Why Do You Blog About Beer?

April 14th, 2011 · From the Organizers

Why do you blog about beer? Provide the best answer on Twitter and you will win a free registration to either the London or Portland Beer Blogger Conferences.

The Beer Bloggers Conference has teamed up with Yelp to offer these free conference passes. The Yelp offices in Portland and London have Tweeted the following today: Blog about beer? Tweet why you do and include #bbc11 & @beerbloggers. Best tweet wins http://beerbloggersconference.org/ ticket on 4/18/11.

Let us know why YOU blog about beer and perhaps you can join us at the conference for free!

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The Beers in London

April 5th, 2011 · From the Organizers

Each Beer Bloggers Conference is essentially a mix of three things: educational content and speakers; trying great beers; and meeting other beer writers, bloggers, and industry folks. This post covers the beers you will try if you make it to London, May 20-22. Be sure to read our previous post about the content as well.

We try hard to get a mix of breweries who sponsor and attend the conference to pour their beers. We also try hard to weave these beers into the conference to make them an important part but not the only part of the content. Here is a sample of the beers you will try.

We start off Friday with our Registration and Meet the Sponsors where you can wander around and talk to our great sponsors before the conference even starts. We’ll have a few breweries pouring beers so you can taste some of their product – breweries such as Budvar, Adnams, and Shepherd Neame.

That evening we have a dinner sponsored by MolsonCoors and an evening party sponsored by Pilsner Urquell. We will provide details about both events in the company weeks but suffice it to say you will be pleased.

Saturday is a full day and the big day. We give you the morning free from beer but kick off the brew portion at 11:45 with a talk from Martin Dickie from BrewDog, who will also pour a few of their beers.  That afternoon, we have our featured Beer Bloggers Conference event – Live Beer Blogging. Eight different breweries will each pour one beer for a table of bloggers and have five minutes to tell you about the beer and their brewery. You will blog or Tweet live about that beer, we’ll blow the whistle, and breweries will rotate to the next table. It is fast paced, fun, and informative. We are still confirming breweries but both Adnam’s and Abbey St. Martin will be pouring.

Saturday evening we will have dinner at Dirty Dick’s Pub, a part of Wells and Young’s, and have the ability to try a number of their beers. In the evening, there will be another six breweries each pouring a range of their beers at a Night of Many Beers. We are still finalizing the six breweries but currently have Camden Town and Williams Brothers from the UK, Rogue brewery from the United States, and a consortium of three Italian breweries providing beers. We also will likely have beers from Darkstar, several Swedish breweries, and another well-known US brewery.

Sunday we’ll visit Fuller’s where, among other things, they will provide us lunch in the hock cellar. We’ll taste a variety of their beers, possibly including Fuller’s aged selection of one or more Vintage Ales, Past Masters, and Brewers Reserves 1 and 2.

Interested in beers at the conference? You will have the opportunity to taste plenty! Interested in content? You’ll learn a lot – read the next post below. Whatever your reason, you now have all the information you need to decide to come join us in London, May 20-22, for the first-ever European Beer Bloggers Conference. We have not yet made plans for 2012 but it is not guaranteed to be in London, so don’t miss this year.

If you are a brewery that would like to pour your beer, please see our Sponsors page for details.

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European Beer Bloggers Conference Schedule Announced

March 25th, 2011 · From the Organizers

With the first-ever European Beer Bloggers Conference slightly less than two months away, we are happy to announce an amazing schedule of speakers and sessions. Please click on the Europe tab of this website for details. Here are just a few of the highlights:

  • History of Brewing in London with Peter Haydon from Meantime Brewing, master brewer and author of the books “London’s Best Beer Pubs” and “An Inebriated History of Britain”.
  • British and Worldwide Beer Markets – Past, Present, and Future with David Sheen, British Beer & Pub Association.
  • A panel of three top UK beer bloggers: Pete Brown, Melissa Cole, and Mark Fletcher.
  • Instructional session on identifying flavours and off-flavours in beer with FlavorActiV.
  • A panel of three top breweries who are heavily engaged in social media, who will tell us what works for them and how bloggers can work more closely with breweries.
  • A talk by Martin Dickie of BrewDog in which he’ll tell us how in four short years they have shaken up the UK beer scene.
  • Educational session on beer and food pairing with The Beer Academy.
  • A discussion on the effects of ingredients on beer, including what happens when you alter or age them, in the brewery at Fuller’s.

