Austin was long rumored to be in the running for 2014, but fell off due to “legal issues”. What those were is something I don’t know. You might ask around, or contact the Conf. Sub Committee. If some law needs to be changed you could help with that.
Austin is a place I know due the family in TX. It and the area would a great location.
Issue in Texas could be the laws concerning removing Homebrew from the home and maybe due to licensing at the venues.
(b) For the purpose of participating in an organized tasting, evaluation, competition, or literary review, a person to whom this section applies may deliver wine, ale, malt liquor, or beer produced and manufactured by the person to locations that are not licensed under this code for the purpose of submitting those products to an evaluation at an organized tasting competition that is closed to the general public or by a reviewer whose reviews are published if:
(1) no charge of any kind is made for the wine, ale, malt liquor, or beer, for its delivery, or for attendance at the event; and
(2) the commission consents in writing to the delivery.
My biggest problem with NHC this year is a personal thing: I don’t like IPAs… and you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one. My friends thought I was crazy for going…
Another big problem I had was the news that we couldn’t bring homebrew into the banquet. My friends and I (and probably most others) found this out while waiting in line for the banquet. Very surprising!
Phil
Well, obviously drinking laws in NOLA are pretty lax. 
[quote]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.
[/quote]
Is there a documented process for this? The last time NHC was held nearby was before I was that into brewing (1995 or 1996) and the club in NOLA was a lot more active. I’m sure I could help spear them along if there’s a chance it could happen (they’re not my primary club, but I am a member for event purposes).
We’re growing by leaps and bounds, but we’re not on the national radar yet, although people do want to come out for a week of drinking fairly often. It just isn’t normally looking for beer.
News to me there are any specific liquor laws prohibiting drinking beer in hotel hallways. I think this may have been a crotchety hotel rule.
Who actually votes on the locations?
There was the start of a document a few years ago, but things have been changing so quickly, and state-by-state situations are so different, that it was dropped. Now it starts with an email to Gary Glass, and he’ll have plenty of questions for you.
It was an interpretation of legal separation of homebrew and commercial beer, and everything outside of the specific rooms of the conference was deemed part of the hotel liquor license, and therefore off-limits.
I’m just struggling to see who would even enforce that and perhaps it wouldn’t have been a problem if the hotel just thought they were commercial beers.
You can vote for what cities you would consider in the survey if you went this year.
It is not popular vote, the AHA/BA decides. If it were a popular vote it would always be in a big city. Grand Rapids proved to be a good location. Someday Asheville or Austin might be good places.
Some where I said there are a list of criteria considered for possible locations, it goes into the process, and a decision is somehow arrived at later.
“Lawyers were involved”
Wait… You couldn’t bring homebrew to the home brewing banquet?? [emoji53]
Welcome to an effect of the new CA law which requires that homebrew served at a member’s festival that mixes homebrew and commercial beer have the two services clearly separated. The AHA was being strict in the implementation. I believe there was miscommunication between the AHA and the security staff because Gary did ask in the banquet that people with homebrew should just step outside the banquet area and pour their homebrew and bring it back in
The solution Gary mentioned was reasonable. I think people are just saying it should have been communicated in materials given when we arrived, and probably during his other speeches. Telling people this after they sat down to eat, possibly having left their beer in their room, kinda defeats the purpose.
It’s not apparent to many travelers that Delmarva stands for Delaware-Maryland-Virginia. The Delaware and Maryland parts are easy, but the Virginia part is not apparent until one looks at a map. Delaware used to be part of Maryland at one point. It was then a part of Pennsylvania. This tug of war is the reason for the establishment of the Mason-Dixon line.
Atlanta has been mentioned. We looked at Savannah in the past when the conference was much smaller. Real problem is GA beer laws and homebrew.
When you’re an organization like the AHA running an event like NHC, you can’t just ignore inconvenient laws.
Particularly when we have further ongoing efforts to champion other changes to CA law. If the org just flouted the laws as they stood when it came time to testify again, it wouldn’t look great to have that black mark on the record.
I got a text or a Tweet (not sure which, it just showed up on my ipad) that said it’s Philly next year. :o
Cool. I wonder how long till they call my area Wagonho?