Expanded information about agenda items, including topic descriptions and speaker bios, listed in chronological order...

And Now For Something Completely Different
by Alex Kennedy
Thursday 1:00-2:00PM

The speaker is really not quite sure why he is on this distinguished programme or even why he is here, only that he is "here for the beer". Using this statement as a warning to all he will then detail his own particular journey from his own beer heaven, through the valley of despair to salvation, and on to the promised land. He has been a home brewer for over 20 years and even claims that homebrewing saved his life. His most significant accomplishment as a homebrewer has been "learning how to relax and enjoy hombrew". By profession he is a biochemist and medical researcher, and indeed almost joined the beer industry such is his love for hops, malt and especially yeast. He has been quoted "once you've passed pyruvate, there's no going back." Pleading for a more balanced approach between the art (and mystery) and the science of brewing, he will also discuss the culture and heritage of beer and homebrewing using several literary references.

Mead Evaluation
by Dan McConnell & Ken Schramm
Thursday 2:15-3:15PM and Saturday 1:00-2:00PM

Dan is a mead guy. Ken is his friend. Dan and Ken will speak on how to be more accurate, helpful and constructive when judging mead. They will provide a guided tour through aroma, appearance, and flavor profiles, and will seek to expand on the vocabulary used to describe meads by judges and by afficionados.

IPA's Past, Present and Future
by Ray Daniels
Thursday 3:30-4:30PM and Friday 2:45-3:45PM

India Pale Ale is the granddaddy of all modern pale-colored British-style ales. Its birth was tortured; its first incarnation brief. But despite these trials, IPA established a beachhead in beer culture that still influences brewers on two continents to this very day. In this talk, Daniels will explore the history and lore of IPA, discuss details of its brewing in the distant past and examine the likely outcome of its influence on the American beer scene of the 21st century. Oh, and he'll be serving incredible beers while he talks too.

Ray Daniels has written five books and scores of articles on brewing and related topics. He has won nearly 100 homebrewing awards, twice garnered Midwest Homebrewer of the Year honors and has collected several top three finishes in the finals of the National Homebrew Competition. In 1995, he attended the Siebel Institute's diploma course in brewing where he graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Zymurgy and The New Brewer.

Beers Without Borders Club Night
hosted by local homebrew clubs
Thursday 6:30-9:00PM

Local homebrew clubs from the metro Detroit area, as well as several clubs from other states, will offer samples of their finest homemade creations during Beers Without Borders, the conference club night. Organizers estimate that over 50 beers and 20 styles will be on hand for tasting. Beers Without Borders is quickly becoming a steadfast tradition at the conference, as it allows homebrewers to show off their proudest accomplishments in the homebrewing hobby. A list of the participating clubs can be found on the Participation Information page.

Malting/Mashing
by Fred Scheer
Friday 8:30-9:30AM and Saturday 9:45-10:45AM

The author will discuss the Malting process, changes that occur during malting etc. The Brewing process starts by the barley selection in the growers fields, and only high quality brewing barley is grown and harvested. He will discuss how some selection criteria (location, weather, infections, etc.) will affect the Malting process, and consequently the brewing process. Further, the author will explain the mashing process for Homebrewers (and other Brewers), i.e., a brief explanation of a Malt analysis; is it necessary to hold a "Protein rest"; American grown and malted barley vs. European grown (modification).

Fred is a German trained Brew- and Maltmaster from the Brewing Academy DOEMENS in Munich, Germany. Since 1986 he has worked in several US Breweries (Large, Micro- and Pub) and also was involved in starting a Malthouse in Montana. Last February he accepted a position with BOSCOS Nashville Brewing Co., in Nashville, TN, as their Braumeister.

Producing Hard Cider - Be True to Your Fruit
by Daniel Fagan
Friday 9:45-10:45AM and Saturday 9:45-10:45AM

I will go through what I think is necessary to produce excellent cider with the apples generally available in Michigan. I will emphasize the importance of the original fruit, the pressing and the handling of the juice. I will no doubt digress into discussion of what is going on with commercial ciders and what I think makes a cider worth drinking. I will try not to criticize the big boys, but I will let everyone know what I think is selling out when it comes to cider production.

Daniel Fagan is the president of the Black & Fagen Cider Company, Michigan's only hard cider producer.

Fermentation 101
by Chris White
Friday 11:00AM-Noon

The talk will go from an introduction of fermentation to advanced topics for homebrewers. Areas covered will be definition of fermentation terms, importance of yeast in fermentation, yeast flavors produced in fermentation, and yeast handling for homebrewers.

Chris White developed a passion for homebrewing while an undergraduate at UC Davis, after taking Dr. Michael Lewis' Brewing and Malting Science course. He continued homebrewing while pursuing a Ph.D. degree from UC San Diego. His thesis involved an industrial yeast, Pichia pastoris, which he developed into an important yeast strain that is now widely used in biotechnology.

