Attending the AHA’s 35th Annual National Homebrewers Conference
Pittsburgh homebrewing club at “Club Night,” 35th Annual National Homebrewers Conference, Philadelphia. Visited June 27-29, 2013.
I left work and went straight to Union Station. By the time I got to my hotel room in Philadelphia, it was like I’d landed on the moon, that’s how far away I felt from D.C. I went immediately to bed and woke the next morning, startled. I slept so soundly I hadn’t heard my alarm go off. Then it came to me – the alarm hadn’t gone off. I’d woken naturally, well in advance of the irritating beeping, and I felt refreshed. I can’t remember the last time I felt so refreshed. All it takes is boarding a train and leaving town, and I’m a different, happier person.
I’ve attended a lot of conference, usually as a staff member or a member of the media. This is one of the few where I just get to be an attendee, and it has been a lot of fun. Of course, I’m good about taking notes and bad about taking photos, so I only have three from the trip, two of which are from “Club Night,” when all the local homebrew clubs from across the country set up booths and share samples of beer made by their members. My first stop was the Lancaster Homebrewers Club, naturally. Next in line, the club from Pittsburgh.
Since I’m not doing the journalism thing while I’m here, I didn’t set up interviews or plan to write a long post about what’s newsworthy, etc. I just wanted to be an attendee and have experiences that might help me write a short story or a poem. From that point of view, I gathered a lot of material.
At the same time, I did jot down some observations. I may as well share them here.
Bring Together 4,000 People and Beer, and Nobody Gets Arrested? WTF?
Normally, when you pack a large group into a defined space and serve them unlimited amounts of beer, at least some people get obnoxiously drunk, but I didn’t witness that at all. In fact, compared to my days hopping from bar to bar trying to sell advertising, this gathering was quite temperate. Why? What gives? Here are my preliminary thoughts:
1) Beer is everywhere and accessible. There are basically no restrictions about when and where you can drink beer, and it is accessible at virtually any moment. The fact that it’s so accessible might be one reason why nobody gets stupid drunk. There’s no rush, no urgency to fill yourself up on beer as quickly as you can. It’s the opposite, actually. There’s more beer to come, and you know it. If you want to participate in the toasts and other rituals of this conference, that is, if you want to participate in this community, you have to pace yourself.
2) The community and culture respects alcohol. This is a group that makes their own beer. They respect what that means, specifically that it tastes better when it’s fresh, and it tastes less good when you’re too drunk to notice any of its nuances.
3) I left early. I’m feeling my age, so I bounced out of the evening social events relatively early. Maybe if I’d stayed later, I’d have witnessed the devolution of the crowd. I don’t know, but my guess is that a lot of people left around the same time I did or shortly after. This is not a young crowd. We’re all getting a little older, and there’s still a lot of beer to drink the next day.