This just annoys me. It’s a cop-out. Maybe I’m just annoyed because I’m in Denver and HomebrewCon was finally going to be local and be in tandem with GABF, lessening my expense on attending. Looking forward to see what the local homebrew clubs could do in the week leading up to GABF.
But no…all there will be is a sad little booth that no one will go to. No big parade on the NHC results, no events. Essentially they just said “Hey if you are a homebrewer, just go to GABF, they have beer there”, removing all effort and accountability.
I don’t want to blame Julie, but… She attended our local homebrew meeting and talked up wanting to build up AHA and the one single big event they do…they pass the buck.
That is disappointing. For many (most?) members, Homebrewcon and the NHC is the primary reason for belonging to the AHA. I hope concrete details emerge about what is planned to “reimagine” Homebrewcon after “taking a break” this year.
Hello, Chris and Eric, I, too, will miss Homebrew Con for 2024 and encourage you to consider all perspectives. Those who attend AHA at GABF will find reward in different ways and also can keep it to a lower cost than recent conferences.
We are still providing the option to gather surrounded by layers upon layers of beer and homebrew appreciation opportunities, off the charts networking at the who’s who of beer gatherings and more. Plus, we landed on a pretty amazing venue for the 2024 National Homebrew Competition awards at the very festival the AHA and competition started in 1982.
I agree, I understand that there is less of us right now. But, so much of Homebrewcon is left out that it is not worth it for me to go. I don’t think that I am alone.
I worry about the “reimagine” thing. That’s the problem, forcing the conference into what’s it’s not anymore. The AHA needs to accept reality and return to its successful formula of the past: a large hotel venue and cap attendance at around 1500. Also, I’ve never been involved with planning a conference, submitting a proposal, etc. It must be a massive, time-consuming undertaking. By taking a “hiatus” for '24, isn’t the AHA essentially writing off '25? The clock is already ticking for '25. The pairing with the GABF is going to be an unattended, unmitigated disaster. I don’t understand what the powers that be were thinking when the solution to return to the past is so obvious. The conference was always the highlight of my year. I fear that it’s going to be no more.
It is disappointing. I had fun at GABF the times I went but it is very hard to justify the cost of travel and lodging for almost no homebrewing content, networking, and ZERO homebrew sharing. This begs the question: if it flops, does the AHA punt on HBC 2025 as well? I’d reckon that would cause the membership to collapse, and leadership has been very guarded about committing to it returning in any form.
As it stands now, most my homebrew club only carries AHA to have our club insurance covered (reimbursed). GABF early access and discounted tickets are nice as well as the homebrew supplies from the local homebrew store. Discounts at breweries (that actually credit it) is very nice too.
If they stopped the insurance program, I know just about all our club members would cease membership.
Being fairly new to all of this, and really wanting to meet up with some of the good folks who have given me so much great info, I wanted to attend last year. But, the cost of the event, lodging and all put me out of the race. I would enjoy a local or even regional event where I can at least meet up with some of the folks on the west coast. But, cost is a big factor for me, and last year was way above my budget. I will keep an eye on all of this, but unless it is cheaper with the same way of meeting folks from the site, not really worth it to me.
On a side note, I have toyed with getting the California, northern and beyond, together for a brew day. But I just don’t have the room for it. That would be kinda fun too Anyway, good luck to all, I hope they figure it all out. My membership here is really only to support.
As I posted earlier in one of the several threads on this subject, most hotels large enough to handle 1000 -1500 people are booked 3 -5 years in advance. So, if AHA is thinking about moving from “convention center” to “large hotel” and they have not already contracted with a hotel, it will be unlikely that will happen in 2025.
A stale pretzel comment. I have thought about attending a HomeBrewCon but the timing has never been quite right as I would not attend just for it. That is I would attend by combining it with something else.
That something else would not include attending the GABF. After going a half dozen times starting in the early 90s I attended my last one years ago. The GABF lost its fun. The festival needs to have a serious overall. Seems like about every other week I get a message about tickets. It used to sell out, now it does not, and some people still try to scalp tickets. For cost of tickets one can visit a good bottle shop and get a far better selection of beers to sample.
