I’m 34 and I don’t remember these graduation ceremonies except the one at the end of high school. I seem to recall at the end of elementary school we had a pizza party or something on the last day of school as a celebration but that was just the students and the teachers. Otherwise getting summer break was your graduation ceremony. Now I see friends on facebook attending kindergarten graduation ceremonies. Apparently they do these ceremonies every year in school around here.
+1 Bummer! This would be a great location for me, but a bit too close to the end of the school year. I’m hoping for a year without snow, then I might be out in time to make it.
Yeah it seems like a decent % of homebrewers are teachers and have limited options of they want to attend the NHC the post few years since it moved up a week.
My last one was Philly and that was before they moved it back a couple weeks. I was able to take off the very last day to make it work.
Damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t…in the past there have been complaints about it conflicting with Father’s Day when it’s later. I’d guess there are more fathers than teachers in the AHA.
Lol yeah I didn’t think about fathers day… But really I see that as much less of a conflict than ‘stuck at work’
Hey, that could even be your “fathers” day present!
Indeed.
Can the south get some love? I heard Tampa has one or two good breweries ;D.
There is a solution for all the teachers who want to go to NHC… come teach in Iowa… we were done May 22nd this year ;D We start mid august, and we don’t get spring break or many other breaks during the year. But, being done early… priceless.
I have 2 sister who live in Baltimore… so, might have to shoot for making it next year.
Huntsville, AL would be great!
PS. Technically, Baltimore is in the south. Just not to us.
Last year ended on Father’s Day and they had a free beer on Southwest…a win, win in my book.
I get the distinct impression there’s some sort of thing with the south. Don’t know if it’s hurricane season, the heat, the laws, or what. Personally, I’d love to see it in NOLA. Maybe they’re just concerned that nobody would make it to the seminars. lol
It will be interesting to see how AHA lays out the catagories next year.
I’ve been to Huntsville for work and wouldn’t want to visit there for vacation. If you want Alabama then maybe somewhere near the beaches like Mobile/Pensacola. Not sure what kind of craft brew presence is down there though.
Are the NHC meetings normally in “big” beer cities? Forgive me for asking, but what’s in Baltimore outside of Stillwater and DuClaw?
-Vote for Tampa in 2017! ;D
One has to understand that Baltimore and Washington, D.C. are part of the same metropolis known as the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. This area also includes Northern Virginia. Maryland is split in two by the Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna River. The portion of Maryland that lies west of the Chesapeake Bay is known as the Western Shore. The portion that lies east of the Chesapeake Bay is known as the Eastern Shore (which is part of the Delmarva Peninsula).
Western Shore Breweries
Baltimore-Washington Beer Works (RavenBeer) - Baltimore, Maryland
Barley And Hops - Grill & Microbrewery - Frederick, Maryland
Baying Hound Aleworks - Rockville, Maryland
Brewer’s Alley - Frederick, Maryland
The Brewer’s Art - Baltimore, Maryland
Denizens Brewing Company - Silver Spring, Maryland
Diamondback Beer - Baltimore, Maryland
DuClaw Brewing Company - Bel Air, Maryland
Ellicott Mills Brewing Company - Ellicott City, Maryland
Flying Dog Brewery - Frederick, Maryland
Franklin’s Restaurant, Brewery, and General Store - Hyattsville, Maryland
Frey’s Brewing Company - Mount Airy, Maryland
Full Tilt Brewing Co - Baltimore, Maryland
Gordon Biersch - Rockville - Rockville, Maryland
Growlers of Gaithersburg - Gaithersburg, Maryland
Clipper City Brewing Company (Heavy Seas Beer)- Baltimore, Maryland
Jailbreak Brewing Company - Laurel, Maryland
Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm - Mount Airy, Maryland
Monocacy Brewing Company - Frederick, Maryland
Mully’s Brewery - Frederick, Maryland
Oliver Breweries/Pratt Street Ale House - Baltimore, Maryland
Peabody Heights Brewery - Baltimore, Maryland
Pub Dog Brewing Company - Westminster, Maryland
Push American Brewing Co at Frisco Taphouse - Columbia, Maryland
Ruddy Duck Brewery & Grill - Dowell, Maryland
Ruhlman Brewery LLC, “OUR ALES” - Hampstead, Maryland
Scorpion Brewing - Owings, Maryland
Union Craft Brewing Company - Baltimore, Maryland
White Marsh Brewing Company - White Marsh, Maryland
Eastern Shore Breweries
Burley Oak Berlin, Maryland
Eastern Shore Brewing - St. Michaels, Maryland
Evolution Craft Brewing Company - Salisbury, Maryland
Fin City Brewing Company - Ocean City, Maryland
RAR Brewing - Cambridge, Maryland
Shorebilly Brewing Co. - Ocean City, Maryland
Maryland passed a law a few years ago that allows for the establishment of breweries that are located on working farms. Milkhouse and Frey’s are farmhouse breweries that grow their own hops.
Now, if we include the District of Columbia (a.k.a. Washington, D.C.) and Northern Virginia (Washington, D.C. is roughly the same distance from Baltimore that Escondido is from San Diego), we can add the following breweries to the list.
District of Columbia Breweries
3 Stars Brewing Company
Atlas Brew Works
Bluejacket
DC Brau Brewing Company
District Chophouse
Hellbender Brewing Company
Right Proper Brewing Company
Northern Virginia Breweries
Heritage Brewing Company
Lost Rhino Brewing Company
Mad Fox Brewing Company
Old Ox Brewery
Port City Brewing Company
Adroit Theory Brewing Company
Beltway Brewing Company
Corcoran Brewing Company
Forge Brew Works
Dogfish Head is also close enough to have a presence - they did for Philly.
Blue Earl in Delaware was started by a former Governing Committee member.
Personal confession - was driving from Rehoboth Beach to home after the conference, and when we crossed into Maryland it dawned on me what Delmarva stands for. Doh!
Just my speculation, but the last two conferences held in the South, Dallas and Orlando, were the biggest (maybe only) financial losses the NHC has ever had. The Orlando conference was widely skipped due to a very high cost of transportation for most of the country. I was there, and the Florida liquor laws made for a very awkward situation (no beer in the hallways, for instance).
I’m on the NHC sub-committee, and I’ll just say that conference locations pretty much have to be originated by the local clubs first. In a few places clubs have been quietly approached about potential interest, and the lack thereof is why a number of cities are not on the site list of the current conference survey. BTW, if you went to NHC you should have received an email link to a survey. I’m begging you to fill it out! Response rates the last few years have been low.
The southern states have been slow to catch on to the craft beer movement, minus Asheville, and there are few major cities with enough breweries and craft bars to drive people to want to come out for a week of drinking. There are some good breweries across the region but the concentration just isn’t the same yet. So I certainly understand why we have been left out of the NHC site list.
In 2002 Dallas had very little craft beer presence. I can’t see why anybody would have wanted to come to Dallas at that time for the beer scene. There are longstanding homebrewing clubs but it’s not like people go to NHC to hang out with the local clubs. In many ways we are still a long way off from many other metropolitan areas. For example, Dallas-Fort Worth is 2/3 the size of the Baltimore-Washington D.C. metro area but we don’t even have a fraction of the number of breweries listed by Mark. Things are changing and it may not be too long before Austin or DFW hosts an NHC in the future.