Doing it Live at the 2014 Beer Blogger’s Conference

Beers poured in rapid- fire succession…..Brewery reps talking at break- neck speed and trying to answer questions…..Bloggers soaking up knowledge, taking pictures, and creating quick Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media posts as fast as their fingers can deliver. What is this all about? – My first Live Blogging experience held at the Beer Bloggers Conference 2014 on Saturday, Aug. 23 from 3:45 p.m. to 4:35 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

Live Blogging in a Nutshell

For the uninitiated, let me first describe the concept of live beer blogging. Participants sit at separate tables, dividing themselves into groups roughly equal to the number of brewery participants. Each brewery sends its reps to a table where they wait for the host to announce the starting time. When the event begins, the reps have exactly five minutes to fill each blogger’s glass, describe the beer, and answer questions. Bloggers have the same five minutes to sample the beer, form an opinion, snap a picture if desired, and then blog about the experience in social media. Once the five minutes is up, the brewery personnel rotate to the next table. The process is repeated until the breweries have completed a full round.

Ready to Serve and Educate

The 2014 Beer Blogger’s Conference included these brewery participants and beers:

• Lost Abbey, Deliverance Ale
• Rough Draft Brewing, Weekday IPA
• Rogue Farms, Marionberry Braggot
• Goose Island, Bourbon County Stout
• Green Flash, Citra Session IPA
• Boardwalk Food Company, Beer bread
• Samuel Adams, Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru
• Manzanita, Coffee Stout
• Stone Brewing, Xocobaso
• Warsteiner, Premium Verum

Boardwalk Food Company was a pleasant surprise. They are not a brewery, but rather a food business that specializes in bread made with beer. This made for a nice break in the action and a good between- beer snack. As a side note, 3 Floyds Brewery was also present as an 11^th brewery but since there were only 10 tables, each set of participants missed one of the breweries. I missed out on 3 Floyds, but I more than made up for my omission at the conclusion of the live blogging event by tracking down the one I missed and grabbing a sample (or two).

Time is Almost Up

I had heard of the concept of live blogging before, so the idea was nothing new to me. Still, my experience at the 2014 Beer Bloggers Conference was my first time to actually experience live blogging first- hand. It was a test of speed and accuracy as I sampled beer, tried to be attentive to the brewery personnel, snapped a quick photo, and then created a quick social media post about the beer with the photo attached. Each of the senses is put to the test and you have to react and make decisions quickly.

Live blogging, it turned out, was exactly as much fun as cracked up to be even if a tad stressful. Yes, the samples were kept to a minimum size and I tried to type a social media post as quickly as my fatigued and often beer- soaked fingers would allow. But even with the small samples, I found that I often could not finish everything in time. The one thing that was often most difficult to complete?- the sample of beer! Five minutes would seem like more than enough time to finish the task at hand, but you would be surprised how quickly the seconds tick by when you have to absorb so much information. If beer still remained when the five minute mark was reached, you either had to chug or pour it into a bucket placed on each table. More often than most of us want to admit, the bucket (gasp!) was the recipient of leftover beer as participants tried to keep pace.

To provide adequate (is that possible?) warning, Allan Wright, the Beer Blogger’s Conference host and Zephyr Adventures president, would announce when the time was nearing the five minute mark. “You have 30 seconds left”, he would firmly announce as blogger’s scrambled to swirl the beer in the glass one last time, take a few notes, and prepare for the next round.

Live Blogging Results

I tried to Tweet or Instagram each of my ten live blogs and I did manage to squeeze them all through. An occasional typo was inevitable, but I successfully completed all 10 social media blog posts in the allotted 50 minutes of time and ended feeling a little bloated, but all the wiser for the experience.

I didn’t get to look closely at Twitter, but with so many people blogging all at once and with Twitter the primary recipient of the live blogging posts, there is a chance that the hashtag for the event, #BBC14, might have found itself in the top trending list during the 50 minute time period. There was a very large amount of social media taking place at once so it wouldn’t surprise me if #BBC14 made its way onto the official radar of Twitter and other social media outlets, landing on the “United States Trends” and other lists of popular hashtags.

Until we Live Blog Again

My first live blog experience is now in the record books and I look forward to the next. Yes, it does move quickly and yes, there is little time to complete the tasting, find out what you can, snap a picture, and create a social media blog post. It can be a little nerve- wracking and can lead to sensory overload. But that is the whole idea, really: to test your ability to take in a load of information in a short time and then share your experience in a coherent, understandable way.

Live blogging is an event to behold and something everyone should try at least once. They say you never forget your first time and for me, I will always remember my first live beer blogging experience between 3:45 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. at the Marriott Mission Valley in San Diego on August 23, 2014. And I will still hear Zephyr Adventures President Allan Wright’s “You have 30 seconds left!” echoing in my mind whenever faced with an important task and a deadline just a short time away.