National Homebrew Conference

Nathan K · #1 06-11-2012, 02:01 PM

I was just wondering if anyone else here is going to the AHA NHC this year? I didn't think I was going to be able to go because it was sold out but I managed to score a ticket a few weeks ago. I saw that there are going to be several workshops on mead making.

skunkboy · #2 06-11-2012, 08:27 PM

Would have been nice. I plan to go next year, and hopefully the year after.

jkane · #3 06-12-2012, 07:50 AM

Long way away for us this year. Not enough vacation days available. :-(

Nathan K · #4 07-02-2012, 05:19 PM

It was actually a lot of fun (I know big surprise there). There were two talks from the people at Moonlight Meadery in NH. One was on pairing cheese and mead and came complete with a bunch of cheese and mead samples. The other was just a more general information on mead making.

Some of their techniques seemed interesting, like the fact that they ferment everything at 62F very slowly (three months I think they said), only use one yeast strain (71B if I remember correctly), and don't back-sweeten at all. Of their meads that I tasted, all were very clean and not the slightest bit hot even though they were in the 16 to 18% ABV range. The apple pie mead tasted just like apple pie. Overall, I think most of their range was a little sweeter than I like but that's from tasting probably only 4 of their meads out of the 58 different styles that they make.

I think the videos are going to be posted on the AHA website but you might have to be a current AHA member to access them.

Beyond that, there were some other great talks and there was roughly 1000 kegs of beer to consume (for 1850 people). The food at the banquet dinner was beyond amazing. It was a great time!

Chevette Girl · #5 07-03-2012, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan K

Some of their techniques seemed interesting, like the fact that they ferment everything at 62F very slowly (three months I think they said), only use one yeast strain (71B if I remember correctly), and don't back-sweeten at all. Of their meads that I tasted, all were very clean and not the slightest bit hot even though they were in the 16 to 18% ABV range.

Thanks for the summary! And this bit isn't too surprising, if you have an otherwise healthy ferment that's kept slow by low temperatures, I've heard that it doesn't make it hot even at high alcohol levels, it's nice to hear about someone proving the theory!