Wednesday 26 January 2011

I still don't get the Beer Bloggers Conference

When I saw that Mark Dredge had gone to the American beer bloggers conference I was a bit bemused. What exactly happens at a beer bloggers conference? Do listen to lectures on correct grammar and web layout? Do you sit around with fellow beer nerds blogging about blogging? Or do you just see how much beer you can pour down your neck in one weekend?

When I saw a beer bloggers conference was going to be held in London I still didn't get it and looking at the website didn't really help. There seems to be absolutely no content apart from 'meet the sponsors', 'have the sponsors suck up to you' and 'get pissed under your own steam'.

Now I do enjoy a nice bit of brewery hospitality but of the sponsors listed the only one I'm fond of is Fullers, and their do is on the Sunday lunchtime. If I was to go I'm sure that by this time my liver would be begging me to stop, and I'd have to go to work the next day so it doesn't seem ideal.

Am I being a miserable git here or would I have more fun spending my hard earned cash on a pub crawl that weekend?

24 comments:

  1. I'm with you on this one Ed. I live in the North West (Ormskirk!) and so a trip to London will be rail fare as well as accommodation which is going to add up to quite a bit of cash.

    I've only enough spare money for a couple of twissups a year so I too am wondering what else I'm going to get out of it apart from what you list above.

    If I lived closer then I think it would make more sense but I think I'd rather be propping up the bar at The Rake, visiting Evin at Kernel and seeing what all the fuss about Camden Brewery is (these are all things that I've not done yet).

    I look forward to the justification comments which will come (as your blog is well read) to see if I should change my mind about not registering for this event.

    Mark's write-up of the US was really interesting and it sounded very cool but I'm not quite convinced yet...

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  2. It is whatever we want it to be. I think the term 'conference' perhaps starts us off thinking in a different way. Yes, we will spend a few hours of the day in a conference room (a bloody nice one which used to be the Whitbred Brewery) but the topics we will cover will be far from conference-like. There'll be key note speakers of different issues within the brewing industry, discussions about different beers or styles, I'd like to see a session on off-flavours, there'll be a food and beer matching session at Fuller's, each evening we get a matched beer dinner with speakers and then another social session after - bring your own bottles or a large tasting. One session will bring some of the best breweries in the UK direct to your table to pour you beer and talk to you about it. And so much more. I was sceptical at first but it really is very interesting and great fun and for £65 you get everything, which is great value.

    Just imagine being in a room with fellow bloggers and beer lovers (from around the world) all drinking really good beer and talking about it, like a twissup or a beer festival spreading over a few days. It's as social as it is educational and the topics haven't been decided yet to give attendees the chance to choose what they want to see.

    I can't wait for it - I genuinely think it'll be the beer event of the year (and I'm saying that because I know some of the plans!)

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  3. For £65 do you get unlimited grog for a whole weekend? If I bring the squeeze is that another £65 or can I sneak her into my room on the basis I've paid for the room? Can I have all the grub & grog sent up to my room so I can watch Sky sports and get pissed and not have to talk to beer geeks?

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  4. Hi Ed,

    Will there be new beers to try? We are working hard at getting smaller breweries and breweries from other countries involved. It won't be just the big guys listed.

    Will there be new people to meet with ideas new to you? We just had our first Swedish beer blogger sign up yesterday and are working on getting bloggers from Germany, Spain, and Italy, plus perhaps a few from the US.

    Will there be interesting content worth the train ride? See the main post from yesterday at www.beerbloggersconference.org. We base the content mostly on suggestions from bloggers, so need to hear what you UK (and European) bloggers want. Let us know!

    The same skepticism existed for the first BBC in the US. 108 people attended. Search their blogs for what they thought or Tweet and ask some of them. You'll get good feedback.

    Allan Wright
    BBC Organizer

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  5. Umm, I just spent a lot of time writing a comment to add to this discussion about the Beer Bloggers Conference, and now it's been deleted. Why?

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  6. As I said (possibly even on here) when this was first mooted, I've been to 'conferences' that were basically meet-ups organised by enthusiasts (where what mattered was that people met other people and had a good chat), and I've been to 'conferences' that were basically trade fairs (where what mattered was that the sponsors and exhibitors got punters looking at their stuff). These conferences seem much more like the second model than the first - which I find a bit surprising, given that the beer bloggerati of Britain are basically a group of enthusiasts who quite like meeting each other.

    And I too would like to know how much booze is included in that £65!

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  7. I don't want to post too often but did want to respond to Phil and Cooking Lager.

