This year's National Homebrewers Conference will take place June 9th through June 11th. (Registration begins on March 8th.) All the NHC info can be found here: http://www.ahaconference.org/
Registration can be pricey, but not to worry, we'll have an opportunity to win free entry. Nancy will be hosting another Fast Rack Challenge and should be posting about that shortly. Ask about Boolish's Cinderella story from last year if you need inspiration.
We've decided to have a booth for this year's club night. The booth will be set up like a back yard keg party with fake putting green for grass. We still have to flesh that out a bit, but you get the general idea.
Because it's expensive and kind of a hassle to get beer halfway across the country, we're going to limit the club night beers to whoever from the club is actually going. Also, a Tuesday Brewsday club beer would be great.
Mark will be finding us lodging, probably through Air BnB again.
I've created a Google Sheet for people to sign up for the trip. I would like a firm head count by April 15th.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fj_0kx1c4ILLsfJFHU0r0z9GftOjtuFLBRowFE6FDxo/edit#gid=0
More info to come, I just wanted to get this out there so everyone has time to decide about joining us.
I will be going. I have friends who live in BMore, so I'm staying with them.
FastRack Challenge
I'll post info on the challenge later this month. I was thinking we'd do it in mid-late March. You'll be remebuirsed if you purchase a conference tix and win a spot. Winners will not be announced until right before the conference, fyi.
This is awesome! I actually moved to Chicago from Baltimore (I'll be staying with friends as well). I'm definately interesting in going (though I'm most likely flying there).
I would like to help out / setup / represent Chaos with you guys / whatever else is needed. I'm obviously in to brew for this but I wouldn't have a way to get it there (kegs are frowned upon as carry-ons). So if anyone wanted to take my brewing spot, no hard feelings.
We have to go the The Brewers Art if we have time while in Baltimore!!
That's great, Brandon! Not to worry, we'll either ship the kegs or drive them to the Baltimore, so please feel free to brew for club night. You do need to be a member of AHA to attend, so be sure to get a membership before the registration date.
Thanks for the heads up! Just joined.
Would love to join you, but our other travel plans this summer preclude it. I'm sure those who go will have a great time!
www.singingboysbrewing.com
I'll be throwing my hat in to go and brew for this one.
I could just brew another IPA like a degenerate, but I would really like to get a good lager submitted for club night.
If we wanted to stick a theme, doing a line-up of lagers would be pretty interesting. We have the space, it's a nice representation of facilities a CHAOS-type arena can offer, and it somewhat meshes with the "backyard keg party" theme.
This is a cool concept, Kyle.
Another idea would be to do this on top of an experiment, per say... For those of us who've never brewed a lager before (myself included) & are maybe on the fence about going through with it - I think it would be interesting/useful to have two people brew the same recipe (Dortmunder Export, Bohemian Pils, American Pils, etc) except one does an ale with SA-05, and the other a lager with SL-23.
I think it would be very interesting to taste the two beers side by side to really get a feel for exactly what a lager has to offer (or doesn't, depending on your preference).
Registration for NHC starts tomorrow!
I will host the 3rd annual FastRack competition at CHAOS later this month so you can win your conference attendee fees. I will post about it soon.
Cheers, Nanc
Count me in for the Air-BnB
Count me in for the Air-BnB
I've been looking at group rentals - Baltimore's been pretty low:
https://www.vrbo.com/3997336ha
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5760536
What's the interest overall?
I plan to take part in the Air B-n-B.
Mark, for what it's worth - I'd go with the spot in Fells Point (the second one). The 1st spot is closer to the convention center but in a shadier area. Fells Point is an old wharf & pretty awesome with lots of bars and restaurants. Downside would be having to take an Uber to/from this spot.
I lived in Baltimore for about 6 years before moving to Chicago, so if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
Count me in if you would as well, I'll be coming up from Dallas!
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
Sweet! Glad you can join us!
All in on the Chaos party house!
Guys, I was checking out the AHA site for the NHC this year and Baltimore is really rolling out the red carpet for us. There are a ton of discounts at the bars and brewpubs for AHA members that we did not get at Michigan or S.D. Also, the city has a sweet free shuttle and ferry service that takes ya around the city.
I am getting excited for this one.
That sounds awesome , everyone buy their plane tickets yet
That sounds awesome , everyone buy their plane tickets yet
Awesome! I bought my plane ticket a couple weeks ago. It was pretty affordable to fly Southwest.
How much was the ticket?
WHen y'all flying out?
Wesnday or Thrusday?
About $300 round trip.
I'm getting there Wednesday afternoon!
I will do my darndest to make it this year.
I guess that makes me +1 for the Chaos party house.
