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APERITIF

Sharp’s Single Brew 2011

TO START

Poached pear, watercress with a minted melon salad

Sharp’s Honey Spice IPA and Blue Moon

TO FOLLOW

Pan seared hake with a light horseradish and pea cream

served with seasonal vegetables and potatoes

Veg option

Spinach and crushed artichokes wrapped in puff pastry

Sharp’s Honey Spice Tripel and Worthington Red Shield

AFTERS

Banana and rum toffee pie

Sharp’s Quadrupel and Worrthington White Sheild

Freshly Brewed Coffee & Mints

Sharp’s Turbo Yeast IV (ten zuiden van de hemel)

Once again, we would like to express our gratitude for MolsonCoors’ support of EBBC this year.  They helped out in a big way, from providing Stuart Howe as our keynote speaker to providing dinner, and to doing something unprecedented  for the Beer Bloggers Conferences – offering scholarships to citizen bloggers.

Glassware is just as important as the quality of the beer when enjoying your favorite brew. Whether you are a budding beer guru or seasoned aficionado, Spiegelau’s Beer Classics collection is essential for a future filled with premium imports and craft or micro-brewed styles.

The glasses are designed in four distinct beer glass shapes (Tall Pilsner, Lager, Stemmed Pilsner and Wheat) that support the characteristics of specific beer styles. Each beer-specific glass shape supports the beer in releasing its full spectrum of flavors and aromas, delivering them directly to the nose and mouth.  Additionally, the glasses are especially thin blown, and have a thin rim that lifts the perception of mouth feel and taste.

• Spiegelau’s Tall Pilsner Glass – Its slender shape enhances hops aroma and bitterness, making it ideal for Bohemian and German style Pilsners. The Tall Pilsner Glass is visually the best to elegantly showcase the light golden color and aromatics of these brews.

• Spiegelau’s Lager Glass – The shape of this glass aids in showcasing the aromatics, color, clarity and carbonation of good lagers. Lager beer is one of the most common beers, making this glass style one of the most often used beer vessels.

• Spiegelau’s Stemmed Pilsner Glass – The open mouth of Spiegelau’s Stemmed Pilsner Glass displays intense flavors, while the subtle lip captures the head and enhances the aromas, making this glass ideal for especially aromatic beers.

• Spiegelau’s Wheat Beer Glass – Spiegelau’s Wheat Beer Glass stands at an impressive height to allow for the high carbonation and thick frothy head often associated with this type of beer, while the slightly bowed shape and narrower top focuses the yeasty, fruity, phenol aromas of traditional wheat beers.

Each blogger will walk away from the tasting with a Beer Classics Connoisseur Set, including one of each glass style within the collection.  The tasting session in Leeds will feature beers from UK breweries Camden Town Brewery and Ilkley Brewery, while the Indianapolis group will enjoy Brooklyn Brewery, along with valuable information on enjoying the perfect pint from Matt Rutkowski and Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett Oliver. In the meantime, follow them on Twitter @SpiegelauUSA or @SpiegelauUK and let us know about your previous experiences with Spiegelau and pouring the perfect glass of beer.

Welcome, Spiegelau!

To celebrate their return to EBBC this year in addition to their 170th anniversary, Pilsner Urquell  has arranged a grand Czech feast for dinner on Saturday evening at Anthony’s Restaurant in Leeds. EBBC attendees can also look forward to wooden barrels of unfiltered, unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell to enjoy as well as an opportunity to learn about the rich history of Pilsen’s famous brewery.  Dinner will be followed by a late-night reception at a local pub.

Pilsner Urquell is hosting two contests via Twitter for EBBC bloggers: The blogger who tweets the most using #happy170PU from now until EBBC will win Pilsner Urquell glassware, and the best pictures posted on Twitter or Facebook will take home Pilsner Urquell merchandise from the conference.

Na zdraví!

