Presentations & Speakers
2010 Keynote Speaker
Mark Stutrud of Summit Brewing Company
In September 1986, Mark Stutrud opened Summit Brewing in a former transmission shop on St. Paul's University Avenue, importing some 1930s-era brewing equipment from Germany. Mark was a casual homebrewer and a chemical dependency counselor when he founded Summit in 1984, spending the next two years raising the funds from skeptical investors to open his brewery. The beer world soon took notice. Summit's Great Northern Porter won first place at the 1987 Great American Beer Festival. Mark's emphasis from the start was producing the kind of beers he would like to drink. Summit Extra Pale Ale was the first beer and is still the flagship product. Flavor profile is sacred at Summit, and the brewery prides itself on producing clean, consistent examples of classic styles. With a regional focus, the brewery has enjoyed double-digit increases in revenue. In 1998, Summit opened a modern 120,000-barrel plant in St. Paul- the first brewery to be built in Minnesota in 75 years.
2010 Confirmed Conference Speakers
This list will be updated frequently as speakers are confirmed.
A Closer Look at Efficiency—Or How to Make Efficiency Predictable
Kai Troester is a design engineer for a major computer chip company by day but a passionate proponent of German brewing techniques in his free time. He began homebrewing in 2005 and was soon involved in an in-depth study of German brewing texts. That research, along with his own brewing experiments, resulted in articles on his website, braukaiser.com and for Zymurgy magazine. Kai lives in Massachusetts and is a member of New Hampshire's Brew Free or Die homebrew club.
Aged to Perfection: The Maturation of Beer
Steve Parkes is the owner and lead instructor at the American Brewers Guild brewing school in Vermont. He graduated from Heriot-Watt University with a degree in brewing science in 1982 and has spent the last 27 years working in small—and medium—sized breweries on both sides of the Atlantic. He has built breweries from scratch using both used and new equipment, and has years of experience in practical problem solving. Steve has been a regular speaker at the annual Craft Brewers Conference, is a veteran GABF and World Beer Cup judge. He has served on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for Brewing Studies. In 2009, he received the Brewers Association's Russell Scherer Award for Innovation in Brewing.
Ale is Physic: (From a gill to a Kilderkin)… aka A tipplers guide to Victorian and Edwardian English beer styles
Kris England has been brewing beer and mead for the past 7 years. He has consistently placed near the top of the nation's most cutthroat competitions making him a well-respected and a preeminent homebrewer in the US. Kristen has also been a beer judge since 2003 and is the youngest Grand Master beer judge in the history of the BJCP and has served as the BJCP Continuing Education Director since its inception in 2005. Kristen is also a freelance writer having penned numerous articles for homebrewing journals and magazines. Kristen recently provided technical advice and wrote four recipes for Brewing With Wheat by Stan Hieronymus. Additionally, Kristen has just co-published a book on English beers styles from the turn of the 20th century which he is giving his seminar on.
Beer, Mead and the Human Sense of Taste
Ken Schramm has isolated himself almost completely from human contact by becoming a devout aficionado of orchardry, fly fishing and mead making. He grows fruit varieties you've almost certainly never heard of, for the sole purpose of making microscopic quantities of beverages that few people ever get to drink. His book, The Compleat Meadmaker, was published by Brewers Publications in 2003. Recently, Ken has begun making small "Signature" batches as a contract mead maker for B. Nektar Meadery in Ferndale, Michigan. He lives in Troy, Michigan, and manages an educational multimedia production facility in his spare time
Bottle Conditioning like a Pro
Jennifer Helber, an avid homebrewer and Boulevard Brewing Co.'s first fulltime laboratory worker. She established Boulevard's Quality Assurance Lab and implemented its microbiological, physical, chemical and sensory testing. In 2004, she was asked to present a "Growing Your Lab" workshop at the World Brewing Congress. Over the years, Jennifer became increasingly interested in sensory testing, earning a certification in Sensory Science, and Consumer Testing from UC Davis Extension in 2007. She has been a member of the American Society of Brewing Chemists for ten years.
