Here’s a post that’s a few weeks overdue: the 2013 National Homebrew Convention in Philadelphia was awesome.
As a native Pittsburgher and a long-time resident of the NYC area it pains me to say this, but Philly didn’t suck. Actually, it was kind of awesome. The Reading Terminal Market is a food-lover’s dream. Monk’s Cafe is a beer-lover’s dream (complete with Pliny the Elder, yum). Geno’s cheese-steaks at 3:00am is just a dream. The restaurants we visited downtown were very good (especially brunch at Parc).
Most importantly, the convention itself was a ton of fun. We put on a good show at club night with the Glen Ridge Home Brewer’s Association (apparently the only homebrew club in the world without a clever acronym of a name). Our newly-constructed fancy jockey box looked great and worked like a charm (good work and many thanks, Chris). Everyone’s beers were excellent. Peter Kennedy had a dry-porked bacon beer called Greasy Pig that was a huge success. It got him an interview on Basic Brewing:
I really enjoyed meeting homebrewers from around the country, trying their beers, talking shop, and generally beer-geeking out. Homebrewers really are an incredibly warm and friendly group of people. Most of us are equal parts anal-retentive engineer, mad scientist, and Romantic-period philosopher-poet. (And yes, anal-retentive is hyphenated. Look it up.) It was fantastic to be surrounded by folks who share such raw enthusiasm for this bizarre hobby, who chase an unquenchable desire to try new tastes and smell new smells, who like nothing better than to take apart a beer, figure out how it works, and put it back together. Kindred spirits. Thanks to all for a wonderful experience.
Here are some pics from the trip. Oh, and the Flyers still suck.
