I just got back for Hawai’i and the World Brewing Congress. OH, and my WEDDING!!!!

Work first, The World Brewing Congress is a meeting every four years of 5 professional brewing associations including the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, the European Brewing Convention, the American Society of Brewing Chemists, and a couple of Pan-Asian scientific societies for beer. These groups meet every four years to discuss new research related to beer, industry trends, new process and products, market trends, etc. For 4 days there were talks, round-table discussions, poster presentations and casual conversations with brewing scientists, brewers, allied trade members and consumer groups about all things beer.

Now I know that sounds like a ton of Beer-dorkery…and it is but I AM a beer nut and this event is the Superbowl of beer nerdery. Just to give you an example, there were a series of yeast discussions given by some of the most famous people in beer science: Dr. Greg Casey of Miller Coors, Dr. Dirk Bandiak of Molson, Dr. David Ryder of Miller Coors just to name a few. let’s just say that if a bomb went off in the room beer micro-biology would be set back 50 years.

In any case I picked up some great info that will help us make better beer in a more efficient manner and that is always a good thing. After long days of flexing the brain pan we spent evenings socializing (drinking beer) in all kinds of beautiful places. There were a couple of dinner cruises, a luau on the beach complete with hula dancers, poi, etc. They buried a pig in the sand and everything!

We spent a bunch of time meeting new friends from Japan and China. Six billion beer drinkers are starting to pay attention to craft beer, at least a little. We also had the opportunity to hang out with some Mid-Atlantic brewers we enjoy greatly. 

Here’s a great pic of Bryan from Dogfishead Craft Brewery and his wife Ali on one of the dinner cruises. Andy Teverkm was along with his better half too. We had dinner with Brandon Greenwood of High Falls, and Bob Kleintop of the Lion Brewery was there with his family. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but you get the idea. Let’s just say that Hawai’i doesen’t suck and i couldn’t think of a better place to have a beer conference.

The day after the conference, Thursday August 7th 2008 I was married to Whitney Damarius Thompson on the beach in Oahu. It was beautiful and romantic, and she is awesome!

For those of you who don’t know, Whitney is also a brewer with Troegs in Harrisburg and i couldn’t be happier.

It was her idea to get hitched’ after the brewing congress and she was right on. Post nuptuals we snorkeled, and generally enjoyed the island flow. I couldn’t have imagined a better place or way to get married.  Here is a photo of my bride, drink in hand. Aloha, indeed.

Oh, and I thought you’d all get a kick out of this photo. My wife and I went surfing. How cool is that!