Mind you, this isn’t everything and doesn’t even cover the beer drinking aspects of the conference. Next week we will post about that, including two beer dinners, a beer lunch, two evening parties, and our famous Live Beer Blogging.

Register today and come join us in London, May 20-22!

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Adnams – Can’t Wait To Meet Them

March 23rd, 2011 · From the Organizers

I don’t know anything about Adnams Southwold except they just signed up to sponsor the 2011 European Beer Bloggers Conference. But I can tell you this – Adnams is an amazing company and I am excited to meet them in London.

The first thing I did, of course, was to check out their website. And the first thing I noticed was their entire website is built on the Wordpress blog software. This is pretty cool. Many companies have blogs but few have their entire sites built on blog software. (We at Zephyr Adventures, operator of six blogger conferences, are just now discussing doing this same thing.)

What does this mean? First, that when you click on one of the pages, for example Beer, you get not only a list of their beers but also a bunch of articles they have written about their beer. This is true for the Wines, Spirits, Stay with Us, and even About Us pages and means they have employees creating new content on their site every week! And as you all know, more content is more interesting for visitors and produces a longer tail for search engines to find.

More importantly, this structure allows visitors to share (Tweet, Facebook, etc) or comment about every page of the site. Here’s a funny comment where some user corrected a spelling error on a post. It is a simple move to allow people to comment on your pages but it is also open and honest.

However, what really got me thinking Adnams is special is when I found, at the bottom of the About Us page, links to a Employee Survey and a Pub Survey. The Employee Survey puts out there on the web, for all to see, what employees of the company think about the company and their jobs. They even are asked to rate the top management! The Pub Survey shows exactly what current pub franchisees think about their relationship with the company.

When I was in grad school getting my MBA, I remember having a discussion about salaries in companies. Most companies keep this as a secret but I remember coming across the idea, somewhere, that a truly fair salary system could and should be open to all employees. I have practiced that system with salaries ever since and try to do the same with all our policies. I can see Adnams takes that same open policy even further, I salute them for it, and look forward to tasting their beers!

- Allan, BBC Organizer

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Beer Blogger Fasts, Writes, and Receives Outside Exposure

March 10th, 2011 · From the Organizers

You might have already seen the news about beer blogger J. Wilson of brewvana who was recently featured in the Iowa newspaper, the Des Moines Register. Wilson is doing a very creative experiment in which he will live on beer and water alone for 46 days, replicating the fasts of ancient monks.

We’ll let you read the article and his new blog, Diary of a Part-Time Monk, for details on the experiment. Here, we wanted to discuss the impact on his blogging and beer blogging in general.

Brewvana is a pretty well-read beer blog, with only a moderate Alexa rating (an indicator of visitor popularity) but a pretty good Wikio score (another indicator). However, writing about beer just gets one only so far in terms of wider exposure. With his new idea, J Wilson launched himself to a new level of awareness.

The Des Moines Register gave him front-page coverage for its story and that alone pushed him to new levels. We follow Google Alerts for “beer blogger” and saw references to the story 10 more times in the last four days. So we wondered, was this experiment a push for publicity or a true personal learning experience? Did he have any other motives? Following are a few of his insights:

Are you doing the experiment mostly for your own education or are you hoping to gain some public exposure as well? I’m doing it out of my own curiosity, but I think it has appeal beyond me, as well as beyond the beer geek crowd.