After 2 years of collecting yeast strains from breweries worldwide, Chris White founded White Labs Inc. in San Diego during 1995. The company's focus was large volume liquid yeast cultures, based on technology that Chris developed with P. pastoris. White Labs yeast is now sold in homebrew shops in the U.S. and abroad, and to professional breweries.

Chris White currently serves as President of White Labs Inc., and a Lecturer in Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

Keynote Luncheon Address
by Charlie Papazian
Friday 12:30-2:00PM

Charlie is the president and founder of the Association of Brewers. He is the author of the best selling book on homebrewing, the New Complete Joy of Home Brewing. He has also authored the Home Brewers Companion, Home Brewer's Gold, the Best of Zymurgy, and the Interactive New Complete Joy of Home Brewing CD-ROM. Charlie is a member of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, The American Society of Brewing Chemists, Slow Food International and Bier Convent International.

Charlie graduated from the University of Virginia in 1972 with a bachelor's of science degree in nuclear engineering. He founded the American Homebrewers Association in 1978. He began brewing in 1970 and continues brewing lagers, ales and meads today.

Pride and Passion in Brewing
by Larry Bell
Friday 2:15-3:15PM

Keeping passion in brewing as a professional and how that might relate to homebrewers and their clubs:

• Events, brews, ideas, guild memberships
• The AOB change from the perspective of the chair of the IBS
• American Beer Month and the ABM Pledge of Allegiance

Larry Bell is the founder of Kalamazoo Brewing Co., the oldest microbrewery east of the Mississippi. He began homebrewing in 1980, and started the brewery in 1985. KBC is now the largest brewery in Michigan, shipping over 20,000 barrels in 1999.

The Second Prohibition
by Fred Eckhardt
Friday 3:30-4:30PM

The subject of my talk: The Second Prohibition -- The one against young adults who deserve more respect and drinking privileges, and they can handle such liberty if we educate and train them properly by letting them drink with us. Only the US and Korea ban this age group from drinking (aside from the prohibitionist Islamic states).

As for me, I am America's first beer writer and the first to write about homebrewing in this country. I've been brewing and writing since 1969, I still brew sake occasionally, but I no longer brew beer (there's too much good beer around here, and I don't drink that much any more anyway).

Brewed In Detroit
by Peter Blum
Friday 4:45-6:15PM

Peter will speak briefly on differences between brewing at home and for a large commercial brewer, and then discuss his book, Brewed In Detroit, published last September by the Great Lakes Series of Wayne State University Press.

Peter Blum has been associated with malting and brewing companies in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis since 1952. Then he joined the Stroh Brewery Company in 1970 as pilot plant manager to evaluate brewing materials and processes on an 8 gallon scale. In 1974 he joined the newly created Research & Development Department, where he and his staff were also involved in new product development like Stroh Light and the Signature brand. Shortly after joining Stroh, he became interested in Stroh history, and was placed in charge of collecting Stroh artifacts and acting as Stroh historian. After his retirement in 1989, the Stroh family appointed him archivist to maintain its brewing heritage. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin and holds an M.B.A. degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Blind Pig Roast & "Taste the Best in Michigan" Reception
hosted by the Michigan Brewers Guild
Friday 6:30-9:00PM

The Michigan Brewers Guild is an association comprised of 39 breweries and brewpubs in the state. The guild will offer attendees the opportunity to sample beers from 10 of the guild's members, as well as two pigs that will be slow-roasted for hours just outside the Holiday Inn by PJ O'Brien's Catering. This tasting should be a great warm up for the upcoming Michigan Brewer's Festival being held on July 22 at Greenmead in Livonia.

Classic American Pilsner
by Jeff Renner
Saturday 8:30-9:30AM

Classic American Pilsner is the beer that virtually every mega-brew in America traces its origin to, but when it was brewed a hundred years ago, or even 60 years ago, it had real flavor! Originally brewed for Old World immigrant tastes by Old World brewers with New World ingredients - most notably high protein six-row malt, corn and domestic hops, in the last five years it has become the hottest "new" old style to hit homebrewing since porter. Jeff Renner will discuss the history and brewing of this great beer everyone loves.

Jeff Renner, an AHA member since 1980, a founding member of the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild, and a long time regular contributor to Homebrew Digest, has been brewing since 1973 and first brewed an all grain beer in 1979. His favorite styles are Classic American Pilsner, German lagers and low gravity British real ales. He is the author of the 1995 Brewing Techniques article "Reviving the Classic American Pilsner - A Shamefully Neglected Style" and has an upcoming article on the subject in Zymurgy. Now the owner of a small wholesale bakery, he is a former history and science teacher, all of which have shaped his interest in brewing.