Cellarmanship: Skills and Techniques for Serving Cask-Conditioned Beer
Steve Hamburg was co-founder and cellarmaster for the Chicago Real Ale Festival (1996-2003) and is cellarmaster for the Chicago Beer Society's Day & Night of the Living Ales (2005-present). A homebrewer since 1984 and a BJCP judge since 1990, Steve has a wealth of knowledge on British beer styles, no doubt helped by some 30 trips to the UK. He has written extensively on the English Bitter style and has been a vocal proponent of session beers and the proper care of cask ales. He has been a regular contributor to Zymurgy and other beer publications, including The New Brewer, All About Beer, and Great Lakes Brewing News.
Crafting Award Winning Extract and Partial-Grain Beer
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mark Tanner is primarily an extract brewer who has dedicated over 15 years to extract and partial grain brewing. In the past 24 months, he has won awards in 14 states for 27 different beer sub-styles. After living in Bavaria for 3.5 years, Mark returned to the United States and had difficulty finding fresh German light lagers. He brewed these on his own, without joining an organized club or entering a contest for more than 11 years. In his first full year of competition, Mark won the 2008 High Plains Brewer of the Year award and repeated this win in 2009. Mark and his family recently moved back home to Washington State and he is now a member of the Beer Renegades of Everett Washington (BREW).
Creating Fireworks with Food and Beer
Mike Bardallis has been brewing at home for just over 20 years, and after 300 batches, is still going strong. He is a BJCP National Judge and recently passed the Certified CiceroneTM exam along with his wife, Annette May. To share their passion for beer, food and the good life in general the couple has begun blogging at 2cicerones.blogspot.com. In 2008, Annette May, became the first woman to pass the Certified CiceroneTM exam, and currently sells craft beer at Merchant's Fine Wine in Dearborn, MI. She is a 15 year veteran of the commercial craft beer industry, having previously worked at Chicago's Map room and with B. United International Inc.
Everything I learned About Brewing I Learned From You! A presentation of the social and communal nature of beer education; from Pharaohs to Facebook.
Justin Crossley is the founder of The Brewing Network and a veteran radio personality. He has created and hosted beer related programming on CBS Radio in San Francisco, produced sports programming for the Oakland Athletics, provided web based radio coverage of every National Homebrewers Conference and Great American Beer Festival since 2006, and assists in developing, producing and airing all Brewing Network programs. Craft Beer and homebrew are the only competition for his love of radio and audio production, and it's a tight race between the two!
Exploring Cider
Gary Awdey, president of the Great Lakes Cider & Perry Association, has presented cider and perry workshops in the U.S. since 2005. He has made a study of regional cider styles as well as modern and traditional production methods. His keeved cider has been awarded two AHA national gold medals and in 2008 was voted Best in Class at the Putley Cider & Perry Trials in Herefordshire, England. A process engineer with steel producer ArcelorMittal, he recently relocated to northwest Indiana where he plans to move his trial orchard collection of approximately 200 varieties of European and North American cider apples and perry pears.
Exploring Yeast
Greg Doss began homebrewing in 1995, while working towards his degree in microbiology at Oregon State University. Following college, he brewed professionally for five years in Hood River (OR) and Seattle. In 2000, Greg joined the staff at Wyeast Laboratories as a microbiologist and has managed the QC/QA Department since 2005.
Food and Beer Pairing
Kyle Jones has been homebrewing for seven years after being introduced to the hobby by a professor. While his beer has steadily improved over the years, he has also developed and nurtured a keen interest in food and beer pairing. He enjoys cooking and studying food science when he's not brewing or working his day job as a medical physicist. He has recently taken the BJCP exam and hopes to soon hear some good news. He has hosted his annual Food and Beer Pairing Dinner for five years running, which has grown to over 40 guests. After watching his fellow Foam Rangers try to feed 200 people at Dixie Cup 2009 during Garrett Oliver's lecture on food and beer pairing, he's going to try to feed 300 at NHC 2010.