Shepherd Neame has announced they will be giving away a limited number of their newest aged beer, Generation Ale, at the European Beer Bloggers Conference next weekend.  Only 3000 bottles total are being released of this limited edition hand-crafted ale.  Below is the description offered up by the brewery:

“To signify the five generations of the Neame family that have run the brewery, this burnished gold ale combines five classic roasted malts with five of the choicest varieties of traditional Kentish hops. The ingredients are combined with natural chalk-filtered mineral water, drawn from the artesian well deep beneath the Shepherd Neame brew-house, and then brewed in the UK’s last remaining wooden mash tuns. Finally, the beer is aged in a deep maturation process lasting 12 months.  As one of the few ales in the UK to undergo this lengthy ageing process, Generation Ale boasts a rich character, impeccably balanced flavour and a long warming finish.”

Britain’s oldest brewer is also the first in the UK to be brewing a US craft beer under license.  Shepherd Neame has been the exclusive importer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager for over a decade, but they will now be brewing up the lager fresh right there in the UK.

Since their participation at EBBC last year, Shepherd Neame has been stepping up their online presence.  Their new website, set to launch next month, is said to be a reflection of this shift.  Please join us in welcoming them back to the 2012 European Beer Bloggers Conference!

The Colorado tour runs October 8-12 and includes five days of fun. The hiking and biking range from easy to moderate and include a bike ride on the flat trails of Boulder; a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park; visits to breweries including Boulder Beer Company and New Belgium Brewing; dinners at four different brewpubs in four cities; and a final evening at the Great American Beer Festival. The tour is for everyone so you need be neither an experienced athlete or professional beer drinker to enjoy it.

Zephyr Adventures is joining with New Belgium Brewing, World Class Beer, Draft Magazine, and Untappd to give away one free spot on the Colorado Beer Adventure to some lucky winner. This includes airfare and the total value is approximately $2,200. Just fill out the registration form in the month of May to be eligible to win. Even better, Zephyr will give away a second free tour including airfare to one lucky beer blogger.

To enter to win the free tour to be given to a beer blogger, all you have to do is write a post on your blog during May that mentions and links to the Colorado Beer Tour giveaway and our participating partners. The post itself can be about the giveaway or you can make it about beer travel in general, Colorado’s beer scene, the GABF, – anything you want. Then, leave a comment on the Zephyr Adventures blog post providing the URL of your blog post and we’ll draw one winner on June 15. Note you must be a US beer blogger to win.

As an added bonus, if you are registered for BBC12 by May 31, your name will be entered twice to the drawing.

Good luck!

Adrian Tierney-Jones shared a few points of thought in regards to becoming a stronger writer:

Keys to better beer blogging

Join us this Wednesday at 7pm BST, 2pm EST.  Follow #EBBC12 and include it in your Tweets to be a part of the conversation.  Be sure you are following Adrian (@atjbeer) and Simon (@jenkolovesbeer) to ask them questions and hear their thoughts, and @beerbloggers for conversation starters.

For a complete lineup of the speakers at each conference, see either the Indianapolis BBC Agenda or the Leeds EBBC Agenda. The content sessions are detailed on the bottom of each page. Here are bios on just a few of the speakers from each conference, presented in no particular order.

European Beer Bloggers Conference in Leeds

Liz Cable is a strategic e-learning consultant and learning  technologist at Reach Further in Leeds, helping clients articulate and deliver practical  strategies for adopting and embedding technology in working  and learning practices. She has designed and managed IT  strategy & training, e-learning and professional online  communities for a variety of major companies, specialist schools and colleges. She is a Fellow of the Institute of IT Training, and a member of the Institute of Directors. Liz will be speaking on Social Media and Your Blog. @lizcable

Stuart Howe is Head Brewer at Sharp’s Brewery and will provide our keynote speech. Stuart followed his passion and changed from a career in engineering to life as a brewer by completing a Brewing and Distilling honours degree at Heriot-Watt University. In 2010 Stuart brewed 52 experimental brews in a year. His beers have been awarded more than one hundred national and international awards for quality and excellence. In 2011 Stuart was named as the All Parliamentary Beer Group Brewer of the Year.

