A Note from our Publisher...

It’s Spring and that means it’s Convention season once again.  Last year’s CBC in Las Vegas brought many new vendors focusing on what Leah Cheston of Right Proper Brewing Company and the Brewer’s Association Board Chair in her Welcome Address discussed. Focusing on your business and realizing I am not just in the brewing business, but I am now in the hospitality business.  And looking at this year’s agenda in Indianapolis I suspect that again.

This year's keynote address will be given by the husband & wife team of JC and Esther Tetreault of Trillium Brewing.  I was first introduced to the Tetreault’s on a Brewbound Podcast on April 23, 2020 in the height of Covid.  It was a sobering and yet a positive interview with the Tetraults’s, Matt Monahan, co-founder of the Other Half Brewing and Colin Jones, co-founder of Weld Werks Brewing on how they were working through Covid.  Hard to believe it will be five years since Covid hit our shores and changed America, much like 911 did in 2001.  So it should be a great address to hear what they have learned these past five years and their visions going forward.

On the seminar front like always there are a bunch of great talks on how to grow and manage your business, new beverage opportunities along with technical and government affairs presentations that provide great knowledge of the world of brewing. 

One never knows where these seminars can lead to.   Years ago I went to a talk given by the head brewer of the Celis Brewery, in Austin, Texas..  After the talk I had a couple of follow up questions and upon learning our family’s historic brewery from 1680 was not far from the original Celis brewery in Belgium, I became friends with not only with him, but with Pierre and his daughter Christina Celis as well.  I even got to brew with them once on a visit to Austin.  Truly one of the great reasons I love attending the CBC is the knowledge one gains, in my case for Brewers Digest the networking that takes place.  Nothing quite like it in the world for Craft Brewing.

And finally we cannot forget the great vendors, sponsors and BA staff who help put on the CBC. Without all of their efforts it would be impossible to host.

So in the spirit of the Indianapolis  500, “Driver’s, in our case Brewer’s, start your engines” will see you in Indy.