From Flat to Foam: The Joys and Terrors of Draft Beer at Home
Ray Daniels has 20 years experience as a brewer, beer judge, brewing author and beer educator. He is director of the Cicerone Certification Program as well as a senior faculty member of the Siebel Institute of Technology, America's oldest brewing school. Daniels is the author of Designing Great Beers which has sold more than 40,000 copies and is considered a classic of the American brewing literature. From 1999 to 2004, he was the Editor of The New Brewer and Zymurgy magazines—the leading technical publications of the U.S. craft brewing community. Daniels served as the national spokesperson for the craft beer industry from 2004 to 2008 as the Director of Craft Beer Marketing for the Brewers Association. He is a graduate of the Siebel Institute of Technology's Diploma Course in Brewing. He holds an MBA from Harvard University and a B.S. in biochemistry from Texas A&M University.
Hop Variety Overview: What is Quality and how can I Find It?
James Altwies is a horticulturist by education, obtaining his masters degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked for an agricultural chemical company where he designed and executed field research studies on dozens of high value crops all over the world. James studied various crop production and distribution systems, making note of what provided the most value to the growers while minimizing energy inputs and promoting sustainability. Eager to implement his ideas at home, he spent a great deal of time researching high value crops that could be grown in the Upper Midwest. It was during this period that the hops market underwent a large fluctuation and numerous brewers in the region were having difficulty securing the raw materials they needed. James knew that hops were once produced in Wisconsin and could be once again.
Kitchen Science vs Science Science
B.J. Haun began brewing in 2001, has been a member of the St Paul Homebrewers Club since 2005, and is currently their treasurer. He has won several medals in regional and national competitions, including a gold medal at the 2007 AHA National Homebrew Competition. He has a Ph.D. in plant biology and genetics and is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota. Appropriate to the topic of his talk, he likes applying his scientific background to better understanding the effects different brewing ingredients and procedures have on the quality of his beer. In addition to brewing 50+ times per year, he has helped plan and organize several club brewing experiments, ranging from hop variety trials to oak-aging experiments.
Lesser Known and Misunderstood English Beer Styles
Antony Hayes, a homebrewer since 1988, won the South African National Homebrew Competition in 2000 and 2003. In 2004, he became BJCP certified—the first time the test was held outside North America. He is the founder of the Homebrew TriNations Competition, which involves the top beers brewed in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Antony also founded the Joburg Brewers, a joint venture with SABMiller. He is chairman of the London Amateur Brewers and a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers.
Live Taping of Basic Brewing - Club Spotlight: Prairie Homebrewing Companions
James Spencer is the host of the Basic Brewing Radio and Basic Brewing Video podcasts and producer of the Basic Brewing series of instructional DVDs. By a fluke of fate, James won the first homebrewing contest he ever entered. After which, he immediately retired from competition, undefeated. Through his podcasts, James has become a champion of the small batch, brewing as little as a six-pack at a time to test various procedures and ingredients. When James is not talking about beer, reading about beer, writing about beer, or thinking about beer, he's asleep.
Steve Wilkes, according to family legend, began his interest in beer with his first full sentence at age 2 saying to his father "I want a drink of beer." This natural affinity for malt led him to become a home brewer in 1996 and eventually co-host of Basic Brewing Video with James Spencer. When not converting barley into wort, wort into beer and beer into good times with friends and family, Wilkes serves as the Director of Student Media at the University of Arkansas. Working with Spencer on Basic Brewing.com provides a perfect opportunity to keep his journalism chops up to par, while covering all things beer.
Wilkes, an amateur chef, frequently brings his love of beer and food to the Basic Brewing podcast. He is also a professional jazz musician who believes Count Basie records, a good bowl of chili, and a well-made ESB are pretty much all you need to be happy.
