Home and Hosed

November 1, 2010, by Crafty Pint

Home and Hosed

The second Australian National Homebrewing Conference took place in Melbourne over the weekend. Hundreds of delegates from across Australia and further afield gathered at the William Angliss Institute for masterclasses, beer dinners, competitions and talks from many of the biggest names in homebrewing, some who had flown in from the US.

As they return home with fuzzy heads crammed with ideas on how to make better beer, The Crafty Pint spoke to ANHC chairman Andy Davison. He described the weekend as a “real buzz” and picked out the visit of Randy Mosher, the American author of Radical Brewing and creator of some wild beer recipes, as his personal highlight.

“We were a bit anxious about it, given the standard we set in 2008, but by all accounts we met our intention to make a better event – and that scares me in itself, as we start to plan for 2012,” he said. “Personally I loved club night this year. We had more clubs turning out for the event, and nearly everyone put a significant amount of effort in to create a fun and entertaining atmosphere, which was great – club night is, after all, for and about the clubs and the sense of community was really strong.

“All of our guests gave brilliant presentations and shared an enormous amount of information with us, but Randy ignited a little flame inside me, making me want to seek out more in beer than the technical skills needed to produce good beer. I think he has inspired a large number of the homebrewing community to look outside the box in search of strange and wonderful ideas, techniques and ingredients that adds the extra spark that produces a truly outstanding beer.”

The plan is to run the conference every two years, with the next full ANHC in 2012, although there will be associated events 2011.

“ANHC has provided a venue to bring the homebrewing community in Australia into the one physical location, for a fleeting moment in time, to share and learn. We’re keen to continue creating these opportunities,” added Andy. “I guess even more exciting is observing clubs becoming inspired to start up some inter-club social activities themselves, so I think that we will see a trend over coming years of more and more homebrewers gathering en masse.”

The main prizes were:

Champion Beer of Show (Sponsor: Matilda Bay)
LYALL COTTAM (QLD) for his Bohemian Pilsner
Runner-up: Brendan Guild (VIC) for a Traditional Bock

Champion Brewer (Sponsor: Grain & Grape)
CRAIG WEBBER (ACT)
Runner-up: Brendan O’Sullivan (WA)

A full list of results will appear on the ANHC website later today. There, you can also find out more about homebrewing and becoming involved with ANHC activities.

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