What do you hope to achieve with the public exposure for yourself or your blogs? My intent is to write a book chronicling the experience. Increased traffic on the blog(s) and a book will certainly warrant some exposure, and that’s fine. Taking the good with the bad, one will have to navigate certain criticisms that anonymity avoids. I know some will criticize this or that element of the project, but I have a thick skin. I simply want to write a book. And then another.

Why did you choose to create a new blog rather than record this on brewvana? Originally, this project was simply going to be a series to post to brewvana. Lent for me always just comes and goes, and I never really paid attention to the duration or dates on the calendar. When the idea first occurred to me, honestly, I figured it was a week or two, which would have been a piece of cake by comparison to the 46 days reality exposes. A little research made me step back and decide if was going to proceed. At that point, I decided to create a separate, stand-alone blog as part of the project; it just seemed to warrant it.

Do you think novel ideas like this can help beer bloggers as a group become more known to the public? Definitely. My ugly mug was on the front page of the Des Moines Register yesterday, and traffic has skyrocketed. To transition from blogger to author, for those that are able, will certainly call attention to the format, and possibly lend credibility to those looking to peddle a book idea.

Update: On March 10 J was featured in Draft Magazine, the Chicago Tribune and the Globe and Mail. Congrats! Update Two: J has now been featured in the Toronto Star and several other sites, plus we at the BBC just received a request from a Miami radio station to interview him!

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New Yellowstone Beer Tour on Tap for Active Beer Enthusiasts

March 2nd, 2011 · From the Organizers

Zephyr Adventures will offer a six-day Hike, Bike & Beer Adventure in the areas of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks September 9-14, 2011. The guided tour includes hiking and biking activities during the early part of the day and then focuses on visiting local craft breweries, ale houses, beer fests, and hop growers in the late afternoons. The tour visits six breweries in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

The business of craft brewing has been booming in recent years. Even in a down economy, craft beer grew 12% in dollar sales in the first half of 2010 and there are now almost 1,600 breweries in the country, according to the Brewers Association.

The growth in the number of breweries means that beer lovers can usually find local beers and often visit a brewpub when they travel. Yet the idea of “beer tourism” where people visit an area for its beers and breweries has not really taken off yet, except for a few tours to places like Belgium.

Zephyr Adventures, a Montana-based tour company that also runs the Beer Bloggers Conference, is out to change that. Figuring that beer lovers might also enjoy an active vacation, they have created their first-ever active beer tour, a six-day hiking and biking vacation in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks that will feature excellent local scenery, activities, and breweries.

“We are excited to run our first-ever active beer tour and couldn’t think of a better place than our own back yard”, explains Allan Wright, owner of Zephyr Adventures. “The scenery is amazing, the activities perfect for all ability levels, and the local craft beers are superb!”

Zephyr Adventures successfully offers active wine & food tours around the globe and looks to use the Yellowstone Hike, Bike & Beer Adventure as a springboard to launch and grow the concept of active beer tourism.

“We like to think Zephyr is seizing on a unique niche that is destined to grow”, says Reno Walsh, who set up the tour for Zephyr. “We invite all beer lovers to come explore the Northern Rockies via some fun hiking and biking and to then slake a well-deserved thirst with some fantastic local craft brews.”

The six-day tour includes lodging, local transportation, most meals, brewery visits & private tours, and activities for $1700 per person. For more information visit www.ZephyrAdventures.com.

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Beer Blogger Gerard Walen and His Beer Blogs

February 23rd, 2011 · From the Organizers

Beer blogger Gerard Walen is a special case, from what I have seen. No, not that type of special case, although I am sure Gerard would have stories to back up those thoughts too. I mean that Gerard is special because he comes to blogging with some serious credentials.

Gerard used to work at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, as a Copy Editor, then News Editor, then Assistant Business Editor. So he has some serious journalistic and writing qualities that help him in his blogging.

I have also found that Gerard is good at the business side of blogging. He is one of the first to read our blog posts on this site and often leaves a comment. He responds to my emails quickly and has even helped when I needed a blogger to tell our English blogging friends what a beer bloggers conference entails. Gerard was even the first person to sign up for the first-ever Beer Bloggers Conference last year – pretty cool being a world’s first.

