CBC Day 2

This is the first legit conference I have ever been to and it is awesome, no better way to put it. After getting over the “star-struck” feeling early on of seeing all of the people I idolize in the industry, I got down to business and feel good about the state of PBC and what is in store. The seminars are hit or miss; the sales one was hands down the most valuable today. I went to one about starting a production brewery, which unfortunately was a bit of a waste of my time. The last one was not what I expected; it was on drinkability (not like the bud-light ads, but that was the second slide). I did get some good ideas, but have never had a more fun lecture. Especially when the lecturer took shots at the entire crowd for the “big” beers that are all the rage in the industry. Very entertaining and his argument towards making more session beers, especially lagers, had very valid points. On the other hand, if you every see Vinny from Russian River, make sure you tell him he makes the most drinkable beer in the market (a world without RR would be a boring place).

As for the nighttime activities, I'm going to go ahead and piss off all the beer geeks, sorry (well not really). Goose Island opened up their production brewery to the conference for beers and food samples from some excellent Chicago establishments.

If you can't read that, it is a sign for their rare barrel-aged Bourbon County Stout.  In addition to those, they had 10 other versions of the BCS, like a vanilla, coffee, raspberry and others.  Although they were good, really they just reminded me how good the original BCS is (except the Rare, those were so good).  Here's another look at the event:

After Goose, Rock Bottom had their upstairs open for the CBC attendees.  The highlight of the night there was when the cracked the Heartwood Symposium Ale made for the conference.  If you check out the link, the beer sounds like a total Charlie Foxtrot of a beer, but in fact was a great beer.