The Beer Judge Certification Program
by Rex Halfpenny
Saturday 11:00AM-Noon

Anybody can pass judgment on beer, but do you have what it takes to actually be recognized as a Beer Judge? Here is an overview of the BJCP program that will answer all of your who, what, why, and how questions about the only organization that encourages beer knowledge by testing and ranking the sensory evaluation skills of its membership.

Rex is best known as publisher of the Michigan Beer Guide, a monthly periodical dedicated to everything about beer in Michigan. He completed the Siebel Institute Sensory Evaluation Course and is a certified beer judge. He is currently serving a two year term as the Midwest Regional Representative for the BJCP.

Beer Flavors
by Morten Meilgaard
Saturday 11:00AM-Noon

The Flavor Wheel shows 14 classes and 44 first-tier terms. Not shown are the 78 second-tier terms, making it 122 separately identifiable flavors that can occur in a beer. The talk will suggest, with examples, what one can do to deal with so many. Step One is to accumulate a wide personal experience by tasting numerous different beers, good along with bad, and discussing them with knowledgeable friends. Home brewers are in a ring side seat for this. Step Two is to get hold of flavor standards for demonstration, whenever they exist. Mostly the standards are either expensive or labor consuming, but once again, home brewers are well placed to work together to share the cost, the labor and the experience. Step Three (concurrent) is to select those terms that are worth the effort, and arrange them in an order of importance.

Morten is an international consultant, currently with Brewing Research International in Nutfield, Surrey. He worked for 50 years as a flavour specialist in the brewing industry, including 10 years as the V.P., Research & Development for the Stroh Brewery Co. in Detroit. He did his D.Sc. thesis (Copenhagen, 1982) on "Beer Flavour". It consisted in "taking the flavour apart and putting it together again" and contains the flavour and thresholds of 225 beer constituents together with rules for their interaction. Morten was for many years the chairman of the Sensory Analysis Committee of the American Society of Brewing Chemists. He became chairman of a working group that produced the International Flavour Terminology for Beer, for which he designed the well known Flavour Wheel. He is senior author of the textbook Sensory Analysis Techniques, now in its 3rd edition at CRC Press. He has lectured widely on flavour questions and has published over 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals. From 1994 to 1998 he was Visiting Professor of Sensory Science at the Agricultural University of Denmark.

Small Improvements, Big Dividends II
by Al Korzonas
Saturday 8:30-9:30AM and Saturday 2:45-3:45PM

This is a new and improved edition of Al's fact-filled 1999 Conference talk. In addition to explaining how a handfull of small improvements to his equipment and techniques resulted in large improvements in his beers, Al will discuss some equipment and techniques that don't improve your beers.

Al Korzonas has been critically tasting and researching beer since 1979, after his first trip to Britain, Belgium and Germany. He holds Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Electrical Engineering and supports his homebrewing habit by working as a software developer at Lucent Technologies - Bell Labs Innovations. Al has worked as a technical editor for Zymurgy and has had articles published in both Zymurgy and Brewing Techniques. He has achieved the rank of Master Judge in the Beer Judge Certification Program and served on the BJCP Style Guideline and Scoresheet Committees. A serious homebrewer since 1987, Al has earned over 100 ribbons in competitions, including several in the American Homebrewers Association National Competition. His 7-Grain E.S.B. was selected Champion Beer at the 1995 CBS Invitational Brew-Off by both popular vote and by Michael Jackson. He is the author of "Homebrewing - Volume I" (Volume II is on hold until the kids are in school) and owner of Sheaf & Vine, which publishes books, provides beer and brewing consultation and sells specialty brewing supplies. Al lives in the southwest suburbs of Chicago with his wife Karen and triplets Alexa, Erik and Alana.

All About Alt
by Roger Deschner
Saturday 1:00-2:00PM

This presentation will start with background and history of Dusseldorf and its brewing traditions, cover the distinguishing characteristics of the style, and will include samples of real Altbier.

Roger Deschner visited Dusseldorf, and fell in love with the Altbier he found there. Finding nothing like it back in the U.S., he found it necessary to brew Altbier himself at home, and became a champion of the style, eventually writing one of the definitive articles about Altbier in Zymurgy. His most recent effort has been a collaboration with Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee to brew real Dusseldorf Altbier. In his spare time, Deschner is a computer systems manager, photographer, and leader in the Chicago Beer Society.

Awards Banquet
sponsored by Brewin' Beagle Inc.
Saturday 7:30-9:00PM

An awards banquet for the AHA National Homebrew Competition, the world's largest homebrewing contest, will close the conference. Homebrewers from across the nation entered their beers in one of seven regional competitions held earlier this year, and the best beers have been advanced to the second round judging. After the second-round judging is completed on Friday at the conference, the winners will be honored at the Brewin' Beagle awards banquet, which will also feature the presentation of the AHA Board of Advisors Recognition Award and other American Homebrewers Association awards for the past year.