No…I don’t want to get up. I must sleep!!! Oh wait, it’s another day of drinking, blogging and twittering while listening to industry professionals go on about barley pops and blogging. Ok, I’m up and ready for another fun beer blogging day!
Saturday started off with a bang, not. It started with technical stuff. Who was the mad man behind scheduling technical topics the morning after an epic night of drinking? But I actually found the information very helpful and will be using some of these ideas on my blog:
- Perry Quinn and Grace Boyle with Lijit gave a great overview of a fantastic new free search engine for your blog/web site. It drives people to your site, helps search your site, and most of all increases page views. http://www.lijit.com/
- Pete Sheinbaum shared with us the uses of Daily Candy: how to engage your readers and have them just as engaged back. Build trust from both sides with openness and security. http://www.dailycandy.com/all-cities/
- Jason Cormier from Room 214, a social media agency helping us find and retain our customers/readers. http://room214.com/
- Holly Hamann with the Blog Frog, a widget that allows users to interact as a community within blogs. http://theblogfrog.com/
After all this, lunch time was upon us, and we’re off to Avery Brewing. We were greeted by a bartender that really knew his product. Spencer was his name and he shared with us some of the best Avery had to offer. Here is a listing of what we tried:
Jerry’s Roggenbier – Intense smoked grain flavor. Nice silky finish. Great beer.
Ruminator – Big Rum flavor, aroma and finish. This is a malt forward and nicely flavored beer.
duganA – Big Double IPA lots of hops and great malt flavors and a fantastic finish.
Rumpkin – Great aroma and flavor. Pumpkin and rum come out nice and balanced. Great beer. I wish I could get this in Oly.
The Moloch – Aged in Buffalo Trace whiskey barrels. Lots of malt flavor and the blended whiskey made for a fantastic blended brew.
What a great time! With mostly Beer bloggers in the tasting room, it made for great lunch break. Oh crap, better hurry back….we might be late for the afternoon session.
Oh, what did we walk into? Damn, who pissed of the ladies and why is the room getting so hot? There was a heated debate between two women and this topic was supposed to be “Craft Beer and Women: As Consumers, Industry Members, and Blog Readers”. It was way off track and all the men were getting very annoyed. I know I sure was.
Next up was Greg Koch, CEO and Founder of Stone Brewing Co. (Not Jim Koch!) Greg was a fantastic speaker, commanding the room with the grace of a President Obama speech. He was mesmerizing and I know I was captivated. He also brought out a new beer to be released in just a few weeks – Lucky Bastard, in commemoration of the 13 years since Arrogant Bastard came out. It was awesome and in Arrogant Bastard style only a dyslexic could read the label. Then his talk went to places I have not heard since college: end of the civilized world Machiavellian sort of speak. Let’s just say I was awed and thinking “huh?” at the same time.
Next was speed blogging and this was a trip in itself. Take 12 beers, 5 minutes each with industry professionals telling you all about them, and then either blogging, twittering or writing down your thoughts. Let’s just say after all this beer and the speed, I was one Buzzed BrewDad.
Here’s what drank:
Rob Widmer – Widmer Brothers Reserve Barrel Aged Brrrbon
Sebbie Buhler – Rogue Brewing – Chocolate Stout
Bryan Baltzell – Great Divide Brewing – Oak Aged Yeti
Joe Mohrfeld – Odell Brewing – Double Black IPA
Stacy Denbow – Deschutes Brewing – Hop Trip
Justin Patti – New Belgium – La Folie 2010
Todd Thibaul and Terry Usry – Breckenridge Brewing – Christmas Ale
Danielle Quatrochi – New Planet Brewing – 3R Raspberry Ale and Tread Lightly Ale
Mariah Calagione – Dogfish Head – World Wide Stout
Missed the reps name – Great Lakes Brewing – Edmund Fitzgearld
Jedd Cornell – Colorado Native Lager (This is not Coors)
Ryan Ross – Karl Strauss – Full Suit Belgian Style Brown ale
With a good buzz, we all headed to Boulder Brewing Company for food, great times,
and beer with a hundred new beer blogging friends. Ok, so it took a while to get there after our bus driver decided to show us the finer points of the 96 point turn.
Last on the list was the Pub Crawl. For this tired blogger, I was done. D-O-N-E. I walked directly to the last place on the list – Mt Sun Brew Pub – tried a few and then it was sack time for BrewDaddy.
