What's on during #EBBC14?

Following on from Tuesday's post about the bars and beers in Dublin I'll focus in on the conference proper. The pub crawl is tonight and the content starts at 2pm tomorrow, preceded by the usual trade show. Hoping there's something there to rival Hall and Woodhouse's excellent pork pies and fudge!

The venue looks fantastic so very much looking forward to getting inside. Kicking things off is a discussion on historical brewing in Ireland with Declan Moore. The Moore group create fascinaing recreations of historical brews (not talking recent history here but actual medieval and megolithic!). If we're lucky there may even be samples.

Immediately after that is the dispense question, hopefully putting myths to bed with what I expect may be a blind tasting and discussion. Then some of Ireland's up and coming brewers will be discussing the resurgence in Irish brewing and what is to come in future years.

That evening is a rare opportunity to see the inner workings at St James Gate (at least I hope that's still on the cards as no mention of it now on agenda). Beer and food pairing with various Guinness expressions plus some new trial batch unreleased things. Following that is the ever popular Pilsner Urquell party with copious litres of same usually quaffed.

Next day begins bright and early 10am for what should be a great talk on the Irish beer industry from Dean McGuinness and then a more technical social media talk.

Pilsner Urquell are providing a BBQ for lunch; so lets hope for decent weather (20% chance of rain boo, hiss) which will set us up well for a few more technical sessions in the afternoon on blogging from Wordpress and using video on your blog.

Then the beery element of the day really steps up. 4pm sees Beer Ireland providing a craft beer reception which will be a fantastic chance to try some of the very newest beers including N17s spicey rye, Blacks superb hoppy numbers and brand new Black Donkey and Reel Deel releases. We then have a four course meal from Franciscan Well with plenty more beers and a keynote speech from knowledgeable and approachable founder Shane Long. To round out the evening Carlow are providing a trad music session and plenty of their beers flowing. A chance to help design a new beer may also be on the cards.

No Sunday brewery trip planned this year, but if you're still around in Dublin there's plenty to see and do and I'm hoping to organise a tasting session in the afternoon before i head back up North.