People who have been following this series will expect this. Those who have not, won't: This article is Part 4 is a series about the Craft Brewers Conference 2009 in Boston, MA. If you haven't done so yet, please read Craft Brewers Conference Comes to Boston Day 1, Craft Brewers Conference Comes to Boston Day 2 and Craft Brewers Conference Comes to Boston Day 3 first.
Day Four of the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference was the final day. It was indeed a sad day, as many of these people won't see each other for another year. Also, it's hard to find so much free craft beer in one place. That said, it was definitely a fun day as well! On the way in I even ran into Sean Lilly Wilson, Founder of FullSteam Brewery in Durham, NC (picture right). Keep an eye out for these guys, who are starting operations soon, they have some amazing ideas about local beer... I'm sure we'll have an interview shortly!
The Chef, The Restaurateur & The Brewer
I started off the day at a seminar titled "The Chef, The Restaurateur & The Brewer." Moderated by Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewing Co. and reknowned food and beer expert, the panel also consisted of Alec Lopez, proprieter of the gastropub and craft beer destination Armsby Abbey in Worcester, MA, as well as Kevin Danes, Director of Iron Hill's Culinary Operations (picture of Garrett and Kevin below left). The idea of the panel was to talk about food and beer from all viewpoints: the brewers, the person selling/serving it and the person making food that will be consumed with it.
This was one of the most interesting panels I had seen all week as all three were very knowledgeable about food and beer.
Kevin Danes from Iron Hill started. The main point he wanted to get across was that they have been serious about food from the start of their first establishment. Each restaurant in the chain has a head chef and two sous chefs. They make around 100 food products with a wide range of appeal. Surprisingly (when compared to most brewpubs) their revenue is 70% derived from food, with the remaining coming 20% from beer and 10% from spirits and wine. Their cuisine is designed to go with beer and, furthermore, they are brewing two beers especially for their kitchens to use, a light Belgian-style and a dark Belgian-style. The servers at Iron Hill also have to know about food and beer. They go through two weeks in training, including a beer class, which culminates in a test so detailed that most don't pass on the first try. Also, because both the food and the beer varies by season, the fare ends up working quite well together flavor-wise.
Alec Lopez followed Kevin... Which is good, because Alec would prove hard to follow in describing his Armsby Abbey. When he opened Armsby Abbey on July 31, 2008 all of his staff had undergone four weeks of training on beer, food, spirits and the local farms that Armsby sources all it's food from. Alec compiled a binder with a page devoted to each beer, farm, food item and spirit on the menu; the servers had to know all about each one. To put this in perspective they carry about 150 beers alone. He then made the staff take a test which, unbeknownst to them, he had designed for them to fail. This way he knew where the weak points were and re-educated. Only after passing a second test were people allowed to work. Almost a year later, all 30 employees are still on board. As for the food at Armsby Abbey? It's almost all made with beer in it in some capacity and with every food item they suggest a beer to pair with the meal. In the recent Best of Worcester Awards run by Worcester Magazine, Armsby Abbey took 13 categories, which is unheard of, and three runner-up awards. Alec is the head chef in addition to being the owner. Coincidentally his second in command chef used to be a brewer. Between the two of them, it's no wonder they have such a good beer list! To close this paragraph, I'll leave you with an interesting tid-bit I learned from Alec: Armsby Abbey goes through six cases of Brooklyn Brown Ale per week just making it's Brooklyn Brown Ale Whole Wheat bread alone. That's more than people drink there! Alec and his wife will be opening a bakery next to the restaurant very soon, though, which is good news to anybody near by. Basically, the lesson to take from this is that if you live at all near Worcester, MA definitely hit up Armsby Abbey sooner rather than later.
