The 2012 Beer Bloggers Conference in Indianapolis wrapped up a few hours ago. As always, we will conduct a survey of participants to get their views of the conference and what we can do better … but we think everyone had a great time!
Here were a few highlights:
- We had two excellent keynote speakers this year, Garret Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery and Radical Brewing author Randy Mosher. Their speaking styles are wildly different and yet both were motivational and captivating.
- Indianapolis came through as an excellent host. In addition to putting on a dinner on Saturday night at the Tomlinon Taproom downtown, the Brewers of Indiana Guild provided us with tickets to their annual festival, Lafayette Brewing Company hosted an excellent lunch and tasting on Friday, and a number of Indiana breweries participated in other parts of the conference, either speaking or pouring beers.
- We heard from a number of people who had attended all three conferences that this year’s content was the most interesting. We had an entire morning yesterday devoted to speakers from the beer industry and today’s sessions were all about moving from blogging to doing other things: paid writing, consumer events, getting a brewery job, etc. This was just some of the weekend content.
- World Class Beer’s dinner and warehouse tour on Saturday night was eye opening. It is not every day one gets to tour, at night with no one around, through the largest beverage wholesaler building in the country.
- As always, the beer drinking is fun. Leinenkugel’s put on a great lunch, our sponsors provided an excellent kickoff at the Expo, and the Live Beer Blogging and Night of Many Beers were again highlights.
Most of all, however, it is the people one meets at this conference that make it special. This year, the third, there were enough repeaters to make it feel like a reunion and enough participating for the first time to keep things fresh. We are already looking forward to next year and will provide more details as soon as we can! If you write a post about the conference, please leave a comment and provide a link so we can track it and others can see your views.
Road Trip and Indy Day One.
http://brewtography.tumblr.com/post/27909824797/road-trip-to-indy-and-day-1-of-bbc
Here are my two posts about the weekend:
http://therulingglass.blogspot.com/2012/07/evans-top-5-things-he-learned-at-beer_23.html
http://therulingglass.blogspot.com/2012/07/evans-top-5-beers-he-had-at-beer.html
Post #3 – Layfayette Brewing Company
http://www.thebeerbabe.com/2012/07/beer-adventure-lafayette-brewing-company/
Post #2 – Goose Island Pre-Conference Beer Dinner
Oops, here’s the URL! http://www.thebeerbabe.com/2012/07/goose-island-beer-dinner/
Chicago wrap up.
http://brewtography.tumblr.com/post/27465141980/2012-beer-bloggers-conference-day-1-chicago
Indy Beer Bloggers Conference report http://sdkbr.com/MqyOEY
My posts are now complete. Check ’em out!
Beer Bloggers Invade Chicago http://sdkbr.com/ND10ly
We had three posts on the conference:
At the 2012 Beer Blogger’s conference
http://www.hoperatives.com/?p=11360
Live Beer Blogging
http://www.hoperatives.com/?p=11369
Beer Bloggers Conference Random Thoughts
http://www.hoperatives.com/?p=11392
Proper glassware makes a difference! http://sdkbr.com/SGYAWx
Here’s a summary of Day 1’s Friday activities on Fermentedly Challenged:
http://www.fermentedlychallenged.com/2012/07/beer-bloggers-get-full-treatment-in.html
I’ve posted my first (of many) posts relating to BBC12 – though it’s only slightly related because it’s a day *before* the pre-conference began, but does feature Goose Island. Enjoy.
Chicago, My Kind of Town: http://www.thebeerbabe.com/2012/07/my-kind-of-town/
A very big thanks to Allan, Elle and Reno for all their hard work in making this a very successful and enjoyable conference. I look forward to attending another one. Cheers!
Thanks so much for being there, Dave! It was a pleasure to have you there.
Another great job by Zephyr! Thanks again Bob for all you guys did. See ya next year for more beer!
Laissaz les bon temps rouler!
Always a treat to see you, Mr. Fin!
The biggest thank you of the conference has to go to Allan, Elle and Reno, all with Zephyr Adventures for making it a fantastic three days! Cheers to all!
My pleasure, Bob! It was great to be in Indy this last week.