Hello there Lone Peak. Not all pretzels are stale ;D. and AHA at GABF for 2024 will be a one year gathering bringing the National Homembrew Competition awards, Club Officer Bootcamp, BJCP exams, Club Night and more to the biggest beer festival in the U.S. Different for sure, but not stale. Here is the full schedule: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/aha-events/homebrew-hq-gabf/. Cheers.
I have a ticket for Club Night that is not refundable. Unfortunately my flight from Tampa is cancelled and I won’t be able to attend. I can transfer the ticket if anyone would appreciate that. Let me know
Hotel only conferences suck. They also tried this last year at San Diego and it still fell short of the mark with approx 1200 in attendance. A city usually has smaller convention centers that would make more sense so that there isn’t necessarily a cap on those who can attend and still be financially feasible.
I think SD was more along 1500 in attendance and T&C has hosted many previous AHA/BA events 2015 had 2800 attendees at the T&C and we had plenty of space and they’ve done CBC there which makes Homebrewcon look tiny.
It’s not like it was being held in the Ramada around the corner. My suspicion is that we had less space for events like Club night because the AHA was budget constrained
Looking at the past conferences (Past Conferences | Homebrew Con since the old site doesn’t appear accessible) - The Conference only moved into “bigger” conference spaces in 2013. (if you don’t count T&C in that mix) then that’s only 6 conferences of 42 in person that took place in non-hotel conference centers - Rhode Island, Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Grand Rapids and Philadelphia.
Personally I’m kinda ok if the conference gets back to its roots of being a smaller thing with more grassroots and maybe that’s the direction the AHA will go.
Trends in the hobby and the conference industry point to the thought that bigger shows aren’t en vogue.
The setup for GABF was pure chaos but the homebrew section was strange. I don’t think I saw more than three or four people in there at a time minus the volunteers who were pouring I guess pro-am beers in that section. They were turning people away if they didn’t have AHA memberships which I thought was weird because it was a total turnoff to getting anybody interested in homebrewing. I didn’t bother going in because nobody I was with had an AHA membership and I didn’t want to bail to look at a mash tun.
Hey there @reverse…hope you had a blast of a week. This area was private, yes. We could serve homebrew in the festival hall by making it private; thus, it was legal to serve within a commercially licensed ‘Colorado’ event. It also gave AHA members a place to connect direct. A few other thoughts:
I am glad you are using the new AHA Forum. Lovin it.
AHA at GABF volunteers pouring were high level. Fellow AHA member homebrew rockstars who brewed just to share their beers with fellow members included Brady Smith, Dan Short, Rusty Burrel, Matthew Neilson, Stan Hieronymus, Mark Boelman, Jim and Meagan Thompson, Stephanie and Mike Butler, Joaquin Quiroz, Brad Darnell, Julie and Joe Rose myself and more.
We had a suite of volunteer BJCP/GABF upper level judges doing You Be the Judge take people through how to judge a beer. Sandy Cockerham, Brad Darnell, Sir…Cantwell, Max Finnance, Shawna Cormier and many more.
Wish you would have come in as we had give aways for AHA members, Lallamand and Amoretti conducting sensory demonstrations and that mashton was my personsal 220 volt brewing system doing a live brewing demostration each session.To me the traffic felt like we were happening with breathing room and waves of calmer to busy.
For anyone following this I will be sharing an update for members in Zymurgy and HomebrewersAssociation.org on the week’s events. This was not Homebew Con and was a dedicated AHA member gathering at the country’s biggest beer festival celebrating homebrewing.
Glad I did not waste the money to travel from Boston to GABF. Had two beers in Finals and it seems like the award show/space was a slap in the face to every homebrewer who spent $29 per entry plus shipping cost to enter NHC. First there was zero live stream for those who could not be there. Then for those that did attend, they were treated to the “karaoke room” with only a handful of chairs and an award show that was rushed through so that the powers to be could get back to their karaoke party. And another slap to homebrewers, beer was not allowed in the room, but AHA officials sat on stage with a pitcher of beer that they could drink. I have entered NHC for about 10 straight years now and after this s**t show, I doubt I will ever enter again. If there is not a drastic effort to revive some version of Homebrew Con next year, I seriously need to take a look at canceling my AHA membership, because they provide nothing to me besides Zymurgy, which is also a shadow of what it used to be.