Is there a theme going on for this years NHC ?
So, we will be using the back packs again and going mobile, but do not have a theme. Last year was Ghostbusters, so this year? Please feel free to post ideas!
I'm arriving Wednesday afternoon and plan on hitting the baseball game at 7pm if anyone wants to join me.
Are you buying tix beforehand or at the park? That might be fun...
I planned on it, you can get decent seats for around 30 bucks or we can go baller at 60.
Buying tixs beforehand, Baltimore is in 1st in their division right now. Mark says Camdon Yards is the shit!
I am leaning towards those 60 buck tickets.Let me know what cha want to do and I can go ahead and purchase the tickets.
Since we are going all gorilla at club night and we got the TA 50 frames maybe we dress as a insurgent group. BDU's, Chaos arm bands, chant "All is Chaos! Chaos is all! All hail Chaos!
The insurgent group sounds kind of cool!!
"Larga vida a la revolución de la cerveza!"
Since this will more than likely pass as a vacation for me, I'm up for the $60 tix!
So, I'd like to get our Homebrew Con plans finalized over the next few days. I got in touch with club night coordinator. She's cool with us using the same walking around model as last year. Chuck came up with an idea of us being guerilla brewers by wearing BDU pants and some kind of CHAOS arm band, with the 3.5 gallon tanks on our backs. This is pretty easy to pull off and certainly within our budget.
Do we want to cellar our kegs at the convention center or keep them in the place we rent? (The coordinator would like to know this sooner rather than later.)
Please use the sign up sheet at the top to finalize your beer and where you plan to stay by this Saturday.
Jeff - should I try and find a 3.5 gal keg to use? Otherwise I'll just be using one of my 5 gallons kegs. Would that be ok?
Also, what date should the kegs be at the brew house and ready to go? (just trying to plan my brew day accordingly)
I get into town thursaday afternoon
Brandon, we're working on the shipping and will let you know.
Five gallon kegs won't work, unless you're able to carry it on your back. Not everyone who went last year is coming this year, so a few people should have extra 3.5 gallons to loan for the trip. I just need to remember who they are....
Are we going to have a setup there? If so we could keep the 5 gallon keg as a "homebase"
No, the booths filled up quick, so we don't have an actualy base of operations. That's what drove us to go mobile again.
Brandon, you can borrow one of my little kegs. I may bring El diablo Blanco Dulce, but I have (2) 3 gallon kegs.
Does anyone have a spare 3 gallon keg I could use for the conference?
So, according to the spreadsheet, three people need somewhere to stay and four people are bringing beer? Can everyone who is going please confirm this by Thursday at 6:00 pm? Thanks.
There is a spread sheet and do we have a Chaos house? Looking at you Mark...
Yep, the spreadsheet is at the top of this forum string. We do not have a house yet, so need to confirm who needs lodging.
OK -
We have a place -
504 Wyeth Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8134399
Three bedrooms w/ 3 Queen beds- best I could do. Final price was $1235 - I'm dividing that by bedroom. If you are cool with sharing, then you pay $205 - one bedroom is $411. Checkin is 4PM or later Wed June 8th checkout is Sunday, we've asked for a 1 PM checkout, but it may be as early as 10AM.
It's a 15 min walk, under a mile to the convention center.
CHAOS is covering costs for shipping kegs, they will go FedEx ground on Monday the 6th arriving on Wed June 8th. I need them at the brewhouse no later than 5PM Monday.
Thanks, Mark!! That works out pretty well for me. My plane lands at 3:25!
My beer is kegged and at the brewhouse.
In regards to club night, we're good to go and on the list of clubs who are participating. I honestly ran out of time to organize some kind of theme. We could go the guerilla brewer route suggested above, but the arm bands were not practical for us to purchase. If everyone wants to buy camo pants and wear t-shirts, we cand do that. Or, just wear our CHAOS work shirts and walk around with the kegs. Kind of a down-to-earth approach, but probably the most feasible at this point.
Nancy, I definitely dropped the ball and couldn't brew in time for this. My fault. So therefore I won't be needed the service of your 3 gallon keg. Thank you very much for the offer.
And the work shirt order via Steven should be in by the time this comes around so that works for our "theme." Plus it's good promotion for the club, IMO.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I'll be at the brewhouse this Saturday.
Also, are you guys receiving email push responses? I haven't been getting them as of late...
There's an issue with the website, so it's currently not sending notifications. Brock and Conrad have not had the opportunity to address it over the past week or two. We hope to get it corrected within the week.
Anyone who's going to NHC interested in going to an Orioles game Wednesday night? Chuck and I have been talking about going. Maybe get bleacher seats so we can buy our own tickets?