Craft Brewers Conference Preview

The title sounds more like my football blog than this one, but I did make up some Over/Unders for the conference.

As I mentioned, I am off to the Craft Brewers Conference and thanks to the magic of computers this got posted while I am in the air.  The way I see it, my 10 readers will fall into one of three groups when they read about the conference:

1. The Business Minded:  You are thinking: Great, Mike is going to a conference and will get to learn a lot of useful stuff, network with a lot of industry folks, set up things with suppliers.  The timing couldn't be better for the brewery's schedule and Payette Brewing is really going to benefit from this.
2. The Jealous Beer Guys/Gals:  You are thinking: Man, I wish I could do all that stuff, look at all the people to meet, special beers to sample and places to see/visit.  Mike is just rubbing in all of it, what a #$^@.
3. The Party Minded: You are thinking: Fun, it sounds like there are more night time drinking events than there are seminars during the day.  How is Mike going to learn a thing when the beer is flowing like water until 2 and seminars start at 9...this is going to be a disaster.

Here is my response to all of you: Game On!

In all seriousness, I really am going to learn and know it will be a valuable experience for me and Payette Brewing.  My excitement for all the beers that I am going to be able to sample is off the charts, no denying that, but I am going to focus on the most useful piece of advice I got at Siebel "As a brewer, you should always have a beer in your hand, but never drunk"

In my posts, I will be sure to write something that addresses all three points of view, any other views I missed?

Over/Unders:

Readers who are thinking #3  right now (assuming 10 readers): 7.5 o/u
- Didn't want to set it too high, but this one is easy, I'm taking the over

Different beers Mike samples: 40.5 o/u 
- Tough one, 4 days/nights of events but only 1 liver, taking the under because I am...responsible? Note: a sample does not constitute an entire beer, many samples will be 4 oz.

Number of sessions Mike misses: 0.5 o/u
- Some might see this as being low based on the amount of potential drinking.  I'm taking the under, because my one rule in college was, if you are paying a lot to learn something, get your ass to class!

Runs Mike goes on (Robie is the Saturday after the conference): 2.5 o/u
- My training schedule calls for 4 runs, but beer has a direct effect on the desire to run.  Against my better judgment, taking the over

The Simmons podcasts really make me think about gambling on everything...it is a vice I really should avoid, but setting fictional gambling odds is so much fun to do.

Stay tuned this week for more posts

Gotta Hop!