Simon Jenkins is a self-described “beer writer, beer drinker, and beer lover”. He is the Yorkshire Evening Post’s beer columnist and was the British Guild of Beer Writers’ Beer Writer of the Year in 2010. Simon will be joining Adrian Tierney-Jones to talk about Improving Your Beer Writing. @jenkolovesbeer

Zak Avery runs the blog Are You Tasting the Pith and is jointly owns the specialist beer shop Beer-Ritz in Headingley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, as well as the wholesaler Beer Paradise and the mail order service Beer-Ritz. Talk about keeping active! Zak was the Winner of the 2008 Brains SA Gold New Media Award as well as the 2008 British Guild of Beer Writers’ Writer of the Year award. Zak will present on Taking It To the Next Level along with Marverine Cole and Mark Dredge. @ZakAvery

Beer Bloggers Conference in Indianapolis

Dan Kopman is co-founder of The St. Louis Brewery Inc., which he started 15 years ago with attorney Tom Schlafly and is better known as Schafly Beer. The company runs the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St.Louis and Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood, part of St.Louis County. Dan will be speaking on The Three Tier System with Jim Schembre, General Manager of World Class Beer, and Jordan Huber, owner of the Beer Sellar retail stores.

Win Bassett is a co-founder and freelance writer at http://ncbrewing.org, and writes for All About Beer magazine’s Beer Soup blog. He’s contributed as a writer and editor to All About Beer magazine, Southern Brew News, the News & Observer and WRAL. Win is a freelance craft beer marketing consultant for SkyBound Studios, a Certified Cicerone Beer Server, and a member of the North Carolina Brewers Guild. When not writing and educating about beer, Win is an assistant district attorney for the state of North Carolina. Win will be presenting on Blog to Job along with Brady Whalen, Evan Benn, and Mike Besser. @WinBassett

Cathy Clark is author of the blog Brewtiful. She got into the craft beer scene via her charity, www.liveitbig.org.  As one of the fundraisers, she created Camp Beer — a lecture series to showcase various craft beers from around the country. Camp Beer has now been run 10 times, still raising money for her charity. She is also founder of the Houston and Dallas Beer Weeks. Cathy will present on Creating a Beer Event along with Eric Steen and Becca Millette. @cathyclark

Garrett Oliver apprenticed as a brewer at Manhattan Brewery Company and it wasn’t long before he was brought on as brewmaster at The Brooklyn Brewery. He has hosted over 800 beer tastings and pairings, judged at the Great American Beer Fest for 20 years, contributed to numerous publications and periodicals, and written a few books, as well. His latest book, The Oxford Companion to Beer, is a cornucopia of knowledge from experts around the world. Forbes magazine named Oliver one of the top ten tastemasters in the country and he has also had the honor of receiving the Semper Ardens Award for Beer Culture from Denmark and the Cheers Beverage Media’s “Beverage Innovator of the Year” award. Garrett will provide one of our two keynote speeches at the BBC. @GarrettOliver

Here is a recap of just some of the conversation.  Stay tuned here and on Twitter for details on the next chat!

Last year, two of the bloggers who attended BBC11 worked with their local breweries to raise the funds they needed through individualized sponsorships. I sat down with Carla Companion (The Beer Babe) and Tatiana Peavey (A Strong Fuggly Brew) to chat about their two different methods for working with local breweries, and how it made each of them a representative of their hometown beer scene.

Interview with Carla Companion of The Beer Babe:

Interview with Tatiana Peavey A Strong Fuggly Brew:

We will be continuing this conversation on Twitter this Thursday, April 12th at 6pm PST/9pm EST. Join us by following #BBC12 as we chat about how other bloggers are getting involved with their local beers scenes, spreading the word about their local beer, and to brainstorm ideas for finding your own sponsors for this year’s conference in Indianapolis. Make sure you’re following us @beerbloggers, Tatiana @goats_udder and Carla @beerbabe.