I just got a message saying that they are advertising that Homebrew Con 2018 is in Portland, OR! So jazzed. I’m going and our club will probably have a booth at Club Night. I’ll probably volunteer too. Suuuhweeeet!
Looking forward to it, one of the reasons I passed on this year. Portland’s easier to get to and much higher up the bucket list. Hopefully I’ll be driving and can finally bring kegs.
Sounds great to me; the wife’s been wanting to check out the west coast and we should be able to work this into those plans!
Oh cool! Portland is only a day away by car for me.
I was hoping it would be in Nashville… ???
+1. …or even Atlanta.
I could totally be wrong, but it seems to me, there’s a rotation of where they host, East Coast, Middle, West Coast… since I’ve been a member it’s been
Grand Rapids MI (Middle)
San Diego CA (West)
Baltimore (East)
Minneapolis (Middle)
Portland (West)
So… Atlanta could be 2019 as East again. Not sure if Nashville would be “East” or “Middle”, but that could also be in the next year after that.
I’d love if the 2019 East Coast (if the rotation holds) to be in North Carolina. They are blowing up in their beer scene, the Charlotte homebrew club has won club of the year (Carolina Brewers? I forget the name) and Charlotte is certainly big enough to host. Asheville sadly doesn’t have a convention center or anything like that, but it’s only a two hour drive from Charlotte if people wanted to venture that way, or set up a bus trip etc. Also, I’m from North Carolina and live in Oregon now, so I am biased of course.
Couldn’t make it this year. I do plan to go next year.
Any dates announced for next year in Portland?
The conference booklet says June 28 - 30, which is much later than usual and precedes the Fourth of July, which is the following Wednesday.
If it’s at the Convention center I’m two buses and a short ride on the yellow Max line (light rail) away; less than an hour and I don’t have to worry about a designated driver.
Philly was the year before GR.
Great conference so far but I swear the Minneapolis Conference center is the ugliest conference center I have ever seen! Surrounded by some of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen!
Spoke with the Charlotte Club last year at Baltimore about this very thing. Being a displaced Carolinian living in MD, I also had a vested interest in wanting an NC-hosted conference. I grew up in a dry county, which now has 4 breweries/brewpubs either in planning or initial ops. The beer scene really has changed the state!
The club members told me the state laws needed to be changed to allow serving for things like Club Night. Much like Maryland had done in years’ past, which allowed Baltimore to host. Sounds like a good effort for the AHA to get behind…
I have 2 M, 2 L and 2 XL shirts in my bag for whomever stops me
I’ll make it one year!!
Did you make it to the San Diego conference in 2015? They had some weird stuff going on there too based on the laws. They didn’t have a problem with serving homebrew, but you couldn’t serve homebrew and commercial beer in the same place. Big signs at pro night of NO HOMEBREW past this point, and vice versa on club night, and also because they had servers pouring/serving beer with the banquet dinner you couldn’t bring any of your own beer into the hall. It was bizarre, but they did a pretty good job working around it.
I really wouldn’t be shocked to see the laws change. The beer scene in NC is booming, and apparently the homebrew scene there has been for a long time. I didn’t know it when I lived there, but some of the LHBS and clubs have been around a long time.
Servers in NC cannot have ANY alcohol as in none/nada. There are some laws which should change in this session, but next year is short session so it would be two years before this one could even be brought up for change and I don’t believe anyone is pushing for homebrewers to have the ability to serve and consume.
I believe the conference no longer requires the hosts to work themselves to death during the conference. That was an issue for NC hosting in the past. Asheville is the ideal place to hold it, but there are not enough clustered hotel rooms to pull it off. Charlotte could do it. Our club in Raleigh is far too lazy to pull it off. 
Nashville hosted the Southern Brewer’s Conference last August (and again this August) and while the conference itself is small the convention center is more than big enough to host HomebrewCon (it’s way bigger than the one in Minneapolis). Not sure what legal issues there are but I know they have fixed a lot of the beer laws in Tenn over the last 5 years. Didn’t seem like there was any problems with drinking or serving.
I wonder if AHA would entertain a Southern Chapter so those in TX, AR, OK, LA, MS, AL, GA, TN, FL, etc can participate? Routinely visiting the NE coast, North, and West Coast is pretty cost prohibitive.
Legislation changes have to start and be worked at the local level. The AHA will support that, but the lead has to happen from the members in the state. I know someone from Ohio doing this now, so that the Conference could be there someday.