Gerard runs two beer blogs. The first, which he started only in early 2010, is called Road Trips for Beer and covers beer travel. The second, just started in January 2011, is a “blog local” style of blog called Beer in Florida.

Because of Gerard’s writing and editing skills and his business acumen – in addition to the necessary dose of passion – I find Gerard and his blogs to be worth following. Not all bloggers can or should have “old school” journalism backgrounds combined with a love of new media but, when we have one in our midst who does, it’s worth paying attention.

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Keynote Speaker Suggestions Wanted

February 15th, 2011 · From the Organizers

As we move forward creating the content for both the London and Portland Beer Bloggers Conferences, we are now turning our heads to Keynote Speakers. Our goal is to find speakers who inspire and educate, who are well placed in the beer world, and who ideally have a connection to beer blogging.

No name is too big or no idea too crazy. If you have suggestions, please email info@beerbloggersconference.org or leave a comment on this post. If you have a way to contact the person, even better!

Thanks for your suggestions on general content for both the Portland and London conferences. If you have any additional suggestions, please email info@beerbloggersconference.org or leave a comment on the call for content post.

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European WINE Bloggers Conference

February 4th, 2011 · From the Organizers

Although May 20-22 will mark the date of the first-ever Beer Bloggers Conference in Europe, our brethren in the world of wine blogging have already experienced three conferences.

In October 2010, 200 attendees from thirty different countries traveled to Vienna, Austria for the third Wine Bloggers Conference. Was it a success? Check out the wrap-up video here:

http://winebloggersconference.org/europe/wrap-up/european-wine-bloggers-conference-2010-wrap-up/

The EWBC started out small, with only 38 attendees at the 2008 conference in Spain. The growth of the conference shows the increasing popularity of wine blogging, the growing influence of the conference, and the burgeoning support of the wine industry for those involved in social media and wine.

The EWBC is organized by Gabriella and Ryan Opaz of Catavino and Robert McIntosh of The Wine Conversation. It is a sister conference to the North American Wine Bloggers Conference organized by Zephyr Adventures, which is also organizing the Portland and London Beer Blogger Conferences.

Now, with a first European Beer Bloggers Conference planned, beer bloggers in Europe are poised to replicate (or exceed?) the success of their fellow bloggers in the wine world. Let’s do it!

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Call for Content at the 2011 Beer Bloggers Conferences

January 25th, 2011 · From the Organizers

The Beer Bloggers Conferences – in both Portland and London – are designed to be as much as possible by and for beer bloggers. We the organizers work hard to make sure bloggers have a say in the conference location, the content, and the keynote speakers.

As part of this effort, we are calling for content suggestions for both the May 20-22 conference in London and the August 19-21 conference in Portland. To suggest a content session, please either comment on this blog post or email us directly (info@beerbloggersconference dot org).

Guidelines for submitting content:

1. Please tell us if you are recommending a suggestion for the US or European conference.

2. Please tell us if this is a session you would like to lead, a session you would like us to find an expert to lead, or a panel. We will have blogger-led, expert-led, and panel sessions. Blogger-led sessions can be topics related to beer blogging such as working with your local brewery, creating beer dinners in your community, etc. If you recommend yourself as a presenter, you should be prepared to attend! Expert-led topics can be things such as how to use Wordpress better, how to integrate video into your blog, or how to work with PR firms. Panels are generally comprised of beer industry folks discussing general topics such as Women & Craft Beer, Can Large Brewers Make Craft Beer, etc. We generally don’t provide free conference passes to one-session speakers.

3. We might also offer content for breweries at our 2011 conferences. This will depend on the demand but content would include topics such as how to use social media to promote your brewery, how to work with bloggers, and why a blog on your brewery site will help with your Search Engine Optimization.

4. Please note this is not a call for keynote speakers. We will do that next!

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