    In short, there will be so much beer it will be leaking out your sweat glands and you'll be happy Sunday rolls around so you can take a break.

    Honestly, our main concern with beer (and wine) blogger conferences is limiting the amount of booze. We have many, many breweries who would be willing to pour beer and we could fill up an entire weekend of just drinking. However, the conference is not just about that. Drinking good beer (and beer new to you) is one of the goals. Meeting other bloggers is another. And learning something about beer and blogging is a third.

    We try to balance the weekend but we have never once had anyone tell us there was too little alcohol at one of our conferences.

    Allan

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  8. I attended the inaugural conference in the U.S., Phil, and it was much more like the first example you cited. Sure, there were some sponsors showing off their products to attendees -- but the products were BEER!

    For example, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing put a 750 ml bottle of his Lukcy Basartd on each conference table before his presentation, which was weeks before the public release of the beer.

    As far as the camaraderie, I addressed that in depth in the post that was deleted. Hopefully, it will be restored.

    And don't worry, you'll get plenty of beer.

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  9. I think if there was more focus on how to write about beer as a subject for a blog Id be more interested, I mean the "who should attend" section actually kind of implies only existing bloggers need apply.

    But the actual nuts and bolts of churning out 300 word posts, frequently, without repetition, tests even the most accomplished writers and there must be plenty of dos and donts and material on what works and what doesnt, certainly I think alot of UK beer blogs do get stuff like that wrong. But it just looks like an extended twissup beer tasting session, which doesnt appeal in the slightest.

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  10. This is the comment that somehow vanished for no apparent reason:

    Gerard Walen has left a new comment on your post "I still don't get the Beer Bloggers Conference":

    I attended the inaugural Beer Bloggers Conference in Boulder, Colorado, in November and it was well worth the trip. Now, I'm speaking from a U.S. perspective, but the most valuable thing I brought back from the conference was an overwhelming sense of a community being solidified by the interaction with folks whom I previously knew only in the virtual world.

    Though much of the really technical stuff in some of the sessions was over my head, if you pour enough knowledge through this steel sieve I call a brain, some of it's going to stick, and I felt smarter after the conference.

    Sure, the beer geek presence at the conference was strong, but there were also brewers, distributors, social media experts, foodies, techies, and people who actually make money at their beer blogging. Meeting these folks expanded my world, and I'm still communicating/brainstorming with some of them via social media and email. Having a face to put with the name facilitates this, and my knowledge of beer and brewing continues to grow.

    I'm not sure if you have the same "mom blog" phenomenon over there as we do in the states, but just five or six years ago, mom bloggers were seen as a minor niche in the online world. Today, they are a marketing juggernaut, and major companies are bending over backwards to court them. Although some are flawed and basically whoring out their blogs to get free stuff, overall they wield enormous power.

    But how did they get that way? By getting together at conferences, symposia and other events and exchanging knowledge and sharing ideas.

    My feeling is that beer bloggers are now at the level mom bloggers were five or six years ago. Will we ever become that powerful? Unlikely, since we write about a narrower niche.

    But, at the least, the community's power to help bring better beer to the world is growing, and these conferences will be instrumental to that growth.

    If all you want to do is sit around in your robe, get pissed and write about it, you probably won't get much out of the conference. But if you want to improve your skills, learn more about beer and the beer community, and interact with like-minded folks in real life, sign up today.

    And yes, there will be great beer to enjoy. A lot of it.

    Unfortunately, my travel budget this year is not large enough to make the trip to London, but you can bet your arse I'll be in Portland, Oregon, in August.

    If you want to read my post-conference thoughts, you can go to this link. I'd appreciate feedback there, as well: http://www.roadtripsforbeer.com/2010/12/beer-bloggers-conference-heres-the-word/

    Cheers!

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  11. I've looked at the website again but there's still no more details about what will happen.

    As far as conferences go the organising is unusual. Instead of a group of people wanting to meet and discuss issues relevant to them and seeing if industry trade stands can subsidise the meeting the situation seems to be that an event organiser has lined up the sponsors and is now asking people to attend and find things to talk about (actually looking back I see Phil has already said this more clearly).

    I don't necessarily see that as a problem because I try not to take my blog too seriously. But to give up a days holiday and a fat wodge of cash to attend I'd really need to see something more exiting beer-wise than those currently listed. I'm curious, but not excited yet...

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  12. Ed,

    First, thanks for tracking down my previous comment and reposting it.

