Saturday, November 6, 2021 Boot Camp Options

9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Different Boot Camps will run Thursday, November 4 and Saturday, November 6. Attendance is limited to just 35 attendees per session. A great opportunity to get an in-depth learning experience in a small audience setting and learn from experts. You will pick one boot camp per day to attend (with the exception of our Steve Parkes’ Turning Pro & Commercial Brewery Start-Up which is one Boot Camp that is a three-day option beginning on Thursday).

Advanced Yeast Lab – with Kara Taylor

Join White Labs’ Laboratory Operations Manager Kara Taylor for some hands-on yeast lab work to develop skills you can bring back home to help you make better beer. Learn how to accurately count yeast using a microscope, culturing yeast, using slants, harvesting yeast, washing and reusing yeast, propagation and determining growth rates, and more. Here’s your chance to learn hands-on what you may have read in books and magazines, or listened to in seminars, and Kara’s the perfect teacher to lead you through the world of yeast using lab equipment you can source for your home use. Register

Hands-On Homebrew Science  – with Ashton Lewis

Get hands-on with pH meters, slants, and loops, stir plates, centrifuges, and other brewing science gear with BYO‘s Technical Editor and Mr. Wizard Columnist Ashton Lewis. Ashton will walk you through how to best use scientific gear at home to help you improve the quality of your beer. You will have the chance to understand not only how to use and care for the equipment properly, but also how to take the results and out that data into action to produce better beer in your glass. This workshop will focus only on those pieces of equipment suitable  – and affordable – for your home brewery. Register

Brewing Water Adjustments – with John Palmer

Water is the least understood ingredient when making great beer. John Palmer, who literally wrote the definitive book on the subject, Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers, will help take the mystery out of water’s role in brewing and how to make better beer as a result. You’ll learn how to read water reports, understand flavor contributions, and how to adjust your brewing water to make different styles of beer. You’ll leave with not only an understanding of the chemistry concepts of brewing water, but also the practical how-to aspects of getting the most from this critical brewing ingredient. Register

Advanced Recipe Formulation  – with Brad Smith

Take your recipe creations to the next level by dialing in the specific grain bill, hop schedule, ingredient proportions, and water treatments to meet your brewing goals. Brad Smith, owner of Beersmith software and a Brew Your Own Contributing Writer, has helped thousands of homebrewers design their own beer recipes and now he’s ready to get in-depth on the details of beer design so you end up with the beer you had envisioned in your glass. You’ll explore ingredients, techniques, and understanding your own brewing system during this boot camp designed for advanced homebrewers that will help you craft your own recipes for better beers. This workshop can be taken in combination with Brad’s Recipe Formulation Essentials class on Thursday that offers more of an introduction to intermediate and beginning brewers to the concepts of writing your own recipes. Register

Advanced All-Grain Techniques – with Gordon Strong

Pull out the mash tun and get ready to learn advanced all-grain techniques hands-on with Brew Your Own Columnist, book author, and President of the beer Judge Certification Program, Gordon Strong. Gordon will walk you through a world beyond straight infusion mashing with keys to mastering step mashing, sour mashing, and decoction mashing. Plus you’ll learn about playing with mash thickness and other ways to control your all-grain wort production. Please note this workshop will also be offered on Thursday as well.  Register

Day 3 of 3 Turning Pro & Commercial Brewery Start-Up -with Steve Parkes and Audra Gaiziunas

FULL THREE-DAY (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday combined) BOOT CAMP:  By popular demand, we’re expanding our past two-day Commercial Brewery Start-Up Boot Camp to three full days (unlike our other offerings) to better cover more material in greater depth. 
Opening up a commercial brewery is a far cry from just ramping up the amount of beer you brew. Steve Parkes, who has trained hundreds of pro brewers as lead instructor and owner of the American Brewers Guild, will walk you through the steps, planning decisions, and keys you need to know if you want to open a successful commercial craft brewery. Plus for one full day you will learn brewery financials, keys to a good business plan, and other start-up money skills with craft beer numbers expert Audra Gaiziunas. Learn from their decades of expertise and a wide range of experience to help you better achieve your goals of turning pro. Over three full days, Steve and Audra will guide you in-depth through all the various elements you’ll have to know for the next big step toward starting a craft brewery. Register

*Please also note we will be requiring all attendees to be vaccinated for this event to provide a safe learning environment for everyone. You will be asked at the Boot Camp registration desk whether or not you are two weeks past your final shot. 

Boot Camps wrap up with a Denver Beer Reception with local craft breweries pouring samples to wrap up your full day as part of your registration. (If you have a guest who you’d like to join you for the reception only, there are a limited amount of guest passes available for the receptions:) Click here to purchase a separate guest registration for a guest (s) of yours.