Finally, Garrett Oliver ended the session with some very prescient words about promoting craft beer to restaurants, especially those of the fancier variety. First, you can't just go in and say "We've got great beer!" To the, the proprieter will answer, "So what? What's in if for me?" While beer has equal standing as wine to be in a $400 per plate restaurant, we have to realize a few things about the economics of the situation. If you try to get servers to suggest replacing wine with beer for the main course, the restaurant owner will laugh at you, then ignore you. Wine is too much money for them to replace it with beer, which is on a very different price point. This tactic of replacing wine with beer may work in most restaurants, but in establishments featuring several hundred dollar bottles of wine, it won't happen. Instead, work to expand the owner's business, pair beer with appetizers, dessert or other courses where either a similarly priced (and therefore profitable) item would be ordered to pair with it. For instance, the appetizers may not feature any pairing, or only one wine pairing, despite the range of flavors on the appetizer list. Pair appropriate beers in this case and increase the average check of those customers. This was just a bit of Garrett's advice, most of which really had to be seen in context of his speech. If you ever get a chance to watch this guy speak, I'd recommend doing so. This is one person who knows his beer, food, wine, and spirits... but also the industry and how to work within it, which is probably the most important part. A fun fact to end this seminar on, Garrett talked about how, when he's helping a restaurant design a beer list, he'll suggest beer from other brewers as well. He knows that nobody will carry only Brooklyn Brewing Company beer. He'd rather get a few of his in there and have them stand next to worthy craft beer competitors than more mass-market focused beers.
Beer on the Web
After the Food and Craft Beer seminar, I wanted to hit a seminar that was very near and dear to my own heart: Beer on the Web. Obviously I'm a little biased on the subject, and wanted to hear what they had to say. On the panel (from left to right) were Todd and Jason Alstrom from BeerAdvocate.com, Jay Brooks of Brookston Beer Bulletin and Joni Denyes from Odell Brewing Company (picture left). This seminar began a little differently than the others. The first thing was that you could deliver questions to the panelists via Twitter. Maybe I came late, but I never heard exactly whom to address those Tweets to, and I believe @DrinkCraftBeer was one of the most (if not the most) prolific #cbc09 Tweeters of the conference. Basically this seminar would only be interesting to beer writers and bloggers, not to beer lovers, so I'll spare you all the details and bullet point it out:
- Brewers beware of amateur bloggers with 5 followers, 4 of whom share the same last name... especially if they ask for free beer.
- The internet is a wide open place where people's opinions roam free... at least you can tell if they're somewhat qualified if they have a large following
- The internet has revolutionized the way that breweries have to communicate with their audiences and allowed a forum for those who would would otherwise remain unpublished to gain a voice.
More was talked about than that, but it mostly had to do with tools that brewers could use to manage their online marketing campaigns. It was an interesting session and the panelists were informative... just nobody talked about beer all that much. So, like I said, I'll spare you the details. I did, however, end up sharing some Dark Lord with Todd Alstrom, which was delicious. After the seminar, sadly, it was time for the Closing Reception where Devon met up with me.
I'll admit, this was not a bad event for Devon to be able to make it to. Fully catered and with a wide range of craft beer being poured (picture above right), we made our way around the circuit and networked with all sorts of people, including Cicerone and brewer Rich Higgins from San Francisco, CA (who ended up coming to our Eat Local, Drink Local event on Saturday, thanks very much Rich!). We had some good beers and got a good food base in our stomachs, which was key because it was going to be a fun night. First stop? Deep Ellum in Allston for a celebration of Craft Beers West of the Mississippi!
When we got there, I have to admit we were a little disappointed. Very little crowd at all. Although, this did let us grab a seat at the bar! After enjoying some amazing West Coast and Belgian beer (picture right: Mad River Black IPA & Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere), we headed off for Stop 2: Roadhouse Craft Beer & BBQ, featuring Short's Brewing Co. from Michigan. This was especially neat because we normally don't get Short's beer distributed out here, this was a special event just for Craft Brewers Conference. Devon and I had a Rye IPA and the Huma-Lupa-Licious IPA, respectively. Both were good, but I moved on the a Brooklyn Intensified Coffee Stout after.
After the coffee stout, unfortunately, was the end of the night and the end of Craft Brewers Conference week. It was a fun time, and I hope you enjoyed the coverage via DrinkCraftBeer.com and Twitter @DrinkCraftBeer!