7AM came pretty early this morning. I’d love to make a joke about it being historically accurate, but I’ve got nothing. A town crier or something would have been nice. As it was we didn’t have breakfast because we ate so late last night and we got over here just in time for the first session. Coffee and interesting presentations have made all the difference. 

  
This is a great conference. So far today we’ve heard that there was more beer being made in Ancient Greece than is usually acknowledged. I hadn’t heard about Oklahoma “Choc” (short for Choctaw) beer.  Now I must try some. We heard a fascinating talk on the genetic history of brewer’s yeast. We heard about how hops came to be used in beer in the Low Countries and another on the long history of brewing in Ireland.  And there was this.

The woman on the left is Andrea Stanley who owns a malt house in Massachusetts.  The gentleman on theright is  John Mallet who’s the Director of Operations at Bell’s. He’s portraying one of his ancestors who was a maltster and brewster in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Andrea is portraying a brewster from Great  Britain who lived a century later. The “conversation” between the two are drawn from their letters and othe writings. 

There are other conferences here. For a minute we thought this one was really specific. Alas it’s really The Classical Society of the Middle West AND South 
There’s also a person here who I’ve decided is the most annoying person in the world. I will say no more about him. I made the mistake of talking to him once and now I move across entire rooms to avoid him. I suspect that by the time this ends tomorrow people will be running from him like Tokyo residents fleeing Godzilla dropping by for a visit. I doubt he’ll notice.