The American Homebrewers Association’s Community & Education Committee is trying something new!
Join us for a Thursday Happy Hour Q&A with John Palmer — October 9 at 6:00 PM MT. You’ve read his books, you’ve listened to his podcasts - now it’s your turn!
This isn’t a “sit back and watch a lecture” kind of night — it’s a “grab a pint and ask your brewing questions” kind of night. Think less corporate presentation, more chat around the boil kettle.
Click the link, hop in, and join the conversation!
Kudos to everyone involved here - it was a great, accessible format, and the hour went by quickly. It was also an excellent opportunity to get questions answered by experts. Thank you!
For those not able to join, it was around 15 - 20 people; everyone who asked a question got it answered! The time and date worked great for me - I of course know that won’t be true for everyone, so I’m interested to see if different times work better for different cross-sections of people.
One comment - I know that “no video” is common for many folks (and I know not everyone wants to be on camera), but it is nice to be able to put faces with names from the forum and see what everyone might be drinking at the moment! I would never mandate cameras-on, but perhaps encourage? (I say this from my experience as an educator during the Zoom days of the pandemic - it’s ways easier to feel part of a community and read the room if you can see people live, versus an anonymous avatar)
This is a true “value added” offering from AHA - more like this, please!
I’d be down for that - or if we wanted to broaden the appeal, perhaps a “scientists bring their science into the homebrewery” kinda thing. (I gave a talk called “The Dinosaur in My Beer” at AHA some years back, covering the evolutionary history of hops, how Pangaea led to the development of some beer styles, and the link between Archaeopteryx and pilsners; it was a good time! Not sure if it’d be quite a homebrew happy hour kind of thing exactly, but it would be fun to deploy again)
My takeaway was the comment concerning competitions. Something like: it’s not really a brewing competition, it’s a packaging competition. …and a lot of luck.
John Palmer quoted someone else who said that. It wasn’t said negatively towards homebrewers. He was just emphasizing the importance of packaging when sending beers to competitions. He said two of the biggest problems he sees when judging are oxidation and flat beer.
Actually that was probably me quoting a brewer here in LA that’s awash in competition medals. The thing I quoted from him was him saying that competitions really are a test of your packaging skills. (to Megary’s point - I would think that it’s a given that you have to brew good beer first.)
