2011 Beer Bloggers Conference In Beervana

/ August 18, 2011

Today I’m headed to the 2nd Annual Beer Bloggers Conference, held this year in Beervana – Portland, OR.  Yeah, this is such a cool hobby to have.  While Growler Fills is purely a labor of love, I’ll admit it’s got some good perks.  Things get started this evening with a pre-conference pub crawl organized by Bill Night of It’s Pub Night and other Portland area beer bloggers.  Here’s the crawl destinations:

  • Widmer Pilot Brewery
  • Deschutes Brewery & Public House (Block Party)
  • Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
  • New Old Lompoc
  • Rogue Distillery & Public House
  • Baileys Taproom

That’s a good perk, alright. There’s good conference sessions too. Like session on beer styles, changing restrictive beer laws, working with your local brewery and a key note address from Jay Wilson of Brewvana who recently conducted an experiment by living on beer and water alone for 46 days, replicating the fasts of ancient monks (and blogging about it).  There’s a trip out to the hop fields, too, and dinners hosted by the Oregon Brewers’ Guild and BridgePort Brewing Co.

You’ll recall from a couple posts ago that there’s an event called Night of Many Bottles in which each of the 80+ participants are invited to bring a few bottles of beer to share from their home territory or one of their all time favorites.  I asked for suggestions and got some good ones.  Madison River’s Hop Juice came to mind, but it isn’t distributed over to Missoula yet.  I’d take some Bitter Root Brewing Red Dread, but I’ve long ago run out of my stash.  Cold Smoke comes to mind as a great Scotch Ale and a favorite of many (and a dangerously good beer).

Frankly, there’s a lot of excellent Montana beer that would stack up well with those from around the Country, but most of it isn’t bottled or canned.  Still, I’m quite excited to be taking along a few bottles of Flathead Lake Brewing Co.’s Imperial IPA2. I think it’s top notch and I’ve yet to run into any beer friend who doesn’t agree. It will be interesting to take it into the heart of American IPA country.

I’ll be live blogging from the conference as I get the chance and am sure to have plenty of pics and tidits on twitter.  To follow along, join me here: 

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