Hops, mango, and plenty of conversation
Hops and mango. That pretty much sums up my first day at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference (or rather at the accompanying BrewExpo America) in an aromatic sense. The smell of hops is something no visitor can avoid. It greets you the moment you enter the halls of Walter E. Washington Convention Center in downtown D.C. For me, personally, it‘s one of the many highlights of the CBC.
And then there’s the mango, which I stumbled upon while strolling through the exhibition halls. The mango fruit puree from Oregon won me over with its fresh taste. And although it’s not the first time the fruit products from the West Coast have appeared at the CBC, my encounter kind of exemplified what the CBC is all about.
It’s not so much about presenting a completely different trade show every year. Although the location varies and the size of the show keeps growing, this year’s show does resemble the last one quite a lot. But that does not mean it’s any less interesting. There are even more familiar faces to meet up, catch up, and chat with. The CBC really is the gathering place of the industry. And as the mango puree showed me, there’s still plenty to discover that you may have simply missed last year. Of course, there are also plenty of new booths to discover at the 2017 BrewExpo. In fact, the trade show now covers two entire halls of the convention center for the first time.
There’s still time to discover the sights and smells of the CBC and BrewExpo. Krones‘ technologies will be on display at booth #701 through Thursday, April 13. Seminars are also ongoing through Thursday afternoon.