Malt and the Malting Process
Kelly Kuehl, one of the founders of the Minnesota Home Brewers Association, joined the brewing industry as national sales manager for the August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, Minnesota, in 1990. For six years he assisted the brewery in the formulation and introduction of several of its first specialty beer brands. In 1996, Kelly brought his expertise to the malt industry, joining Schreier Malting Company of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, as sales manager. He remained with the company after 1998, when it was purchased by Cargill. In 2003, Kelly became vice president of sales for Mid America Brewing Supply of Kasota, Minnesota, and the next year his vision of a coast to coast specialty malt distribution company was realized with the formation of Brewers Supply Group, where he was vice president of sales until 2005. He is currently the vice president of sales for Mid Country Malt Supply of Chicago.
Meadmaker of the Year Panel
Steve Fletty began homebrewing in 1997. He won the AHA Mead Maker of the Year award in 2007 and the 2008 Midwest Homebrewer of the Year trophy. He is also an avid BJCP judge with a National ranking. When he's not sanitizing kegs, he works as a computer network design engineer.
Steve Piatz is a past AHA Mead Maker of the Year (2008). Steve has been brewing beer, cider, mead and wine for longer than he sometimes cares to remember. Steve is a BJCP Grand Master III judge. He has been grading BJCP exams since 1997, became a BJCP Associate Exam Director in 2000 and one of the BJCP Exam Directors in 2004. Steve has helped teach/coordinate numerous local BJCP exam preparation classes. He has given regional talks about mead judging and mead making and last fall gave a presentation about the BJCP judging process at the Universidad Tecnològica Nacional in Buenos Aires as part of the first BJCP exam given in South America.
Curt Stock (along with his wife Kathy) started homebrewing in 1996. In 2003, they started making mead after picking up a copy of Ken Schramm's book The Complete Meadmaker at the AHA Conference in Chicago. In 2003, he became a BJCP Certified judge. He was elected to the AHA Governing Committee in 2006. He has been very active in homebrew competitions by entering, volunteering and organizing and has been lucky enough to win a few beer and mead Best of Shows including three AHA Mead Club Only Competitions and the 2005 AHA Meadmaker of the Year. Curt co-founded the Saint Paul Homebrewers Club (2007, 2008 and 2009 AHA Club of the Year), and feels the best resource for improvement is your fellow homebrewers. Don't be afraid to ask questions. What's best after a long, cold, wet day in Ireland? Yes, Whiskey!
Thomas Eibner, the 2009 Meadmaker of the Year, began homebrewing seven years ago. After being introduced to mead by fellow Saint Paul Homebrewers Club member, Curt Stock, Eibner began making mead around six years ago. Eibner is the former president of the Saint Paul Homebrewers Club and finds himself quite busy with a five-year-old son and one-year-old daughter. His favorite fruits to use when making mead are those that have higher acid content, like blackcurrant and cherries. Eibner prefers his meads sweet, and the higher acid content in the fruit balances them out.
Joe Formanek (moderator) was raised in a small town near Brainerd, MN, Joe attended the University of Minnesota where he received a B.S. in Microbiology in 1988. It was while attending the U of M that he toured Summit Brewing Company. This really piqued his interest in trying his hand at homebrewing. In 1993, while attending Grad School at the University of Illinois, Joe helped found the Boneyard Union of Zymurgical Zealots (BUZZ) homebrew club in Champaign, IL and served as its President until 1996. Joe had the opportunity to be an assistant brewer at Joe's Brewery in Champaign for a year in 1995. Over the years, he has also had the opportunity to guest brew at a number of other breweries in the Chicago and Davenport Iowa area. Upon receiving his Doctoral degree in 1997, Joe relocated to the Chicago area to take a position as a Research Scientist at a Food Ingredient manufacturer/supplier. It was at this time that he joined the Urban Knaves of Grain homebrew club. Besides having the honor of twice winning the AHA Ninkasi Award (2000, 2006), Joe is a six-time winner of the Midwest Homebrewer of the Year (1999, 2001-2004, 2007), and also was named the AHA Meadmaker of the Year in 2004.