    I have to admit that I was a little concerned myself in the months leading up to the conference in the lack of details on the site, but as Allan said, they are seeking input from attendees as to what they want at the conference, and I assure you that they listen.

    And if I could give props to Allan and his crew: I've been to several conferences and symposia in various disciplines, and this was the most well-run I've ever attended.

    Considering that a lot of those in attendance were drinking throughout the day, I find that remarkable. :-)

    I hope we can hoist a pint or two together, someday.

    Cheers!

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  13. One more comment and I'll try to refrain after that! However, this is a good exchange of ideas.

    We are a bottom-up conference. Sure, we have to secure major sponsors so we have a conference facility and two dinners provided - otherwise we'd have to charge a lot more than 65 pounds. However, once that is done, things become bottom up.

    We could create the entire agenda and get the speakers ourselves with no input from bloggers. Then you'd have a complete agenda to look at right now. We think it is better to ask for your suggestions and create the content from there.

    Just a drinking fest? Here are the sessions we had at the 2010 BBC in Colorado:

    Beer Journalism: Beer Bloggers & the Print
    Media
    Beer Blog SEO Site Reviews
    The Science of Food & Beer Pairing
    Panel on Craft Beer and Women
    Creating a Brand and Profiting From It
    Local Blogging Matters
    How to Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly
    Adding a Search Engine to Your Blog
    Fitting Your Blog Into Your Social Media
    Creating and Growing Your Own Community

    So send us some ideas (info@beerbloggersconference.org) for what you want to see at the London conference. We'll make it happen and then you'll enjoy it, if you attend!

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  14. Here are some of the things I don't want to do with my blog:

    optimise it for search engines
    turn it into a 'brand'
    fit it into my social media
    create and grow my own community

    ...you get the idea there. I am also utterly, utterly not interested in becoming part of a "marketing juggernaut [which] major companies are bending over backwards to court". Just not what I'm doing this thing for at all.

    Allan:

    We are a bottom-up conference ... We could create the entire agenda and get the speakers ourselves with no input from bloggers. Then you'd have a complete agenda to look at right now. We think it is better to ask for your suggestions and create the content from there.

    That's not a bottom-up conference. That's the worst of both worlds - a top-down conference (sponsors, date, venue, all ready to go) with bottom-up content (er, what shall we put in here?)

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  15. "Just imagine being in a room with fellow bloggers and beer lovers (from around the world) all drinking really good beer and talking about it"

    It sounds awful, like hanging round with a load of CAMRA members.

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  16. "If all you want to do is sit around in your robe, get pissed and write about it, you probably won't get much out of the conference. "

    I also like having sex, is sex involved?

    "But if you want to improve your skills, learn more about beer and the beer community, and interact with like-minded folks in real life, sign up today."

    I'd rather have a tooth pulled.

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  17. Sorry if my last comment was a bit confrontational - it was late and I was, um, tired and emotional.

    Further to the 'trade show' comments, I used to work for a trade magazine (computing, not beer). The magazine was distributed free; this puzzled me to begin with, as I assumed that the mag was our product and the readers were our customers. Over time I realised that our customers were the advertisers - and what we were selling them was access to our readers. (We also ran trade shows, which worked on very much the same basis.)

    Hence my suspicion. Meeting other beer bloggers appeals to me; meeting other members of the beer blogger market sector, not so much.

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  18. This, on the other hand, sounds fantastic, and of great interest to (some) beer bloggers.

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  19. You're right it's defintely marketing lead, I'm sure it will still be a good piss up though! But I'm still undecided if it will be good enough to be worth a day off and all the costs.

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  20. @Phil - that pub history conference sounds horrible. It would just be a bunch of old CAMRA types sitting around sprouting off about how good pubs used to be before they were ruined by young folk, refrigeration, chemical fizz and music.

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  21. I'm not decided really, but the cost for me is minimal as I have a London flat. So I might just come for the piss up parts.

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  22. Tim - It would just be a bunch of old CAMRA types sitting around sprouting off about how good pubs used to be before they were ruined by young folk, refrigeration, chemical fizz and music.

    Jeez, talk about stereotyping on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. How did you possibly jump to the conclusion that an actually quite scholarly conference would be full of the over 55s spilling beer onto their cardigans? Did you even look at the website?

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  23. @Martyn Cornell - I take it you fit the stereotype.

    Beer history - yawn. Welcome the future

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  24. Actually, Phil, I think I would enjoy that pub history conference very much. Unfortunately, I just went to the site and it appears that it has been canceled.

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