle on how to make your club run and have a ton of fun. Come with your questions and ideas, and …More
Colored Malt Products – Specialty Malts
Robert will discuss the many types of specialty malts currently available while focusing on how homebrewerers can use them to enhance their beer.
Crafting Award Winning Extract and Partial Grain Beer
Many people assume extract brewing is just a step on the path to all-grain brewing. Mark will convince you that it’s not. He will share simple techniques to brew world-class beer styles which are comparable to their all-grain counterparts. Mark uses simple, partial-mash recipes that anyone can brew in 2-½ …More
Drink What You Think
Recipe formulation creates many opportunities for creativity-and many distractions from your goals. This seminar will discuss ways to pursue recipe formulation so that you both learn and create beers that are satisfying and enjoyable to drink. Along the way, we’ll talk about the basic tasks of recipe formulation in a …More
Exploring Fermentation Attenuation
Presently, there is incomplete information regarding fermentation attenuation. This talk will identify and discuss the factors involved in how well a beer will attenuate as well as explore the development of a predictive model for calculating terminal density.
Fermentation Mythbusters
Do I need a starter? Am I growing new yeast? Can I freeze yeast? Are vials really pitchable? Isn’t the rule of thumb for pitch rates 1 million cells/ml/P? Is there anything wrong with overpitching? What is the origin of some yeast strains? Want to know the real answers to …More
Focus on Flavor
We enjoy fermented products because of the amazing depth of flavors they present, including many compounds that we can detect at parts per billion and less! Many homebrewers and BJCP judges reach a plateau in their ability to describe beer, relying on borrowed phrases and expectations rather than their own …More
Going Pro Panel Part 1
Dick Cantwell presents a short overview of planning and creating a brewpub or a production brewery. Key elements will be addressed in the primary presentation, followed by a panel discussion with four guest panelists. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions, hear the unique experiences each panelist had with …More
Going Pro Panel Part 2
Dick Cantwell presents a short overview of planning and creating a brewpub or a production brewery. Key elements will be addressed in the primary presentation, followed by a panel discussion with four guest panelists. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions, hear the unique experiences each panelist had with …More
Homebrewing Lager Beer
The basics of homebrewing lager beer will be discussed in this presentation. Topics covered will include wort production, fermentation, maturation, clarification, and helpful techniques.
Keynote Speaker
2012 National Homebrewers Conference Keynote
Mead & Cheese: Perfect Partners
A marriage that does come with a manual–how to pair mead and cheese. This seminar will break it down in styles; quickie guide, odd couples, some like it hot!
Mead Excellence
Discover home mead-making tips for excellence, how to choose and use ingredients, yeast varieties and their impact, fermentation techniques and the basics from a professional’s point of view.
New Hop Varieties
Russell Schehrer, a former AHA Homebrewer of the Year and the man the Brewers Association Award for Brewing Innovation is named after, used a grand total of five different hop varieties the first year after Wynkoop Brewing opened in 1988. Today, the list of new varieties reads like the NATO …More
Plan Your Beer and Food Event: Minimal Effort, Maximum Impact
Warren will walk participants through the simple philosophies needed to make your next beer and food pairing affair a resounding success. He’ll share his experiences from organizing many events, giving you the tips and techniques to maximize your guests’ experience but keep your work manageable so that everyone can enjoy …More
Thank you; I’ll Have Another
Jennifer will explore the growing popularity of session beers and why they are a perfect fit for the craft industry. In addition, the differing ways to tackle a session beer recipe will be discussed, including the malt bill, mash profile, hopping and more.
Trouble Shooting Panel
Join America’s best and brightest homebrew experts as they get grilled with questions both silly and sublime related to bad beers, balky brewhouses, black bocks, bent burners, barley bugs and who knows what else. Come loaded with your own questions and enjoy learning from the experiences of others. Fun for …More
Water Panel
Water: the final frontier. These are the questions of brewers everywhere. Our continuing mission: to explain this strange new world, to define best practices and new considerations, to boldly brew better than you have ever brewed before. John Palmer, co-author of the soon to be released Water – A Comprehensive …More
Weird Ingredients Are Everywhere
The inspiration for unconventional brewing ingredients is everywhere–in ethnic markets, the newspaper and your own backyard. Dick will share some of the stories of the beers he has conceived at Elysian Brewing Co. and brainstorm a bit about what he’s got up his sleeve.
Brewing with Brett
Going Pro Panel
Goring Pro Panel presents a short overview of planning and creating a brewpub or a production brewery. Key elements will be addressed in the primary presentation, followed by a panel discussion with four guest speakers. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions, hear the unique experiences each panelist had …More