Moving to Mashing: Easy Ways to Get into Partial Mash & All Grain Brewing
Denny Conn has been homebrewing for over 11 years in the foothills of the Coast Range Mountains in Oregon. He is an audio engineer by trade, but that's just to finance the brewing. Denny did about 6 extract batches before switching to all grain and discovering the "Cheap'n'Easy" batch sparge brewing technique. He's a BJCP National judge and his Rye IPA recipe has been brewed both by Rogue in the US and Olfabrikken in Denmark. He also has written articles for brewing magazines and is a frequent contributor to many Internet beer discussion forums, and was a speaker at the 2008 conference. He's the Tech Tsar of the Cascade Brewers Society, based in Eugene, OR.
Rock on! How to Stone Brew Beyond the Dark Ages
Randy Scorby is currently a resident of Baker City, Oregon and a member of the Good Libations and Strange Brew Homebrew Clubs. He is an avid and passionate homebrewer and a BJCP National Judge. He jumped into homebrewing with both feet in 2005 by making his first beer as an all grain batch and has concocted several stone brews with Good Libations Club members. When not brewing or wood working, he can be found relaxing with a Flanders Red Ale or a big northwest IPA.
The Science Behind the Art, Hops in Brewing
Joseph Wegner is a formulation chemist having spent years in both the agricultural and pharmaceutical industry designing various blends from pesticides to hand sanitizer. He has the unique balance of technical acumen and real-world practicality which makes him a great resource for Gorst Valley Hops. Joe spends a good deal of time reviewing journal articles and research around hop chemistry and what practices impact chemical qualities. Joe has a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's degree in polymer chemistry.
Starting Your Own Brewery Panel
Omar Ansari began homebrewing in 1994. For his birthday that year, his girlfriend purchased Omar a starter homebrew kit from Northern Brewer. Omar brewed occasionally for a number of years until things got really going in 2002, when Omar brewed a Baby Brew Announcement in honor of his son Max's birth. The brewing hobby took off from there and all-grain brewing started shortly there after. Next, the garage was overrun and Omar spent much of his time thinking about brewing. In 2004, Omar came up with the crazy idea to open a brewery in his family's old building. After the idea hatched, Omar met up with Todd Haug, headbrewer at Rock Bottom and the 2 went on to start Surly Brewing Company. Since the first beer was sold in February of 2006, Surly has become one of the fastest growing breweries in America.
Rick Garvin fell in love with great beer in 1981 on his first visit to the Brickskeller in Washington, DC. He began homebrewing in 1985, attended his first AHA conference in 1987 where he passed the BJCP exam. Since then he has progressed to Master Judge and served as Associate Director of the BJCP, won medals in the NHC. He is a long-time member of BURP and has served as President, co-founder of Spirit of Free Beer homebrew competition and organizer of the Spirit of Belgium conference. Rick has taken his beer and brewing obsession to its logical conclusion and is the co-founder of the Mad Fox Brewing Company in Falls Church, Virginia opening in spring 2010.
Tom Hennessy has been brewing professionally since 1993 with his first brewpub, IL Vicino in Albuquerque, NM. Since then he has built and owned five additional breweries including Palisade Brewery in Colorado, a packaging microbrewery and currently Colorado Boy Pub & Brewery in Ridgway, Colorado. He is the author and creator of Frankenbrew, a DVD he produced in 1995 showing how to put an inexpensive brewery together for under $20,000. He is also the author of The Fabjob Guide to Become a Coffee House Owner, and The Fabjob Guide to Become a Restaurant Owner. He is passionate about teaching how to open inexpensive small breweries and currently teaches a one week immersion course in his small Colorado brewery.
