Australian National Homebrewing Conference

Well, somebody had to do it. It might as well be me. Though in fairness I managed to wrangle another bottle so it makes sense that I be a guinea pig.

So how was it? It was nice, but... I think it will get better. So the advice at this point is to hold on to your bottles.

It looks fantastic - beautiful bright red, with an excellent creamy head.

The malt character is also excellent - really bright, clear and glassy if that makes sense. Soft, juicy golden syrup character with a relatively light body for the style. It's like a cool-climate Shiraz where the Old Crustacean I had the other night is old vine Barossa. Bitterness is pretty light and clean, but it dries out nicely in the finish. It's certainly a very drinkable barleywine.

The aroma is what makes me think it needs a bit more time. There's a bit of a sulfury yeasty edge to it still, which I presume the yeast will eventually clean up. The rest of the beer certainly gives the impression it'll hold together for quite some time whilst the yeast catches up.

Club Night was cool as shit. I had an awesome time, and I was one of the last people to arrive.

The beer list was just the right size; enough beers that you never have to drink the same beer twice (if you so desire, of course) but not so huge that you finish the night with a huge list of beers you wanted to try but missed out on.

And the quality of the beers was outstanding. At least at the same level as the fine microbrews which we'd been drinking through the day.

I know John Palmer's talk on Residual Alkalinity at the conference was very popular, so I thought I'd share this link to A.J. deLange's site for those who are interested in reading further.

Specifically, check out:

• "Kohlbach's 1953 Paper" which he translated from German
• "Cervesia Fall 2004"
• "Alkalinity Part I"
• "Alkalinity Part II"
• "Water Workshop"

Great stuff. Personally I know my stouts (using soft Melbourne water) improved massively when I started thinking about RA and beer colour, it's a topic that's really worth exploring.

The Friday began with a 7.30am start at the venue and a moderate hangover. It wasn’t long before a few very keen punters showed up too – full marks for enthusiasm there.

Setting up and getting people registered all ran fairly smoothly until we tried to test the kegerators before serving beers at the morning tea break.

First of all several of the kegs wouldn’t fit in the kegerators with a coupler attached. Then one of the couplers was leaking gas. Turns out it was Simon’s, so I went to ask him about it.

“Yeah.... it does that” was his response. Thanks for the help!

Here at ANHC Headquarters we're in a weird headspace. Caught up on sleep, but still mentally buzzing from all that's gone down over the last week. To combat this, I figured I might as well give a bit of a recap from my own point of view. I didn't take any photos, so for now it's text-only.

Having successfully avoided unloading the coolroom at the venue on Wednesday afternoon, my ANHC experience commenced with a last minute committee meeting at The Local Taphouse. Well, actually, I managed to arrive sufficiently late to the meeting to avoid most of... well, most of the meeting. But I was just in time for a couple of beers. Perfect timing really.

There was a definite pre-event buzz in the air. A few of the guys from WA were on the next table, and myself and Andy had a nice chat with Ben from Sydney as well as Anthony from Perth. I had a Hargreaves Hill ESB which was obviously very fresh - positively dripping with hop aroma but sufficiently yeasty to affect the mouthfeel. It could've been the end of the keg I suppose. Then I tried the new Baron's Passionberry Porter, which smelled alright but tasted pretty plain and got less interesting the more I drank it. I can't really comment on the passionberry character, I don't even know what a passionberry is! That was followed by a sample of... well, ah, lets just say another beer.

Thursday was similarly interrupted.