Jay and Lori Wince, owners of Weasel Boy Brewing Company, got their start when Jay began homebrewing casually in 1995. After jumping into the hobby seriously in 2002 Jay averaged over 20 brews a year and was competitively successful with his homebrew including winning bronze medals in the National Homebrew Competition in both 2003 and 2005. Lori, who continues to work in the newspaper business, began homebrewing in 2005 is a self proclaimed "bitter woman" and enjoys India Pale Ale above all else. She continues to write while trying to convert all Southeastern Ohio residents to drinking craft beers at the Weasel Boy Brewing Company tap room.
Moderator, James Spencer is the host of the Basic Brewing Radio and Basic Brewing Video podcasts and producer of the Basic Brewing series of instructional DVDs. By a fluke of fate, James won the first homebrewing contest he ever entered. After which, he immediately retired from competition, undefeated. Through his podcasts, James has become a champion of the small batch, brewing as little as a six-pack at a time to test various procedures and ingredients. When James is not talking about beer, reading about beer, writing about beer, or thinking about beer, he's asleep.
Sugars of Tripel
Ted Hausotter is an award winning homebrewer from Baker City, OR. He started homebrewing in 1983 and since has brewed over 2,000 gallons of beer, mead and cider. He is a BJCP Grand Master beer judge and the BJCP regional representative for the Mountain region. Ted is a frequent contributing author for Zymurgy and a member of Good Libations and Strange Brew homebrew clubs. When he started brewing beer he started on the quest for the perfect pint and has done many brewing experiments, blending beer styles and blurring stylistic lines in search of the perfect pint!
Tips & Tricks to Set Up You Own Homebrewery
John Blichmann obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University and worked for Caterpillar's Engine Division for 15 years in jobs ranging from Sales/Marketing, product development (both custom and mass production), field testing and finally "retired" from an Engineering Supervisor position to start Blichmann Engineering in 2002. He's a BJCP judge and has been homebrewing for 17 years. His wife, Mary Ellen, and three Daughters live in Lafayette, Indiana.
Varietal Mead Comparison
Susan Ruud has been an avid homebrewer since 1996. Winning medals in the first competition she entered was one of the best (or worst) things that happened to her as it only fueled the homebrewing bug that had taken over her. Susan has served on the AHA Governing Committee for 10 years, serves as the BJCP Assistant Exam Director and is a Grand Master I BJCP judge. Susan started her homebrewing career making mead and that has remained her first love. She has won several medals with mead at the AHA National Homebrew Competition and has helped write the BJCP Mead study guide. She supports her homebrewing habit by working in agricultural research for North Dakota State University.
Gordon Strong is an award-winning homebrewer, meadmaker and beer judge. He won the Ninkasi Award in 2008 and 2009, and the Mazer Cup in 2002. He is the current President of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), the only Grand Master V beer judge, and one of the first certified Mead Judges. He was the principal author of the 2004 and 2008 BJCP Style Guidelines, and the Mead Exam Study Guide. He is a member of the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Governing Committee, the technical editor of Zymurgy, a panelist on the Commercial Calibration panel of Zymurgy, and author of several articles in Brew Your Own and Zymurgy. He has spoken at national and regional conferences and festivals, has appeared on local and national TV, and has been a guest on several internet podcasts.
"Plastic" Yeast Strains From Belgium and Germany: Learning to Compromise
Stan Hieronymus is a professional journalist and amateur brewer who has made beer his beat since 1993. The editor at Realbeer.com, he's written hundreds of articles for periodicals, co-authored four books with his wife, Daria Labinsky, written Brewing with Wheat and Brew Like a Monk for Brewers Publications and contributed to several others, including 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die. His travels have taken him to breweries in every state in the country as well as behind the scenes in internationally famous breweries such as De Sint-Sixtusadij Westvleteren and Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn.