Breweries are increasingly under pressure to adopt sustainable practices, including using recyclable packaging. However, navigating the complex landscape of packaging materials, recycling processes, and conflicting manufacturer claims can be daunting. In this presentation, we will demystify the recyclability of popular packaging solutions such as plastic rings, paperboard carriers, and aluminum cans. We’ll explore how these materials are processed at local recycling facilities, highlight common misconceptions about their environmental impact, and identify gaps between manufacturer claims and municipal capabilities.
Additionally, we’ll dive into current state legislation shaping recycling standards and its implications for breweries. By providing clarity on which packaging solutions truly support a circular economy, this session equips breweries with the knowledge to make informed decisions aligned with sustainability goals and customer expectations. Whether you’re a small craft brewery or a large-scale operation, this presentation will offer actionable insights to improve your packaging strategy and stay ahead in an evolving regulatory environment.
Jeff Watkins is the founder of Proper Pack, an innovative company launched in 2019 to provide breweries with eco-friendly, curbside-recyclable packaging solutions. With over eight years of experience as a packaging engineer, Jeff has worked extensively with diverse materials and manufacturing processes, gaining deep insights into the intersection of sustainability and functionality in packaging design. Recently earning an MBA, Jeff combines technical expertise with business acumen to help breweries align their packaging strategies with both environmental goals and market demands. A passionate advocate for sustainable practices, Jeff brings a unique perspective to the challenges and opportunities in beer packaging, offering practical solutions for a more circular economy.
CREATIVE WAYS TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY
Panelists: Ashlie Randolph (Lifting Lucy), Chris Straus (Incendiary Brewing Company), Christopher Glenn (Bottleshare)
Moderator: Mike Student (Senior Growth Specialist, Arryved POS)
The love of community is at the heart of craft brewing. Engaging with your surrounding community is a top priority, but running a bustling business makes it difficult to always come up with creative ways on how to do so.
That’s why Arryved teamed up with a panel of taproom experts to help get the creative juices flowing and conversations.. brewing! Join us IN-PERSON as we chat about:
Best practices for partnering with local businesses Easy ways to incorporate giving back in your taproom How your POS can support your efforts Panelists’ favorite community-building initiatives
Learning Objectives:
Best practices for partnering with local businesses
Easy ways to incorporate giving back in your taproom
How your POS can support your efforts
Las Vegan Ashlie Niquel Randolph is a founding member of Lifting Lucy, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Black, Indigenous, and other Women of Color in beer industry events and educational opportunities. She also co-founded Mo’ Betta Brews, a minority focused beer centric social club created to provide an inclusive space for craft beer enthusiasts of color rooted in brews and beats full of flavor, soul, and craft. Seeing beer as anthropology in a glass, Ashlie is passionate about exploring craft beers throughout the world and incorporating global culinary legacies in her own brews. Ashlie is the founder of brewery-in-planning, Brawta Brewing. She is also a Duvel USA Brand Ambassador, Pink Boots Society Board Member, Pink Boots DEIJ Committee Member, and NAACP Branch #1111 Executive Committee Member/Community Partner Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chair.
BEER, BARRELS, AND BUSINESS
Matt Albrecht (Founder/Owner, River Drive Cooperage)
Matt grew up in a family of woodworkers and craftsmen. Starting River Drive in 2008, he quickly focussed his woodworking skills towards wooden barrels; Seeking to improve and revitalize the nearly lost art of coopering. Since, Matt and his team have outgrown the 2 car garage they started in, and now run River Drive Cooperage and Millwork on an old 40 acre farm in scenic New England.
Join Matt to understanding the keys to consistency, efficiency, and marketing of your aging program. In this workshop session, you will learn how to keep the floors dry and the CFO happy. Better barrels, better yields!
Learning Objectives:
Quality – Sourcing and ensuring quality wood.
Consistency – Achieving consistent flavors and characteristics.
Control – Leveraging data and products to put you in control of your aging program.
BREWING A NEW CULTURE: STOPPING HARASSMENT IN BEER SPACES
AJ Head and Kailie Smith (Safe Bars)
Safe Bars helps bars, restaurants, breweries, and other alcohol-serving spaces create safe and welcoming cultures for patrons, and safe and respectful workplaces for staff. Such cultures encourage customer satisfaction and loyalty, and better-performing teams with lower turnover. Safe Bars does that by offering three programs: active bystander skills, empowerment and assertiveness, and de-escalation for hospitality professionals.
We also train people all over the country — and the world — to start local Safe Bars programs where they live.
Program manager AJ Head has a background in hospitality, marketing, events management, training, nonprofits, and empowerment self-defense. He’s been teaching self-defense in the DC area for more than 20 years, mostly to women, young people, and the LGBTQ community. AJ is thrilled to continue teaching and empowering people by showing them their inherent power.
Kailie Smith is the founder of Safe Bars RVA and is the Director of Outreach, Education, and Community Engagement at Safe Harbor in Henrico, VA. Safe Harbor is a non-profit organization which helps survivors of sexual and domestic violence as well as human trafficking to overcome their crises and transform their lives.
The #MeToo movement has opened our eyes to harassment and other violence in many realms, including craft brewing. Like many other arenas, the brewing industry has been susceptible to toxic work environments because of its macho bro culture, the commodification of women, and the underrepresentation of diverse genders and races. Safe Bars, founded in 2013, works to shift these pernicious realities through education, training, and culture change.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the full spectrum of harassment, what it looks like in breweries and taprooms, and have the skills to identify it early
Expand their skills and options to interrupt sexual (and other) harassment, whether it’s directed at a team member or a customer
Gain understanding and strategies that they can take back to their workplaces and apply on the individual and company level.
After attending the session, participants will have greater understanding of options and strategies for preventing and interrupting harassment, bringing new skills back to their workplaces for ongoing conversations on culture change, and more.
Kary Shumway is the founder of Craft Brewery Financial Training.com, an online resource for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for more than 20 years as a certified public accountant and a chief financial officer for a beer distributor. He currently serves as CFO for Wormtown Brewery in Worcester, Massachusetts. Craft Brewery Financial Training publishes a weekly beer industry finance newsletter, offers online training courses on topics such as cash flow planning, financial forecasting, and brewery metrics. For more information visit www.CraftBreweryFinancialTraining.com.
In this session, you’ll learn how to build a financial game plan for your taproom. We’ll take a hands-on approach as we work together to build your sales forecast, margins, and operating expense plan. You’ll work with proven and practical financial models to make the process quick and easy. At the end of our session, you’ll have a financial plan ready to implement for your taproom business.
Learning Objectives:
Identify the key building blocks of your taproom finances.
Calculate your sales, margins and operating expenses for your business.
Assemble a ready-to-use financial game plan for your taproom.
STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE: HOW SPORTS MARKETING CAN HELP YOUR BREWERY
Blake Edmunds (Owner/Brewer, Studly Brewing)
Blake Edmunds is a fifteen year veteran of the sports industry with stops at Wake Forest University, the Winston-Salem Dash and, most recently, the University of South Carolina. After accomplishing many of his career goals, including National Collegiate Mascot of the Year as an undergrad and the National Collegiate Sports Marketing Team of the Year, Blake decided to pursue his other passion, brewing, and open up a brewpub in his hometown of Chesapeake, VA. Studly Brewing Company is a 7 BBL brewpub serving Neapolitan inspired pizza and salads with plans to open its doors Summer of 2022.
After fifteen years of experience in the collegiate athletics industry, Blake Edmunds begins a new career opening up a brewery and has learned there is much from his background that brewery owners can apply to their businesses. Join us as an outside perspective sheds light on proven sports industry marketing tactics and how they can be used for your brewery.
Learning Objectives:
Identify similarities between the sports industry and craft brewing industry and how CBP members can apply those similarities.
How the game day experience/atmosphere applies to your brewery.
Identify marketing tools and objectives used in the sports industry that can apply to marketing your brewery.
CLOSING THE LOOP BETWEEN YOUR ONLINE AND TAPROOM SALES
John Kelley (Head of Ecommerce, Arryved POS)
It is projected that online sales of alcohol are expected to reach 7% of total sales by 2024, creating a $12 billion opportunity for regulated beverage companies in the US. This represents both a massive opportunity for breweries, and a departure from a traditional brink-and-mortar-only structure.
This session will explore how great craft brands are positioning themselves to win in this new environment and the technology and techniques they are using to connect with more of their customers online. We will further illustrate how those brands are leveraging their taproom experiences to support all of their sales channels while creating differentiation and building brand loyalty in the process.
At the conclusion of this session, our audience will be able to identify the key elements required to create a thriving online/offline ecosystem.
Learning Objectives:
Leveraging e-commerce to build the Omnichannel experience your customers are looking for
What is an “omnichannel”?
Why are the best retail brands having success with it?
What does this look like for regulated beverage companies?
The benefits of closing the loop — “The Golden Lasso”
What is customer lifetime value (CLV) and why is it so important?
Why is customer retention the key to increasing CLV?
How does the taproom support online channels and vice versa?
The benefits of closing the loop — “The Golden Lasso”
Learn how to create great experiences that extend online
Recognize and reward your most passionate supporters and grow the base!
Drive more revenue, higher margins, and build loyalty
How to calculate your return on Marketing Spend
Craftpeak is a provider of best-in-class online solutions for the craft beverage industry. More than 200 breweries rely on Craftpeak’s technology to connect with more customers online and to drive sales and loyalty through their membership programs, DTC shipping, high-demand beer releases, product finders, subscription programs and websites.
BAGELS & BRAND STORYTELLING
Brian Winkeler (Founder/Creative Director, Robot House)
What do bagels and brand storytelling have in common? Are the bagels plain? Cinnamon raisin? Toasted? Is there cream cheese? Peanut butter? Some thin slices of banana, maybe? Who’s hungry for a bagel now?
If you’re gonna have a bagel, it should be the bagel that’s exactly right for you, just like your craft beer business’ brand should have a truly unique story that’s completely authentic to the soul of your enterprise.
And it’s at 8:00am, so there will be bagels. And coffee. And other breakfast-y necessities to start our second day of sessions. After two nights of local brewery bonding, the last thing we’ll need is heavy thinking first thing in the morning, so Brian Winkeler, founder of strategic brand creative firm Robot House, will be crafting an entertaining, low impact mental exercise over bagels and coffee to get you thinking about your brand’s story, personality, and voice that you’ll have fun sharing with your tablemates and fellow craft beer professionals.
Will the secrets to brand storytelling be revealed before 9:00am? Not at all. But “Bagels & Brand Storytelling” will help get your brain warmed up for a second day of industry education and inspire you to reflect on the state of your brand’s story, and if you’re making the most of your messaging to fully engage with your audience, both passionate and potential.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will analogize their business to different personality types and cultural signifiers to help them reflect on how they articulate their unique brand voice through their marketing.
Attendees will discuss their selections to build the rationale behind the “why” of their business.
Attendees will think about how their brand storytelling isn’t just about them and it’s not just about their audience. It must be authentic to both to truly build the strongest connection.
Brian Winkeler is founder and lead brand storyteller at Robot House, a boutique creative firm specializing in brand development and packaging design. Currently in his 30th year in the advertising industry, Brian is the first nine-time recipient of the Fontana Award for Advertising Humor. His favorite beer is a Mango Alpha Hive Double IPA he had at the COOP Ale Works taproom a while back.
Robot House is a boutique branding creative shop located in Downtown Oklahoma City’s Automobile Alley District (within comfortable walking distance of five local craft breweries). Robot House focuses on strategic brand development for new businesses and businesses who could use a rebrand or a fresh brand messaging platform, with a specialty in branded packaging design for food & beverage clients. Founder Brian Winkeler has 30 years’ experience in branding and advertising and is the only 8-time winner of the prestigious Fontana Award for Advertising Humor. Robot House’s food & beverage industry clients include COOP Ale Works, SONIC Hard Seltzer, Bricktown Brewery, Bitter Sisters Brewing Company, the Oklahoma Beer Alliance, and Nestlé USA.
BUILDING A BRAND THROUGH MULTIPLE RETAIL OUTLETS, IN HOUSE DISTRIBUTION, AND DIVERSIFIED BEVERAGE LINES
Scott Roth (President and Founder, Three Notch’d Brewing Company)
Scott currently oversees production and retail operations as well as chain distribution sales. Scott got his start in the food and beverage world 27 years ago (cooking sausage sandwiches and making lemonade at a small stand in a smaller town in PA) and fell in love with craft beer while managing an Irish pub at his alma mater, Lehigh University (Industrial Engineering), back in the early 2000’s. He now has 15 years of entrepreneurial experience in food and beverage under his belt and remains the 3NB lead when opening any new location. As passionate about soccer as he is craft beer, Scott spends his nights and weekends coaching his two oldest sons Evan (10) and Tyler (8) and enjoys family time with his wife Kristin and their youngest son Logan (3) whenever possible.
In this session you will learn how Three Notch’d Brewing Company, an 8 year old company, has built a dominant Virginia brand by executing on three different pillars of the business. By opening multiple outlets throughout the state of Virginia (currently 5 locations in Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Roanoke, Richmond and Virginia Beach with a 6th property under contract) and chasing those localities with distribution handled by a sister distribution company and now graduating into other beverage offerings the company has created reliable cash flow and stable top and bottom line numbers.
Learning Objectives:
Opening Multiple Retail Outlets
Why spend the time and money on multiple locations?
Why add food?
How 3NB has structured its management team to oversee operations
How 3NB manages reporting and back office functions
Marketing power related to brick and mortar locations
“Self” Distribution
What is happening in the distribution world and why self distribute
How to navigate the Three Tier System
Benefits and Negatives to running a distributorship
“Flipping” the brand and the reality of that sale and its pros/cons
Diversified Beverages and Offerings
What other lines can you consider adding to your portfolio?
3NB entering the Non-Alc and Whiskey Distilling space (and how 3NB is raising capital without diluting the current members of 3NB ownership)
HOW TO BUILD A BETTER BEER LABEL
Glenn Clark (Founder and Creative Director, Crafting a Brand)
Glenn Clark is a brand strategist, a designer, and the founder of Crafting A Brand, a branding and creative services consultancy in Rochester, New York. Crafting A Brand helps beverage producers create long-lasting strategies to differentiate their brands, while also producing creative communications tactics (labels, packaging, logos, video, and more) that attract and engage consumers. Glenn has worked at ad agencies in Boston, Syracuse and Rochester, and in 2001 he played an integral role in launching the Vine Design design studio to service Constellation Brands at the Partners + Napier agency in Rochester. Glenn started his own marketing firm in 2003, and in March 2018 he rebranded the firm as Crafting A Brand to serve clients exclusively within the beverage industry.
It’s a great time to be a craft beer drinker: bottle shops, supermarkets and convenience store shelves are bursting with beer, and consumers have a staggering variety of choices to consider before they decide which beer to spend their hard-earned money on. But are you creating beer labels that help them favor your brand over all the others? It’s more important now than ever to have a system in place to make labels that represent what you’re all about (as well as what’s inside the package), while also differentiating your brand from all the others surrounding it.
Glenn Clark of Crafting A Brand will use real case studies to help you understand the components of an effective beer label, he’ll describe the unique categories of label designs across the craft beer industry, and he’ll show you how to create an efficient and easy-to-implement design system for your beer brand.
Learning Objectives:
Learn about the different visual categories of beer label design, and see examples of effective labels from across the industry.
Learn what your brewery peers in our workshop session are doing with their label designs, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Learn how beer brands across the nation create label design strategies that break through the clutter and increase sales—and how you can, too.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FERMENTATION FOR EACH ROLE IN YOUR BREWERY
Jacob Hoover (Sales Development Specialist, White Labs)
Jacob Hoover is the Sales Development Specialist at White Labs. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Science from the University of Delaware, is a Certified Cicerone, and actively participates in the BJCP. In his time at White Labs, Jacob has held various roles in both the Education and Brewing Co. departments. He loves sensory and fermentation science, and believes the spread of information is vital for the advancement of the fermented beverage industry.
From production to service and sales, fermentation plays a key role in the products we create. Join Jacob for an exploration of yeast’s impact on beer flavor, alcohol, appearance, and shelf stability. We will discuss ways you can equip each role in your brewery to better understand how to promote the magic of fermentation both internally and to your customers!
Learning Objectives:
The importance of product handling and understanding fermentation for all roles, not just cellar-persons. From quality to cost of goods each role handles some aspect or byproduct of yeast and fermentation whether as a raw ingredient or finished product.
From shelf stability to COG’s we’ll dive into how yeast and fermentation touch each role in the brewery.
Arm yourself with ways to educate staff on the importance of fermentation.
USING KEY METRICS FOR BREWERY SUCCESS
Pulkit K. Agrawal (Founder & CEO, The 5th Ingredient)
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PK) is the Founder and CEO of The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software company dedicated to helping breweries improve beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, Agrawal began working in the beer industry as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. He soon discovered a need in the market for software that expanded beyond standard inventory management systems, where there would be an emphasis on the brewing process and quality, not just inventory tracking. In January 2018, Agrawal launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process data tracking. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in more than 250 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the nation. In his free time, Agrawal enjoys traveling, and speaking about entrepreneurship and using data to improve brewery efficiency and quality.
In this interactive workshop, Pulkit will lead the session on focusing on the three step process on setting up key metrics. (1) WHAT & WHY — The importance of setting metrics and measurable goals at your brewery in four key areas — Process & Quality, Operations, Marketing, and Sales. (2) HOW — How to set up these metrics at your brewery. (3) EVALUATE — Identify what success looks like and how to improve the results for the future. The session will be broken down into three 20-minute components. The first 20-minutes will be focused on education and diving into the definitions of KPI and the importance to a brewery with examples on the three step process. The second 20-minutes will be in groups where individuals will work in teams of 10-15 that are sitting around them to begin outlining the examples that they are using or interested in using at their brewery. The final 20-minutes will focus on the teams explaining what they’ve come up with, with Pulkit taking the notes in the presentation. At the end, we’ll be providing handouts on some examples of KPIs in the categories, and will provide the full list people have presented for future use and sharing with their team members at the brewery.
Learning Objectives:
WHAT & WHY — The importance of setting metrics and measurable goals at your brewery in four key areas — (1) Process & Quality, (2) Operations, (3) Marketing, and (4) Sales.
HOW — How to set up these metrics at your brewery.
EVALUATE — Identify what success looks like and how to improve the results for the future.
DIVERSIFYING YOUR WORKFORCE THROUGH TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
David Kushner (Co-Founder, Trace Brewing) and Tranice Watts (Co-Founder, Lifting Lucy/Patuxent Brewing )
Workforce/work ready development programs enable people to meet occupational employment trends and real-time labor needs within various industries. Additionally, these programs also level the playing field among underrepresented groups such as: people of color, new immigrants, individuals with disabilities, those living in rural and socio-economically segregated communities, and those involved with the criminal justice system. This workshop will discuss the importance of the beer industry supporting workforce development through thoughtfully planned vocational programs, paid apprenticeships, and other avenues of opportunities which encourages an increase in diverse applicants and talent; decreases occupational turnover rates; and fosters socio-economic equity and inclusion.
Learning Objectives:
Understanding statistics that indicate the importance of the brew industry and craft breweries supporting workforce development. Examples of different types of workforce development programs and activities utilized by craft breweries. Current barriers for increasing the talent pool and diversifying the workforce of the craft brew industry. Comprehensive overview of the benefits and impact of craft breweries creating or participating in workforce development. How to find funding to support your specific efforts? How can you build relationships for continued support and financial assistance to offset the costs associated with your workforce programs? How to understand your internal rate of return (IRR) for investing in workforce development and training.
David started his professional brewing career in 2012 and has worked on the brewing teams of John Harvard’s Brew House, Harpoon Brewery, and Lord Hobo Brewing Co. He is the Co-Founder of Solera Brewing Group which owns and operates Remnant Brewing (Somerville, MA), Trace Brewing (Pittsburgh, PA), and Our Town Brewery (Lancaster, PA).
Tranice L. Watts is a co-owner for Patuxent Brewing Company, in Waldorf, Maryland. Patuxent Brewing is the first craft brewery within Charles County, and one of the only 100% Black-owned breweries in the state of Maryland. She also is a founding member of Lifting Lucy, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Black, Indigenous, and other Women of Color in beer industry events and educational opportunities. Ms. Watts is also a member of the Greater Maryland Chapter of Pink Boots and the Brewers Association Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee. She currently co-chairs Charles County, Maryland’s Economic Development Business Outreach Committee.
How to Authentically Engage with Your Communities: There’s More of Your Pie to Go Around Than You Know
Alison Wisneski (Director of Marketing, Lady Justice Brewing), Betsy Lay (Co-Founder/Owner, Lady Justice Brewing), Jamaar Valentine (Regional General Manager, Bevana)
From building it into your day one company business model to realizing the impact various communities have on you once you have opened, you can make a difference. In this session, you will learn about building in giving back into your business plan, communities that could be supporting you more than you realize
Learning Objectives:
Understand how to create a mission statement to center on why and how you give
Discuss methods for continued contribution to your community
Walk away with strategies for thinking outside the box: it’s not just money
5 Financing Mistakes Breweries Make and Best Practices to Secure Funding
Jason Sleeman (Vice President-Craft Beverage Lending, United Community Bank) and Nick Matthews (Co-Founder, Mainvest)
Jason Sleeman leads the national craft beverage lending group for United Community Bank. This is a specialty vertical focused on providing funding and exceptional service to breweries and brewpubs looking for bank financing. Jason has been a banker for over 20 years and focused on the craft brewing industry for the last 7 years. He started with funding breweries just in Georgia and now gets the opportunity to work with breweries all over the US.
Nick is the CEO and Co-founder of Mainvest. An expert in marketing and operational strategy, Nick led demand side initiatives for Uber Boston, launching back in 2011. While launching Uber in new markets, both suburban and urban, he experienced firsthand local challenges around economic development. He founded Mainvest in 2018 with the goal of empowering communities to determine their own economic development, utilizing new regulations and novel investment vehicles to align incentives between local community members and small businesses. Nick’s mission is to revitalize the American Dream, one small business at a time.
Capital is the lifeblood of any growing brewery. There are many ways to obtain that funding from friends and family to SBA lending and crowdfunding. We will look at some of the opportunities for missteps in the process and the top 5 mistakes that breweries can make in the process. We will also discuss best practices to secure funding, depending on the type of brewery and what its goals are.
Learning Objectives:
You will leave understanding the top mistakes both new and existing breweries make when capitalizing their business and how to avoid them.
Y ou will discover multiple options on how to finance your project from both crowdfunding and more traditional funding sources.
You will learn how several breweries successfully funded their capital needs and be provided next steps to securing yours.
Using Key Metrics for Brewery Success
Pulkit K. Agrawal (Founder & CEO, The 5th Ingredient)
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PK) is the Founder and CEO of The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software company dedicated to helping breweries improve beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, Agrawal began working in the beer industry as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. He soon discovered a need in the market for software that expanded beyond standard inventory management systems, where there would be an emphasis on the brewing process and quality, not just inventory tracking. In January 2018, Agrawal launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process data tracking. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in more than 250 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the nation. In his free time, Agrawal enjoys traveling, and speaking about entrepreneurship and using data to improve brewery efficiency and quality.
In this interactive workshop, Pulkit will lead the session on focusing on the three step process on setting up key metrics. (1) WHAT & WHY — The importance of setting metrics and measurable goals at your brewery in four key areas — Process & Quality, Operations, Marketing, and Sales. (2) HOW — How to set up these metrics at your brewery. (3) EVALUATE — Identify what success looks like and how to improve the results for the future. The session will be broken down into three 20-minute components. The first 20-minutes will be focused on education and diving into the definitions of KPI and the importance to a brewery with examples on the three step process. The second 20-minutes will be in groups where individuals will work in teams of 10-15 that are sitting around them to begin outlining the examples that they are using or interested in using at their brewery. The final 20-minutes will focus on the teams explaining what they’ve come up with, with Pulkit taking the notes in the presentation. At the end, we’ll be providing handouts on some examples of KPIs in the categories, and will provide the full list people have presented for future use and sharing with their team members at the brewery.
Learning Objectives:
WHAT & WHY — The importance of setting metrics and measurable goals at your brewery in four key areas — (1) Process & Quality, (2) Operations, (3) Marketing, and (4) Sales.
HOW — How to set up these metrics at your brewery.
EVALUATE — Identify what success looks like and how to improve the results for the future.
BEER, BARRELS, AND BUSINESS
Matt Albrecht (Founder/Owner, River Drive Cooperage)
Matt grew up in a family of woodworkers and craftsmen. Starting River Drive in 2008, he quickly focussed his woodworking skills towards wooden barrels; Seeking to improve and revitalize the nearly lost art of coopering. Since, Matt and his team have outgrown the 2 car garage they started in, and now run River Drive Cooperage and Millwork on an old 40 acre farm in scenic New England.
Join Matt to understanding the keys to consistency, efficiency, and marketing of your aging program. In this workshop session, you will learn how to keep the floors dry and the CFO happy. Better barrels, better yields!
Learning Objectives:
Quality – Sourcing and ensuring quality wood.
Consistency – Achieving consistent flavors and characteristics.
Control – Leveraging data and products to put you in control of your aging program.
Taproom Management 101: Best Practices for Brewery Operations
Maggie Read (Sr. Growth Specialist, Arryved POS)
Maggie comes from the world of craft beer and has done a little bit of everything at Arryved! After working at several Colorado breweries, she came to Arryved to help other businesses excel in offering world-class service and hospitality. When she’s not working, she likes to hit the ski trails in the winter and the running trails in the summer!
Taproom management is a jack of all trades kind of gig, requiring excellent leadership, innovation, and customer service savviness. In the Taproom Management 101 session, industry experts from different areas of the taproom will illustrate what it takes to be an exceptional Taproom Manager. We will discuss how to curate an efficient, enthusiastic team environment, experiment with new ways to create elevated guest experiences, and how hosting community-building events can boost bottom lines.
Whether you’re hiring a Taproom Manager, or brushing up on these skills as a Manager yourself, this session will leave you with a holistic understanding of how to best run a taproom.
Learning Objectives:
New ways to create elevated guest experiences
How to drive traffic in-person and online with clever marketing initiatives
Utilizing reporting tools to identify key insights and growth opportunities
Keeping Everyone Organized: The Secret to Successful Teamwide Communication & Meaningful Marketing Workflows
Warren Bondi (Co-Founder/CMO, Beer Marketeers)
Warren has been working in the sales and marketing world for 8+ years. He started his career in alcohol doing marketing for a few restaurants and bars in Louisiana during college (where he started the parent marketing company to Beer Marketeers). He then kept his small marketing company around while doing alcohol sales for a couple different distributors and working in the tech marketing industry to keep beefing up his marketing chops. After meeting his now business partner, they created a beer fest, which led them to other projects together and made them think they could build a marketing company around helping businesses in the beverage industry with their combined industry experiences – which they did and continue to grow.
When we think about marketing and communication, so often we think about the best strategies for you to reach your potential customers. We will shift the focus to how your team can maximize internal interactions. From the brewer to the beertender, having everyone on the same page is vital to long-term success. In this session, you will learn the value of sharing information, gathering everyones input to build stronger marketing, and gain the strategies to create the more valuable and efficient workflows that will produce better results.
Learning Objectives:
Discover a toolkit that well help you and your team stay organized.
Discuss the benefits to company-wide communication
Understand the communication needs of each team member and better strategies to empower them to be effective decision makers
Learn how to implement successful processes to get your team on the same page and improve communication across departments
A Roadmap for Extending Your Brewery’s Brand Beyond Beer
Isaac Arthur and Cody Fague (Co-Founders, CODO Design)
CODO Design is an Indianapolis, Indiana-based food and beverage branding firm founded in 2009 on the belief that we can create better work by putting collaboration at the center of everything we do. We develop strategically-sound branding and packaging that cuts through the noise and drives long term revenue growth.
Isaac Arthur is a co-founder of CODO Design, an Indianapolis-based food & beverage branding firm founded in 2009 on the belief that they can create better work by directly including clients in the creative process. He is the author of the Craft Beer Branding Guide, co-author of Craft Beer, Rebranded, and writes a popular monthly mailer with over 5,500 subscribers called the Beer Branding Trends Newsletter. He also co-hosts the Beer Branding Trends podcast, where he dives into the art and science of building stronger beverage brands.
Cody Fague is a co-founder of CODO Design. Since 2009, he’s led branding efforts within the food and beverage industry, and spends most of his time helping craft breweries rebrand and redefine their foundational positioning, developing brand strategy, identity and internationally-recognized package design that sells more beer. He is a co-author of CODO’s latest book, Craft Beer, Rebranded, and co-hosts CODO’s Beer Branding Trends Podcast.
Is your brewery planning to launch an RTD cocktail, hard seltzer or other non-beer beverage this year? If so, there are important branding considerations at play. Do you position this new offering alongside your beer portfolio, or under a new name? How do you promote it? What will your fans think? What if it sells better than your beer?
Craft beer branding experts Isaac Arthur and Cody Fague will walk you through a bullet proof decision tree to determine the best Brand Architecture approach for extending your brewery’s brand beyond beer.
You will then learn how brand extensions, endorsed brands and sub-brands can help your brewery bring new products to market and grow your business—without diluting your core positioning.
Learning Objectives:
You will learn how to manage line extensions and brand extensions.
You will learn four practical brand architecture strategies for launching new products and extending your brewery’s brand beyond beer.
You will learn about Brand Architecture and why it is so critical for scaling your business.
The Importance of Fermentation for Each Role in Your Brewery
Devin Tani (Marketing Engagement & Education Coordinator, White Labs)
Devin Tani received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, as well as a Professional Certificate in Brewing from the University of California, San Diego Extension. Devin has had various roles at White Labs previously working in both the R&D and Analytical Lab, now becoming the Education & Marketing Engagement Coordinator. He now hopes to spread his scientific knowledge to others. Devin loves teaching about the nuances and scientific importance of fermentation.
Learning Objectives:
The importance of product handling and understanding fermentation for all roles, not just cellar-persons. From quality to cost of goods each role handles some aspect or byproduct of yeast and fermentation whether as a raw ingredient or finished product.
From shelf stability to COG’s we’ll dive into how yeast and fermentation touch each role in the brewery.
Arm yourself with ways to educate staff on the importance of fermentation.
Beer and Balance: Strategies for Social, Mental, and Physical Wellbeing in the Craft Beer Industry
Dana Kaluzny (Co-Founder / Project Facilitator and Mentor, Endswell Beer / Dana Kaluzny) and Tom Halaska (Global Brand Manager, WellBeing Brewery)
Join Tom and Dana as they pay it forward from their own journeys to inspire you to step away from the conversation with integrated strategies to nourish you and your employees social, mental, and physical wellbeing.
The craft beer industry is in a time of reckoning with an all-time record of people leaving their jobs, and employers struggling to fill vacant roles. 1 in 5 employees left a job at some point in their career because of its toxic organizational culture. By one estimate, employee turnover triggered by a toxic culture cost U.S. employers nearly $50 billion per year pre-pandemic.
What makes a brewery’s culture toxic is often the elevated levels of stress, burnout, mental health issues and pain experienced at work or as a result of their work. While these types of experiences are often common, they are not talked about by and among peers in craft beer. The consequences of the endured pain and silence lead to disengagement in many forms.
Two leaders in craft beer share their honest stories of quitting — leaving toxic behaviours, routines, and craft brewery cultures and finding their way to a balanced way of life working inside and living outside of craft beer. Where their identities are more than what they drink or the brewery they work for.
Learning Objectives:
Understand why your employees may be ACTUALLY leaving, or why talented candidates aren’t applying to work at your brewery
Better identify the different types of endured pain and silence by employees (even in the healthiest of company cultures) that lead to disengagement and poor performance
Learn integrated strategies you can apply to your brewery so you and your employees live within the craft beer industry, not for the beer (while still appreciating it)
Julie Rhodes (Owner, Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions)
With over 2 decades of experience in the food and beverage industry, Julie Rhodes is an authority on beverage sales, digital marketing, leadership, and distributor partnership management. She is the owner of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services, and strategic business consulting company built specifically for growing craft beverage brands, where she teaches small to medium-sized beverage alcohol companies how to work smarter, not harder, in order to achieve long term growth. In addition to being an educator and strategic advisor, she is also a business writer, public speaker, is Cicerone Certified, a national committee chair and local chapter leader within Pink Boots Society, and a mentor for the Brewers Association and on the BA DEI Marketing & Communications Subcommittee, the North American Guild of Beer Writers, the American Cider Association, Women of the Vine & Spirits and multiple state brewery guilds. When not working, you can find her spending time with her husband and two boys in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado or on the couch watching sci-fi movies.
KPIs (key performance indicators) are metrics that can help determine the health of your retail sales environment. They can be anything from sales volume to market segment ratios, classes of trade to the distribution of market share, or tap handles in the market compared to shelf spots in chain accounts. KPIs help suppliers identify areas of improvement, but can also help us realize how we can recreate success without reinventing the wheel. The questions I hear the most from suppliers are: which KPIs are most important? What tools do I need to collect this data? And once I have the data, how do I interpret the results to impact my sales? In this session, we will cover all of those things.
Learning Objectives:
How to identify and build a set of core retail sales Key Performance Indicators
Know what software tools you need to collect and analyze your retail sales data (and how much they cost)
How to create strategic retail sales plans based on your core set of KPI data
Discovering the Rich History of German American Lager Brewing in St. Louis
Christian Naffziger (Editor, St. Louis Patina)
While St. Louis may be synonymous with global titan Anheuser-Busch INBEV today, the story of how brewing developed in the Gateway City has a fascinating history going back two hundred years. Initially, the influence of English brewing saw the crafting of ales and porters in St. Louis. But with the arrival of German immigration in the 1830s, demand for new styles of beer came with them. Adam Lemp, an immigrant from Hesse, lays claim to being one of the earliest brewers of German-style lager beers in America, opening the Western Brewery in 1840. By the beginning of Prohibition, the Lemp Brewery would be exporting beer around the world.
By the 1880s, St. Louis was home to dozens of breweries, many of which took advantage of the cave systems that honeycombed the limestone bedrock under the city. Many of these subterranean lagering cellars still survive, abandoned after St. Louis breweries pioneered artificial refrigeration. Chief among them was Anheuser-Busch, which rose to become one of the largest breweries in America from humble beginnings founded by a German eye doctor.
After Prohibition, Anheuser-Busch and Falstaff came to dominate the brewing industry in America from their headquarters in St. Louis. After Falstaff stumbled in the 1970s, its breweries were abandoned in St. Louis, and for the first time in its history, Anheuser-Busch was the only brewery left in the city. After the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by INBEV, St. Louis has seen an explosion of microbreweries open, some in old brewery buildings abandoned over a century ago.
Learning Objectives:
Learn how German American brewers utilized their knowledge of lager beer and the naturally cool cave system of St. Louis to produce a new style of beer for the growing American market.
Learn how St. Louis breweries were also pioneers of artificial refrigeration. Both Lemp and Anheuser-Busch were early supporters and clients of Theodore Krausch, who developed early ammonia-based refrigeration for breweries.
Learn how St. Louis breweries used architecture as branding and advertising to promote their beer and companies.
Chris Naffziger is an art and architectural historian who specializes in the study of brewing history in St. Louis, Missouri. For the past fourteen years, he has been the editor of the architecture blog St. Louis Patina, and he has written several articles about the history of Falstaff and Anheuser-Busch for the British scholarly journal Brewing History. He is publishing an upcoming biography of Adam Lemp, the founder of the Western Brewery in St. Louis.
Beer History Tour at the Historic Pabst Brewery
To really experience old world charm and Gemütlichkeit at its finest, join us for a Pabst history tour at Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery. The roots of the Pabst Brewing Co. run deep in Milwaukee’s proud brewing history. Relive this colorful history as you learn how the Best and Pabst families grew the brewery to become America’s largest by 1874. After battling for decades to keep this title, Pabst began a slide and loss of market share in the late 1970’s that led to the brewery’s closing in 1996.
Understanding the Three Tiers of Media Relations – How to Plan, Execute and Win with Earned Media
Chad Melis (Founder, Turn It Up Media), Jeanette Hurt (Award-Winning Writer and Author), Ryan Bandy (Director of Experiences, Indeed Brewing)
Moderated by experienced brewery brand builder Chad Melis, who spent over a decade elevating the Oskar Blues Brewery brand and now runs the marketing collective Turn It Up Media, this panel discussion will provide a unique 360-degree view of the media relations process, tips for building meaningful relationships with the press, and proven tactics to gain share of mind with your target audiences through media relations. Indeed Brewing Company, a media darling and long-time client of Turn It Up, joins the panel with award-winning freelance writer and author Jeanette Hurt. Join this experienced team for an engaging discussion with input from the brewery, media relations professional, and writer perspectives.
Learning Objectives:
Strategic understanding and insight on the entire media relations environment, how it can benefit your brewery, and how to appropriately engage and win with the media relations process.
How breweries leverage media relations to: align with ABP, earn distributor and retailer share of mind, drive brand awareness,position and convey brand identity effectively and maximize the overall impact of press coverage on business objectives.
Insight into the needs of a writer and how to pitch a story effectively, including the top tips to gain media coverage and the top pet peeves of writers and media specialists.
Chad Melis is the founder of Turn It Up Media, a collective of leading brand marketers from the craft beverage, outdoor sports, and lifestyle industries. With over a decade of experience successfully elevating the Oskar Blues Brewery brand, Chad uses his PR savvy and an uncanny knack for brand strategy as a trusted partner for brands looking to position themselves and go to market effectively.
Ryan Bandy’s unconventional path to Director of Experience at Indeed Brewing began on the packaging line, snapping 6-pack holders for short fills and a foot in the door. From back of the house to front, then out the front door, Ryan tended bar and managed Indeed’s Minneapolis taproom before joining the sales team. He was Sales Director for four years until Spring 2022, when he launched into a brand new role overseeing all Sales, Marketing and Hospitality for Indeed Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Ryan is a jack-of-all-trades who brings a holistic view of the brewery in its entirety, and its place in the current industry landscape.
Jeanette Hurt, award-winning writer and the author of more than a dozen books, including the best-selling Wisconsin Cocktails, as well as Drink Like a Woman, and The Joy of Cider. She’s also a top-tier journalist who explores culture through the lens of drink, food, and travel at dozens of national and local publications, including Forbes, Alcohol Professor, theKitchn, and more.
Navigating the [Unbroken?] Packaging Supply Chain
Navigating the [Unbroken?] Packaging Supply Chain
Kyle Stephens, co-founder and President of Craft Beverage Warehouse, explores ways for small-to-midsize breweries to navigate out-of-stocks, rising prices, and transportation in the packaging materials supply chain.
Learning Objectives:
Avoid out-of-stocks for you and your vendors by adequately forecasting production and keeping some materials on hand in case of last-second adjustments to the schedule. Learn from others in attendance on how they manage this potential issue.
Understand different methods to combat rising prices, such as: bulk ordering, buying local, shipping to a centralized location, and working with distributors.
Kyle Stephens is the Co-founder and operating partner of Craft Beverage Warehouse LLC (CBW), a beverage packaging distributor located at the Century City Business Park in Milwaukee, WI. CBW supplies small to medium-sized beverage producers with aluminum cans and related packaging products. In June 2022, CBW launched a digital print-to-can operation which will drive sustainability and cost savings in the small-MOQ aluminum beverage can industry.
Prior to founding CBW in April 2020, Kyle was the VP of Finance and Administration at Good City Brewing LLC, where he was responsible for accounting and finance, human resources, facilities, and office administration. Before to joining Good City, Kyle spent his early career in public accounting, practicing audit and tax with closely held businesses before moving to corporate mergers and acquisitions with an international accounting and advisory firm.
Taproom Pricing: Strategies to Maximize Your Bottom Line and Guest Experience
Maria Pearman (Advisory Principal, GHJ Advisors)
Taproom pricing is much more than numbers – it’s about understanding your customer’s psychology. In the craft beer industry, taproom pricing can make or break a business. It’s not just about getting customers to come in—it’s also about getting them to stay. What are some key performance indicators (KPIs) you should be looking at? How do you know if you’re making enough money? What are some strategies for making smart decisions? And how will this affect your financials? We’ve got answers!
Learning Objectives:
Optimizing taproom revenue. We will dive into metrics and strategies to get the most out of your taproom.
Gain 3 Key KPIs for setting performance standards
Thinking about a new location? When does it make sense to expand.
Maria Pearman, CPA, CGMA, has more than 15 years of public accounting experience providing accounting and advisory services to clients. She is an expert in the beverage and alcohol industry and specializes in internal accounting processes, financial reviews, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, financial strategy and succession planning.
Prior to joining GHJ in 2021, Maria was based in Portland, OR. She built a national practice focused on beverage alcohol clients. Maria helped clients to improve financial results and maximize efficiency of operations and guided them through ownership transitions.
Maria sits on the Finance Committee for the Brewers Association, the nation’s largest industry organization for craft brewers.
Published by the Brewers Association in 2019, Maria wrote a top-rated book, Small Brewery Finance, to help small businesses run more successful breweries.
Maria is also a featured speaker and author on topics in the beverage space, specifically related to craft breweries. She has taught courses at the Business of Craft Beer program at the University of Vermont as well as the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States Academy.
Maria graduated from the College of Charleston where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Management and minor in French. She received her Post Baccalaureate in Accounting from Linfield College. Maria has been a licensed CPA since 2010.
Collaboration, Competition and Rising Tides
In an industry that continues to grow across the country, more breweries means more opportunity to collaborate with you peers for mutual benefit as well as increasing the challenges of managing market shares. Our experience as a multi-faceted craft beer company with branches in the homebrew, commercial equipment and production brewing spaces has allowed us to see how these challenges are being met locally and across the country.
In this session we will explore ways of differentiating your company in a crowded landscape while forming and maintaining positive relationships with other companies in the area. This includes other breweries, as well as alternative beverage companies, distilleries/wineries/cideries, coffee roasters etc. With a focus on how we can leverage the larger customer base of multiple companies for the benefit of all, we grow our buisnesses and educate the public to advance future growth. Some topics we will explore are:
Homebrew shops within or around the brewery and how that synthesizes with taproom and retail sales.
The dynamics of brewery competiton in metropolitan, suburban and rural areas.
The importance of consumer education and a focus on local, quality products that benefit local economies as a whole.
How competition can help or harm, and ways to rise above.
Facilitating new breweries in your area and how to make it a two way street.
Learning Objectives:
Identify strategies for collaborations within and outside of the craft beer industry
Explore ways to leverage competition in a positive way
Find unique collaborative strategies and leverage the positive pressures of competion to benefit customers, communities and your bottom line
Andrew Palamides is an experienced sales manager, with over seven years in the field. His background is in brewing, spending eight years as a brewer and graduating from the Master Brewers Association of the Americas Brewing and Malting Science program. Now as the West Coast Sales Consultant at ABS Commercial, his experience and knowledge in beer has transitioned to technical and consultative sales of the equipment that makes it. ABS Commercial focuses on manufacturing quality brewing equipment, and continuously testing and improving it, so that brewers can focus on what’s most important.
Owen Woods has over 12 years of experience in the brewing industry. He spent 10 years as a brewer, responsible for beer production, fermentation, and packaging – utilizing and maintaining a variety of brewery equipment along the way. Owen is now a Sales Consultant for ABS Commercial, where he applies his knowledge of brewery equipment to help new and existing breweries with their unique equipment needs.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – A Deep Dive into a SWOT Analysis For Your Brewery
Pulkit K. Agrawal (Founder & CEO, Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient)
In this session, attendees will be broken out into 5 groups based on their role at the brewery:
Owner
Production
Sales
Taproom
Marketing
If they belong to more than one group, they will pick the one that resonates the most. Then, in the groups, each attendee will brainstorm for 4-min each into the four quadrants of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) that are present for their brewery. We will then discuss solutions, and come up with a game plan for working through this list of topics. Once we go over these details, the homework for each attendee is to pick one item from each quadrant and work on it. Lean into strengths. Focus on weakness. Plan for the major opportunity. Mitigate the biggest threat – whether internal or external. We will also take photos of the other charts that people have from the other departments, in order to share them at their brewery.
Learning Objectives:
Each attendee will have gone through an exercise for identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) for the roles at their brewery of (1) owner, (2) production, (3) sales, (4) taproom, and (5) marketing, and have a list of items to revisit with their team.
Each attendee will have gone through discussions with the full session about what changes they want to do for their brewery, and discussing the actual action items needed to work on a key area for their brewery.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software company dedicated to helping breweries improve beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA began working in the beer industry as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. He soon discovered a need in the market for software that expanded beyond standard inventory management systems, where there would be an emphasis on the brewing process and quality, not just inventory tracking. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process data tracking. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the nation. In December 2022, PKA was selected into the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, and speaking about entrepreneurship and using data to improve brewery efficiency and quality.
You Are Your Brewery: The Benefits of Crafting Your Brewery’s Unique Brand Story
Brian Winkeler (Founder/Creative Director, Robot House) and Jennings Hammack (Creative Strategist, Robot House)
Your brewery isn’t just your business. It’s your dream. It’s your vision. You willed it into existence with your sweat and tears (and possibly blood). YOUR BREWERY IS YOU. So, how accurately does your brewery’s brand storytelling truly reflect your dream, your vision, your one-of-a-kind personality? Branding expert Brian Winkeler with Robot House in Oklahoma City will discuss brand storytelling for breweries and lead an interactive exercise to get you thinking about how successfully your brewery’s brand truly communicates your vision, including a detailed walk through Robot House’s collaboration with Skydance Brewing to build their “This Is Native” brand story. It’s at 8:00am so he won’t make you think TOO hard, but there’ll be plenty of coffee and bagels to help you and your table mates get the day off to a fun, fruitful start!
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will be introduced to the idea of connecting their brewery brand deeply to their personal sense of self. It may be something they’ve consciously done already or it may be more of a subconscious effort, but it will hopefully inspire them to reflect on how they can shape their brand/brand storytelling to ensure it’s as unique and personal as possible.
Attendees will see a demonstration of a brand development process that resulted in the creation of the “This is Native.” brand storytelling platform for Skydance Brewing Company and can consider how they might be able to experience a similar process to reveal a stronger, more substantial story for their brewery brand.
Attendees will bond with their table mates during a discussion time in which they’ll answer a question (or questions) regarding their personal story and how that is connected to their brewery’s brand story.
Brian Winkeler founded Robot House in 2003 and leads a team of six creatives in their downtown Oklahoma City studio. A multi-disciplinary creative who focuses on copywriting and brand storytelling, Brian is most proud to be the only three-, four-, five-, six-, seven-, eight-, and nine-time winner of the prestigious Fontana Award for Humor from the OKC Ad Club.
Creative Strategist Jennings Hammack joined Robot House in 2022 with experience as a digital marketing manager launching SONIC Hard Seltzer in over 40 states, as well as brand marketing for the LA Dodgers affiliate in Oklahoma City.
Robot House is a brand creative agency with a no a-holes policy, specializing in brand development and packaging design for small businesses around the country. They collaborate with craft beer clients including COOP Ale Works, Bitter Sisters, Skydance Brewing, and The Nook Brewing Co, to explore #BraveNewWorlds and creatively articulate each brewery’s unique & authentic brand story.
How Your Brewery Can Continually Innovate
Russ Klisch (President, Lakefront Brewery)
Over his 35 years in operation, Russ has found different methods to continue having an innovative brewery and brew pub to stay relevant. His brewery is now considered one of the most innovative in the country. He will explain:
What is innovation?
The different systems/types of innovation
How your management structure can hinder or help innovation
Share stories of various innovations that have been done at Lakefront Brewery and how they fall into different categories
Discuss with the audience the innovations that they have done and journey from concept to success.
Learning Objectives:
Teach everyone how to look at innovation and that it is not just for products. But many other parts of your brewery can be innovative in different ways.
Convince everyone that there are great ideas out there, and how to encourage innovation rather than undermine it.
Teach everyone the different types of innovation and systems to put it in place.
A 1981 graduate from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, Klisch started working as a mechanical engineer with Johnson Controls. Klisch and his brother Jim started homebrewing and after making award-winning home brews they decided to open a brewery with used dairy equipment in 1987.
After outgrowing their current location in 1998 they relocated to its current building located on the Milwaukee River.
Besides making award winning beers, Klisch is know to be an innovator by brewing the first organically certified brewery in the United States, brewing the first government approved gluten free beer in the United States, and brewing the first totally indigenous beer made in the US made with not only 100% Wisconsin grown malt, hops and yeast.
Klisch also started the Lakefront Brewery Beer Hall known for its award-winning Fish Fries, cheese curds and entertaining tours.
A Recipe for Crafting Mutually Beneficial Relationships: Growing Through Involvement with Professional Organizations
Join active members from Pink Boots Society, Lifting Lucy, the Brewers Association, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, and Visit Milwaukee for a conversation on how to craft mutually beneficial relationships with trade organizations, affinity groups, local government departments, and associations that will allow you to develop strategies to increase engagement, support, professional development, and networking opportunities.
Learning Objectives:
How to develop a basic partnership pitch
How to conduct a Resource Audit for both you and your prospective partners
How to measure the impact/success of your relationships (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification)
Moderator:
Ashlie N. Randolph (Pink Boots Society Board member, Pink Boot Society DEIJ and Scholarship Committees)
Panelists:
Erica DeAnda-Reyna (Head Brewer at Tumbled Rock Brewery & Kitchen, Past Chapter Leader for Wisconsin PBS, Current Vice President for MBAA – District Milwaukee)
Meg Ellis (Deputy Director, Texas Craft Brewers Guild)
Meg McKenna (Senior Director of Strategic and Community Partnerships, Visit Milwaukee)
Tranice Watts (Brewers Association DEI Education Committee; Craft Brewers Conference Seminar Subcommittee; Lifting Lucy BIWOC; Pink Boots Society – Greater Maryland)
On Planning for the Unexpected
Kyle Rheiner (Food & Beverage Practice Leader, CraftBrewingInsurance.com)
Brewery owners and managers wear a lot of hats, work extreme hours and are often in meetings, out of town and may be unreachable at times. There are many pieces of equipment and various areas within a brewery that can go haywire at any moment. When these situations arise, it’s extremely important that your staff has the key contact information, skills and training to diffuse any situation and know-how to keep things moving forward.
In this training, brewery owners will gain the tools to create a plan, inform their staff, and role play so that when these situations arise, it’s not the first time they’ve seen them. We will create a checklist, an emergency plan and prepare to run brewery meetings so everyone can be prepared for the unexpected.
Learning Objectives:
Discuss areas of operation where a plan for the unknown is needed
Analyze what may go unexpected and create strategies to be prepared
Leave with a gameplan and strategies to handle unexpected challenges
Kyle C. Rheiner is a Certified Insurance Counselor and is the Food & Beverage Practice Leader at Arthur Hall Insurance in West Chester, PA. Kyle has over 20 years experience in the hospitality industry along with actually brewing and distilling craft beverages. He and his team handle the insurance for over 150 restaurants & craft beverage makers in the USA.
Kyle is also the Founder and Host of The Beer Mighty Things Podcast – a craft beverage business library with over 18,000 downloads (without promotion) including interviews with our industry’s top leaders worldwide. Kyle’s podcast is focused on those who are Daring Mighty Things in the industry and creating change for the better.
He’s hosted & led multiple conversations with Brienne Allan, Employment Practices Attorneys, the leaders of Safe Bars, Women of the Bevolution and would be honored to host his own presentation, moderate a panel of our industry’s thought leaders and/or conduct a sponsored seminar.
Alternative Beverages: Strategies to Expand Your Offerings
Moderator: Matt Albrecht (Founder/Owner, River Drive Cooperage), Panelists: Brian Perkey (Senior Key Account Manager, Lallemand), Doug Kolker (CPA, Wipfli), Ross Hunsinger (Director of Food and Beverage Innovation, Abstrax Tech), Ryan Bandy (Director of Experiences, Indeed Brewing), Sam Green (Head Brewer, Untitled Art)
Audience and attention – how will you keep it? Whether you’re looking to build a more diverse and engaged audience in your taproom, or looking to expand your offerings on retail shelves, this session will offer insight into expanding your beverage offerings. Beginning with a discussion on ingredients and processes, our panelists will begin with the initial test batch, discuss go to market strategies, and how to evaluate success of new products. They will cover criteria on how to determine which beverages may fit in best with your business model, the financial implications, and how to successfully build awareness. Our panelists will share strategies for success, examples of failure, and provide you with a primer on what to consider as you continue to innovate.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will gain an understanding of which alternative beverages are currently seeing success and the production methods needed.
Attendees will understand the investment and support needed on the business side of the brewery to expand offerings.
Attendees will be ready to conduct a SWOT analysis to determine which new beverages they should consider adding to their portfolio.
Matt Albrecht grew up in a family of woodworkers and craftsmen. Starting River Drive in 2008, he quickly focussed their woodworking skills towards wooden barrels; Seeking to improve and revitalize the nearly lost art of coopering. Since, Matt and his team have outgrown the 2 car garage they started in, and now run River Drive Cooperage and Millwork on an old 40 acre farm in scenic New England.
Brian Perkey was born in the Willamette Valley (OR) and raised in central British Columbia, Canada. He still resides in the Pacific Northwest in the small community of Parkdale, OR on the northern slopes of Mt Hood.
He joined Lallemand Brewing in May 2017 after entering the brewing industry back in 1992. He spent 19 years on deck in several brew-houses and cideries(Bridgeport, Full Sail, Gordon-Biersch, Thunder Island, Crispin, Hood Valley), with the rest of his time with an English malt company(Muntons) and a local liquid yeast manufacturer(Wyeast). After 4.5 years as Regional Sales Manager-N. America where he was responsible for the US, Mexican and Canadian Commercial Brewing and Home-Brew/Wine markets, he now holds the position of Senior Key Account Manager where he looks after some of our most important customers here at Lallemand.
He is a single dad with 2 kids (17 & 21 y/o son & daughter). He is an avid fisherman and snowboarder, and also an amateur sailor with a 26’ sailboat on the Columbia River.
Doug Kolker focuses on research and experimentation (R&E) tax projects, allowing him to use his experience to help clients maximize the R&E tax credit. He assists manufacturing, technology and software companies nationwide to successfully reduce their tax liabilities by uncovering research and development (R&D) credits. Doug is also responsible for the overall planning, organization, supervision and completion of client engagements. He has a broad background in tax planning, working with closely held businesses, corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies.
Doug began his career as an auditor for private and public companies. With his passion and desire to run his own business, he became president of a chain of retail stores in the St. Louis area, where he oversaw the doubling of the company’s size.
Ross Hunsinger is the Director of Food and Beverage Innovation at Abstrax Hops. A Siebel Institute alum, former owner of Atlas Sodaworks, and terpene beverage specialist for the last 6 years. Ross has overseen the development, implementation, and scaling of Abstrax’s growth in the brewing industry backed by world-beating technology and good vibes.
Ryan Bandy’s unconventional path to Director of Experience at Indeed Brewing began on the packaging line, snapping 6-pack holders for short fills and a foot in the door. From back of the house to front, then out the front door, Ryan tended bar and managed Indeed’s Minneapolis taproom before joining the sales team. He was Sales Director for four years until Spring 2022, when he launched into a brand new role overseeing all Sales, Marketing and Hospitality for Indeed Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Ryan is a jack-of-all-trades who brings a holistic view of the brewery in its entirety, and its place in the current industry landscape.
Sam Green started homebrewing at the age of 18, then got a job (voluntary) at a brewery at the ripe age of 19. He moved to Colorado and worked for Boulder Beer for 7 years before moving to Madison to brew for Octopi/Untitled Art. He has also backpacked every national park in America.
Max Capacity Marketing: So Much To Say, So Little Space
Chris Overlay (CEO, Get Hoptimized)
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Smart Expansion: Increasing Your Production Capacity
Jon Simpson (Fullsteam Brewery), Kristie Nystedt (Raleigh Brewing Company), Matt Sprinkle (ABS Commercial), Pat Tuley (Wipfli), Tom Hudock (Craft Buildings), William Teasley (Khonso Brewing)
As the brewhouse counterpart session to Maintaining Consistency Across Taprooms, this session will focus on growth and expansion from the production side. The panel will offer insight from the brewery, equipment, and financial viewpoints to provide you with a playbook to consider as you scale. Our guests will discuss best practices, common mistakes, and share experiences how they have been able to successfully increase production capacity.
Learning Objectives:
Discuss factors including brewing equipment, fermentation capacity, packaging lines, and storage space to determine the extent of expansion needed to make anticipated growth
Understand the importance of a market analysis and the financial planning necessary to make expansion viable
Create a plan to maximize your current production capacity as you plan for the future
Jon Simpson holds a BS degree in Nuclear Medicine from the Rochester Institute of Technology and worked in various healthcare positions until 8 years ago when he decided to make a career change and pursue his passion, craft brewing. He is currently the Head Brewer at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham NC where he focuses on beers made with local ingredients, particularly local craft malt. Jon has overseen a number of expansion projects at Fullsteam, including the installation of a centrifuge, a new boiler, and a 5 bbl pilot system
In 2013, Kristie Nystedt opened the doors to Raleigh Brewing Company becoming the first woman in North Carolina to own a craft brewery. She is the president and CEO of Raleigh Brewing Company, with 3 locations across North Carolina, as well as Atlantic Brew Supply and ABS Commercial. Kristie’s passion for craft beer and her commitment to community extends beyond the brewery walls with partnerships like Bike MS, an organization that raises funds in support of those affected by MS, and Raleigh Little Theater. Kristie lends her voice to advocate growth and development in North Carolina.
Matt Sprinkle is a Brewery Design Consultant and East Coast Sales Representative at ABS Commercial. After getting his start at Foothills Brewing, he transitioned to Loeffler Chemical, where he spent the majority of his career building Cleaning and Sanitation programs for craft breweries and distilleries. Equipped with a rich brewing background and recognized for fostering lasting client relationships, Matt stands as a luminary in the brewing sector. Matt is also forklift certified.
Tim O’Neill is a senior manager in Wipfli’s tax practice, specializing food & beverage manufacturing, retail, and distribution. Tim leads Wipfli’s Craft Brewery Services team and has over 10 years of experience assisting craft breweries ranging from large, multistate breweries to breweries in planning with their tax and business compliance & planning needs. Brewery owners appreciate his tailored business solutions, commitment to excellence, and ability to build strong relationships with their team. Tim lives in St. Louis with his wife and three young children and loves any English-style brown ale just as much as he loves a beautifully formatted spreadsheet.
Bitten by the craft brewing movement over fifteen years ago, Tom Hudock brought his passion for brewing and experience with branding, marketing, and commercial real estate together in 2016. Sister companies My Beer Brand and Craft Buildings are the culmination of his years of careful planning, strategizing, and networking with others who share a passion for craft beverages. In addition, because a brewery without a piece of land to build it on is sort of a big deal, Tom is also a licensed REALTOR® serving clients by finding and securing property for their new craft-related business ventures.
A native of Tuskegee, Alabama, William Teasley became a craft beer fanboy when he tasted his first Samuel Adams Lager while at Boston College in the 1980s. Since then he has traveled and tasted beer worldwide while having an ever-evolving career in learning and technology. Brewing is an extension of his passion for learning deeply, blending flavors, committing to quality, and having fun. Beer is his canvas. He is also passionate about sharing the significance of beer’s connections to the African diaspora, brewing various beer styles, and staying abreast of current trends in the craft beverage world.
The Whole Pie: A Masterclass in Brewery Content Strategy
Bryant Vander Weerd (Owner + Creative Director, Full Pour Media)
Crafting a strong content marketing strategy has become crucial for the success of any craft brewery. And no longer is it just about posting beer pics to your Instagram and Facebook feeds. This session will dive into the components that make up an effective content plan, going beyond just social media. Topics discussed will include:
Understanding target audience
Optimizing your website and SEO
Showcasing expertise and building credibility with blogs
Using email marketing to foster customer relationships and drive engagement
Out-of-the-box concepts to deepen your connection with your fans
All these “slices” put together make up a perfect content marketing “pie.” Attendees will walk away with enhanced creativity and solutions to build more effective marketing for your brewery.
Learning Objectives:
Discover holes in your marketing strategies, and what can be done to supplement your current initiatives
Understand the role of each brewery team member, not just on the marketing team, in telling your brand story
Possess the skills to reframe your thinking around marketing for certain events or campaigns to create greater awareness and success
Bryant is the Founder and Creative Director of Full Pour Media, an award-winning creative agency focused on the craft beverage industry. They work with clients both in US and abroad to plan, produce, and execute marketing and promotional strategies.
They’ve partnered with organizations such as the Brewers Association and the MO Craft Brewers Guild on past marketing campaigns.
Bryant has won three Emmy awards for his work and Full Pour Media has won 9 Craft Beer Marketing Awards for their work in marketing and storytelling.
If you can take the heat, don’t stay out of the kitchen! Serving food in your taproom is a great way to attract a wider range of guests and to keep them in your taproom for longer periods of time. While the promise of an increase in audience and sales is attractive, running a kitchen comes with a bounty of logistical challenges. But donut give up! In this session, we will explore different taproom food service models and the steps necessary to successfully implement a food service program at your brewery, allowing you to take a big bite of the potential revenue pie.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will gain an awareness of kitchen equipment that can be used in challenging spaces
Attendees will understand how utilizing catering software that can be utilized to increase food sales and improve internal and client communications
Attendees will develop an action plan for implementing or improving food service in their taproom
Elise Strupp is the Programming & Event Manager at MobCraft Beer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Elise holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from UW-Madison, and believes that beer is a universal experience (and that you don’t need a background in brewing or even science) to understand, appreciate, and talk about beer! Elise has over ten years of experience working in the brewing industry as a tour guide, bartender, taproom manager, tour manager, and event manager.
Wake Up Your Events: Strategies for Winning New Guests
Scott Kolbe (Advisor, Market Your Craft)
Are your events tired? Do breweries down the street crush it while you’re fully stuck in the Trivia Thursday rut? Have you run out of ideas on how to draw a new crowd to your tasting room other than BOGOs and weekly food truck schedules? And do drinkers pre-game at your place, only to spend a bulk of their evening (and dollars) somewhere else?
Time to wake up your events! Stop suffering from schedule sleepiness!
We believe events are some of the most underutilized tools for bringing your brand story and personality to life. During this interactive workshop, attendees will brainstorm engaging themes and create a blueprint to maximize attendance:
Brainstorming event types
Laying out the building blocks of engagement
Knowing the tools available to promote
Building contingency plans
In a small group setting, teams will agree on a theme to present to peers for critique. Together we’ll discuss the basic building blocks of events worthy of your time and primed for participation. The idea of a budget to promote the event will be introduced, as well as the need for prioritizing tools and tactics to build awareness and drive ticket sales/traffic. And then there’s the contingency plan in case things go sideways…
The goal is for everyone to have at least one new and engaging event idea for when they return to their breweries, plus the gameplan to successfully promote. Workshop attendees will also have access to 10+ Complimentary Guides, with storytelling techniques to keep fans engaged and the proven tools to build momentum and capture new sales in this environment.
Learning Objectives:
Understand event types and identify the right theme for your next event.
Build a meaningful, engaging event for your customers and community.
Maximize event participation/attendance with targeted promotions.
Build a contingency plan for the unforeseen, ensuring event success.
Market Your Craft is a virtual team of experts in storytelling your craft beer brand. We’ve worked with some of the most iconic brands in the beverage industry, including Sierra Nevada, BJ’s Brewhouse, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and others. Led by Scott Kolbe, industry veteran of 20+ years, our goal is to help you become more discoverable in today’s crowded market. We measure success by how quickly we provide your internal team with the tools needed to drive traffic, build engagement and capture sales. To learn more or to schedule an hour free of charge with one of our storytelling experts, visit marketyourcraft.com.
Lager-Metrics: How Incremental Gains Can Lead to Big Wins
Julie Rhodes (Owner, Strategic Business Consultant, Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions)
In baseball, there’s a strategic theory called Sabermetrics that establishes a roster of players that might not be household names but have skill sets that will produce the highest probability of success. Why? Because they contribute incremental gains, in this case, base runners or runs scored, that allow that team to win more games. This method of team management rose to popularity because some teams were playing at a huge disadvantage – a low spending budget and a high level of competition for players. The craft beer world is not that different from baseball. At a time when marketplace competition is high, the economy is low, and budgets are limited, craft beer brands might want to consider how to play Lager–metrics with their sales plans.
Learning Objectives:
How to leverage small, incremental sales wins to reach large sales goals
Identifying the key data points to track to implement this system of selling
How to structure sales goals for your team based on small, incremental wins
With over 2 decades of experience in the food and beverage industry, Julie Rhodes is an expert in off-site beverage sales, digital marketing, leadership, team management, and distributor partnership management. She is the owner of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services and strategic business consulting company built specifically for small to medium-sized craft beverage companies where she teaches owners and operators how to work smarter, not harder. She is also a freelance business journalist and active public speaker, belonging to multiple state brewery guilds and cider trade associations. She was the Mentor of the Year for the Brewers Association in 2022 and also sits on the BA DEI Marketing and Communications Subcommittee.
Maintaining Consistency Across Taprooms
Anthony Drago (Director of Hospitality, Monday Night Brewing), Jamie Young (Regional General Manager, Saucy Brew Works), Marcus Baskerville (Co-Founder, Weathered Souls Brewing Company
Moderator: Michael Varda (Founder, Craft Beer Advisory Services)
More and more we are seeing breweries consider not plans to be the next big regional or national player, but chart a path that includes expanding their presence into other communities. With this growth, comes the need to maintain the same high level of quality and experience across locations. In this panel conversation, we will discuss aspects to consider when planning an expansion, challenges you may face, and strategies for success while growing via the taproom model.
Learning Objectives:
Discuss methods to create and maintain a recognizable brand across taprooms while leaning into unique characteristics to reflect the local surroundings.
Discover strategies to implement, monitor, and maximize training among staff to create the most memorable and profitable experience for both guests and team members.
Demonstrate the importance of strong leadership, how management can best demonstrate company values, and metrics that can be valuable in understanding the health of a taproom.
The insight offered will not only give actionable strategies to those actively pursuing the taproom model, but also provide immediate takeaways for maximizing the operation of a single location.
Anthony Drago is the Director of Hospitality for Monday Night Brewing. He oversees all taproom, private events, and restaurant operations across five locations and four states, and he has been with Monday Night Brewing for five years. At Monday Night Brewing, Anthony has been responsible for increasing to-go sales through staff education and merchandising opportunities. He led the charge on developing new cocktail and culinary programs at Monday Night’s taprooms, including launching artisan pizza programs in Atlanta and the soon-to-open Charlotte location. Anthony has 15 years in the service industry. He spent 4 years in the wine industry advancing through the sommelier program until he made the switch from grapes to hops. Anthony can stand on one foot for longer than 30 seconds but no longer than 34 seconds.
Jamie Young is the Regional General Manager at Saucy Brew Works. “Hey everyone! I like to call myself a humble narcissist with a focus on good old-fashioned genuine hospitality. My specialties are identifying like minded misfits and motivating them for the cause of spreading good times, joy, and wealth. With over 20 years in the industry (17 in brewery land) I’ve managed to cultivate my passion for drinks and dining while breaking through that hoppy ceiling that was once entirely male dominated. I demand respect, compassion, and desire for success from my associates all the while disguising myself in this lovely lady package. I curse like a sailor and don’t trust those who don’t.”
Marcus Baskerville, 38, was born and raised in Rancho Cordova, California. Co-owner of Weathered Souls in San Antonio, TX and Charlotte NC. Marcus has received several accolades while operating Weathered Souls Brewing Co. such as San Antonio’s Brewery of the Year five times running, 2019 Best 33 Stouts in the World, Wine Enthusiast’s 40 under 40 Top Taste Makers in 2020, Craft Beer & Brewing 2020’s Break Out Brewer , 2020 Best Brewery in The US, 2021 top 20 beers by Hop Culture, Imbibe 75, 2020, Imbibe 75, 2021 and many others. In 2020, he created the worldwide initiative called Black Is Beautiful, a cause supporting equality and inclusion through a collaborative effort. Recently Black is Beautiful was recently added to the world’s greatest beer book by CAMRA books. To start the Year of ’23, Weathered Souls was a semifinalist for The James Beard foundation award for Best Bar. Marcus also is a founding member and sits on the BOD of the NB2A and sits on the BOD of the Brewers Association.
As a lifelong hospitality veteran, Matt Russell specializes in building high performing teams, executive leadership development, scaling business, launching new brands, all while utilizing a positive people focused approach. Matt is a graduate of the University of North Texas with a degree in Strategic Management. He’s held executive level and senior leadership positions in several private and corporate hospitality companies as well as served on the University of Richmond’s CX Advisory Board. Currently serving as Chief Operation Office for New Realm Brewing and Distilling Company’s Restaurant division. Fun fact, while in college Matt opened his own sports bar and grill, and that passion for craft beer, great food, and southern hospitality lives on today. In his free time Matt enjoys spending time with his family, playing golf, cooking, and all things Dallas Cowboys.
Michael Varda is the Founder of Craft Beer Advisory Services (CBAS), a market research firm exclusively dedicated to craft beer. He began his professional career in market research roles advising some of the nation’s top universities on attracting students and several Fortune 50 companies on improving brand perceptions. In addition to CBAS, he also leads brand perception research at a Fortune 100 financial company. Combining his research skill with a passion for craft beer, CBAS was born in Fall 2021. Since its founding, Michael has delivered CBAS research to more than 250 breweries in 45+ states and 10+ countries.
Building Community Through Mutually Beneficial Relationships
Day Bracey (Founder, Barrel & Flow)
Day Bracey is a comedian, podcaster, activist, & founder of America’s first Black arts and craft brew fest, Barrel & Flow (formerly Fresh Fest). In this session, he’ll discuss how he and his team built one of America’s most inclusive brew festivals, & the initiatives behind it. Barrel & Flow has been named one of America’s best brew fests by the readers of USA Today four years in a row, and has gained international recognition and following since it’s inception in 2018. Attendees should expect to be entertained and prepare to engage in meaningful discussions surrounding the benefits and difficulties in connecting with your community, building culture, & creating mutually beneficial relationships for the betterment of both business and society.
Learning Objectives:
How to meaningfully connect to your community through mutually beneficial relationships.
The benefits of inclusion in action. The importance of culture in the long term success of your business.
Pitfalls of event planning.
Day Bracey is a comedian, podcaster, activist, & producer. His credits include co-host of the award winning Drinking Partners Podcast, co-host of TV Show Ed & Day in The Burgh, & founder of America’s first Black arts and craft brew fest, Barrel & Flow (formerly Fresh Fest). When he isn’t drinking or paying Black people, he’s trolling bigots online.
Brewery Data Diagnostics: Immersive Quality Control Workshop
Brynn Keenan (Founder and CEO, Grist Analytics)
Join us for an immersive Brewery Data Diagnostics workshop, where we delve into real-world production data to collaboratively diagnose brewery issues. This interactive experience goes beyond theory as we analyze actual data from the brewhouse through packaging, providing hands-on insights for troubleshooting and enhancing overall quality.
For production teams, this workshop unlocks the keys to streamlined operations, precise scheduling, and early issue identification, providing brewers with the predictability they need to foster creativity and innovation when production flows seamlessly.
Front of house positions, including taproom and sales personnel, will gain a fundamental understanding of what “quality” truly means, empowering confident communication with customers and distributors.
Whether you’re a seasoned brewer or a sales rep seeking a competitive edge, this workshop equips you with skills to understand your brewery’s data and elevate your quality control practices.
Learning Objectives:
How to analyze brewhouse data, including brewlogs, spreadsheets and control charts.
How to diagnose issues using data and identify root cause.
How to effectively communicate and validate that you have good quality product.
Brynn is a biochemist by training and fermentation scientist by trade. Her experience in brewing QC includes building micro, sensory, and analytical programs for Left Hand Brewing and Inland Island Yeast Laboratories. Brynn started Grist Analytics to bring big brewery QC tools to craft by making data entry, visualization, and analysis easy. She now helps breweries across the world turn production data into actionable information. Brynn is passionate about good beer, rock climbing, and building community.
Mighty Malty Marvels: Assembling Your Brewery’s Brand Superhero Universe
Brian Winkeler & Jennings Hammack (Robot House)
Your beers are your brand’s superheroes. They each have their own distinct, otherworldly powers and a fervent fanbase of frenetic followers. How do they relate to one another? How are you telling their strange & wonderful tales? Branding experts Brian Winkeler & Jennings Hammack with Robot House will discuss how you are the architect of your brewery’s one-of-a-kind universe and lead an interactive exercise that will encourage you to reflect on each beer’s origin story and unique strengths, and what their names, designs and iconography say about the craft beer world you’re building.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will be encouraged to analogize their brewery’s collection of craft beers to a team of superheroes and reflect on how they can best position each of their craft beer heroes for success as individual brands and as part of a larger brand family.
Attendees will see a demonstration of a brand development process that resulted in the creation of a storytelling system to visually connect The Nook Brewing Company’s 12 beers while also infusing layouts with maximum personal detail to highlight the origin and unique powers of each style.
Attendees will engage in an interactive activity giving them the opportunity to create their own brewery superhero wielding powers unlike any other – because there’s no other brewery like theirs.
Brian Winkeler & Jennings Hammack represent 1/3 of Robot House, an Oklahoma City-based six-person team of creative thinkers, dreamers and doers who craft emotional brand stories with fresh, cool, award-winning design in collaboration with clients around the country. Specializing in brand development, packaging design and all things creative, Brian & Jennings are on a mission to find passionate people eager to build and explore a brave new world for their craft beer brand.
Benchmark Your Beer: Pricing Competitively While Keeping Your Guests Happy
Your costs have increased, meaning your menu prices must follow to keep revenue positive. But how do you balance pricing competitively with keeping your guests happy?
We brought in the experts:
Maria Pearman, CPA at GH&J Advisors
Chris Ranere, Owner at Indigo Reef Brewing Company
Pearce Fleming, Proprietor at Commonhouse Aleworks
Moderator: Rachel Kesley, Solutions Engineer & Director of Partnerships at Arryved
We’ll dive into creative solutions to combat rising vendor costs and pricing strategies of real-life brewery owners. You won’t want to miss it!
Learning Objectives:
How to approach vendors to receive more competitive prices
What data other breweries are using to help with their pricing model
Creative solutions breweries are using to offset costs
Maria Pearman, CPA, CGMA, has more than 15 years of public accounting experience providing accounting and advisory services to clients. She is an expert in the beverage and alcohol industry and specializes in internal accounting processes, financial reviews, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, financial strategy and succession planning.
Christopher Ranere and his wife Nicole started homebrewing in 2014 in Madison, WI. They started with homebrew extract kits and quickly fell in love with the process and final product. They moved on to brewing all grain batches when they moved to Charleston, SC in late 2014. In 2017, Christopher started working in production at Two Blokes Brewing. In 2019, Christopher and Nicole opened Indigo Reef Brewing company, a 7 BBL brewery with a taproom, small kitchen, and local distribution. Indigo Reef Brewing has changed a lot over the course of nearly five years, including multiple partners in the kitchen, new distribution areas and a canning line!
Pearce Fleming is an accomplished and award-winning homebrewer. In addition to his homebrewing experience, Pearce has completed the Institute of Brewing & Distilling’s General Certificate in Brewing exam. Outside of brewing, Pearce has served in healthcare administration, been responsible for leading one of the largest healthcare consultancies in the country, as well as developed multiple quality, education, and wellbeing technology platforms serving patients, providers, insurers, and employers. Pearce’s family roots lie in rural South Carolina and the mountains of western North Carolina. He was often entertained in his youth by his Grandaddy’s stories of running shine from his home in the mountains to the state capital of Raleigh to help with expenses while attending North Carolina State University. His grandfather always laughed about the time he was caught and hauled in front of the school’s disciplinary board, saying, “little did the President of the University know that nine of the ten people on the board were my regular customers.” True to form, Pearce’s father’s first words when told of the plan for Commonhouse, “Well, you know you’re going to have to pay the Revenuers their due.
Rachel Kesley Kesley is a hospitality master, working as an executive chef and in the craft beer world for over two decades! Now she’s leading the Arryved partnerships team to help other craft establishments grow their revenue through a point-of-service (POS) solution. Outside of work she is busy traveling, exploring Colorado on her bicycle, and chasing around her pup Truvy Tennessee!
5pm – Cash Flow Magic for the Thirsty Brewery
Cash Flow Magic for the Thirsty Brewery Matt Hon covers topics including:
– Financial management for breweries – The importance of efficient invoicing and payment processing solutions – Customer relationship management for breweries
This presentation highlights the critical role an efficient invoicing and payment processing system has in driving brewery growth. It advocates for the adoption of automated payment processing solutions to enhance cash flow, reduce processing fees, and streamline administrative tasks. The presentation also underlines the importance of utilizing customer relationship management (CRM) systems to improve sales tracking and customer service. It concludes by encouraging breweries to evaluate their specific needs and explore a range of available tools to find the best solution for their business, aiming to support growth and profitability through efficient financial operations.
Matt Hon is the Co-Founder and VP of Sales at Brew Ninja Software Inc. In his role at Brew Ninja, Matt helps craft brewers gain insight and control over their entire business.
4pm – Understanding the Research and Development Credit: Brewing Up Tax Savings
Learn how the Research and Development (R&D) Credit can help your brewery save on taxes. Attendees will get an overview of the R&D tax credit including learning about eligible activities that qualify for the credit and benefits, as well as related current tax law.
David A. Oksenhorn is a director in the Research and Development Tax Credits department of the Marcum LLP’s Long Island office. He is also an active member of the Firm’s Food & Beverage Services Group. For more than 15 years he has advised clients in manufacturing, professional services, and other various industries.
Mr. Oksenhorn is active with the New York State Brewers Association, Long Island Brewers Guild, and NYC Brewers Guild.
In 2023, Mr. Oksenhorn and friends took their homebrewing hobby to the next level and launched a brewery based in Smithtown, NY where they live, and hope to have their own tasting room in the near future.
3:30pm – Good Things Come in Superior Packages
What’s in a Name? Well, in short, everythingI It’s no secret that your brand and its reputation is at the very heart of your success, and that even the very best beer (or seltzer or kombucha or craft spirit) can’t survive if the process by which it’s packaged isn’t up to par. In this session, we’ll dig into the critical elements of packaging and the direct impact they have on your brand. On the filling side, we’ll look at everything from filling technology (isobarometric vs. atmospheric) to filler accuracy to filling parameters (e.g., pressure, temperature, carbonation, dissolved oxygen content, etc.) and how they influence final product quality. From there, we’ll dive into seaming technology and how seam integrity has a direct correlation to the quality of the product you put on the shelf.
Join us for this session to gain a full understanding of the packaging process and the touchpoints along the way that will help you build a brand that gets noticed.
3pm – How to Generate More Events Leads for Your Taproom
We all know that events can be a big revenue driver for your tasting room. But how exactly is everyone getting these leads? It’s simple to let customers come to you — but that only happens if they know exactly what to search for, and can find you once they do.
In this talk, Melissa breaks down how to make sure you’re poised and ready for those inbound requests, as well as how to rope in qualified sales from customers that are searching for a space–but not yet searching for you.
From brewery tour guide to agency owner, Melissa has been in the craft beer world for 11 years. A true sucker for the underdog, she’s committed to helping small businesses implement new revenue streams and strategies for top-line growth. Melissa now specializes in generating event leads for brewery tasting rooms to help monetize their existing space.
Prior to craft beer, Melissa was a freelance motion graphic artist for clients like Disney, Pixar, and MTV.
2:30pm – How to Transition Your Brewery from CO2 Dependence to CO2 Independence
Join US / European craft brewers and industry brewing experts to learn about CO2 recapture technology and how to transition your brewery to CO2 independence. Learn about optimizing brewing schedule, fermentation, tank needs etc.
Lenzie Kinyon Independent Brewing Consultant & Dalum Beverage Equipment Install support 20+ years Miller Brewing, 30 years ind. brewing consultant • Chem. Engineer • Master Brewer
Central Waters Brewing, WI, Dalum client. Representative Paul Graham, Owner / Brewer (TBD) or Shane (brewer)
Jan Paul, Dalum client and Brewing Consultant • Former Head Brewer at Svaneke Bryghus, Denmark • Independent Brewing Consultant at JP Brewing Consulting
Eric Dean Dalum Beverage Equipment US Head of Sales and Client Partner • Industrial sales
2pm – Mug Club Mayhem: Turbocharging Your Bottom-line with Recurring Revenue!
Harness the awe-inspiring power of memberships and rewards! Customer Loyalty is on the line, and the nightmare of managing these monster programs is about to get an epic upgrade.
In this colossal session you will witness real-world tales of thriving beer club and mug club membership programs, and be equipped with a mighty framework to help you build and manage your own program.
Storm into action as you exit this session with the power to build a membership program at your brewery. Make your guests feel like superheroes, keep your staff flying high instead of battling with spreadsheets, and unleash a tidal wave of recurring revenue on your taproom!
I accidentally graduated from UCSD while studying lacrosse and frequenting O’Brien’s Pub. After a brief attempt to justify the cost of my engineering degree by designing pool cleaners (true story) I quit and started programming instead, first websites and then mobile applications. Since then, I have started a few small businesses with friends to bring best-in-class mobile tech to small businesses in other industries. After growing up in San Diego during the craft boom, I jumped at the chance to start TapWyse and serve this incredible industry. I now live in Carlsbad with my wife Laurel and two boys; Roscoe 9 and Mason 7. When not working you will find me shuttling them between basketball, golf, music, and skateboarding. Cheers!
1:30pm – Benefits for Brewers: Delighting Staff + Increasing Profits with Nontraditional Strategies
The latest Craft Beer Professionals survey shows “benefits” as a top concern of staff, yet the majority of breweries offer no health benefits at all to staff. And it’s no surprise: traditional health insurance often doesn’t impress staff even as it drains profit from the operation. Benefits shouldn’t be “take it or leave it” and owners shouldn’t have to choose between “too much or nothing at all.” Don’t let a mismatch or a misunderstanding about benefits hamper your brewery. In this presentation, we’ll delve into what staff really value, and share a variety of free or very low-cost ways you can offer benefits that align to their priorities to increase their satisfaction and reduce turnover.
Jonathan Nystrom has spent a career crossing industry boundaries to bring solutions from one domain to another. Most of that time was spent in legal technology, compliance, IT, and professional services working across the United States and the globe. Jonathan loved and enjoyed craft beer at every opportunity. He has spent a lot of time talking with brewery staff and listening to their concerns. Last year, Jonathan joined up with Benefits for Brewers to expand the options available to breweries as they seek to recruit, retain and delight the best staff. He splits time between the Washington, DC suburbs and the Delaware beaches; His beloved Saint Bernards, Simon and Mabel, often accompany him to breweries.
1pm – Innovation on Tap: Harnessing Brewstilleries to Adapt and Thrive
The world of craft beverages is constantly evolving, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for the success of your craft beverage business. One game-changing trend that is quickly emerging is the concept of a brewstillery– a combination of a brewery and a distillery. Join us as we discuss how this hybrid business model can help you adapt, thrive, and stay competitive.
Higher Profit Margins and Revenue Opportunities: Becoming a brewstillery unlocks new revenue streams by offering higher-profit-margin distilled spirits, attracting customers who want “other” options, and providing a solid financial foundation for your craft business.
Expanded Product Offering and Market Reach: By adding distilling equipment, breweries can expand their product range and offer a variety of spirits like whiskey, vodka, gin, and rum. This diversification attracts more customers and increases the chances of your success.
Increased Consumer Interest and Experience: A brewstillery creates a unique destination with an immersive experience for customers. This increases customer loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, and consumer interest.
Enhanced Brand Differentiation and Market Positioning: Brewstilleries allow you to offer a variety of beers and spirits, showcasing your creativity and attracting consumers seeking something new and exciting “above and beyond” beer.
Synergy and Resource Optimization: Becoming a brewstillery can help you streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve sustainability. Shared use of equipment and resources optimizes efficiency, saves money, and minimizes waste, contributing to a more environmentally friendly approach.
With expanded product ranges, enhanced revenue opportunities, captivating consumer experiences, and differentiated branding, the benefits are undeniable.
Don Marcil (aka The Dom) is a seasoned professional in the craft brewing industry, having amassed years of experience at Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, OR. With a deep understanding of the intricacies of running a successful business, Don has proven his expertise in the field. His knowledge extends beyond the confines of a single brewery, as he has collaborated with hundreds of craft brewers worldwide.
Don’s vast experience and network make him a valuable asset, offering insights into brewery operations, industry trends, and effective business strategies. With his passion for craft beer and dedication to craft excellence, Don continues to make a significant impact in the craft brewing community.
12:30pm – Building a Small Family Business Under 200K
My wife and I built our brewery with under 200k, living in the basement of my mother-in-law’s house with a 5-gallon burner system. We found a niche serving free beer at art shows and simultaneously started a following, along with finding connections to the Renaissance entrepreneurship center where we won “Best Business Plan,” which then catapulted us into finding our first ever loan (under 200k) where we opened our first 125 sq ft taproom in San Carlos, CA. We both worked full-time jobs for years before making the jump and brewing full-time. Working weekends together and creating a community, where we have made and kept many friends and supporters. We have gone from 125 sq ft to over 2500 sq ft and are one of the best breweries on the California peninsula. This business has helped fulfill lifelong dreams of being independent, having a family, and finding a career that is always challenging but extremely rewarding. The best part is that we get to share what we create with our community, support our employees, and make friends along the way. It hasn’t been for the faint of heart, but it has been worth it.
25 years of working in biosciences before starting Blue Oak Brewing Company. Was Born in Santa Clara County, and raised in Half Moon Bay, CA. Originally went to school for graphic design, landed a job with Genencor, and worked my way up the ladder. Eventually, excelled in bioscience and completed a science education. Worked at various biotech and pharmaceutical companies, using fermentation with yeast and bacteria to cultivate different types of proteins used in detergents, vaccines, medications, and other products. I met my wife, we moved in together, and started thinking about self-employment. I have homebrewed many times in the past because of my fermentation experience. We began brewing and serving beer at different art establishments for free. Eventually creating an award-winning business plan, found a loan for under 200k through the SBA, and opened our first brewhouse/taproom in San Carlos, CA. The business has grown significantly over the past 8 years
11am – Where’s the Profit? How to (Actually) Make Money Selling Your Beer in 2024
It isn’t 2015 anymore. As the craft industry has plateaued, running a profitable brewery has become more and more challenging each year. This presentation will provide craft business owners a deep dive to understand why this is and, more importantly, the strategic changes owners need to make in order to sell the right beer, to the right consumers, at the right margins, to generate cash and finally get ahead.
When Chris first started out, he set out to be the premiere accounting technology firm in North Florida. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that technology is only a tool, not a differentiator.
It was only when he happened across a brewery in Jacksonville that needed accounting help that he saw both the complexities that come with running a brewery, and the opportunity to help a growing industry of entrepreneurs who have potential to create amazing, local products.
Once that happened, things changed for good. Small Batch Standard was born, and Chris has spent the last decade serving, learning from, and helping breweries and craft producers across the country.
5pm – Motivating Taproom Staff in Tip Pool World
Who’s ready to go swimming? Tip pooling is becoming increasingly prevalent in taprooms, and motivating and engaging staff members requires a nuanced approach. In this conversation, we will learn why our panelists chose the tip pool model, the challenges they’ve faced, and how it has been a “win” for their team. We will explore the strategies they’ve used to boost staff morale, foster teamwork, and ultimately create more successful taproom experiences for both guests and staff.
Moderator: Andrew Coplon (Craft Beer Professionals/Secret Hopper)
Panelists:
Bobbi Gabler (Skydance Brewing)
Brad Barrett (Gravity Taproom)
John Kelley (Arryved POS)
Kim Collins (Guardian Brewing Company)
Linus De Paoli (3 Gatos Brewery)
4pm – Elevating Brand Trust & Loyalty Through Connected Experiences
In the current consumer landscape, where experience is as critical as product quality, brands face the challenge of meeting modern consumers’ heightened expectations. Recent studies underscore this, revealing that 88% of consumers place as much emphasis on a company’s experience as on its products or services. This trend spans various industries, including the beer sector.
In my presentation, titled ‘Elevating Brand Trust and Loyalty through Connected Experiences,’ we will delve into strategies for amplifying consumer experiences, strengthening brand relationships, and harnessing the power of real-time data and analytics.
Focusing on the potential of connected experiences, we’ll explore how breweries can effectively use QR codes and NFC technology to personalize interactions, engage customers, and craft targeted marketing strategies. Through practical examples and use cases, we will demonstrate how these digital tools can significantly enhance brand loyalty and drive sales growth.
Attendees will gain insights into collecting and utilizing first-party data for informed decision-making and marketing, leading to improved customer experiences and business expansion.
By the end of this session, brewery owners, managers, and marketers will be armed with actionable strategies to implement digital transformation in their operations. This will enable them to foster enhanced customer engagement and loyalty, ensuring sustainable sales growth in a competitive market.
Daniel Hill, the Head of Growth at Cellr, epitomizes a blend of creativity, strategic thinking, and technical acumen. With years of rich experience in customer experience, digital platforms, sales, and product/project management, he has been instrumental in driving success for clientele globally. At Cellr, Daniel’s innovative approach and growth strategies have significantly contributed to the company’s expansion and influence in various industries. His multifaceted interests and expertise make him a dynamic and influential figure in his field.
3:30pm – How Quality Packaging Affects How Your Customers See You
The success of a product and brand hinges on the quality of its packaging, serving as the critical gatekeeper. An ineffective packaging process not only fails to enhance the product but can actively harm its quality. The impact of poor packaging extends to brand reputation, with high Dissolved Oxygen (DO) levels leading to off-tasting beverages and can liner corrosion. The repercussions include leaky cans, dissatisfied consumers, and a potential 32% customer loss after just one bad experience, escalating to 59% after two, as indicated by PwC’s Future of Customer Experience report. Negative word of mouth further compounds the damage. This presentation will go over how poor quality affects your brand, what quality canning should look like, and what to look for when choosing a canning solution for your brand.
Roger Kissling is currently Vice President of Sales and Client Management for Iron Heart Canning Company which offers industry leading quality mobile canning services for the Craft Beer Industry. Previously, he worked in supply and sales for 8 years in various positions with Gallo Wines and Terlato Wines International.
3pm – 3 High-Octane Marketing Campaigns to Fuel Your Brewery’s Growth
Calling all thirsty brewery marketing managers! Join us as we crack open our playbook and reveal the framework behind 3 proven marketing campaigns to boost your brewery’s bottom line. Forget stale tactics and generic ads – we’re serving up fresh, data-driven strategies that ignite to-go sales, drive taproom foot traffic, and dominate distribution markets.
Part 1: Not all marketing campaigns are created equal: What makes for a campaign with the best ROI potential
Part 2: High-ROI campaign strategies right from our playbook: To-Go Sales Taproom Events Distribution and Retail
Ready to invigorate your brewery’s marketing potential? Join us as we dive deep into these campaigns, sharing actionable tips, data-driven insights, and real-world examples to help you customize these strategies for your brewery.
Chris Overlay is the founder and CEO of Get Hoptimized, a marketing agency laser-focused on the craft beverage industry. They help breweries accelerate growth by applying hyper-relevant marketing tactics. Chris has over 11 years of marketing industry experience and graduated with a degree in marketing from The University of Nevada Las Vegas in 2013. When he’s not working or hosting a podcast, Chris and his wife are either hiking or watching Golden Knights hockey and Denver Broncos football.
2:30pm – Navigating Brews and Risks: The Love-Hate Relationship Between Brewery Owners and Insurance
In the frothy world of craft brewing, where creativity flows as freely as the beer, brewery owners often find themselves entangled in a complex web of risks. This presentation delves into the intriguing dynamics of why brewery owners harbor a unique disdain for insurance. While insurance is ostensibly designed to provide security, the intricate policies and nuanced jargon often leave brewers drowning in confusion. We explore the hurdles that make insurance a bitter brew for these entrepreneurs.
From liability concerns stemming from taproom mishaps to the challenges of insuring experimental brews with unpredictable outcomes, brewery owners face a myriad of complexities. This presentation will unravel the intricacies of insurance requirements, shedding light on why they often clash with the laid-back and innovative culture of breweries.
Yet, amid the frustration, there is an opportunity for a nuanced understanding of risk management tailored to the brewing industry. We will discuss strategies to simplify insurance processes, foster better communication between brewers and insurers, and ultimately turn this love-hate relationship into a more bubbly collaboration.
Join us as we tap into the world of brewery ownership, exploring the reasons behind the animosity toward insurance and uncovering ways to make this vital aspect of business less of a bitter pill to swallow.
Kyle C. Rheiner is a Certified Insurance Counselor, Agency Principal and is the Food & Beverage Practice Leader at Arthur Hall Insurance in West Chester, PA. Kyle has over 25 years experience in the hospitality industry along with actually brewing and distilling craft beverages. Since 2013, Kyle has become trusted insurance advisor for over 150 craft beverage makers in the US. Kyle is also the Host of The Beer Mighty Things Podcast – a craft beverage business library with over 25,000 downloads including interviews with industry leaders throughout the world.
2pm – Reducing + Eliminating Beer Losses from Dry Hopping
Brewers wake up early and work hard to produce the beers that we all love so much. Ingredients are expensive and time isn’t cheap either. Hops can be like a sponge, soaking up the beer and carrying it away when they are dumped. Yeast also. The heaviest of it in the bottom of the tank can’t go to the filter of centrifuge for risk of plugging and disrupting operations.
To see that precious liquid be sent down the drain with the sludge that can’t be sent to the filter or separator is not only heartbreaking, but also inefficient. A cellar decanter system is the answer to this age old problem. Prior to filtration or packaging, all of the material that settles in the bottom of the fermenter can be processed by the system. The suspended solids are removed, the beer recovered and the day is saved. More yield per brew, more beer in your glass.
Christian Pettit is the industry manager for Flottweg’s Beverage (BVD) sales. He has 20 years experience with centrifuge technology as a technician, process engineer and sales engineer. He is responsible for brewery, distillery and other beverage applications sales.
Flottweg Separation Technology is and innovator and industry leader for separation solutions across all aspects of process engineering. With over 1,500 centrifuges in North America and 13k world wide, they have the solution for nearly every application.
1:30pm – Crafting a Startup Mentality: How to Build Better, Faster.
The world of tech is known for moving fast. How can teams in our industry of any size adopt a similar “better, faster” mentality?
In this talk, Adrian Pawliszko (Kegshoe) dives into the ways of working and team building commonly found in tech companies, and explores how we can apply the same principles across our industry — no matter the team size.
Adrian Pawliszko is the cofounder of Kegshoe, a keg tracking and CRM software company based in Canada. Adrian has worked at the intersection of beer, design, and technology for over a decade.
1pm – Beyond “Great Beer”: Establishing a Winning Brand Presence
It’s no longer enough to use “good beer good atmosphere” as your marketing strategy. Craft breweries face a unique challenge as they grow – how to authentically convey their story and preserve their identity amidst expansion. This panel discussion will dive into the art of developing a genuine message that resonates with both loyal patrons and new audiences. We explore practical strategies for effectively communicating your brewery’s narrative and ensure that it remains a compelling and integral part of your brand.
As your brewery evolves, maintaining authenticity becomes paramount. We discuss real-world examples and case studies, providing insights into how successful craft breweries have navigated this journey. From defining your core values to crafting a consistent message across various touchpoints, we cover the essential elements that contribute to preserving your brewery’s identity.
Discover the power of storytelling in the context of craft brewing – a tool that goes beyond marketing and leaves a lasting impression. Learn how to adapt your message without compromising authenticity, fostering a connection that goes beyond the beer itself. Whether you’re a seasoned craft brewer or a newcomer in the industry, this presentation offers actionable steps to ensure your brewery’s story remains genuine and compelling as you continue to grow.
Moderator: Bryant Vander Weerd (Full Pour Media)
Panelists:
Devin Quinn (Dogfish Head)
Lauren Kayl (WeldWerks Brewing)
Paul Verdu (Lake Louie Brewing)
12:30pm – Tips and Tricks for Avoiding Equipment Issues in the Brewery
As everyone in the brewing business knows, entropy increases in the brewery. It’s going to break. It’s not a matter of If – it’s a matter of When. And then there’s troubleshooting for that off-flavor or other issue with the beer….is it your equipment?
Join our team of craft beer industry veterans as they share their best practices and investigative troubleshooting strategies in the brewery to ensure sparkling clean, well-maintained equipment that consistently makes and packages great beer. Between them, they have close to 100 years of brewing, managing breweries, installing breweries, advising breweries, packaging, installing bottling/canning lines, and being ultimately answerable to beer quality and operations for breweries in the US and beyond.
Bring your questions and be prepared for some fun stories and actionable advice. This team has seen a lot.
• Dana Johnson, Sector Specialist, Craft Brewing at Diversey – A Solenis Company • Mitch Steele, Brewmaster/ Co-Founder of New Realm Brewing Co. • Jon Carpenter, Brewmaster/ Craft Beverage Consultant for Openso Consulting • Chris Leach, East Coast US and Eastern Canada Sales Manager for Wild Goose Filling
Laura Lodge, Moderator
12pm – Elevate Your Brand: Human-Centered Design Principles to Grow Your Brewery
Growing a physical business with physical, consumable products is a double-edged sword in the age of digital innovation. On the one hand, offering your customers something tangible allows them to escape from the increasingly techno-centric nature of their daily lives. On the other hand, ignoring digital altogether risks alienating a huge swath of new, digitally native customers. Enter human-centered design. Human-centered design puts the wants, needs, and desires of your customers (both current and prospective) at the center of your digital roadmap so that you can prioritize digital investments based on what will benefit your customers—and, therefore, your bottom line—the most. In this session, we’ll introduce you to the principals of human-centered design and help you come up with innovative ideas to try with your customers through digital technology.
Billy Collins has spent more than a decade consulting businesses of every size and in every industry as they strategize, design, develop, deploy, and grow customer and business-facing digital tools, products and platforms. He joined the firm in 2020.
Billy is passionate about helping clients apply design thinking principles and innovative technology to solve big problems for the brands he partners with, including those in retail and hospitality, among others.
11am – Breweries & Cities: Building Effective Relationships
In this presentation, we will provide highlights from a new book entitled Craft Breweries & Cities: Perspectives from the Field. Our goal in creating this book was to illustrate how craft breweries have helped to shape urban and community issues. It is a cross-section of research, case studies and examples of how breweries and local government have worked together to foster greater dialogue, opportunities, and understanding in communities across the country. We demonstrate how craft breweries are meaningful contributors and participants in addressing critical challenges that communities face. The book covers issues ranging from demographic and geographic trends to community, economic and workforce development to gentrification, land use, zoning, and regulations; from adaptive reuse to racial equity and sustainability; from crime to craft beer tourism. Several of our contributors will be presenting on their topics in this presentation. You will hear common themes, such as the importance of “place” as well as specific, important topics like race and equity, crime, and beer tourism.
Our goal for this presentation is to provide you — as craft beer professionals — important considerations for building and sustaining relationships with your local government. Anyone that has started a brewery understands location is critical when it comes to regulations, permitting, attracting consumers, and thriving in that neighborhood. Whether you are considering starting a brewery, opening additional locations, or just want to hear about how others have faced and overcome these challenges, this session is for you.
Craft Beer Professionals partners with Craft Beer Advisory Services to complete an industry-level report on employee satisfaction trends. Join us at 5pm ET on Monday, March 25 for a presentation of the data, a look at trends, and insight into the state of employee satisfaction in our industry.
4pm – The Power of Projections
Financial projections are an indispensable tool to aid strategic business decisions, but many owners don’t know where to begin. In this presentation we will de-mystify the process and provide guidelines that help attendees create their own projections. We will also present examples of how to use projections, such as choosing the right financing option; deciding which investment should be made first; or construction of a facility expansion.
Maria Pearman, CPA has more than 15 years of public accounting experience providing accounting and advisory services to clients. She is an expert in the beverage and alcohol industry and specializes in internal accounting processes, financial reviews, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, financial strategy and succession planning.
Maria leads a national practice focused on beverage alcohol clients. She helps clients to improve financial results and maximize efficiency of operations and guided them through ownership transitions.
Maria sits on the Finance Committee for the Brewers Association, the nation’s largest industry organization for craft brewers.
Published by the Brewers Association in 2019, Maria wrote a top-rated book, Small Brewery Finance, to help small businesses run more successful breweries. In 2021, the American Distillers Institute released her second book, Distillery Finance.
Maria is also a featured speaker and author on topics in the beverage space, specifically related to craft breweries. She has taught courses at the Business of Craft Beer program at the University of Vermont as well as the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States Academy.
3:30pm – NA Beers: Managing Compliance for Bringing Non-Alcoholic Brews to Market
The growth in the non-alcoholic adult drinks category is a bit of a bright spot amidst recent trends in craft brewing. As more and more craft brewers consider bringing NA beers to market, compliance concerns come to the forefront. While NA beers contain scant or no alcohol, they still come with a variety of compliance concerns, not all of which may be intuitive or simple to grasp. This session will cover:
● How is NA beer regulated by alcohol control boards, including licensing, taxes and distribution restrictions ● How to properly label NA beer, including FDA requirements ● How—and if—NA beer can be sold by alcohol retailers
Please join Alex Koral of Sovos ShipCompliant and Shauna Barnes of Barnes Beverage Group for this review of the legal considerations impacting NA beers.
Shauna Barnes, Founding Partner, Barnes Beverage Group Shauna Barnes is the founder of Barnes Beverage Group, a law firm specializing in providing external general counsel and regulatory counsel to beverage companies. Shauna has over a decade of experience counseling alcohol companies, specializing in creative distribution relationship management and risk-based advice in all aspects of the product life cycle. Before founding Barnes Beverage Group, Shauna founded the Alcohol & Beverage Practice at Kaleo Legal. Prior to that, she was General Counsel and a trusted member of the leadership team at Dogfish Head for nearly a decade. She found that position during her tenure as an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery focused on alcohol beverage clients and antitrust issues. She is a former Events Chair of the Rose Council of Wake Forest University School of Law and currently serves on the school’s Law Board of Visitors. She regularly volunteers her time to the Delaware Brewer’s Guild, assisting the members with alcohol-related challenges and legislative efforts.
Alex Koral, Regulatory General Counsel, Sovos ShipCompliant Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alex Koral is Regulatory General Counsel for Sovos ShipCompliant, where he serves as lead legal researcher for beverage alcohol regulation and has become a leading expert on interstate distribution of alcohol. He has spoken on the topic at many industry events including the Craft Beer Professionals Virtual Conferences, Craft Brewers Conference, American Craft Spirits Association Convention, as well as meetings for the National Council of State Liquor Administrators and the National Liquor Law Enforcement Association. Alex has been in the beverage alcohol arena since 2015, after receiving his J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School.
3pm – How to Measure Successful Supplier Relationships
We all know that good partners help you grow and bad partners cost you time/money – but why is it so hard sometimes to set up good relationships, maintain the ones you have or switch out a bad partner that is weighing you down…
We have assembled a group of brewery owners who have been in business for 5 years or more and are going to talk about the value of good partnerships. Specifically, why is working with some supply partners easier, what do they regret about early years in business with partners, what mistakes were made and what would they recommend to brewery owners looking to open their doors in 6 months? The goal is to talk to a group of experienced owners about how best to set up good partnerships that help your brewery grow while avoiding bad partnerships. To round out the discussion we have added a supply partner to the discussion to hear from the ‘other’ side of the table.
We’ll get at actionable items from brewery owners that you can implement at your own brewery as part of this discussion.
This conversation features:
Dan Klasen (Beverage Federation)
Kevin Wright (Third Space Brewing)
Matt Kahn (Big Ditch Brewing)
Nick Reistad (Raised Grain Brewing)
2:30pm – How to Start Keeping Score at Your Brewery
Professional sports spend $100M’s on building incredible scoreboards, yet in breweries, understanding if we are winning or losing can be quite complex. Are we doing okay enough in distribution, is our fully burdened $ / BBL being improved, or can our taproom increase sales?
We will discuss why keeping score should be a priority for Breweries and how to do it. We will show an easy to use process to start that will allow breweries to have better performance discussions with their team. Building team members up and giving them the tools to thrive that will drive innovation and improve performance.
Jamie Schild is founder and CEO of A-Bay, a consulting firm specializing in increasing profit margin in breweries. Guided by the belief in people and their innate capacity for good, he believes in you and your team. He wants to give you the tools to thrive! A-Bay’s pioneering scorecards bolster resourceful operations, aligning with Jamie‘s vision of holistic sustainability.
2pm – Buying Used vs New Brewing Equipment
Join Scott and a team of brewing equipment experts from ABS Commercial as they delve into the advantages and disadvantages of purchasing new versus used equipment. This panel discussion is a valuable opportunity for those in the brewing industry to learn from seasoned professionals. ABS Commercial’s team has extensive knowledge of brewing equipment and can provide valuable insights on the benefits of purchasing new equipment, as well as things to be cautious of when purchasing used equipment. Whether you’re a novice or an established business owner, this discussion will provide you with the information you need to make informed decisions. Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from the industry’s best!
1:30pm – The Red-Carpet Effect: 20 Takeaways from Celebrity Beverage Endorsements
Why do actors like George Clooney and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have their own tequilas? Perhaps they love a brand and want to help it get to the next level. Or they respect the producer and believe in their story. Or maybe they just want something tasty to share with their friends at parties.
Whatever their motivation, it’s currently en vogue for celebrities to endorse or invest in beverage brands. And why not? Just add a little star power, share with followers and BAM! they’re sold for a cool Billion to a publicly-traded drinks giant. But what if you’re not [yet] lucky enough to have Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila riding into the sunset without clothing in an ad for your brand? Or Ryan Reynolds promoting your liquid in one of his famously funny satires of modern drinking culture? How can you compete?
Here’s a hint: starting thinking like an A-Lister!
We look at 20 celebrity-craft beverage pairings to identify promotional tactics of the rich and famous, including: • Designing a content strategy • Planning highly-visible sampling events • Negotiating product placements • Engaging your social channels • Managing public relations and community give-back
Building awareness and sales for your craft beer business doesn’t require celebrity endorsement or paid influencer socials. Our goal is for brewery owners and managers to get the marketing fundamentals right, then steal the red-carpet tactics to propel your brand forward. Presentation attendees have access to “The Red-Carpet Effect” Guide, with techniques to keep fans engaged and proven tools to fuel excitement around your unique story.
We started Market Your Craft to help small-to-mid-sized producers quickly adapt to the changing Marketing landscape with storytelling. Because we believe every craft brand has an exciting story to share. Led by Scott Kolbe, we’re a team of dreamers and doers, passionate about all things beverage with the creds to match. We’ve created a series of Workshops and Guides to help define your brand story and inform your Marketing efforts. To learn more or to schedule a session with one of our storytelling experts, visit marketyourcraft.com.
1pm – What’s An Employee Handbook and Why You Should Have One
As alcohol producers and sellers, you face some inherent risk in your business. But, how employees are managed is one that’s often overlooked, until it’s too late. The best tool you can have in managing your employees and the risks they’re involved in is a solid Employee Handbook. In this presentation we’ll review what these are for, how to use them, and what should be in there that’s specific to the sale or production of alcohol.
Since founding Beer Law Center, John’s practice has centered on the craft beverage industry. John works with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals. With a background in chemical engineering and homebrewing, John loves the industry and has dedicated his career to making a difference for artisanal beverage businesses everywhere. John is a BJCP Judge, holds a certification in WSET Level II – Wines, and is the US’s only Certified Cicerone Alcohol Attorney. John’s book “Beer Law: What Brewers Need to Know” is also a great reference for anyone in the industry.
12pm – Finding Your Why: Discovering Your Brand Differentiators
It’s no secret that the craft beer marketplace is an extremely competitive landscape. As the market matures and consumers have more choices than ever, it becomes vitally important for brands to identify what makes their products different from others on the shelf. Learning how to promote your brand by highlighting your differentiators will be the key to long-term success. In this session, we will explore the importance of brand authenticity, storytelling, consistency of your brand voice, and consumer engagement, as well as how to connect with your target audience, how to measure success, how to discover your true brand identity and how to identify your unique selling propositions. Whether you’re in the early stages of your brewery’s journey or seeking to refresh your brand identity, this talk will empower you to find your brand’s true essence, discover your unique why and allow your brand to stand out from the crowd.
With over 2 decades of experience in the food and beverage industry, Julie Rhodes is an expert in off-site beverage sales, digital marketing, leadership, team management, and distributor partnership management. She is the owner of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services and strategic business consulting company built specifically for small to medium-sized craft beverage companies where she teaches owners, operators and teams how to work smarter, not harder. She is also a freelance business journalist and active public speaker, belonging to multiple state brewery guilds and cider trade associations. She was the 2023 Mentor of the Year for the Brewers Association, sits on the BA DEI Marketing and Communications Subcommittee and teaches marketing and sales for multiple business of craft beer programs at the university level.
11:10am – Level Up-Sell: Increasing Average Customer Ticket Value in your Taproom
More than ever, the taproom is the chief revenue engine for the modern craft brewery. For many, though, the hardest challenge is not in how to get customers through the door, but in how to ensure they spend as much as possible while there, and leave feeling satisfied in their purchases. In this panel, Aaron MJ Gore, the Director of Partnerships for industry-leading POS Arryved will sit down with taproom operations experts as they explore ways to increase the size of the average ticket, and make your own taproom as successful and profitable as possible.
This conversation features:
Aaron Gore (Arryved)
Jared Steele (Lost Worlds Brewing)
Kindsey Bernhard (Austin Beerworks)
Marques Nash (Triple C Brewing)
11am – Welcome
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Tours & Tin Tackers: Growing Your Brand Through Experience and Merchandise
Christina Boisvert (New England Brewing Company), James Thompson (Shade Headwear), John Kubicsko (Two Roads Brewing), Ross Stensrud (TapWyse), Nick Bonadies (Belleflower Brewing), Sara Harvey (Tröegs Independent Brewing)
Building meaningful connections. That’s what a taproom visit is all about. In this session, we will discuss how allowing guests to see behind the scenes can bring them closer to your brand. We will hear from our panelists to learn how they’ve successfully built a strong brewery tour program, when many businesses are no longer offering them. From Craft Beer Advisory Services data, brewery tours are the most mentioned “brewery event” in Google and Yelp reviews.
In an era where craft breweries are not only known for their exceptional beers but also their unique brand identities, the importance of effective merchandise sales cannot be overstated. Our guests will share how they’ve create a strong swag program, the strategies that helped them succeed, and the impact it has had on their business. Both brewery tours and your merchandise can better connect consumers with your brand.
Learning Objectives:
Discuss the added value unique experiences and a strong retail merchandise program can provide to your brewery.
Gain insights and ideas to build more memorable experiences that better connect guests to your company.
Learn actionable strategies to sell more swag in your taproom.
Christina Boisvert is the Events and Merchandise Manager at New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge, CT. Christina’s career in beer began 8 years ago as a Brand Ambassador for Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers before joining the NEBCO team in 2018. Having spent the past 6 years in various roles, she is currently crafting memorable guest experiences as the Event Manager and curating brand swag as the Merchandise Manager. Outside of the beer world, Christina is an avid live music lover, and you can often find her either working at or attending concerts of all varieties.
James Thompson is the Co-Owner of Shade Headwear and has 30+ years of brand-building experience, the last 20 of which in the custom private-label headwear industry where he has worked with some of the top brands in Craft Beer, Golf, Outdoor and Specialty Retail. When he’s not being the mad scientist behind the scenes of Shade or traversing the land visiting his customers and attending various industry events, you will find him tinkering on custom hot rods, motorcycles and boats. Or Fishing.
John Kubicsko is the Digital Brand Manager for Two Roads Brewing Company in Stratford, Connecticut, holds a Masters of Business in Marketing from Fairfield University, and is an Advanced Cicerone®. Previously, John worked in the sales side of the industry, both for Two Roads and a beer distributor. As a passionate advocate for sharing beer education, John is the Beer Program Instructor for the Bartender’s Academy, allowing him to help educate novice hospitality industry members further their beer knowledge. Outside of work hours, you can find John spending time with his wife and two dogs, or on the golf course.
Nick Bonadies has worked in craft beer for over a decade, and has roots in marketing, advertising, and business development and management. A data-driven leader that is passionate about craft beer and everything involved. Nick is currently co-owner and President of Belleflower Brewing Company and is responsible for sales, marketing, front of house, and also works on the production team.
Ross Stensrud accidentally graduated from UCSD while studying lacrosse and frequenting O’Brien’s Pub. After a brief attempt to justify the cost of his engineering degree by designing pool cleaners (true story) he quit and started programming instead, first websites and then mobile applications. Since then, he has started a few small businesses with friends to bring best-in-class mobile tech to small businesses in other industries. After growing up in San Diego during the craft boom, he jumped at the chance to start TapWyse and serve this incredible industry. He now lives in Carlsbad with his wife Laurel and two boys; Roscoe 9 and Mason 7. When not working you will find him shuttling them between basketball, golf, music, and skateboarding.
Sara Harvey was born and raised in Central PA. She started working in the food & beverage industry in 2007. Sara joined the team at Troegs as a part-time, front-of-house co-worker the summer after they moved to Hershey in 2011. Throughout her 12-year tenure at the brewery, she has held numerous roles and is currently the Retail / Food & Beverage General Manager overseeing the operations and teams in the General Store, Tour Department, Private Events, Tasting Room and Snack Bar Kitchen. Sara has two children – ages 7.5 and 4.5 – and a husband who also works in the industry. She and her family love to spend time outside and are often at the local park playing soccer or throwing frisbee whenever possible.
Beer Before Liquor: Adding a Distillery to Your Brewery
Bill Heafy (ABS Commercial), Eric Meyer (Cahaba Brewing), John Quade (Batson River Brewing & Distillery), Matt Albrecht (River Drive Cooperage)
Craft beer is all about innovation and more breweries are diversifying their product lineup to reach more potential customers. As you seek to grow, expand your audience, and increase profits, adding a distillery may be something to consider. We will dive into why our panelists chose this model, strategies for success, lessons they’ve learned, and items for you to consider if looking into a similar concept. In this session, we will explore the strategic considerations, potential opportunities, and operational challenges of seamlessly integrating a distillery into your existing brewery.
Learning Objectives:
Discover the opportunities that adding a distillery to your brewery can generate
Discuss key considerations to determine if adding a distillery is a good fit for your brand
Analyze the finances, both costs and potential profits, that come with expanding your product line.
Understand the operational challenges and synergies adding a distillery can create
Bill Heafy is a skilled operations professional, with over 30 years of experience in the Food & Beverage industry. His experience ranges from production, R&D, logistics, system design, and beyond. Bill has been a hands-on leader working to identify problems and implement effective process solutions. He is now the Sales Manager at ABS Commercial, where his wide knowledge base will help continue to help manage quality production and improvements of our equipment, processes, and more.
Eric Meyer, equipped with a buddy and a kitchen, started brewing in 2007. As his passion started to grow through reading, brewing (and drinking), Eric outgrew his home and co-founded Cahaba Brewing Company with a group of beer-loving friends in 2011. In the beginning, Eric brewed for Cahaba Brewing on a two vessel 3bbl brewhouse. Today, Cahaba uses a 30bbl American made brewhouse and distributes across the state of Alabama. Eric’s passion for brewing continues to grow through reading, discussing, and tasting with Cahaba’s top-notch team and regulars. Cahaba continues to strive to create clean and consistent products.
From fighting fires to wrestling barrels, Matt Albrecht‘s career is a thrilling ride of emergency heroics and spirited entrepreneurship. Beginning as a teenage volunteer firefighter and EMT, Matt’s fiery passion spurred him into a SCUBA business focused on underwater timber recovery. This venture eventually led him to establish River Drive Cooperage, a trailblazer in the craft brewing and distilling industry. His company engages with both large-scale producers and small artisans, innovating new recipes and adeptly navigating the complex beverage market. Matt’s philosophy? Blend passion with the pursuit of hidden opportunities.
Brewing Success: Transforming Leadership and Performance Conversations in Craft Beer
Andy Risvold (Forgotten Star Brewing Company) and Matt Schwandt (Bauhaus Brew Labs)
This session will be a transformative journey at the intersection of leadership and craft beer! In our interactive session, “Brewing Success,” we will delve into the art of impactful performance conversations within the vibrant world of breweries.
Imagine a world where annual performance reviews are a relic of the past. We will kick off with compelling stories and statistics that highlight the limitations of traditional performance reviews in the dynamic craft beer industry.
We will then dive into the heart of “conscious leadership,” presenting a memorable framework outlining 10 key skillsets and mindsets essential for today’s leaders. This segment promises to leave attendees with powerful insights and practical strategies, turning theory into actionable wisdom.
Finally, we will explore the critical role of trust – the cornerstone of any human relationship – in the workplace. Attendees will discover the three prerequisites for building trust: psychological safety, mutual respect, and honesty. We will provide practical tools and methods to help attendees foster these elements within your team, enhancing the overall organizational culture. Every concept we discuss will come with actionable takeaways. Attendees can expect to leave with a toolkit filled with checklists, templates, and strategies that you can immediately implement to create a more engaged and trusting workplace.
Learning Objectives:
Rethink Performance Conversations: To understand the limitations of traditional annual performance reviews and learn innovative approaches for conducting more impactful performance conversations within the craft beer industry.
Master Conscious Leadership: To gain knowledge of the 10 key skillsets and mindsets that define conscious leadership, and learn how to apply these principles to foster a more effective and insightful leadership style in the brewery environment.
Build Trust in the Workplace: To explore and implement the three prerequisites for building trust – psychological safety, mutual respect, and honesty – in their teams, thereby enhancing overall organizational culture and employee engagement.
Andy Risvold is a successful business owner with a passion for helping other companies create memorable experiences for their employees and customers. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, Andy has a wealth of knowledge and expertise to share. He is a creative and strategic thinker, always seeking out innovative ways to enhance the customer experience.
In his current role, Andy leads an ambitious team who are dedicated to providing one of the best hospitality experiences in the state and they strive every day to create truly memorable experiences for everybody who walks through their doors. Whether it’s through strategic planning sessions, team building activities, corporate events, or customized training programs, Andy works tirelessly to help his clients succeed.
Outside of work, Andy is an avid outdoors enthusiast and enjoys spending time with his family. He is also deeply committed to giving back to his community and is actively involved in various charitable organizations.
Matt Schwandt is a seasoned entrepreneur with nearly 10 years of experience as co-founder and president of Bauhaus Brew Labs, a popular craft brewery and taproom located in Northeast Minneapolis. Throughout his time at Bauhaus, Matt has effectively managed teams of over 20 employees across three distinct business units, while also spearheading the successful development and launch of multiple product lines from initial concept to market release.
Matt’s leadership philosophy centers around cultivating a dynamic and creative work environment that empowers teams to achieve their full potential. His passion for leadership development has resulted in a thriving workplace culture that emphasizes innovation, collaboration, and individual growth.
In addition to his work in the brewing industry and consulting space, Matt is also an attorney who previously served as an assistant attorney general for the state of Minnesota. In this role, he represented the state’s largest executive branch agency, providing valuable legal guidance and representation. Subsequently, Matt transitioned into private practice with a firm specializing in employment law and representing clients in a wide range of business-related matters.
No More Lawyers: A Path to Trademark Freedom
Brandon Selinsky (Beer Law HQ)
Unlock the secrets of responsible trademark management in an engaging and interactive session. We will begin by reviewing what to focus on and how to run your own knockout search to avoid obvious infringement. Next, attendees will dive deeper into what constitutes customer confusion and potential infringement. Attendees will then learn the importance of not only considering other beer brands when considering a trademark, but also the conflicts that can transpire across industries.
Learning Objectives
Provide participants the basic concepts and language of trademarks.
Apply the basic concepts of trademarks by comparing the names and logos they have created.
Design your own trademark and see if it holds up to the competition.
Brandon specializes in trademarks and trade secrets, leading a proactive approach to alert clients early on to potential conflicts, ways to strengthen their trademarks, and how to eliminate overlap with other breweries. When a trademark war breaks out, his extensive local and federal litigation experience helps resolve issues efficiently. He has successfully represented breweries and other business clients in front of the USPTO, TTAB, and federal court. In addition to trademarks, Brandon specializes in beer and spirits law more broadly, including TTB compliance, licensing/permitting, and other regulatory issues. He is an active member of the Brewers Association, Craft Beer Professionals, and Colorado Brewers Guild.
How to Talk to Gen Zers and Millennials
No longer can a brewery survive off the consumption habits of your stereotypical beer nerd, but rather, they must now appeal to greater demographics, with changing preferences. So, why should your brewery go forth on a quest to get new and different butts in seats? Money.
Well, money, and your desire to not only create more profitable experiences, but also give new audiences a reason to return. Millennials became the largest generation group in the United States in 2022. Along with Gen Z, they’ve got money to spend and you possess the opportunity to teach them and welcome them into the world of taprooms. As our industry evolves, you must attract and connect with new audiences.
In this session, you will hear from a mix of industry experts with a collection of real-world experiences and data to better understand how to talk to Gen Zers and Millennials.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the necessity for taprooms to adapt to the evolving landscape of the industry and why your business can benefit from attracting younger and new audiences
Discover the importance of giving new audiences a compelling reason to return and building long-term customer loyalty
Gain insights and practical advice on how to effectively communicate with and appeal to Millennials and Gen Zers
Acquire strategies to build meaningful relationships with Gen Zers and Millennials.
Dave Picarillo, co-founder and co-owner of Twin Barns Brewing Co in Meredith & North Woodstock, NH, launched the brewery in 2019. With a 10 BBL brew house, Twin Barns Brewing has become a hub for locals and tourists alike in central New Hampshire. Offering a diverse selection of craft beers, the brewery accommodates patrons in its 100-seat brewpub and ½ acre beer garden. Expanding its footprint, Twin Barns Brewing opened a second location in NH ski country, North Woodstock in 2021, featuring a 75-seat taproom. When he’s not at the taprooms, Dave enjoys hiking the NH 48 – 4,000 footers and cruising on Lake Winnipesaukee
Michael Varda is the Founder of Craft Beer Advisory Services (CBAS), a market research and analytics firm exclusively dedicated to the craft beverage industry. He began his professional career in market research advising some of the nation’s top universities on attracting students and several Fortune 50 companies on improving brand perceptions. Combining his research skill with passion for craft beer, CBAS was born in Fall 2021. Since its founding, Michael has delivered research to more than 500 breweries in 45+ states and 10+ countries. He’s delivered a keynote presentation at Ohio’s Craft Brewers Conference and other events including New Hampshire’s annual conference, Craft Beer Professionals, NanoCon, and Craft Beverage Expo among others. CBAS research has been featured in FOrbes and held two of the top ten most read articles in Craft Brewing Business in 2022.
Mike Dell’Aquila is the Co-Founder of Hot Plate Brewing Co. Prior to opening the brewery, Mike was an award-winning creative marketer for industries as varied as cable television, retail, and sustainability. Mike specialized in mission-driven marketing for clients like Disney, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson. Mike’s work for Hot Plate has been recognized by several organizations and publications. They were named Organization of the Year by the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Berkshire County, they were a Silver Awardee for the 2023 MassEcon Awards, and they were also selected as one of the Top 19 New Breweries by VinePair in 2023.
Sarah Bryan, a New Hampshire native, is a 13+ year craft alcohol professional who has spent her career working with independent breweries and distilleries to optimize their retail operations and brand management. Before joining the Maine Brewers Guild as Executive Director in 2024, Sarah served on the boards of the New Hampshire Brewers Association, the New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association, while working in leadership positions for a number of New England based craft alcohol companies, most recently having served as the opening Director of Branding and Operations for Après, a craft seltzer and cider company based in Portland, Maine.
Tony Rehagen is a monthly beer columnist for Bloomberg, and his other writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Garden & Gun, and Popular Mechanics (okay that one was about growing up in a gas station, but we did sell the coldest beer in Osage County, MO). He’s based in St. Louis, where he covers the local beer scene for The Riverfront Times.
Thriving on a Shoestring – Marketing Your Brewery on a Budget
Thriving on a Shoestring – Marketing Your Brewery on a Budget
Delve into the art of marketing a brewery on a tight budget with the “Thriving on a Shoestring: Marketing your brewery on a budget” workshop led by Denise Ford Sawadogo, co-founder of New Jersey-based Montclair Brewery and boasting over 35 years of marketing expertise within the corporate sector for prominent global brands, this hour-long session promises invaluable insights.
Denise’s extensive background uniquely positions her to provide actionable strategies for breweries seeking to amplify their brand presence without breaking the bank. Through a blend of practical tips and real-world examples, attendees will learn how to leverage creativity, resourcefulness, and grassroots tactics to maximize marketing impact within limited financial constraints.
From harnessing the power of social media platforms and building authentic connections with local communities to guerrilla marketing techniques and cost-effective event sponsorships, Denise will explore a range of innovative approaches tailored specifically to the craft beer industry.
By the end of the workshop, participants will walk away equipped with a toolkit of budget-friendly marketing strategies tailored to their brewery’s unique identity and goals. “Thriving on a Shoestring” promises to empower breweries of all sizes to compete in today’s competitive market landscape, proving that with ingenuity and determination, success is attainable even on a modest budget.
Learning Objectives:
Develop strategies for building authentic connections with local communities.
Master the art of leveraging event sponsorships, contests, and partnerships.
Harness the power of digital and social media tactics, including user-generated content, influencers, and giveaways.
Denise Ford Sawadogo has more than 35 years of marketing and business experience in package and consumer goods. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the City University of New York (Baruch College) and an undergraduate degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her global branding, marketing communications, campaign development, and product launch background have been put to good use managing her and her husband’s New Jersey-based microbrewery and tasting room– Montclair Brewery, since 2018. She heads up all marketing, HR and community engagement efforts for Montclair Brewery. Denise is a resident of Montclair and a mom to a young adult son. In addition to being a founding member of the National Black Brewer’s Association, she is also a board member of the newly merged New Jersey Brewers Guild.
Pouring Profits: Empower Your Team to Elevate Sales and Customer Experience
Dan Hornbrook and Josh Lindsay (MarketMyBrewery)
This interactive workshop is designed to equip craft brewery owners and managers with the tools and techniques necessary to train their staff in enhancing sales and creating memorable customer experiences. Participants will engage in a hands-on activity to understand the art of staff training, effective communication for optimal staff learning, and effective sales strategies tailored to the modern day craft beer industry to elevate customer experience.
Learning Objectives:
To understand the importance of staff education in optimizing sales, and to learn strategies for training staff efficiently without over complication.
To identify key selling points unique to craft beer that staff can communicate to customers and to practice and develop storytelling techniques that create engaging customer experiences.
To develop a basic, accessible beer education program for staff members.
Dan Hornbrook has been in the adult beverage industry for over 14 years, emphasizing the craft beer side for the past 9 years. Having spent time on the supplier side with a national craft brewery, and the former years on the distribution side. With a passion for craft beer, only matched by that for the fellowship of the people in the collaborative space of craft beer, Dan is eager to maximize the impact a platform like MarketMyBrewery™ can have to provide resources and tools to independent brewers directly.
Josh Lindsay is an Advanced Cicerone® and the Product Activation Consultant for BrewLogix, where he specializes in driving on-premise profitability through their technology platforms. His primary focus is on helping brewers effortlessly promote their products and taproom taproom experiences to help attract and retain ideal customers.
Tap Talks: 3 18-minute sessions on critical topics
Fast Times at Hophead High: A Status Update on the Current Market
Christopher Holden (Director of Sales and Marketing, The Hop Guild)
Fast Times at Hophead High is a fun and constructive overview of the current hop industry. The issues that growers and merchants are facing and touching on how the current situation happened. We will discuss how the current global markets are affecting the surplus compared to past surpluses. Lastly, you will gain tools to navigate through these issues without creating a shortage and substantially effecting their beer.
Supplier Friction: Strategies for Smooth Vendor Relationships
Bryan Richards (Sales Manager, G4 Kegs)
Do your supplier relationships ever feel like a never-ending game of tug-of-war? It often seems like the “rising tide” mantra that the craft beer industry touts towards friendly competition doesn’t quite translate into as friendly B2B relationships. The reality is, most vendors share the same passion for communal success that you do. They exist to help—not hinder—you. This fast and casual talk, teased with cringeworthy anecdotes, will support the perspective that healthy supplier relationships are only good for business.
Mash Mastery: Harnessing Nature’s Influence for Brewing Brilliance
Galen Smith (Southeast Craft Sales Manager, Malteurop Malting Company)
When mother nature throws us a curveball, as it has in the past few years, it is crucial to understand the effects nature has on barley growth, and in turn, the impact it has on the brewing process and final product. Learning how maltsters use this knowledge to improve barley malt quality through the use of naturally present enzymes, and exogenous enzymes to deliver consistency. This has a direct relationship with how brewers use malt in their process, and how they can also benefit from the use of exogenous enzymes to improve brewhouse performance to deliver quality and consistency of their beers. In addition to process adjustments in malting and brewing, it is equally important that communication between the brewer and the maltster is open and frequent. By maintaining open dialog, the maltster can provide vital information that can help the brewer use malt efficiently. Conversely, the brewer can provide feedback on how the material is performing in the brewhouse, so that the maltster can make necessary changes to meet the requirements of the brewer. illuminating the similar obstacles that maltsters and brewers share, we can have a better understanding of how we can adapt to environmental changes to further the quality of beer and sustainability and longevity of our industry.
In this session you’ll learn how to identify and measure the most important numbers in your brewery business. You’ll get tactics and strategies to choose the right key metrics so that you achieve the business results that you want. You’ll also hear from our panel of brewery owners and managers who will share their favorite key metrics.
Learning Objectives:
Understand how to choose the right key metrics for your business.
Learn how to assemble your most important brewery numbers into a usable, actionable dashboard.
Be ready to implement a system to communicate and educate staff on how key metrics work, and how everyone can make a difference in helping the brewery achieve it’s goals.
Erol Moe co-founded Stoneface Brewing Co. in Newington, NH, alongside his friend and long-time homebrewing partner, Peter Beauregard. Together, they have fostered a supportive community around the brand. Since Stoneface’s establishment in 2014, Erol’s dedication to the industry is evident, including service on the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire Brewing Association. The company maintains an intensely personal culture with equal emphasis on quality, consistency, and experimentation. With Stoneface reaching its 10-year mark, Erol remains dedicated to supporting its evolution and the growth of the broader craft beer industry.
Kary Shumway is the founder of Craft Brewery Financial Training.com which offers online resources for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for more than 20 years as a certified public accountant and a chief financial officer for a beer distributor. He currently serves as CFO for Wormtown Brewery in Worcester, Massachusetts. Craft Brewery Financial Training publishes a free weekly beer industry finance newsletter, offers online training courses on topics such as cash flow planning, financial forecasting, and brewery metrics. For more information visit www.CraftBreweryFinancialTraining.com.
Nicole Carrier is the Co-Founder and President of Throwback Brewery – a sustainably-minded brewery, farm, and restaurant dedicated to crafting farm-fresh beer and food from local ingredients. At Throwback, Nicole is responsible for marketing, business strategy, finance, and fun . Prior to Throwback, Nicole spent almost two decades in IT and software, culminating as a Product Management executive at IBM. Nicole has a B.A. from Dartmouth College in Economics and Math, and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Jeff Pillet-Shore (Allagash Brewing Company)
Jeff Pillet-Shore (Allagash Brewing Company)
What, fundamentally, is appealing to people about “craft beer”? There’s no perfect, single answer to this question — but clearly, for so many folks, it has been the direct connection with producer. As the industry evolves and pressures grow, the community, up-and-down-the-block presence of small and independent breweries can be one of our greatest advantages. But what’s the best way to leverage this presence into something relevant for the consumer? This session will explore how to work to bring what makes your brewery special into every aspect of the customer experience. By leveraging the insight that “letting people see behind the scenes” is fundamental to brewery success, we will unpack “authenticity” and “culture” to help you identify who you truly are.
Learning Objectives:
What is “authenticity?” Every brand seems to crave this concept – but what does it mean for your brewery. We’ll explore how to get a genuine look at your company culture, and go through a process for taking stock of, and understanding, your “inside” culture.
Audit time! How does your current marketing presence reflect what you really hold as your values?
Tools/processes for being able to share these stories (regardless of budget) – and we don’t mean your brewers acting out memes.
Born and raised in Southern California, Jeff Pillet-Shore is Marketing Director at Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine. He has been a part of Allagash since 2014, and previously held marketing leadership positions at Nestlé and Stonyfield Organic. Jeff has served two terms on the board of directors of Maine Brewers Guild, sits on the Brewers Association Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) MarCom subcommittee, and was a member of the board at Seacoast Eat Local. Jeff leads the marketing team at Allagash, handling the brewery’s packaging design, advertising, social media, sales support and more. In 2023, he was recognized by AdAge as a “Breakout Brand Leader” for his team’s work at Allagash Brewing. When Jeff is not working, he enjoys watching movies with his family, chasing his dog through the woods, gravel cycling, and searching for high quality baked goods.
Timeless Taproom Tactics: How to Maximize Profit & Success
It’s no secret that for most breweries, the lion’s share of the profit comes from the taproom. But even so, many are operating far below their potential. In fact, our data reveals that some are generating anywhere between 2-5x the profit of their local competition! So how can the “everyday brewery” bridge the gap? In this session, we’ll uncover why this is and provide practical guidelines that any taproom can use to maximize profit and success.
Learning Objectives:
Understand where profit in the taproom comes from and why it’s important.
How each of the Four Fundamentals contribute to the bottom line: Beer, Food, Brand, and Team.
What the best taprooms do to drive consistent, profitable, beer sales.
How to run a lean, mean food program that puts butts-in-seats and maximizes revenue.
The ingredients that can turn your brand into a powerful marketing machine.
How to build and maintain an efficient, service-driven team that keeps customers coming back again and again.
JULIA GRUBBS is a Brewery Consultant with Small Batch Standard, who has also previously held positions in accounting, tax, and compliance over her 4 years with the agency. Originally from Kentucky, she’s about as far from a one-dimensional bean counter as you can get, as a professional dancer and CPA living in New York City. Her love for small businesses and the relationships they enable combined with her uncanny knowledge of numbers led her to advising the brewing industry, acting as a trusted, specialized advisor for SBS’s wide range of clients across the country. She has had the pleasure of presenting at a variety of craft brewery conferences around the nation in Georgia, New York, Iowa, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
Brewery Finance from a Brewer’s Perspective
Our industry has changed significantly in the past decade. For most breweries, gone are the days of double-digit growth. As the craft brewing industry continues to mature, passion alone is not enough. As a brewer, understanding the financial landscape is crucial for sustaining and growing your craft. Brian will share his experiences since starting at New Realm 3 years ago and how they improved profitability by over 2x. This session will delve into essential topics such as understanding a P&L statement, EBITDA, and extracting meaningful data from brewery management software for KPIs. Whether you’re a seasoned brewer or just starting, this session promises practical insights and actionable tips to enhance your brewery’s financial health.
While pursuing his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Brian continued his true passion of making beer as a homebrewer. After 5 years of working as a software engineer, Brian took his first professional brewing job at a small pub in San Francisco. Two years later, Brian attended the UC Davis Master Brewers Program and earned his Diploma in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. After finishing the UC Davis Master Brewers Program, Brian joined Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon where he spent nearly 17 years and his final 10 as Brewmaster. More recently, Brian has joined New Realm in Virginia Beach, VA where he serves as Chief Operating Officer for brewing and distilling operations.
Standing Up to Sexual Aggression in the Brewery
Safe Bars RVA has been around since 2019, training restaurants, breweries, and venues in Richmond, Williamsburg, and Norfolk. We empower staff to intervene if they witness or experience sexual aggression, harassment, and assault at work (or really, anywhere!). We cover how to spot both sexual aggressors and people that may be uncomfortable targets; we then use a bystander intervention framework to teach staff how to intervene.
Alcohol is involved in approximately 50% of all sexual assaults– it DOES NOT cause sexual assault, but it is used as a tool to cover up bad behavior and incapacitate targets. We believe that professionals in the beer industry are in the perfect position to stop sexual violence while it’s only annoying or bothersome, before it can escalate to dangerous or life-threatening.
Kailie Smith is the founder of Safe Bars RVA, and a 21-year veteran of the food and beverage industry. She is also the Director of Outreach, Education, and Community Engagement at Safe Harbor, a Richmond-area nonprofit which serves survivors of sexual and domestic violence as well as human trafficking. She is currently a VCU student getting her Masters in Social Work, and hopes to work with industry professionals after graduation to improve working conditions and address mental health issues endemic to the food-service work.
Tyler Wallace is the Safe Bars RVA Coordinator, as well as the Safe Harbor Outreach and Prevention Coordinator. She is a 15-year F&B industry veteran. She has been a Safe Bars trainer since 2019 and believes that industry norms can change, but we all have to work for it.
Profitable Promo: Make Money From Your Merch
In today’s dynamic craft beer industry, diversifying revenue streams is more important than ever. As the Director of Business Development for promotional product company Shore Up Supply, Emily Neville has seen firsthand how the right merch presented and marketed in the right way can be a consistent profit stream for breweries who choose to invest in it. Still, with thousands of items to choose from and exponentially more color and design decisions, it may seem daunting to broach the topic at all. Throw in online inventory management and taproom displays, and is it even worth it? In this session, you’ll be handed a strategy for supplier management, ordering timelines, taproom merchandising, and marketing tactics to turn your hoodies and hats into a profit stream. We’ll discuss the latest trends and set you up for success to give your patrons merch they can’t walk away from!
Emily Neville is a graduate of the 4-year merit-based Park Scholarship at NC State University. While in school, Emily started Beer to Bags to transform the thousands of spent malt bags entering landfills into profitable brewery merch. Emily grew the brand to resell in over 200 taprooms, converting 10k+ malt bags since its infancy. Beer to Bags was recently acquired by Hoptown Handles and its sustainable merch arm, Shore Up Supply, in April 2024. Emily is remaining with the brand in a new role as Shore Up’s Director of Business Development. Emily lives with her husband Tyler and dog Oliver in Raleigh, NC.
Traditional and Modern Lager Techniques
This brewers panel will explore the rise of lager styles as a key component of craft beer offerings and how brewers are adopting traditional techniques to enhance quality and consistency. Presenters will offer their distinct viewpoints on historical styles and the integration of contemporary innovations. The panel will also offer Topics such as step mashing, decoction brewing, water quality, hop utilization, and yeast selection will be covered. Additionally, there will be an opportunity for questions and input from fellow brewers.
Travis Tedrow and Jasper Akerboom are the cofounders of Jasper Yeast in Sterling, VA, a yeast propagation lab that provides high quality liquid yeast for craft beverage producers. Prior to opening the lab, Travis brewed for Gordon Biersch Breweries and Capital City Brewing Co. in Virginia. He is a graduate of the Siebel Brewing Program in Chicago.
Jasper Akerboom is a PhD microbiologist with over three decades of lab experience, include several as the head brewer and lab manager for Lost Rhino Brewing Company. He is a BJCP certified beer judge and regularly judges for both the GABF and World Beer Cup competitions.
Eric Tennant is the founder and head brewer for Benchtop Brewing in Norfolk, VA. Prior to joining the craft brewing industry, Eric worked as food scientist and spent years in the research and development, quality control, process improvement, and consumer Insights fields where he gained the experience he needed to open the brewery.
Activating Tourism Marketing with VA250 and Marketing Grants
Learn how you can apply for a matching marketing grant from Virginia Tourism Corporation, how to integrate the Virginia is for Craft Beer Lovers brand into your marketing and products, and how to stand up a Virginia is for Lovers wholesale merchandise program. Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) offers a variety of grant, funding, and sponsorship programs for the craft beverage industry including the Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program, the Marketing Leverage Program, and the Special Events & Festivals Sponsorship program. In addition, VTC is managing the VA250 Marketing Program that has kicked off the USA 250th Commemoration that will occur 2026-2031. America’s craft beverage history is Virginia’s story and breweries can make a big splash by creating historic and commemorative blends to celebrate local, regional, and statewide history.
Staci Martin is the Grant Director at Virginia Tourism Corporation. She has 22 years experience in workforce development, entrepreneurship, outdoor recreation, and tourism development. A big supporter of the innovation and entrepreneurship found in the craft beverage industry, Staci is adjunct faculty at Old Dominion University and likes to focus on creating a robust and long-term tourism economic ecosystem with industry stakeholders.
Virginia Consumer Motivations: What They Want & Bringing Them Back
In an increasingly competitive market, it takes more than good beer to get someone in the door and keep them coming back. Consumers will not settle for less than the full experience: great beer, an inviting environment, friendly people, and possibly more. This session will teach attendees about the different motivations of Virginia craft beer consumers. We’ll learn about taproom visit motivations, beer and food preferences, and return-visit motivators. In addition to the high-level consumer trends, we’ll also include generation- and gender-specific motivations.
These Virginia-specific insights come from thousands of brewery reviews scraped from Google and Yelp as well as first-party, direct-to-consumer survey research with questions posed by breweries. A narrative summary details survey results and insights about consumer types and preferences—as well as how to reach consumers with resonating messages.
After this session, you will leave with a deeper understanding of your customer base, actionable tactics to reach each customer segment, and a look into the psychology of your customers before they ever walk in the door.
Key learnings will include:
Learn experience preferences and visit motivations of different craft beer consumer personas
Understand your brewery’s value proposition and which consumer type is most likely to visit
Know the most common ways people learn about new breweries to visit
Add generational context and demographic understanding to your marketing strategy
Recognize what customers want from an experience before they ever walk in your taproom
Michael Varda is the Founder of Craft Beer Advisory Services (CBAS), a market research firm based in Richmond, VA. He began his professional career in market research roles advising some of the nation’s top universities on attracting students and several Fortune 50 companies on improving brand perceptions. Combining his research skill with a passion for craft beer, CBAS was born in Fall 2021. Since its founding, Michael has delivered CBAS research to more than 600 breweries in 45+ states and 10+ countries. Earlier in the year, he delivered keynote presentations in Ohio and Illinois and also spoke at the New York State Brewers Conference.
Staying Well While Advancing Your Brewing Career
Join us for an engaging and honest discussion about health & wellness and professional development. Often times one comes at the expense of the other, however it doesn’t have to, nor should it be this way. You all are the engines that drive your respective businesses – to maintain optimal performance, any engine needs to be maintained if it is to expected to perform every day. We’ll cover the different facets of these topics including physical, mental, emotional and intellectual wellness and how to balance it while also growing in our careers. Our panelists will share some of their own journeys towards wellness and will also provide some resources to better equip you and your team if you or someone amongst your ranks needs a ‘tune-up’. Remember, as a leader, family member, whatever your title may be, you owe it to yourself to be taking good care of your mind and body.
This conversation features:
Aaron Childers (Owner – Pretty Ugly Distribution)
Jacque Kettler (Production – St. George Brewing Co / Pink Boots member)
Josh Evans (Owner / Head Brewer – Afterglow Brewing)
Kailie Smith (Founder of Safe Bars RVA)
Moderated by: Dan Jablow (University of Richmond, Director of Brewing Education)
Dan Jablow serves as the Director of Brewing Education at University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. Dan received his Beer Brewer Professional Certificate through U of R in 2022 after being bitten by the homebrewing bug in 2018. In his role, Dan has the honor of working closely with the Virginia brewing community as well as supporting current and future brewers on their own career journeys. You can find Dan in his spare time (which there isn’t much of these days), playing drums and bass, brewing, cooking, baking, working out, traveling and photographing scenic landscapes.
Ask The Brewer: Pro Tips and Tricks from 20+ Years of Experience
Join a panel of seasoned brewers for an engaging session packed with essential tips and tricks learned over 20 years in the industry. Discover simple methods for developing a Congress mash, creating sensory kits, and preparing hop teas for recipe development. Learn proper malt and yeast storage techniques, clever yeast management tricks, and practical ways to fill kegs with adjuncts. Plus, find out how to decarbonate your beer or seltzer if you left the CO2 on overnight. Perfect for brewers of all levels, this session will help you streamline your processes and produce exceptional brews.
Marcus Raschke is a 26 year Navy Veteran who fell into the brewing industry during the Pandemic while transitioning to civilian life. Earned the Craft Brewing Certificate from Cornell and the International Brewing and Distilling course. He has been brewing for 5 years starting at Makers Craft then Over to Momac Brewing as the Assistant Brewery and finally landed at Capstan Bar Brewing Co as The Head Brewer November of 2022. His Hobbies are camping and traveling.
Michele Lowney has been brewing beer for over 25 years, with experience spanning the United States, Scotland, Belgium, and Canada. As a World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival judge for 23 years, Michele brings a wealth of expertise and discerning taste to the craft. She is currently the Head Brewer at Makers Craft Brewery in Norfolk, VA, where her extensive knowledge and global experience continue to elevate the brewery’s offerings.
Mike Pensinger is a reformed home brewer and retired Navy Chief who decided to take his skills to the professional level. He started brewing beer in 1995 and promptly became seriously involved in the Hampton Roads, Virginia brewing scene. Starting in 2002 he became one of the brewers at Hilltop Brewing Company in Virginia Beach, VA(2002-2004), the Owner of HomeBrewUSA in Norfolk, VA(2003-2007), Packaging Tech and St. George Brewing in Poquoson, VA(2004-2006), Founding Brewer at AleWerks Brewing Company in Williamsburg, VA(2006-2008), Chief Brewer at The River Company Brewery in Radford, VA(2008-2016), Chief Brewer at Holston River Brewing in Bristol, TN(2013-2014), and Brewmaster/GM at Parkway Brewing Company in Salem, VA(2016-Present).
11:30am-12pm: Drinking Beer & Doing Good
Most craft breweries are all about giving back to their community, yet often very little planning goes into the strategy or the payoff for the non-profit partner. What if corporate giving could be intentional and transparent? Seth will dive into how to set up a strategy for giving back to your community and making a difference while also still building a business.
Seth Caddell is husband to Bethany, dad to Enosh, and co-owner of Coastal Fermentory in Newport News. He is a co-owner at Coastal Fermentory and teaches in the Beer Brewer Professional Program for the University of Richmond. He sits on the board of the Newport News Green Foundation and has won “Best Local Leader Making a Difference” from CoVa Biz magazine the last 2 years.
Coastal Fermentory opened in downtown Newport News in late 2020 with a dedicated strategy of giving back to their community. In the three years they’ve been open they’ve partnered with over 60 different local and national non-profits to raise over $40,000. Coastal has won multiple awards for their charitable giving, and continues to attempt to pave a path forward with radical transparency for businesses that want to partner with non-profits.”
11-11:30am: Boost Sales – Welcoming Families in Breweries
Discover how creating a family-friendly environment in your brewery can drive sales and build a loyal customer base. Learn actionable strategies to attract and accommodate families, boosting your business’s success.
Blake Edmunds is the innovative founder and head brewer at Studly Brewing, a craft brewpub renowned for its award-winning beer and pizza and family-friendly atmosphere. Blake has successfully blended his passion for craft beer with a vision of inclusivity, making Studly Brewing a popular destination for all ages. His unique approach has not only garnered numerous accolades but also significantly boosted sales and customer loyalty. Blake is dedicated to sharing his insights on the benefits of welcoming families to breweries. By creating a space where everyone feels at home, Blake has transformed Studly Brewing into a thriving community hub.
Southeastern Malting Barley Quality Improvements, Last 6 Years
Malting barley produced in the southeastern U.S. has seen major quality improvements in the last six years. Is it now possible for a southeastern malt house to produce highly consistent, highly reliable, locally grown malt. Southeastern breweries have an opportunity to offer a truly agriculturally distinct product that their customers will demand. This presentation reviews the improvements that have made this possible.
Aaron Goss founded Carolina Malt House in 2015. Carolina Malt House steeps, malts, kilns, and roasts on custom equipment all designed by Aaron and fabricated under his supervision. Carolina Malt House, along with many farmers and researchers, have invested tremendously in adapting barley, the oldest and most widely adapted crop known to man, to the Southeast (and in adapting their growing practices to this crop).
How to Get More Value: Quantifying Yeast Cost
The current climate of the industry requires breweries to keep a watchful eye over their expenditures. Yeast cost is typically not well-quantified so here we oultine ways to quantify yeast cost and increase value through simple practices.
This presentation will cover:
The Importance of the Yeast Lab Propagation on Quality in Your Brewery
How to Strategize Fresh Cultures for Success
Best Practices for Harvesting, Storage, & Repitching
Quantifying Yeast Cost
Yeast Handling Methods to Get the Most Value
Jacob Hoover is the Sales Development Specialist at White Labs. He currently resides on Maryland’s eastern shore and provides fermentation support to Mid-Atlantic and Northeast breweries. He has been with White Labs for six years after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science from the University of Delaware. Jacob is a Certified Cicerone, BJCP Judge and is currently attending Johns Hopkins University to earn a Master of Science in Bioinformatics. In the current climate of the brewing industry, he has developed a passion for helping breweries implement new processes and identify solutions for reducing ingredient costs while focusing on product quality.
Forging Financials from Beskar: Protecting Our Breweries from Financial Distress
This Star Wars-themed technical financial talk has quickly become a crowd favorite, having been requested through multiple state guilds over the past year, as it is chock full of applicable, immediately actionable guidance for brewery owners and leaders. Learn how 2020-2023 economic conditions led us to where we sit as an industry in 2024. Understand which financial ratios are most applicable to calculate now, where to find the data to calculate each, what each means, and how you can affect those numbers to hit sustainable benchmarks. Take a deeper dive into the debt service coverage ratio to comprehend how this figure fits in with your budgeting and forecasting. Learn how to perform a breakeven analysis for your specific brewery economic model, and how each of the four types of costs a brewery encounters slots into that calculation. Gain a greater grasp on what goes into an overhead calculation and how we should utilize that number as a part of our pricing strategy. Learn where to look for possible signs of financial distress before the symptoms are felt.
All attendees of this session will receive an innovation costing Excel workbook to take home to their respective breweries. As Master Yoda once said, “In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.” This presentation is aimed at providing that knowledge to light our way. May the force be with us.
Audra Gaiziunas (she/her) is the owner of Brewed For Her Ledger, LLC, a management consultancy firm focused on providing guidance to the craft alcohol community. She is currently serving as Burlington Beer Company’s chief financial officer and is an owner in DSSOLVR. Prior to launching her own company in 2013, she served as Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s controller and Mother Earth Brewing’s chief financial officer. She has been working exclusively in craft beer for over 15 years and was elected to the Brewers Association’s Board of Directors as an At Large Member in 2024 while having served on the Finance Committee since January 2020. A graduate from the Kenan-Flagler OneMBA program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Audra possesses over 20 years of experience in senior leadership roles in craft brewing, manufacturing, services, non-profits, and startups. She earned her undergraduate degree in accounting and business management (double major) from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa in 1997.
This presentation provides a crash course tailored to craft breweries aiming to understand on going federal and state requirements. We’ll cover essential topics including TTB Operational Reporting and Excise Tax, ensuring your brewery understands the financial implications and reporting responsibilities. Gain insights into obtaining COLAs and navigating the complexities of formula approvals for your unique brews. We’ll also explore TTB Transfers in Bond, a vital procedure for managing excise taxes and proper reporting.
On the state level, we will dive headfirst into Virginia ABC’s excise tax reporting requirements and product approval processes, crucial for maintaining compliance and expanding product lines. Learn the intricacies of contract brewing arrangements and collaboration brews. Whether you’re a seasoned brewer or new to the industry, this session will equip you with the knowledge to navigate the regulatory environment, minimize risks, and maintain a focus on crafting exceptional beverages. This practical crash course is essential for anyone looking to streamline their compliance processes and foster a sustainable brewing operation.
As a Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority special agent, Kevin Anderson was on the lookout for regulatory violations, underage drinking and other vices. Today, he has switched to the business side of the alcohol industry— navigating state and federal alcohol regulations for his winery, brewery, distillery, wholesale and retail clients. After leaving the Virginia ABC Authority in 2015 Kevin became a consultant with ABC Consulting and BreweryCompliance.com, a national consulting firm based in Virginia that offers state and federal licensing assistance along with compliance and consulting services. Kevin was named 100 People to Meet in 2020 by Virginia Business.
Keynote: Winning the Battle – Strategies to Propel Your Brewery Ahead w/ Julie Rhodes (Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions)
These days, the craft beer market resembles more of a battlefield than an underdog. Join me for a journey into how today’s craft breweries are finding success and how strategy plays a vital role in the future of craft beer. This isn’t just about theory—it’s about real-world examples of how strategy can transform your brewery’s fate. Through personal and professional stories from my 20-plus years in the industry, you’ll see how to harness the power of strategic business management and use it to boost sales. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and equipped with the insights to allow your brewery to survive and thrive. Strategy isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the lifeblood of your brewery’s success, so let’s get into it.
With over two decades of experience in the food and beverage industry, Julie Rhodes is an expert in off-site beverage sales, digital marketing, leadership, team management, and distributor partnership management. She owns Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services and strategic business consulting company built specifically for small to medium-sized craft beverage companies, where she teaches owners, operators, and teams how to work smarter, not harder. She is also a freelance business journalist and active public speaker, belonging to multiple state brewery guilds and cider trade associations. She was the 2023 Mentor of the Year for the Brewers Association, sits on the BA DEI Marketing and Communications Subcommittee, and teaches marketing and sales for multiple business of craft beer programs at the university level.
Runnin’ With The Devil: What We Can Learn From Big Beer
Join Hayes Humphreys, Co-Founder and President of Devils Backbone Brewing Company, and Regional Vice President of Northeast Craft for Anheuser-Busch, for an insider’s look at what it’s like to be a craft brewery under the umbrella of the world’s largest brewer. What can you, an independent craft brewer, learn from Anheuser-Busch, and what angles can you work to stay ahead and compete with macro brewers.
Get the real scoop on cross brewing at macro breweries, beer quality, and operational efficiency. Find out if they made us change Vienna Lager! Satisfy your curiosity about craft brewery commercial planning and execution when you’ve got a big brewery sugar daddy. Find out what happens to company culture when you go from fighting the man to being the man. You’ll hear every truth approved by corporate communications!
But seriously: come hear an honest, first hand take on what an independent craft brewer can learn from how a macro brewer approaches the craft beer business and get some clues about the gaps and opportunities that approach offers for your business.
Armed with an MBA from the Darden School of Business, 2.5 months of experience driving a truck for Mike McCarthy’s Capitol City Brewing Company, and a reputation for being the last one at the party, Hayes Humphreys joined Devils Backbone Brewing Company as Chief Operating Officer and General Manager in 2011. During his time as the company’s executive leader, Devils Backbone grew from it’s humble roots as an award winning, rural Virginia brewpub into one of the fastest growing craft beer brands in the country, and was eventually acquired by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Post-Acquisition, Hayes remained with the company as president to lead the organization through the integration, disruption, and expansion that followed. He currently serves as Vice-President of Craft for the Northeast, which includes Devils Backbone Brewing and Distilling companies, and Cisco Brewers, based in Nantucket, MA.
Smart Expansion Through Successful Benchmarking
As breweries look to scale their operations and reach new markets, navigating the path to growth can be challenging. “Smart Expansion Through Successful Benchmarking” offers a strategic guide to achieving sustainable growth by leveraging industry benchmarks effectively.
In this session, we’ll explore how breweries can use benchmarking to inform and optimize their expansion strategies. Attendees will gain insights into:
Identifying Key Performance Indicators: Learn which metrics are crucial for measuring success and how to set realistic benchmarks.
Benchmarking Best Practices: Discover how top-performing breweries use benchmarks to drive operational efficiency, enhance product quality, and boost financial performance.
Strategic Planning: Understand how to integrate benchmark data into your growth strategy to make informed decisions and mitigate risks.
Case Studies and Real-World Examples: Hear from industry leaders who have successfully used benchmarking to guide their expansion efforts.
Whether you’re planning to open new locations, expand your production capacity, or enter new markets, this session will provide the tools and knowledge needed to navigate your growth journey with confidence. Join us to learn how to turn data-driven insights into successful expansion strategies and achieve your brewery’s growth goals.
Audra Gaiziunas (she/her) is the owner of Brewed For Her Ledger, LLC, a management consultancy firm focused on providing guidance to the craft alcohol community. She is currently serving as Burlington Beer Company’s chief financial officer and is an owner in DSSOLVR. Prior to launching her own company in 2013, she served as Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s controller and Mother Earth Brewing’s chief financial officer. She has been working exclusively in craft beer for over 15 years and was elected to the Brewers Association’s Board of Directors as an At Large Member in 2024 while having served on the Finance Committee since January 2020. A graduate from the Kenan-Flagler OneMBA program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Audra possesses over 20 years of experience in senior leadership roles in craft brewing, manufacturing, services, non-profits, and startups. She earned her undergraduate degree in accounting and business management (double major) from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa in 1997.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA began working as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the world. In December 2022, PKA was selected into the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and doing entrepreneurship coaching.
Seth Caddell is husband to Bethany, dad to Enosh, and co-owner of Coastal Fermentory in Newport News. He is a co-owner at Coastal Fermentory and teaches in the Beer Brewer Professional Program for the University of Richmond. He sits on the board of the Newport News Green Foundation and has won “Best Local Leader Making a Difference” from CoVa Biz magazine the last 2 years.
From Barley to Brew: Insights into Malting and Mashing
A concise overview of the malting process starting with the raw material, barley. We’ll go into barley seed morphology, and expand on the critical functions of each component of the kernel and how numerous factors, including favorable and unfavorable growing conditions can impact them. Endosperm modification is defined and explained as to what happens during this necessary process to degrade cell walls, and freeing the starches from the protein matrix. Starch granules being a key component of barley and necessary for wort production, we dive deep into the world of amylose and amylopectin to reveal the similarities and differences of these starches, and how different enzymes utilize them to produce an array of different sugars. This leads us to mashing for the desired wort sugar profile, and a visual analysis of wort sugars produced using multiple grists made from varying percentages of different malts. We end this presentation with a brief refresher on malt CoAs, and how to use them to your advantage for producing consistent and quality beers. This presentation is designed to be approachable to all brewers from novice to seasoned veterans. This should also be a valuable session for all brewery employees to understand the details of what this raw material contributes to the final product that we all enjoy and love.
Galen Smith serves as the Southeast Technical Sales Manager at Malteurop Malting Company, where he brings valuable expertise and passion to his role. He also sits on the board for the Carolina’s District MBAA. With a background of many years as a head production brewer in NC, Galen made a significant career shift to leverage his experience and contribute to the industry as a malt supplier. Guided by his commitment to aiding brewers in utilizing malt effectively, Galen takes great pride in assisting them in optimizing their brewhouses to achieve optimal performance from the malt. His mission is to rekindle the allure of malt, making it captivating and desirable once more.
Maximize Your Marketing: Planning for Success
Whether you’re a small taproom looking to increase brand awareness or a larger distribution brewery looking to help your team with pull through this 360 planning method will help you build your next campaigns/strategies.
We’ll start on the planning side by asking the right questions & answering those questions by establishing campaign or strategy goals. From there we will plan for digital, print and even in market marketing for that campaign. What sales assets need to be tied to the campaign, event ideas, on premise activations and off prem activations. For the taproom side we’ll discuss how important it is that your campaigns express what the experience is like at your establishment. Whether that is classy/elegant, fun/vibrant or quality focused. Your content in ads and postings displays who you are and by planning ahead you can better capture that rather than posting last minute using that picture you quickly threw together on that same barrel that you always put a pint on. With the successful addition of structure & workflow even the smallest companies can strive to build 360 marketing plans like the biggest companies.
Digital Marketer, Marketing Strategist, Beverage Sales guy and father of 3 before 30.Talk about an overachiever! After dabbling in the distribution world and juggling the chaos of the marketing agency realm, Warren realized he wanted something more. He’s still trying to find what it is, but is convinced that co-founding Beer Marketeers with one of his best friends was the right move. When he’s not obsessing over strategy & dropping buzzwords like Nielsen data, he’s honing his skills as A master of fire-cooked cuisine on his outrageously expensive Breeo fire pit & channeling his best audition for “Chef’s Table: Over The Fire Cooking” while his kids launch a coordinated attack from all angles. Don’t be fooled by the chaos, though. Warren thrives in the midst of mayhem. He’s the chaos whisperer, the strategic guru who always has a game plan, except for when his wife leaves him alone with the three little rascals. But hey, who needs a plan when you’ve got three mini tornadoes wreaking havoc in your life? With a sprinkle of dad jokes, a dash of marketing expertise, A Passion for craft beverages and an insatiable drive for success, Warren is here to revolutionize the beverage industry one strategically focused campaign at a time.
2:30-3pm: Best Practices in Distribution Agreements
As breweries look to maximize profits, utilize capacity, and diversify beyond the taproom experience many are (re)looking at distribution as way to gain more revenue. Distribution laws and distribution agreements are fraught with potential pitfalls and risks for the supplier. Some of those risks can be mitigated with a well crafted distribution agreement. In a world where some distributors use a “one page” contract or – in some cases – no agreement at all, it’s important for breweries to negotiate on terms where it matters. This presentation will focus on areas that breweries can look to protect their interests today and guard against future calamities.
Since founding Beer Law Center, John’s practice has centered on the craft beverage industry. John works with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals. With a background in chemical engineering and homebrewing, John loves the industry and has dedicated his career to making a difference for artisanal beverage businesses everywhere. John is a BJCP Judge, holds a certification in WSET Level II – Wines and Beer, and is the US’s only Certified Cicerone Alcohol Attorney. John’s book “Beer Law: What Brewers Need to Know” is also a great reference for anyone in the industry.
Self-distribution is an extremely effective way to grow your brand locally, and can set you up for regional or national distribution. It can also be extremely challenging, a drain on resources, a distraction, and completely backfire. Walk away from this session with an understanding of what successful self-distribution looks like, how to get there, guidance around avoiding the usual pitfalls, and troubleshooting systems and customer issues. “Laura Lodge learned about the distribution tier working with a small, independent distribution company in the mountains of Colorado. Job? Everything, including entering orders, loading/routing trucks, delivering product, all aspects of accounting + managing the office, and more. She shares her experience to benefit the artisanal/craft business owner in Distribution Insight for the Craft Brewer.
Today, Laura is the owner of Customized Craft Beer Programs, a consulting business offering insight and assistance with all things craft beer. A veteran of the craft beer industry, she has consulted for brewers and distributors, created retail programs for destination resorts, coordinates the well-known Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival held in the Colorado Rocky Mountains each year, and has participated with the creation and production of educational & experiential craft beer events throughout the country.
During the pandemic, Laura became the Co-Founder of Start A Brewery, LLC, a business created to help dreamers, breweries in planning, and growing breweries by pulling together educational resources from savvy professionals across the brewing industry. Free to the public, StartABrewery.com divides the daunting process into phases and breaks it down by category, further augmented by a library of information. Start A Brewery has turned out to also be a resource for her as a Mentor for the Brewers Association Mentorship Program over the past year. Laura grew up in the Cleveland, Ohio area, and now splits her time there with home in Vail, Colorado, where she lives and enjoys the outdoor lifestyle.”
Beers and Gears: Using a Flywheel to Keep Your Brewery Buzzing
Just like you need specialized equipment to brew beer, you will need specific tools to help you market your brand. Traditional marketing tactics often fail to create sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive craft beverage market. This presentation will introduce you to the Flywheel Method, a modern approach to marketing that leverages momentum to attract, engage, and delight customers, driving continuous audience growth for your craft brewery. You will walk away from this session understanding the mechanics of the Flywheel Method of Marketing and how its customer-centric philosophy can transform your strategy. Learn how to align your marketing efforts to create a seamless and compelling customer journey that attracts new patrons and turns them into loyal advocates for your brand.
Key takeaways will include:
Understanding the Flywheel Method and its core components.
Practical steps to implement the Flywheel in your brewery’s marketing strategy.
Real-world examples of how to execute this method
Techniques to optimize customer interactions at every touchpoint, enhancing satisfaction and driving word-of-mouth referrals.
Strategies for maintaining and amplifying momentum to ensure long-term growth and customer retention.
With over two decades of experience in the food and beverage industry, Julie Rhodes is an expert in off-site beverage sales, digital marketing, leadership, team management, and distributor partnership management. She owns Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services and strategic business consulting company built specifically for small to medium-sized craft beverage companies, where she teaches owners, operators, and teams how to work smarter, not harder. She is also a freelance business journalist and active public speaker, belonging to multiple state brewery guilds and cider trade associations. She was the 2023 Mentor of the Year for the Brewers Association, sits on the BA DEI Marketing and Communications Subcommittee, and teaches marketing and sales for multiple business of craft beer programs at the university level.
Successful Events: From the Lightbulb Moment to Day-Of
All events start with the same questions most things start with: who, what, when, where, and why. But taking an idea plus those answers and turning them into a triumphant accomplishment isn’t easy, and we all know it is getting harder. Customers don’t just want beer and a food truck anymore. Learn about the methods used to create a successful events program, from someone who took over one with no prior events experience.
Hi there! My name is Jordan and I am a bartender and the events coordinator at Vasen Brewing Company in Richmond. Born and raised in Midlothian VA, I went to Christopher Newport University for biology. Science was always my love, and protecting the environemt was my passion. Beer was never the plan, and yet here I am. Familiar story for many of you I am sure. I worked at a brewery in Williamsburg my senior year of college and loved it then bopped around odd jobs in the Greater Richmond area after the pandemic started. I got hired as a bartender at Vasen three and a half years ago, then added events coordinator to my tool belt about a year afer that. I’m so excited to be here!
1:30-2pm: A Primer on Pricing
One of the most abstract and challenging aspects of selling any product is in knowing what price to set for it. Particularly in a highly diversified and fragmented industry such as craft beer, consumer cues and data can be sparse at best, and non-existent at worst. In this seminar, attendees will learn the basic principles behind successful price management, and how to apply them even within the context of rotational and one-off products. Presenter Aaron Gore’s pricing courses have been taught in MBA and undergrad programs across the world, and are tailored to the unique needs, opportunities, and abilities of those in the craft brewing world.
Aaron MJ Gore is the Director of Partnerships and Community for Arryved, helping to connect craft breweries with the tools and resources that they need to succeed. With a decade of sales, retail management, and business analytic experience in the craft beverage industry, he loves the opportunities that he has every day to make a difference for small business owners across the country. He is an Advanced Cicerone, Certified Pommelier, Certified Cheese Scholar, and is (AF)(NA) Beer Certified. Additionally, he is an active industry advocate, public speaker, beer educator, and the father of two daughters who are the true passion of his life.
1-1:30pm: An Overview of the Virginia Beer Distribution Company
Virginia craft brewers have been eager for an accessible avenue to send their products to market. Virginia Beer Distribution Company (VBDC) is here to help! VBDC is a non-stock, no-profit corporation with a mission to assist Virginia breweries with distributing their products to Virginia retailers while adhering to the commonwealth’s three-tier system. VBDC is modeled off of the very successful Virginia Winery Distribution Company that was established in 2007 and supports over 200 Virginia wineries.
We’ll discuss the structure of VBDC, how to register to become a brewery partner including the licensure process, and the associated fees. We’ll also provide an overview of how VBDC adheres to the three-tier system.
Dakota Rust began his journey in the alcohol industry over 10 years ago where he participated in the Youth Alcohol & Drug Abuse Prevention Project conference hosted by Virginia ABC. Dakota continued to attend the conference, each year working his way up the leadership ranks until he became a Conference Intern. After graduating college, Dakota had a short stint with a local news station here in Richmond where he was a Production Assistant. Dakota worked to prepare the talent for the morning newscasts. Dakota made his way back to Virginia ABC where he worked in the Bureau of Law Enforcement’s Records unit. Dakota processed a wide variety of payments for new industry applications, retail applications, label approval applications, renewals, and monthly excise taxes. Dakota was then promoted to Records Supervisor where he managed payment processing, refunds, renewals, data entry, FOIA & Hearings, and MBAR. In February 2024 Dakota joined the Virginia Beer Distribution Company as the Operations Manager.
Understanding Brewery Insurance & the Effect of Claims
This presentation delves into the critical aspects of brewery insurance, highlighting its importance and the impact of claims on a brewery’s operations. Breweries face unique risks that necessitate comprehensive insurance coverage and there are brewery-specific coverages that most insurance companies don’t offer. Each type of coverage addresses specific risks, from equipment breakdown, contamination, tank collapse to customer injuries and liability arising from alcohol consumption.
Understanding the intricacies of brewery insurance is vital for risk management. The presentation outlines how different policies work together to protect a brewery’s assets, employees, and reputation. Special emphasis is placed on liquor liability insurance, which covers legal costs and damages if a brewery is held responsible for alcohol-related incidents.
The effect of claims on a brewery is profound, influencing insurance premiums, coverage terms, and financial stability. The presentation examines real-world case studies where breweries navigated insurance claims, illustrating common challenges and successful strategies. Attendees will learn about the claims process, from filing to resolution, and how to mitigate the impact of claims through proactive risk management and effective communication with insurers.
By the end of the presentation, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of brewery insurance, the significance of each coverage type, and practical insights into managing and mitigating the effects of insurance claims.
Kyle C. Rheiner is a Certified Insurance Counselor, Agency Principal and is the Food & Beverage Practice Leader at Arthur Hall Insurance in West Chester, PA. Kyle has over 25 years’ experience in the hospitality industry along with actually brewing and distilling craft beverages. Since 2013, Kyle has become the trusted insurance advisor for over 150 craft beverage makers in the US. Kyle is also the Host of The Beer Mighty Things Podcast – a craft beverage business library with over 25,000 downloads including interviews with industry leaders throughout the world.
Shift Happens: How to Maximize Guest Experience
While dining rooms are bustling, reservations are pouring in, and staffing levels are optimal, the real question remains: are our profits reflecting this success?
In a landscape marked by persistent inflation and wage pressures, many operators are finding that the numbers just don’t add up as they should.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Escalating food costs have combined to create a 30% surge in restaurant prices since 2019. The question is how much the businesses can charge before losing customers. If that weren’t enough, the pandemic left more lasting changes: the lure of the gig economy on potential workers and the accelerated growth of fast-food restaurants.”
Given these circumstances, sticking to the status quo simply won’t suffice.
In this panel we will spotlight independent operators who are taking proactive measures. By revamping their service strategies, these operators are not only maintaining exceptional guest experiences but also safeguarding their bottom line. Their approach involves a blend of in-depth insights into labor and food costs, coupled with cutting-edge technology innovations that enhance labor allocation efficiency.
Brad Maki hails from southern West Virginia and was first introduced to craft beer while playing in the music scene. In February 2016 Brad moved to Richmond, VA to take on the role of Taproom Manager for Stone Brewing’s east coast HQ, where he enjoys bringing amazing experiences to guests through great beer!
Brett Robison began his career in financial services, refining his analytical skills with algorithmic trading solutions, but his passion for hospitality and beer led him to transition into the craft beer industry in 2010. Since then, he has advanced the craft beer scene in DC, Maryland, and Virginia by creating training programs for taproom staff and consulting on POS systems. Co-founder of Silver Branch Brewing Company in 2019, Brett is an Advanced Cicerone® and BJCP Certified Beer Judge. His deep beer knowledge and active participation in festivals and educational events have significantly impacted Montgomery County’s craft beer community.
As GoTab’s Director of Sales, Doug Cleary’s focus is in building partnerships and helping breweries and brewpubs grow their business through better experiences. For the past 15 years, he has worked in the hospitality and food & beverage industry in hybrid roles of new business, operations and product management. Doug has extensive leadership experience in providing quality service having also run multiple special event divisions with Michelin-rated restaurant groups and the largest caterer in the Northeast. Today he will be sharing lessons learned and tips for elevating the guest experience in the taproom.
Tim Wilson, Food and Beverage Manager at Caboose Brewing Company, gained the practical skills needed to be a hospitality professional through multiple roles in the hospitality industry. His journey began in the bustling kitchens and dining rooms of various restaurants, where he honed his understanding of operational requirements, from food preparation to customer service. This hands-on experience provided Tim with a comprehensive view of the inner workings of the restaurant industry, allowing him to develop a keen eye for detail and efficiency. In addition to his restaurant experience, Tim has also worked with private clubs, specializing in the organization of special events. This role further broadened his expertise, as he learned to manage everything from intimate gatherings to large-scale functions, ensuring seamless execution and memorable experiences for guests.
Tim’s educational background is equally impressive. He earned a degree from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, one of the most prestigious programs in the field. This rigorous academic training provided him with a solid foundation in business and management skills, complementing his practical experience and preparing him for the multifaceted challenges of the hospitality industry.
Beyond his professional and academic achievements, Tim’s six-year service in the US Navy played a pivotal role in his personal development. The discipline, leadership, and resilience he cultivated during his military service have been invaluable assets in his career.
Revisiting Public Hops: Past, Present, and Future
This discussion will focus on the past, present, and future of publicly available hops. Past varieties such as Cascade, Chinook, and Centennial will be given a fresh look, seeing how terroir and changes in growing practices can lead to new flavor profiles. Recently released varieties Triumph and Vista will be given a similar treatment, looking into how these varieties are performing inside and outside of the Pacific Northwest. Finally, we will take a look at some varieties that are on the verge of being introduced.
Erik Norsen is a Sales Manager, Technical Aide, and Compliance Officer for The Hop Guild. A graduate of Oregon State University’s Food Science and Technology program, focusing on Fermentation Science while dabbling in the Enology and Viticulture side of things. He spent almost a decade working production and management roles in both the wine and brewing industry, before starting with The Hop Guild. Currently residing in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he spends his free time growing heirloom vegetables, camping, and attending Phish concerts.
Saving Green by Going Green at Your Brewery
Many times, simple techniques and ideas can result in significant reductions in the use of water, energy, and even materials – reductions that lessen environmental impacts and can result in cost savings. The Department of Environmental Quality in partnership with the Virginia Green Travel program has been working to help breweries identify these opportunities. Together, we have been providing on-site pollution prevention assessments at no-cost to the brewery. Why would a brewery be interested?
Implementing sustainable practices can help you.
Improve profitability while minimizing environmental impacts
Create a culture of sustainability by empowering employees to drive the effort.
Minimize natural resource usage.
Provide a safer work environment.
Add value to your local community.
Protect supply chain ingredients.
Attract and retain high quality employees.
Enhance your image as a responsible craft beverage producer.
The assessment involves a facility walk-through discussing operations, highlighting innovative practices that are already in place and sharing new opportunities. During this session we’ll share the practices that are most often recommended, and the most innovative ones Virginia breweries have implemented.
Meghann Quinn has managed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Pollution Prevention for the past 9 years. The Office of Pollution Prevention promotes green practices that go beyond regulatory requirements through programs including the Virginia Environmental Excellence Program, Virginia Green, and the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards. Prior to working with DEQ, she gained experience working with industry and municipalities on compliance and environment management systems. Ms. Quinn has a master’s degree in environmental studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Mary Washington. She grew up on Long Island. In her free time, you can find Meghann running or chasing her 2 young boys around.
Keith Boisvert has been with DEQ since early 1999. In that time, he has been involved with many pollution prevention efforts. He coordinated programs like State Agency Pollution Prevention, Businesses for the Bay and EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities. He was the Virginia Electronic Recycling Coordinator and developed the Virginia Information Source for Energy (VISE) website. He is also a key member of the VEEP implementation team and is the lead on most facility reviews and site visits. Mr. Boisvert has participated in numerous facility site visits focusing on environmental management system development and identification of P2 opportunities. Mr. Boisvert has an undergraduate degree in Natural Science from Worcester State College and a master of science in Biology from the University of Richmond.
Tom Griffin is the owner of RVA Green Management Services and has served as the Executive Director of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance since 2014. Mr. Griffin is inspired to help businesses and organizations make incremental changes that are sustainable and profitable. Through RVA Green Management, he has focused on waste stream auditing services and sustainability services in the hospitality industry. Through the Virginia Green Travel Alliance, Mr. Griffin has administered the Virginia Green Travel certification program and provided technical assistance and recognition opportunities for all sectors of Virginia’s hospitality industry. Mr. Griffin has an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Virginia and a master of science in Urban and Regional Planning & Environmental Management from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Thrive in 2025: How Strong Leadership Can Make or Break Your Brewery
In the presentation “Thrive in 2025: How Strong Leadership Can Make or Break Your Brewery”, Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA), Founder & CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient, will dive in on the critical role that the executive team at a brewery has at successively navigating this difficult industry downturn. It is during these times that strong and effective leadership becomes paramount to pivot and thrive.
As breweries make their business plans to optimize operations in 2025, it is essential for leadership to focus on adapting a mindset shift of empowering their team through the art of delegation. Pulkit will explain how attendees can equip managers with the necessary tools to drive success with OKRs and KPIs, navigate heavy investment projects by assessing ROI and metrics of success, and focus on operational and financial growth. He will also address the inevitability of setbacks and the importance of managing failure as an integral component of the growth journey.
Pulkit will dive into the power of executive coaching and how all top performing executives should work with a coach. He will wrap up by providing real-world examples of how The 5th Ingredient has been using these techniques into their own business planning and the development of their leadership team and employees. From team building to motivation strategies, Pulkit will offer practical strategies for cultivating a team-oriented and results-driven workforce, especially during the evolving difficult brewery landscape that we know will be coming in 2025.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA began working as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the world. In December 2022, PKA was selected into the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and doing entrepreneurship coaching.
No, Low, Faux and Mo’: Scanning the Alternative Beverage Horizon
As industry analyst and Sightlines editor Bryan Roth has long joked, “Nobody wants to drink beer anymore.” It’s not technically true—beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the US by volume, as it has been for over a century—but it is true in the sense that more American drinkers are more omnibibulous than ever before. What does that mean for YOU, Virginia craft brewer? Your colleagues from around the Commonwealth have some ideas. Join moderator Dave Infante, the Richmond-based editor and publisher of Fingers, and guests for a wide-ranging discussion about the pros and cons of brewing “beyond beer” products.
From hop water, to hard tea, to THC-infused seltzers and more, the alternative-beverage landscape is teeming with potential portfolio additions that may help your brewery utilize more capacity, reach new customers, and make more revenue. This panel will give you the framework to evaluate those opportunities for your brand and find new ways to stand out in a crowded market.
About the speakers:
Dave Infante is a two-time James Beard award-winning journalist who publishes Fingers, an independent newsletter about drinking in America. He also works as a contributing editor and columnist at VinePair, where he publishes the weekly beer-industry column Hop Take, and produces and hosts the beer history podcast Taplines. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, Fast Company, HuffPost, The Guardian, MEL Magazine, PUNCH, and others. In addition to covering the beverage-alcohol industry in the United States for over a dozen years, he has also reported on climate change, digital subcultures, the labor movement, and more.
Dave Michelow is the President and Co-founder of The Veil Brewing Company where he oversees all aspects of the business. Dave is also a partner and Co-founder of several other Richmond-based businesses including Mosto Tequila, Barrel Thief Wine & Provisions, Eazzy Burger, ZZQ & Reverie Distribution. Dave earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from The College of William and Mary and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Greater Richmond SCAN. Dave and his wife Kelly have a son at JMU and a daughter at Collegiate. During their spare time, they love hanging out with friends and going to their favorite restaurants.
Jay Bayer is a native Virginian and longtime fan of craft beer. His interests in classic European lagers began to develop as an exchange student in Southwestern Germany. After college at James Madison University, Jay attended the Siebel Institute in Chicago to further his beer passion. Combining his intersts for craft beer and Modern American cuisine, Jay opened his first restuarant, Saison, in 2012. With eyes ever aimed at getting into beer production, Bayer and team opened Bingo Beer Co as a Lager focused “eater-tainment” experience and production brewery in 2018.
Ryan Coleman lives in Richmond, Virginia with his partner and two daughters. He started making HIKE in his Brooklyn apartment when he gave up beer shortly after his first daughter arrived on the scene. He realized early on that NA beer wasn’t a good fit and saw a space for something different, a beer alternative that didn’t try to mimic beer. He was a seltzer maniac and wondered if he could simply dry hop seltzer and make a refreshing, aromatic sparkling water that would register in his lizard brain that he was shifting gears to hang mode at first sip. Thus began the path to HIKE.
Keynote: Craft Beer Industry Yesterday and Today w/Mitch Steele (New Realm Brewing Company)
The craft beer industry is going through a significant period of evolution that is making the business extremely challenging for today’s brewers. This conversation will cover a bit about how craft beer got to where it is today, and will also cover tips and ideas to ensure success and sustainability for breweries as we move into the future. Ideas for product mix, package mix, taproom enhancements and business optimization will be covered. Mitch Steele has been involved in craft beer since the 1980s and offers a unique perspective on the history and possible futures of craft brewing in the United States. He will share his history and lessons learned throughout the discussion.
Mitch is the Brewmaster and Co-Founder of New Realm Brewing Co. in Atlanta, GA. He has been brewing beer professionally for over 36 years, studying brewing science at the University of California Davis and home brewing prior to becoming a professional brewer in 1988. Since 1988 Mitch has managed brewing operations and innovation with four different breweries, including 14 years with Anheuser-Busch followed up by 10 years at Stone Brewing in San Diego County, where he managed all brewing operations as Stone Brewing grew from a 50,000 bbl operation to one of the top 10 largest craft brewers in the country, operating 4 separate breweries in 2 countries. In 2012, Mitch authored the Brewers Publications book IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale and in 2014, the Brewers Association awarded Mitch with the prestigious Russell Scherer Award for innovation in craft brewing. In addition to his duties at New Realm Brewing Co., which operates 4 breweries in the Southeast, Mitch currently chairs the Brewers Association Supply Chain Sub-Committee, sits on the Board of Directors for Brewers Association, and is a Board member for the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild.
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Cali-Sober: Planning for the Future of THC & Hemp-Derived Beverages
Taprooms nationwide are working to make their offerings more accessible to wider audiences. In this session, we will explore the gray area of THC and hemp-derived beverages. Attendees will learn the difference between THC, hemp, and mainstream variants. From questions like “what’s allowed in my state?” to “what to consider if beginning production?”, our panel of experts will overview important questions to help you plan, prepare, and potentially begin offering more diverse beverage options at your brewery.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the Basics: Attendees will learn the key differences between THC, hemp, and mainstream beverage variants to better navigate this emerging category.
Legal Considerations: Attendees will explore the legal landscape of THC and hemp-derived beverages, including what is allowed in their state and how regulations may evolve.
Production and Market Readiness: Attendees will gain insights into the factors to consider when planning to introduce THC or hemp-derived beverages, including production logistics, consumer demand, and potential challenges.
Alec Travis is the co-owner, founder, and director of beverage operations for Field Day Brewing Company and Day Dreamer Cannabis in North Liberty, Iowa. With over a decade of experience in the brewing and manufacturing industry, Alec successfully navigated state and federal regulations to make his brewery the first in Iowa licensed to produce, distribute, and sell THC products. He oversees the operations of both companies, managing the complexities of producing two highly regulated products under one roof.
Bob Galligan has been in the industry for 12 years and has performed nearly every role in brewery life. Starting in Texas by canning 2 beers at a time by hand to now representing 170+ of the Craft Brewers in his home state by engaging with industry stakeholders, allied trades, and the public. He also engages legislators at both the capitol in St. Paul and D.C. on behalf of the industry at large. He has a B.F.A. in Acting, is a Hubert Humphrey Policy Fellow, and (by most accounts) a bona fide Silly Goose.
Diana Eberlein serves as VP of Marketing & Business Development at SōRSE Technology, Chair of the Cannabis Beverage Association (CBA), and Chair and founding board member of the Coalition for Adult Beverage Alternatives (CABA). With an emphasis on thought leadership and experiential marketing in her roles, Diana has generated the strategy behind all digital and experiential marketing for SōRSE including event sponsorship & production, public relations, and advertising. Diana brings 15+ years of experience, including 8+ in the cannabis industry, and a passion for infused beverages to her work at SōRSE, the CBA, and CABA. She has spoken on cannabis-beverage related topics at SXSW, Adweek NY, BevNET Live, Benzinga, Texas Package Store Association Annual Conference, Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailer Association Annual Event, National Conference State Liquor Administrator Conference, and National Association of Flavors & Food-Ingredient Systems, and more. Diana was also featured in Marijuana Venture’s 40 Under 40 in 2023 and Benzinga’s Top 20 Most Influential Women in Cannabis in 2024.
Glenn McElfresh is as passionate about hemp as he is to keeping his bio less than 100 words. He’s been in the cannabis industry for 11 years. He began his career as a budtender and worked his way up to a Chief Compliance Officer responsible for over $100M in cannabis operations across 3 states. He’s currently the co-founder of Plift, a THC soda company, and Perfectly Dosed, a THC emulsion company.
Craft Breweries: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Panelists: David Favela (Border X Brewing), Jake Nunes (Modern Times), Kevin Ham (California Academy for Local Economic Development)
Moderated by: Julie Wartell (University of California San Diego/PubQuest)
Does anyone remember Mister Rogers’ neighborhood? He used to say “I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.” This session will focus on how and why craft breweries are good neighbors. We will dive into topics ranging from economic development to gentrification, and from diversity to crime. Research has shown the positive effects of breweries and neighborhoods, but success is most evident when breweries are good neighbors. This includes being a part of the community, working with existing neighborhood residents and organizations (not just attracting those living outside the neighborhood!), and collaboratively problem-solving issues that may arise. We will offer perspectives from breweries, governmental officials, and researchers. We look forward to leading this session but hearing and learning from the participants as well!
Learning Objectives:
Enhance your communication and relationships with the surrounding community.
Identify strategies in working with local government for mutual benefit.
Better understand neighborhood challenges such as gentrification and crime and how to manage them.
David Favela, the visionary behind Border X Brewing, was born and raised in San Diego, California. Growing up in a vibrant, multicultural environment, David developed an early appreciation for diverse flavors and cultural traditions. His family roots in both the U.S. and Mexico provided him with a unique perspective on blending different cultural elements, which would later become a hallmark of his brewing philosophy.
In 2013, David Favela took a bold step and founded Border X Brewing with the mission to create a brewery that celebrated the cultural diversity of the U.S.-Mexico border region. Located in the heart of Barrio Logan, San Diego, Border X Brewing quickly became known for its innovative approach to craft beer. Favela’s vision was to merge traditional Mexican flavors and ingredients with American brewing methods, resulting in unique and flavorful brews that paid homage to both cultures. His greatest achievement was in 2020, when he was nominated for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Producer.
Jake Nunes is a veteran of San Diego’s food and beverage industry and has 30 years of experience with a focus on management and bar leadership. He developed his passion for craft beer in 2003 while working at Karl Strauss and has since proven himself to be a true craft beer enthusiast, having sampled thousands of beers and visited hundreds of breweries. In addition to Karl Strauss, he has held leadership positions at a number of breweries including Ballast Point, Stone Brewing, North Park Beer Co., Societe Brewing, and Burgeon Beer Co. Jake is now the Director of Hospitality for Modern Times Beer + Coffee. He was awarded the title of Certified Cicerone® in 2011. Jake has been a part of the SDSU Business of Craft Beer Certificate Program since its inception in 2013. Earlier this year, Jake joined the Board of Directors for North Park Main Street Business Improvement District. Jake is the President for the 2024 San Diego Brewers Guild. Jake’s areas of expertise are leadership, hospitality, sensory evaluation, and draft systems.
Julie Wartell is a Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California-San Diego and an independent advisor to governmental agencies and communities relating to analyzing crime, neighborhood safety, and the role of breweries and communities. Julie teaches “GIS for Urban and Community Planning,” “Craft Breweries and the Urban Economy,” “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design,” and “Crime Analysis Research Methods,” and her research, training and writing has been used in communities around the world. Julie recently co-edited a book entitled Craft Breweries & Cities: Perspectives from the Field where she also wrote a chapter relating to breweries and crime. Julie has a master’s degree in public administration from San Diego State University as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Criminology and Police Management from University of Cambridge. In her spare time, Julie also runs PubQuest, a brewery mapping company.
Kevin Ham has 35+ years of leadership experience in Local/State government, nonprofits, and the private sector, in economic development, transportation, marketing and technology. He was a key architect of a region-wide Economic Development strategy, created one of the largest craft brewing clusters (Per capita US), and turned an old downtown into a thriving commercial center. He Chairs the California Academy for Local Economic Development, is an author, and his latest contribution is to the book, “Craft Breweries and Cities”. Kevin is a guest lecture and has been recognized with multiple awards including the International Economic Development Council’s Jeffrey A Finkel award.
Quantifying Innovation
Eric Gordon (Stone Brewing), Galen Smith (Malteurop Malting Company), Jeremy Moynier (Stone Brewing), Kyle Somers (Lallemand Brewing), Teddy Gowan (Societe Brewing Company)
Robert Iger, Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, is often credited with saying, “If you don’t innovate, You die.”
Join a panel of experts as they dive into the true meaning of innovation in the brewing world. Featuring voices from different corners of our industry, this discussion will uncover what innovation really means to each of them, highlighting both the differences and the common ground. Whether you’re working in the brewhouse or focusing on customer experience, this session aims to spark new ideas and perspectives. Learn how to apply innovative thinking to every part of your brewery, from production to the pint in your customer’s hand.
Learning Objectives:
Examine real-world examples illustrating how Craft Beer Professionals are driving evolution and innovation within the industry
Gain processes to translate innovative thinking into actionable strategies within their own brewery operations, including production processes, customer experience, and overall business practices.
Develop the skills to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of innovation initiatives
Elementary school teacher turned craft brewing industry champion! Erick Gordon joined Stone Brewing in 2006 working in the retail/hospitality department and oversee the beverage program for our two restaurants, four tap rooms and two stores in a cross functional role across Sapporo-Stone Brewing. When he’s not working with one of the greatest teams in the industry, Erick is spending time with his amazing wife and ther two dogs, cat and desert tortoise. He’s an avid hockey player and proud supporter & player in the annual and local Pucks & Pints charity hockey game and beer festival.
Galen Smith serves as the Southeast Technical Sales Manager at Malteurop Malting Company, where he brings valuable expertise and passion to his role. He also is an officer with the District Carolina’s MBAA. With a background of many years as a head production brewer in NC, Galen made a significant career shift to leverage his experience and contribute to the industry as a malt supplier. Guided by his commitment to aiding brewers in utilizing malt effectively, Galen takes great pride in assisting them in optimizing their brewhouses to achieve optimal performance from the malt. His mission is to rekindle the allure of malt, making it captivating and desirable once more.
Jeremy Moynier started his beverage career in wine on the Central Coast of California in 1995 before moving back to his hometown of San Diego and joining Stone Brewing in 2004. Jeremy is part of the Innovation Team which is responsible for new beer development and release, focuses on sensory and quality at the brewery, along with Supply Chain and ingredients. Jeremy is a member of the Hop Research Council, Vice President of Hop Quality Group, Co-Chair of the Brewers Association Supply Chain Subcommittee, and a beer judge for the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup.
Kyle Somers (he/him) is the Technical Sales Manager for California and the Western US for the Lallemand Brewing division, and the current President of the Northern California district of the Master Brewers Association. He holds an International Brewing Diploma from Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago and Doemens Academy in Munich, and has ten years of hands-on production brewing experience prior to joining the Lallemand team in 2019, including stints with Firestone Walker, Lagunitas, and Hen House Brewing. He currently lives in Santa Rosa with his wife Kristin and his dog Simcoe. His favorite beer styles are hop forward modern lagers, and when he isn’t hanging around a brewery you can find him backpacking through the Sierras.
Literally starting from the bottom up, Teddy Gowan began his brewing career scrubbing floors at a brewpub in Upstate New York, working his way up to contributing as a brewer. From there, he took a job as the brewmaster at a small brewpub in downtown Shanghai China, before moving to Southern California ten years ago to join Societe Brewing. Teddy has a diploma in Brewing from the Institute of Brewers and Distillers, is on the board of the Southern California Master Brewers Association. As well as the Co- Chair of the Brewers Association Supply Chain Subcommittee.
Building a Culture of Profit Champions
Drew Kearns (That’s Delicious Financials) and Jeremy Carney (Central Coast Analytics)
As the craft beer industry matures, developing a professional financial skillset and spreading financial literacy among your team will become a key differentiator for success. This session will equip attendees with the tools and steps to analyze profitability by department, communicate financial results effectively, and delegate financial tasks. Whether you prefer handling finances independently, with professional assistance, or through outsourcing, this session will provide thought-provoking ways to up-level your team’s financial skillset.
Learning Objectives
Analyzing Profitability by Department to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
Communicating Financial Results to teach financial literacy and identify actions that move the needle
Participants will understand the pros and cons of managing financial tasks on their own, with the help of a professional, or by outsourcing, enabling them to choose the best approach for their brewery.
Drew Kearns is a beverage business specialist and, more importantly, a consumer. He is passionate about helping beverage companies grow economically sustainable businesses. He started That’s Delicious Financials with a focus on bringing accounting expertise to emerging beverage brands through technology and low-cost bookkeeping. His experience in designing accounting processes for high-growth technology companies and as a brewery Controller gives him the strong foundation to lead breweries in their next decade of growth. Outside of work, he keeps himself busy trying new beverages and traveling to somewhere new.
Jeremy Carney is revolutionizing how craft breweries interact with data. With 20 years of experience in analytics, he develops cutting-edge solutions that provide breweries with critical performance insights at their fingertips. His work enables clients to gain a comprehensive overview of their business and quickly uncover actionable insights. Jeremy’s passion lies in transforming data from a challenge into a strategic advantage, empowering breweries to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
How to Make Money in a Declining Industry
Sam Holloway (Crafting A Strategy)
The beer industry is fixated on sales and volume growth as best practices and primary goals. Firms are urged to always play offense. But that can be a recipe for disaster, especially when the pie is getting smaller. What is good strategy in a declining industry? We identify four business models that allow firms of any size to thrive in declining industries. We offer case studies from small and independent breweries in Oregon and California, plus global giant Guinness. The key target becomes margin growth, through pursuing economies of scope and embracing less rivalrous markets and channels.
Learning Objectives:
Learn the difference between accounting standards and strategic thinking in declining industries with a discussion of percent margins vs. dollar margins.
Strategic Forbearance – In declining industries, sometimes the best move is the one you don’t make.
The best wholesale channel strategies in declining industriesIt focus on product range and not on product features – being easy to buy from and reliable matters more than innovation.
Sam Holloway is the Bay Area Distinguished Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship at the University of Portland. His research has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business Review’s digital site, Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, Academy of Marketing Science Review, and Journal of Business Venturing Insights, among others. A small brewery owner and consultant himself, Holloway has spent the last twenty years interviewing brewery owners, wholesalers, and consumers to learn how small breweries can succeed despite most economic forces opposing them. Holloway’s panel will include brewery owners from USA and Europe.
Alternative Revenue Streams for Your Taproom
Aaron Gore (Arryved), Dustin Hauck (Hauck Architecture), Kristen Ballinger (AleSmith Brewing Company), Tyson Blake (San Diego Brewing Company)
Beer is the reason for your taproom’s existence, but it is far from its only value, both to customers and to your business. From the design of the space, to private events, to food programs and more, there is endless potential between your four walls that is simply waiting to be made real. In this panel, moderator Aaron MJ Gore of Arryved sits down with some of the country’s most successful taproom managers, brewery architects, and owners to explore how to use your taproom to make your business as successful and effective as possible.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will learn about the impact of taproom design on its ability to be used for a variety of revenue-generating purposes
Attendees will learn about the different ways to leverage their taproom for revenue generation that don’t necessarily involve only their beer
Attendees will learn how to run a successful events program, food program, and non-beer beverage program
Aaron MJ Gore is the Director of Partnerships and Community for Arryved, helping to connect craft breweries with the tools and resources that they need to succeed. With a decade of sales, retail management, and business analytic experience in the craft beverage industry, he loves the opportunities that he has every day to make a difference for small business owners across the country. He is also a co-founder of the Court Shoes Only and Evergreen Brewing Initiative non-profits, and a board member for the upcoming American Craft Beer Hall of Fame. He is an Advanced Cicerone, Certified Pommelier, Certified Cheese Scholar, WSET Level 2 Spirits Certified, and is (AF)(NA) Beer Certified. Additionally, he is an active industry advocate, public speaker, beer educator, and the father of two daughters who are the true passion of his life.
After working for another firm for 11 years designing custom homes and boutique hotels, Dustin Hauck decided to start his own firm in 2010 with a dedication to listening to and serving clients in creative and innovative ways. Stemming from a long time membership in the QUAFF homebrew club, Dustin delved into the world of brewery design in 2012. Since then, Hauck Architecture has participated in over 275 craft beverage projects across the country. With a passion for the industry, Dustin thrives on providing professional design and support services with unparalleled experience. In his spare time, Dustin enjoys exploring new breweries and venturing into the outdoors whether it be exploring the backcountry by offroading, fly fishing, and surfing, or just hanging out with good friends.
Kristen Ballinger is the Marketing Manager at AleSmith Brewing Company, where she has been with the team since May 2019. She began her journey in the Tasting Room and transitioned to the Marketing department at the end of 2020. Before joining AleSmith, Kristen managed Taproom and Marketing Operations at Listermann Brewing Company in Cincinnati. Her extensive background also includes years of experience in the restaurant and bar industry, focusing on promotions and event management.
2024 State of the Black Brewer: Leveraging Diversity as a Source for Economic Good
Kevin Asato (National Black Brewers Association)
This session is a review of the “2024 State of The Black Brewers” Report. It offers a comprehensive data analysis of the current health and trajectory of Black-owned breweries within the craft beer industry. This pivotal document dives into the unique challenges these breweries face, chronicles the notable successes and milestones achieved by the National Black Brewers Association, and provides in-depth insights and actionable recommendations to foster growth and sustainability. It serves as an essential resource for understanding the landscape, advocating for equity, and driving meaningful progress within the craft beer community.
Learning Objectives:
Inform – Provide a context and landscape of the Black Brewer. Share the unique and unconscious bias that affect the road to successful brewery ownership. When these biases are identified and known, the work to undo those biases can begin.
Diversity – An economic force of good for the craft beer industry. How can you bring diversity into your space or how can you add diversity yourself? Diversity isn’t simply about race or color, so how do we add diversity without trying to be all things to all people.
Kevin Asato is a 30-year beverage industry expert with diverse experience in Adult Beverage, Non-Alcoholic Beverages, and Carbonated Soft Drinks. He is credentialed as a Certified Spirit Specialist (CSS), WSET Wine Level 1, and working on his Cicerone Certification. His tenure with Anheuser Busch, Miller Brewing, PepsiCo, Dr. Pepper Snapple, Bacardi USA, and Republic National Distributing has enabled him to develop and execute Sales, Marketing, and Distribution plans across multiple channels in both state and national capacities.
Leading the NB2A has been an ideal opportunity to cultivate an association’s mission which directly aligns with his core values and taps into his experiences and skills. He’s honored to be selected as the first Executive Director and to build the foundation that will fuel the growth of Black owned breweries, membership into the organization and celebrate the history and accomplishments of the Black Brewers of America. In his first year, he has been recognized as 2023 Beer Champion of the Year, 2024 Most Influential people in Craft Beer and 2024 Top 75 People in Adult Beverage.
Tap Talks: 3 18-minute sessions on critical topics
What Video Games Can Teach Us About Marketing
Chris Overlay (Owner/Founder, Get Hoptimized)
Inside the simulated world of a video game, we encounter situations where players interact and use strategies to gain experience and accomplish objectives. Such is the case in marketing; this real-world environment is full of iterative games that we strive to win. So grab your controller, and let’s learn how to improve our marketing game. Ready to play?
Diverting Waste & Fermenting Change in the Craft Beverage Industry
Romi Rossel (Co-Founder & VP, San Diego Brewcycling Collaborative)
Craft brewers and their suppliers play a vital role in sustainability and environmental stewardship, and it’s crucial that we all recognize the need for more comprehensive measures to combat the plastic waste generated within our industry. Craft beer is more than just crafting beverages; it’s woven into our culture, giving back to and engaging with our communities. Given its significance, we believe it’s equally important to take responsibility for reducing our carbon footprint and contributing to the betterment of our planet.
In this session, we’ll share our experiences, success stories, and the BREWprint for our recycling programs, empowering attendees to take action in their own communities. We’ll also introduce tools to help business owners align with the triple bottom line, making a substantial impact in diverting plastic waste from landfills and fermenting positive change in the craft beverage industry.
Make Your Brewery Stronger: How Clear Roles Help Your Team Win
Jessica Hart (Owner and Founder, Hart Consulting)
Success in the brewery industry requires more than just great beer; it demands a team that understands how what they do contributes to the overall growth of the business. In this Tap Talk, Jessica Hart will introduce her unique approach to turning every employee into a business owner with a clear understanding of their role. By bringing your business strategy to the team and centering it around five essential pillars that fuel your brewery’s success, you’ll see how connecting jobs to these pillars ensures that every team member knows exactly what they need to do to drive the business forward.
It’s not as complex as it sounds, and the ROI is nearly instant. We’ll quickly shift your employees from a transactional “clock in, clock out” mentality to one where coaching and accountability are seamless. Walk away with a practical framework and an engaging activity that you can implement immediately to strengthen your brewery’s foundation.
Open to Innovation: What We Can Learn from Outside the Beer Industry
Moderator: Erik Fowler (San Diego Brewers Guild)
Panelists: Darcy Shiber-Knowles (Dr. Bronner’s), Esjay Jones (KittiePIG, INC/We Are PIGS), Jason Wilson (Gallus Golf), Mike Arquines (Mostra Coffee)
“Creativity is the focused combination of unlikely things. Your mind locks onto a certain element and then searches widely for something unexpected that fits with it. What can scuba diving teach you about agriculture? What can trees teach you about public speaking? There is always some connective tissue between disciplines. If you wish to be more creative, look for the connections between two previously unconnected things.”
That quote, by James Clear from ‘Atomic Habits,’ nails it. If we continuously look to each other as our only source of inspiration, we risk becoming an echo chamber of sameness.
In this conversation, we will hear from guests who do not work in the beer industry. We will learn their stories, hear their challenges, discover similarities, gain outside-the-box ideas, and ask unique questions to inspire you to greater success.
Learning Objectives:
Hear real-world stories and challenges from professionals outside the beer industry, providing practical examples of how overcoming obstacles and applying fresh perspectives can lead to success
Recognize and apply innovative concepts from unrelated fields to the beverage industry.
Break free from conventional thinking patterns by examining how unconventional practices and ideas from other sectors can inspire novel approaches in their work.
Darcy Shiber-Knowles is Vice President of Operational Sustainability and Innovation at Dr. Bronner’s, the top-selling natural brand of soap in North America. She joined Dr. Bronner’s in 2013 and oversees Dr. Bronner’s technical service and product development functions, including Sustainability, Compliance & Regulatory Affairs, Quality, and Research & Development. She also proudly served on the Board of Slow Food Urban San Diego, which launched the SD Brewcycling Collaborative and The Estate Beer Project, two initiatives advancing sustainability and innovation in the San Diego craft beer community. Darcy received her BA in Environmental Science from Barnard College and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Erik Fowler is a Certified Cicerone with over a decade of experience in the craft beer industry. His career spans roles in craft beer sales and production, including positions at Stone Brewing Company and ChuckAlek Independent Brewers. Erik spent nine years as Head of Education and Craft Hospitality at White Labs, where he championed brewing education programs and White Labs Brewing Co. Erik also has served as an instructor for San Diego State University and UC San Diego in their beer and brewing programs. He serves as Executive Director for the San Diego Brewers Guild, bringing his expertise to the San Diego and national beer communities and fostering relevance and excitement in the industry.
Esjay Jones is a founder, producer, songwriter, engineer and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in and around the music industry.
She has worked with renowned artists like Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins), Nile Rodgers (Chic), Dave Navarro (Jane’s addiction), Brian “Head” Welch (Korn) , Sean Kingston, Chester Bennington (Grey Daze) and many more, producing, writing, and engineering songs across various genres, from rock and pop to metal and trap.
As the founder of KittiePIG, a non-alcoholic beer brand that caters to the heavy music connoisseur and health-conscious individuals, Esjay combines her passion for metal and healthy lifestyle. She co-created KittiePIG with Morgan Lander of KITTIE, a fellow metal vocalist and musician, to fill a gap in the market and offer a unique and desirable product.
Esjay is also the creator of We Are PIGS, a collaborative alt-metal project that features some of the biggest names in rock and metal.
Jason Wilson is a Partner at The SwitchCase Group and co-founder of Gallus Golf, where he serves as CEO. Since its inception in 2012, Gallus has revolutionized the golf industry by becoming the leading provider of custom-branded mobile app software for golf courses, proudly partnering with nearly 900 courses across the globe.
Residing in sunny San Diego, Jason enjoys life with his wife and two daughters. When he’s not leading innovation in the golf tech space, you’ll find him on the golf course, savoring some craft beer, coaching his daughters’ softball teams, or cheering on the Padres.
Originally from the Bay Area in Northern California, Chef Mike Arquines moved to San Diego in 2001 to attend Nursing School. With only a few more classes left until graduation to become a registered nurse, Mike realized his true passion was cooking and followed his heart into dropping out of nursing school and enrolling in the Art Institute in San Diego, graduating with a degree in Culinary Arts/Management. Mike honed his skills working in some of the finest kitchens around the country, including Charlie Trotters in Chicago and Le Bernardin in New York City. In 2009, he founded The LAB: Dining Sessions, which aims to deliver an uncompromised dining experience, and in 2013, co-founded Mostra Coffee, an award-winning specialty coffee micro-roaster in San Diego. In 2020, Mostra Coffee won the prestigious “Micro Roaster Of The Year” award by Roast Magazine and in 2024 became one of the Top 100 small businesses in America by the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce.
Thrive in 2025: How Strong Leadership Can Make or Break Your Brewery
Pulkit K Agrawal (Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient)
In the presentation “Thrive in 2025: How Strong Leadership Can Make or Break Your Brewery”, Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA), Founder & CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient, will dive in on the critical role that the executive team at a brewery has at successively navigating this difficult industry downturn. It is during these times that strong and effective leadership becomes paramount to pivot and thrive.
As breweries make their business plans to optimize operations in 2025, Pulkit will dive in on topics of Operational Growth, Empowering Teams and Giving Tools to Managers to Help them Succeed, and Managing Failures. Pulkit will then explain how attendees can equip managers with a framework for Data Management and Profit Analysis to develop KPIs for their brewery, while looking at profitability metrics.
Pulkit will dive into the power of executive coaching and how all top performing executives should work with a coach. He will wrap up by providing real-world examples of how The 5th Ingredient has been using these techniques into their own business planning and the development of their leadership team and employees. From team building to motivation strategies, Pulkit will offer practical strategies for cultivating a team-oriented and results-driven workforce, especially during the evolving difficult brewery landscape that we know will be coming in 2025.
Learning Objectives:
Gain an understanding of how to develop KPIs for their brewery.
Acquire resources for developing frameworks for data management and profit analysis.
Achieve a better understanding of team activities and executive coaching.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA began working as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the world. In December 2022, PKA was selected into the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and doing entrepreneurship coaching.
Navigating Change: An Industry Conversation with Andrew Burman of Other Half Brewing
Join us for a conversation with Andrew Burman of Other Half Brewing Company as we explore the evolving craft beer landscape and how breweries can adapt to shifting consumer habits. With weekend taproom traffic declining, Other Half is leaning into events, diverse beverage options, and family-friendly experiences to stay ahead. Burman will discuss the brewery’s strategic focus on private events, cocktails, and accessible distribution—ensuring customers can enjoy Other Half’s beer wherever and however they choose. He’ll also share his perspective on industry-wide challenges, from slow-moving competition and pricing pressures to the importance of quality control in distribution. Don’t miss this intimate conversation with an industry leader.
Andrew Burman, co-founded Other Half Brewing Company in Brooklyn, New York, in 2014. Serving as the Chief Operating Officer, Burman oversees the brewery’s daily operations. His journey into the culinary and brewing world began after earning a degree in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, where he also played lacrosse. Pursuing his passion for food, he went to L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, MD. To deepen his understanding of food systems, Burman obtained a Master’s degree in Food Culture and Food Systems from New York University. Since Other Half’s establishment, the brewery has expanded beyond Brooklyn, opening locations in New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, the Finger Lakes, and Buffalo. Burman’s commitment to quality and innovation has been instrumental in Other Half’s growth and its reputation for pushing the boundaries of beer and brewing culture.
New Marketing Strategies to Put More Butts on Bar Stools w/ Ross Stensrud (TapWyse)
The loyal customer is more valuable today than at any point in the history of craft beer. Let’s take a look at how to turn your casual guests into raving fans. Strap on your SCUBA gear and get ready for a deep dive into the data and taproom execution of 3 highly successful modern loyalty and membership programs. These programs go beyond the 20oz pour to bring in recurring revenue and put more buts on barstools!
I accidentally graduated from UCSD while studying lacrosse and frequenting O’Brien’s Pub. After a brief attempt to justify the cost of my engineering degree by designing pool cleaners (true story) I quit and started programming instead, first websites and then mobile applications. Since then, I have started a few small businesses with friends to bring best-in-class mobile tech to small businesses in other industries. After growing up in San Diego during the craft boom, I jumped at the chance to start TapWyse and serve this incredible industry. I now live in Carlsbad with my wife Laurel and two boys; Roscoe 9 and Mason 7. When not working you will find me shuttling them between basketball, golf, music, and skateboarding. Cheers!
On Route to Revenue Growth: The Pros & Cons of Different Distribution Practices w/ Matt Hon (Brew Ninja Software)
There are a lot of factors to consider when distributing your product. In this talk Matt Hon talks about the pros and cons of different distribution options and offers tips on several important topics from customer relationship management, to getting paid on time, keg tracking to route planning, and working through the challenges that come with distributing across state borders. Whether you have been distributing for years or are just getting started, this talk will provide valuable insight on how to get your product out there and increase revenue for your business.
Matt Hon is Co-Founder and COO of Brew Ninja.
Growing a Brewery in a Shrinking Market w/ Brian Goodman (Rushford & Sons Brewhouse)
Our market is shrinking and a lot of both smaller and larger breweries are going under (much to everyone’s chagrin). While the craft beer market MAY be shrinking, it will never go away and, like a lot of other niche products, will always ebb and flow. We’ve done a lot to, are actively doing, and have solid plans to be growing our on premises business as well as distribution with little to no resources by focusing on what our industry does right, minimizing what our industry as a whole does not the best job at, and side-stepping the “rtd’s” that are eating craft beer’s lunch! We don’t want the small, neighborhood brewery to go away in a downward market, and we want to share our success and best practices!
Brian, with his business partner and childhood best friend Mike Rushford, opened Rushford & Sons Brewhouse in December 2020; right during the height of covid. Brian and Mike put together the business with scotch tape and bubblegum and got it off the ground during a difficult time. Despite the shrinking market, Rushford & Sons is growing it’s distribution network in Central Massachusetts as well as opening a second taproom location while hosting “beer fest” events to grow the local craft beer scene as a whole.
Taxes on Tap w/ TJ O’Neill (Wipfli LLP)
The 2025 tax year is shaping up to be a detrimental one for craft brewers. Between the current research and development capitalization requirements, the phaseout of accelerated depreciation on equipment purchases, and other brewery tax credits that are generally overlooked, the opportunity for breweries to plan, save, and grow is now. We will cover a brief legislative update, including the current situation on the house bill that has stalled in congress, as well as low-hanging tax credits that are ripe for the taking.
T.j. O’Neill is a senior manager in Wipfli’s tax practice, specializing food & beverage manufacturing, retail, and distribution. Tim leads Wipfli’s Craft Brewery Services team and has over 11 years of experience assisting craft breweries ranging from large, multistate breweries to breweries in planning with their tax and business compliance & planning needs. Brewery owners appreciate his tailored business solutions, commitment to excellence, and ability to build strong relationships with their team. Tim lives in St. Louis with his wife and three young children and loves any English-style brown ale just as much as he loves a beautifully formatted spreadsheet.
Improve Craft Brewery Profits Through Efficient Process Equipment w/ Sheldon Young (Alfa Laval Inc.)
Being a successful, and profitable, craft brewery is more than just offering good beer and a fun experience. As we all know, having the right people and business plan matter a bunch. But have you spent enough time considering how critically important maximizing efficiencies is in the key processes that are involved in making your beer?
Today we’re going to have a dialogue around a few ways that craft breweries of all sizes can make improve their bottom line with process equipment that drives efficiency and productivity without sacrificing quality. We will focus on three technology areas, discuss how they work, and share how some of the most advanced versions of this equipment can deliver high value when implemented. These technologies are: • Next-level tank cleaning that can dramatically reduce usage of water and chemicals as well as the time required to clean a tank • Utilizing flash pasteurization to improve quality, shelf stability, and sometimes your brand • Finally, how modern centrifuge technology can deliver not only more yield and quality but also higher levels of product consistency and improve reliability of production scheduling
In this discussion we will have Alfa Laval industry and Product experts sharing their experience and knowledge with the attendees as well as taking questions to help the audience improve their efficiency and profits.
Sheldon Young and Vince Polino work with Alfa Laval’s Food and Water Division in the US. Vince has 10 years with the organization solving brewery challenges and Sheldon has spent over 15 years working in a number of areas of the organization with his current role supporting customers on their sustainability journeys. Alfa Laval is one of the world’s largest suppliers of heat transfer, separations, and fluid handling equipment. They support breweries of all size around the globe in making the highest quality beer in the most efficient way possible.
Extending Shelf Life by Removing Oxidizing Metals w/ Alan Windhausen (Murphy and Son) and Eric Drost (Murphy and Son)
The appearance of off-flavors and the decline of fresh flavor/aroma characteristics are often linked to oxygen and transition metal ions (e.g. iron, copper) present in packaged beers. In many oxidative reactions, radicals are formed as intermediates, reacting with beer components and greatly catalyzing beer deterioration. Iron and copper play a key role in the oxidative degradation of wort and beer, as they drive the formation of these radicals. In addition to reducing oxygen ingress throughout the brewing process, the chelation and removal of these transition metals has a major impact on the shelf life of your beer! We will discuss the chemistry behind this removal process and what brewing methods and products can be used to achieve better beer freshness for longer.
Alan is a Technical Sales Manager with Murphy & Son, and also a member of both the Colorado Brewer’s Guild’s Technical and Education committee and the Brewers Association’s Quality Subcommittee. He has most recently worked in the craft beer industry as the Head Brewer at Holidaily Brewing Company (a dedicated gluten-free brewery). He has also been a brewing science educator for eCornell, a brewing consultant, a technical editor for a book on gluten-free brewing, and a Quality Trainer for the Brewers Association, where he taught QA/QC and laboratory techniques to craft brewers in person before later building an online QA/QC education program.
Erict Drost is a Technical Sales Manager at Murphy & Son. Eric brings over a decade of hands-on industry experience, where he’s been pivotal in building strong, mutually beneficial customer relationships and driving business growth. His impressive track record includes roles as Director of Sales for WHC Lab, Regional Sales Manager for Southern California Brewers Supply Group, and Vice President of Sales at Hangar 24 Craft Brewery.
Using Your Taproom as a Profit Center w/Andrew Coplon + Kary Shumway (Taproom Success)
As a brewery owner or manager, your taproom is your greatest opportunity to drive profits and build relationships. This leadership-focused session will provide you with the financial insights, actionable strategies, and data-driven tactics you need to turn your taproom into a thriving profit center. Learn how to maximize sales, manage your finances effectively, and enhance the guest experience while empowering your team to deliver results. Walk away with the tools to guide your taproom toward increased profits and keep things thriving in a constantly changing industry.
Andrew Coplon is the Founder of Secret Hopper and Craft Beer Professionals. Andrew helps breweries nationwide create more memorable and profitable taproom experiences using data-based insights gathered from thousands of visits. He has successfully built a community of 17,000 Craft Beer Professionals dedicated to the growth and betterment of our industry across the United States. When he isn’t building relationships on Zoom or meeting you for a pint, he enjoys climbing jungle gyms with his son, Max, or planning the next adventure with his wife, Stacie.
Kary Shumway is the founder of Craft Brewery Financial Training.com which offers online resources for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for more than 20 years as a certified public accountant and a chief financial officer for a beer distributor and a brewery.
Craft Brewery Financial Training publishes a free weekly beer industry finance newsletter, offers online training courses on topics such as cash flow planning, financial forecasting, and brewery metrics. For more information visit www.CraftBreweryFinancialTraining.com.
Money Please: Is Your Brewery Ready for Investment or Exit? w/ Andrew Tremble (Barnes Beverage Group LLC)
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
You’ve spent years researching, developing, sourcing, and finally crafting your spirit, however, without proper attention paid to the most basic aspects of the governance of your entity, regardless of how good the liquid is, all the blood, sweat, and tears can be for naught.
This presentation will (1) walk through basic considerations when forming your entity or taking in early investment dollars to avoid issues with co-founders, or early investors, (2) provide insight into common pitfalls that can and will cause additional expense and delay when dealing with potential investors or acquirers (or in the worst scenarios cause companies to lose investment or exit possibilities), and (3) discuss what types of diligence investors and acquirers will focus on during the course of a transaction and how companies can not only be prepared for those requests, but differentiate themselves from other potential target companies in their preparedness for diligence.
Drew was raised in a family-owned fine dining restaurant and catering company, which was an outgrowth of his grandparents’ local burger joint and watering hole. He counsels companies of all sizes from formation through early-stage fundraising, day-to-day corporate formalities and contracting, and transformative M&A and beyond. He also focuses on distribution agreements, complex alcohol beverage regulatory issues, and commercial contracting. Drew joined BBG from Reyes Beverage Group, where he served as Senior Counsel. Before entering the alcohol beverage industry, Drew was in the M&A and Emerging Companies group at Latham & Watkins in Chicago. Originally from New Jersey, Drew is a double Wolverine, having earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. He spends his time cooking, baking, and barbecuing, fishing (not catching), exploring the local food and beverage scene in his new home town of Grand Rapids, and being outside with his family.
How to Prepare Your Beer Label Design Files Properly for Quick Turnaround & Quality Results w/Jason Foss (InTouch Labels & Packaging)
Brewery owners wear many hats. Let’s face it… At some point in your journey, you have worn ALL the hats of your business. While this is overwhelming at times, being able to create a quality label for your array of brews can be a daunting task. Using all of the proper file configurations ensure the quality of the result is worthy of the effort you put into brewing it. This presentation provides a fool-proof checklist to confidently send your label files to the printer on the first attempt without the costly and time-consuming back & forth.
Jason Foss is the Digital Marketing Specialist at InTouch Labels & Packaging. He has a diverse background in food, beverage, and cannabis product marketing. As part of the Avery Products family, InTouch Labels is a premium choice for high-quality custom label printing. InTouch specializes in short-run label printing and offers a swift 3-day turnaround, volume pricing, and no rush fees or minimum orders.
3 Things To Do If Worried About Tariffs Impacting Your Brewery w/ Dan Klasen (Beverage Federation)
As if brewery owners needed another thing to worry about, Tariffs could be another thing added to the list for 2025. Rather than shrug shoulders or worse yet, have it keep you up at night – we wanted to share some tips on ways that you can address Tariffs for your brewery.
We’ll go over the biggest thing to avoid, and that is spending to much time trying to negotiate or avoid their impact. The fact is, that there is little a small business can do to avoid impacts completely, either short or long term, from tariffs. But once you stop wasting energy on trying to figure out ways to avoid them completely, you can work on ways to lessen the impact to your business if they do show up in your operating costs.
We’ll go over 3 areas to lessen the impact: 1. If you have the space/storage – you can acquire extra inventory. Make sure to work with your suppliers if you chose this option. 2.Identify any line items that you know are being imported today ( i.e. perhaps your Malt provider) and reach out to US based providers. With some discussions, you may want to switch now and then avoid any worry later in the year. 3. Spot check pricing compared to 2024. When you see an increase ( i.e. 10% or higher) reach out and ask about the reason. Be ready to switch providers to alternatives that are not seeing an impact from tariffs in the same category. Also talk to your supply partners about how they are handling tariff prep in 2025.
This isn’t about avoiding risk all together, but figuring out a plan on how to deal with it as it comes so you are not caught off guard. Cheers.
My name is Dan Klasen and I’m the Founder and President of the Beverage Federation. The Federation is a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) that provides procurement services to its craft members, focused heavily on cost savings measures. Starting the Federation has combined my passion for meeting new small business owners, negotiation, and cost-saving programs. I have worked with every size organization in my career, from small family-run companies to fortune 500 businesses. While I learned a lot from working with larger organizations, I truly enjoy working with fellow entrepreneurs on running and improving their business. The Federation now works with over 300 breweries to help educate and implement smart buying programs designed to help them run leaner and be around longer.
More Than Beer: Creating Engaging Taproom Spaces
While beer is the foundation of our industry, a great pint alone isn’t always enough to capture and keep attention. A thriving taproom requires exceptional hospitality and compelling reasons for guests to return. Some taprooms double as coffee shops, others build strong event programs, and many find creative ways to become true third spaces—community hubs where people gather, connect, and feel at home. In this conversation, taproom managers, owners, and industry experts from across the country will share how they’re going beyond beer to create profitable, engaging destinations.
This conversation features:
Bronywn Vogler (Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company)
Erica Teague (Cactus Land Brewing Company)
Michael Varda (Craft Beer Advisory Services)
Generosity + Growth: Strategic Marketing and Smart Giving for Breweries w/ Tracy Cryder (Southern Tail Brewing)
In this session, we’ll dive into the complexities of handling the endless stream of donation requests while simultaneously positioning your brewery to effectively market itself in a crowded, competitive space. Craft breweries often face the challenge of balancing community involvement with smart marketing efforts, and the session will provide strategies for navigating both with confidence and efficiency.
Key topics include: + How setting your annual marketing calendar is a critical component of being able to source materials/decorating/merch in cost effective ways + How to leverage your taproom and assets that are underutilized to drive profit when it matters most + Techniques to determine when the right times are to make a donation, discount your products, and when/where to us Artificial Intelligence to help you + The power of strategic partnerships amongst other businesses + Overcoming the fear of failure which holds many of our bold ideas back
Tracy is the co-owner of Southern Tail Brewing – she’s spend her life prior to that with over 25 years of experience in technology – specifically analytics. She uses the power of AI to help guide her team, simplify processes, and drive significant programming for the 12,000+ square foot venue. Tracy has had the honor of leading some of the world’s largest organizations to get a leg up on the competition and now at the forefront of making really big changes in the Little Rock, Arkansas market. She’s the vice president of The Pink Boots Society for Arkansas.
The Brewer’s Data Playbook: Step-by-Step Data Techniques You Can Use Today w/ Michele Doyle (Sennos)
Data is the secret ingredient to growing a successful brewing business. While brewing is a craft rooted in tradition, data offers actionable insights that can reduce costs, manage risks, boost revenue, and enhance efficiency. This webinar bridges the gap between recognizing the value of data and practically using it, even if you’re not a high- tech organization.
We start with how to ask the right questions: What problem am I trying to solve? What story does my data tell? How can I gain clarity into what I should look at? From there, you’ll learn how to gather and prepare data effectively, from multiple sources like spreadsheets and ERPs to ensure clean, actionable datasets.
We’ll discuss building a data culture within your organization, emphasizing collaboration and ownership to drive the data quality needed for accurate insights. Through demos, we’ll explore data visualization tools like Power BI and Tableau Public to organize and visualize your data for meaningful insights.
Finally, we’ll dive into targeted analysis and the future of brewing analytics. Whether it’s understanding customer behavior, optimizing product offerings, driving predictive insights or leveraging AI tools like GPTs, data helps align the art and science of brewing. Start small, think big, and let data be your guide to success. From crafting the perfect brew to optimizing your business and growing a data culture that will invigorate your organization, this webinar equips you with the tips and tools to tap into your data’s potential.
Michele Doyle is an innovative leader with over 25 years of experience driving business value through data-driven transformation. As Vice President of Data at Sennos, she advances the company’s data platform and capabilities, delivering actionable insights that empower customers across industries. In her previous roles, Michele has established analytics platforms, managed data operations, set architectural strategy and led cross-functional teams that united product owners, business leaders, and technical experts to drive measurable improvements. A champion of building successful data cultures, she emphasizes collaboration and accessibility to extend data’s value across entire organizations. With expertise spanning machine learning, AI, and data governance, Michele bridges gaps between Operations, Product, and Technology to deliver innovative solutions. She believes the best data strategies combine creativity, teamwork, and really strong coffee.
Words on Tap: Crafting Copy That Converts for Craft Beer Brands w/ Natalie Cross (Get Hoptimized)
Is your marketing copy lacking that special spark? Ever wondered how you can drive more engagement overall? Whether you’re releasing a new bold brew or getting folks hyped about exciting events in the taproom, great words are the secret ingredient to holding your audience’s attention and generating the hype.
In this presentation we will explore the do’s and don’ts of marketing copy for craft beer brands. From writing irresistible headlines to hitting the right tone, you’ll discover easily applicable tactics to upgrade your messaging across social media, email campaigns, menus, and more. Learn how to tell your brewery’s unique story, emotionally connect with your audience, and channel simple creative writing tactics that inspire action. We’ll also look at mindset shifts that will give you the freedom to write with clarity, creativity, and confidence. Walk away with fast, actionable tips you can use right away, and new ideas to whip up excitement for every piece of collateral you create.
Natalie Cross is the lead digital strategist at Get Hoptimized, a digital marketing agency focused on delivering measurable results for breweries through innovative online marketing strategies. With years of experience working with both large and small brands, Natalie excels in crafting tailored solutions that enhance online visibility, foster community engagement and valuable customer relationships. Driven by a strong passion for the craft beer industry, she is dedicated to helping breweries succeed and flourish in the digital world by utilizing a spectrum of digital tools, analyzing trends, and applying tactics to maximize their marketing initiatives and achieve long-term growth.
How Data Visualization Transforms Brewery Operations w/ Jeremy Carney (Central Coast Analytics) and Pulkit K. Agrawal (Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient)
Breweries don’t need more data – they need better insights. Every day, breweries collect data on production, ingredient usage, brewing yields, equipment utilization, and more, but the challenge lies in making sense of it all. This session will demonstrate how data visualization can cut through the noise, helping breweries uncover hidden opportunities, reduce inefficiencies, and improve profitability. We’ll begin by addressing the common pain points breweries face: siloed data, lack of actionable insights, and the frustration of unseen problems compounding. Using real-world examples, we’ll showcase how data visualization turns complex data into clear, actionable insights – empowering brewery leaders to quick identify and address key issues like high production losses, rising costs, and underutilized equipment. Attendees will see how tracking metrics like cost per barrel, beer loss trends, and brew-to-pack timelines can drive smarter decisions. We’ll also explore how these capabilities align teams, foster accountability, and provide clarity on targets and next steps. Attendees will leave with practices to implement immediately in their breweries, whether it’s aligning their data, visualizing data, refining processes, or identifying areas of cost savings. This session will empower breweries to operate smarter, faster, and more effectively – giving them a competitive edge in today’s tough market.
As the Founder of Central Coast Analytics, Jeremy is revolutionizing how craft breweries interact with data. With 20 years of experience in analytics, he develops cutting-edge solutions that provide breweries and other industry partners with critical performance insights at their fingertips. His work enables clients to quickly see a holistic overview of their business and effortlessly drill in to uncover actionable insights. Jeremy’s passion lies in helping breweries transform data from a headache into a strategic advantage, empowering breweries to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA began working as a Process Engineer for Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is currently in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer across the world. In December 2022, PKA was selected into the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and doing entrepreneurship coaching.
THC Beverages: What Keeps Lawyers Awake at Night? w/ John Szymankiewicz (Beer Law Center)
The THC beverage market is a “wild wild west” of regulatory enforcement. What’s legal? What’s illegal? What’s hemp derived THC? What about Delta-8? What do I have to do to make a beverage? How do I sell it? Can I ship it? There are way more questions than answers for beverage producers right now. But, with uncertainty there is opportunity. The market is growing and the margins are good. Now’s the time to get in. Or is it? This presentation will talk about all things that worry me, as a lawyer, about things that can go wrong. Even badly wrong. We’ll talk through the “points to consider” before (or after) you make the leap into THC beverages.
Since founding Beer Law Center, John’s practice has centered on the craft beverage industry. John works with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals. With a background in chemical engineering and homebrewing, John loves the industry and has dedicated his career to making a difference for artisanal beverage businesses everywhere. John is a BJCP Judge, holds a certification in WSET Level II – Wine and in Beer, and is the US’s only Certified Cicerone Alcohol Attorney. John’s book “Beer Law: What Brewers Need to Know” is also a great reference for anyone in the industry.
Avoid Overengineering: When NOT to Invest in Brewery Technology w/ Magnus Valmot (PLAATO Technologies AS)
Better software, new apps, sensors supervising the facility, AI recipe development and many more. The list of emerging technologies is long, but when does it make sense to invest, and when does it not? Is there a point between the homebrewer, the nanobrewery and the craft brewery where technology is a requirement for success, versus just a “nice to have”? We want to explore this topic, and some of the reasoning for when it makes sense to invest, and when it doesn’t. The old saying of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” can apply in many cases, but there is also the risk of loosing out on effieciencies and improvements that your peers are taking advantage of. Let’s get together to discuss, explore and see what frameworks are out there to make smart decisions for your brewery.
Magnus has 15 years of experience as an Engineer, Consultant and Entrepreneur, and has supported a range of companies with implementing technologies to help improve productivity and efficiency across the US, Europe and the Middle East. He leads PLAATO Technologies as CEO, and is today 100% focused on building technologies and solutions that help breweries operate with higher efficiency.
How to Keep Your Brewery Relevant for the Next Generation w/ Tim Weaver (The Brand Weaver)
The next wave of beer drinkers is here, and spoiler alert—they’re not like the last lot. Gen Z is all about connection, inclusivity, and creating new rituals, which means the old “pint in the pub” experience might need a bit of a shake-up. In this session, I’ll walk you through how to connect with this fresh generation of drinkers. We will cover branding, marketing, taproom vibes, and everything in between. It’s not just about making great beer anymore (though that still helps); it’s about creating experiences that bring people together in a modern and meaningful way. If you’re ready to turn your brewery into a magnet for the next-gen, grab a seat and let’s chat about how you can stand out, stay relevant, and make your mark.
Tim Weaver is the guy who makes brands brilliant. As the owner of The Brand Weaver, he’s spent over 15 years helping brands craft identities that not only look cracking but actually work—bringing in punters, growing sales, and making a splash in the industry. Whether it’s giving a startup its first big break or breathing new life into a well-loved brewery, Tim’s all about making sure your brand stands out, turns heads, and keeps people coming back for more. He’s got a knack for spotting what makes a brand special and turning that into something unforgettable. When he’s not brewing up brand magic, you’ll find him sharing stories, cracking jokes, or enjoying a pint (strictly for research purposes, of course).
That’s Not Clean! Establishing a Baseline for Your Equipment w/ Dirk Loeffler (SEKA Chemicals LL)
When you ask most professional brewers about what they do the most, the vast majority will answer cleaning. Despite this fact, during my many years of working with breweries of all sizes I frequently come across the phenomena where a baseline of clean for some brewers reveals that they have only ever known a dirty tank or other equipment as their baseline and call it clean. But if we have never seen the equipment or tank truly clean, how do we establish a true baseline? How do we define what clean is? When and how do we know our equipment is truly clean? How do we identify the first indications that our equipment is not clean? What should we consider before problems develop? What are the possible implications if we ignore the problems or simply do not have the expertise or training to identify them? This presentation will answer those questions and more.
Born and raised in Cologne, Germany, Dirk graduated in Cologne with a degree in business administration. After working several years for a BASF subsidiary, he joined the Loeffler family business, where he worked in sales, technical services and research and development. In 1992, Dirk came to the United States to lay the groundwork for the US operations of Loeffler which led to the incorporation of Loeffler Chemical Corporation in 1994. Until 2019, Dirk served as the CEO and Technical Director for Loeffler Chemical Corporation. After the company merged in 2019, Dirk took a sabbatical and focused on teaching and enjoying some time with his family. In 2024, Dirk founded SEKA Chemicals together with his wife Alexis. As the Executive Vice President of Technical Operations and Sales he continues to develop new products and process technologies for breweries and distilleries. Dirk lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Alexis and their twin boys Kai and Sebastian. Dirk has been an active member of the Master Brewers Association since 1992 and currently serves as the President for the MBAA Districts Mid-South and Georgia. Dirk is also an active member of the Brewers Association since 1993 and serves on the Board of the German School of Atlanta as Vice President and Safety Officer.
That’s Not Clean! Establishing a Baseline for Your Equipment w/ Dirk Loeffler (SEKA Chemicals LL)
When you ask most professional brewers about what they do the most, the vast majority will answer cleaning. Despite this fact, during my many years of working with breweries of all sizes I frequently come across the phenomena where a baseline of clean for some brewers reveals that they have only ever known a dirty tank or other equipment as their baseline and call it clean. But if we have never seen the equipment or tank truly clean, how do we establish a true baseline? How do we define what clean is? When and how do we know our equipment is truly clean? How do we identify the first indications that our equipment is not clean? What should we consider before problems develop? What are the possible implications if we ignore the problems or simply do not have the expertise or training to identify them? This presentation will answer those questions and more.
Born and raised in Cologne, Germany, Dirk graduated in Cologne with a degree in business administration. After working several years for a BASF subsidiary, he joined the Loeffler family business, where he worked in sales, technical services and research and development. In 1992, Dirk came to the United States to lay the groundwork for the US operations of Loeffler which led to the incorporation of Loeffler Chemical Corporation in 1994. Until 2019, Dirk served as the CEO and Technical Director for Loeffler Chemical Corporation. After the company merged in 2019, Dirk took a sabbatical and focused on teaching and enjoying some time with his family. In 2024, Dirk founded SEKA Chemicals together with his wife Alexis. As the Executive Vice President of Technical Operations and Sales he continues to develop new products and process technologies for breweries and distilleries. Dirk lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Alexis and their twin boys Kai and Sebastian. Dirk has been an active member of the Master Brewers Association since 1992 and currently serves as the President for the MBAA Districts Mid-South and Georgia. Dirk is also an active member of the Brewers Association since 1993 and serves on the Board of the German School of Atlanta as Vice President and Safety Officer.
Winning in Distribution w/Chris Farmand (Small Batch Standard)
Most breweries face challenges when it comes to succeeding in distribution. From understanding how the numbers impact the business as a whole to managing distributor relationships, running a sales team, and coordinating logistics, distribution is no easy feat. In this rigged game, wins can happen, though they often feel fleeting. Some breweries distribute out of necessity, while others seek the validation of seeing their beer on store shelves. Whatever your motivation, there are a few essential concepts you must embrace to find success in distribution. In this session, we’ll share these key concepts along with benchmarks to help you unlock the path to distribution success.
It all started in 2010 when Chris was fortunate enough to assist a start-up brewery with establishing back-office processes. This gave him a firsthand glimpse into the complications of running a brewery. Shortly thereafter, he founded Small Batch Standard, which has become the premier financial agency for craft over the past decade. Everyday, Chris and the SBS team are seeking the opportunity to assist an industry full of entrepreneurs who have proven to create amazing, local products. Small Batch Standard helps breweries uncover profit through outsourced accounting, tax compliance, and benchmark consulting. Chris has worked with over 200 breweries and is driven by building long-lasting deep relationships. Chris graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Business Finance in 2002. Then in 2006, he received his Master of Business Administration from the University of North Florida. He is an active member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Chris’s crew is made up of his wife and 3 children…They rock!
Navigating Uncharted Waters: Who Determines the Course, Brewers or Customers? (Panel Conversation)
In this unique era of crossover drinking, new beverage concepts, reinventing the tap room experience, and a whacky economy, what’s the best way to find your course?
Join Start A Brewery Contributors and craft beer industry veterans Jeff Mendel of Left Hand Brewing Company, Tim Myers of Strange Craft Beer Company, Laura Bruns of Craft Beer Uncovered, and Charlie Gottenkieny of Bruz Beers for an in depth exploration of opportunities, inspirations, personal small business development strategies, and other inside/outside of the box looks at the tools successful breweries have used to chart (and continue to chart) their course.
Laura Bruns, Founder, Craft Beer Uncovered: Founder and former owner of Factotum Brewhouse in Denver, Colorado, with an MA in Curriculum and Instructional design, Laura employs her Regis Certificate in Applied Craft Brewing, her Cicerone certification, and status as a BJCP judge to create Craft Beer Uncovered. Her overall focus is building the confidence of craft beer consumers, while also working with aspiring brewery owners as a Mentor in the BA Mentorship Program.
Jeff Mendel, Partner/Director, Left Hand Brewing Co.: Co-founder of Tabernash Brewing Company and the Colorado Brewers Guild, Jeff has been a partner/director at Left Hand Brewing Company, leads Beer Appreciation classes, hosts beer and food pairing classes, and has led personalized tours of GABF. His previous leadership roles in the industry include Director of the Institute of Brewing Studies, and Director of the National Microbrewers Conference and Trade Show.
Charlie Gottenkieny, Co-Founder/ Brewmaster, Bruz Beers: Charlie Gottenkieny has been brewing since 1988 and is a co-founder and brewmaster at Bruz Beers – a Belgian-style brewery in Denver, Colorado. Charlie’s extensive international travel started his passion for Belgian beer styles. Charlie has authored more than a dozen beer education programs and regularly teaches beer classes at Bruz Beers. His background includes marketing, radio broadcasting and advertising.
Tim Myers, Founder/Head Brewer, Strange Craft Beer Company: Tim Myers is a father, husband, and brewer, in that order. He started Strange Craft Beer Company in May 2010, brewing one barrel at a time in Denver’s first taproom brewery. In the past 11 years, Tim has helped over a dozen breweries open, taught brewing classes at Metro State University, and served on the board of the Colorado Brewers Guild.
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Ingredients as a Differentiator – Using Flavor to Stand Out
Panelists: Brian Mandeville (Fine Creek Brewing Company), Chris Leguizamon (Fonta Flora Brewery), Rachael Hudson (Pilot Brewing), Razia Gonzalez-Crotts (Resident Culture Brewing Co.)
Moderator: Jared Stober (Two Track Malting)
In today’s competitive beverage market, ingredients are more than just components of a recipe—they’re key tools for differentiation. This session will explore how breweries can strategically use unique and high-quality ingredients to stand out, capture consumer attention, and create memorable taproom experiences. Panelists will discuss the role of flavor innovation in branding, share success stories of standout beers, and provide actionable insights for leveraging ingredients to drive taproom traffic.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the Strategic Role of Ingredients: Learn how unique and thoughtfully selected ingredients can differentiate your brewery both in the taproom and in the broader market.
Discover Ways to Enhance Guest Experiences and Broaden Market Appeal: Gain insights into how innovative ingredient choices can create memorable beers that attract taproom guests and capture attention on store shelves.
Implement Ingredient-Driven Marketing and Branding Strategies: Explore how to leverage your ingredient story to stand out in a competitive market and drive both taproom traffic and retail sales.
Brian Mandeville is the head brewer at Fine Creek Brewing Company, a farm brewery in Powhatan, Virginia. His 14-year career began at O’Connor Brewing Company, working as brewer and eventually production manager. He then became the head brewer of Fullsteam Brewery, where he produced beers that align with his own brewing philosophy, often with farmed and foraged ingredients that express the traditions and heritage of the land that they come from. Brian returned to Virginia, and landed at Fine Creek, where he continues to work with farmed and foraged ingredients, including some grown and gathered on the brewery’s property.
Chris Leguizamon is on a mission to inspire minds, one beer at a time. He is an Advanced Cicerone®–one of just 11 in his home region of North Carolina–sharing historical and technical information on beer and brewing as the Account Rep at Fonta Flora Brewery. He is an avid beer judge at homebrew and professional competitions, public speaker at industry conferences, and content creator via his Instagram account: @chris.thebeereducator.
Jared Stober is the CEO of Two Track Malting located in Menoken, ND. Two Track Malting grows their own grain on two family farms and developed their own exclusive grain varieties developed specifically for the craft industry. Two Track Malting started producing malt in 2016 and recently completed a state-of-the-art expansion in 2024. Jared has been involved with value added agriculture his entire career and serves on the Craft Malting Guild board to promote the craft malting industry.
Rachael Hudson is a brewer by passion and a brewery owner by even more passion. She has been brewing professionally since 2011, with prior experience working in beer bars and craft beer-focused restaurants. Having been immersed in the beer industry for over half her life, she brings a deep appreciation for the craft to everything she does.
Rachael showcases her creativity through her beers, available both in Pilot Brewing’s tasting room and throughout North Carolina. She leads an educational brewery, providing sensory training and beer education for both team members and guests. Beyond brewing, she uses Pilot as a platform to support her philanthropic goals, raising awareness and funds for various local charities.
In her free time, Rachael co-hosts the beer podcast False Bottomed Girls, judges beer competitions, plans Charlotte Craft Beer Week, and consults for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. She is a BJCP Certified Judge, an Advanced Cicerone, and a Certified LUKR Tapster.
Razia Gonzalez-Crotts is an ad world veteran turned craft brewer and Certified Cicerone® who has returned to her roots as the Director of Marketing at Resident Culture, focused on all things marketing, creative and strategy for RC, N.A.R.C.® and Cümulo. With a deep passion for sensory analysis, craft beverages, and beer education, Razia is on a mission to create innovative ways to make the world of beer more approachable. Combining her expertise in marketing strategy and her love for the craft beverage industry, she brings a unique perspective to building engaging and inclusive experiences around beer.
Tap Talks: 3 18-minute sessions on critical topics
Merch, Meaning & the Brand: How to Build Culture That Sticks and Pay Bills
Tom Paynter (No Label Brewing)
What does it take to turn a local brewery into a beloved brand? Not just good beer — but bold design, storytelling, and a culture people want to wear, share, and support.
In this session, Tom Paynter — co-owner and marketing director of No Label Brewing Co. — shares how he helped transform a small Katy, Texas brewery into a statewide force in beer marketing and community identity. With multiple Craft Beer Marketing Awards (including Best Can Design and Best Merch), a World Beer Cup medal, and the distinction of receiving the first-ever Texas state resolution for excellence in craft beer marketing, Tom knows how to build a brand that lasts. His work also earned the VFW Commander’s Award for connecting brewery culture to veteran support — proving that brand impact doesn’t stop at shelf appeal.
This session dives into how thoughtful merch becomes movement, how brand voice builds loyalty, and how cultivating community-first culture leads to real staying power. Whether you’re looking to refine your look, elevate your message, or sell more than just beer, you’ll walk away with tactical insights and real-world examples that move the needle.
From streetwear-inspired releases to identity-driven design, Tom brings a clear message: the best breweries aren’t just places to drink — they’re places people belong.
Come for the merch tips. Stay for the strategy. Leave with a brand worth rooting for.
Juggle Master: Managing Multiple Roles, Perspectives, and Goals (Simultaneously)
Colleen Quinn (Atomic Clock Brewing Company)
As owners and managers, we’re almost always wearing many hats – that’s the job. But how often do we really talk about what that really looks like and how to do that most effectively? Or how to give ourselves some grace when inevitably a ball gets dropped? Assessing, analyzing, and managing the business from different perspectives – departments, time horizons, upside opportunity vs downside risk, and more – isn’t easy and often isn’t understood or appreciated.
In this talk Colleen will:
Be brutally honest about what the master juggler job really looks like
Review the different perspectives and angles we’re juggling
Share strategies for juggling the most (or more) effectively
Get real about what it feels like to drop the balls and pick them back up
Riding the Wave: How Craft Beer’s Past Shaped Its Future
Aaron Gore (VP of Sales & Marketing, Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient)
“A rising tide raises all boats.”
It’s a phrase that has been echoed time and time again as craft beer rose from a handful of scrappy, free-thinking mavericks into an industry filled with passionate converts seeking to make their own way within it. And it is a phrase that has so often been true, as collaboration and community brought IPAs and Saisons out of the bottle shop and into the mainstream. Powerful tides, however, also create waves.
As craft beer’s growth has slowed, even declined, in recent years it is easy to feel as though the industry as a whole is in danger of being crashed upon the rocks and destroyed completely. However, waves move fast, and can create opportunity as much as they can create destruction.
Long-time industry advocate Aaron MJ Gore will explore the reasons behind the current state of craft beer, explaining some of the forces at play and using learnings from other industries to give a hint at what may be coming next. More importantly, he will explore how brewery owners can help to navigate these changes, riding the wave instead of being crushed beneath it, and moving forward toward future success not only for their own companies, but for the industry at large.
Securing Your Taproom’s Future: Leases, Landlord’s, and Long-Term Success
Alicia Hill (Allen Stahl + Kilbourne)
The future of any brewery is dependent on many factors, but securing a location with favorable lease terms is paramount. The session will provide an overview of commercial leases for greater understanding about what to look for in a lease, negotiating with a prospective Landlord for lease terms favorable for the long-term success of the brewery.
Learning Objectives:
What to expect from a commercial lease. The lease terms will provide for what a brewery can and can’t do with the property and understanding what to expect the lease to cover and the terms most often at issue for long-term success.
How to negotiate with the Landlord to give your brewery the best lease possible with the greatest likelihood of success. Understand the most important lease terms to negotiate and what “industry standard” lease terms to avoid.
Understand the difference between commercial and retail spaces for rent, the zoning, licensing, and permitting requirements of a prospective lease, and other considerations regarding tenant improvements and Landlord improvements.
ASK Law works with manufacturers and retailers of all types and sizes across North Carolina and throughout the United States and abroad, including craft breweries, wineries, cideries, distillers, mead makers, saki makers, and more.
Alicia E. Hill is an attorney at ASK Law handling legal issues for start-ups and established businesses of all sorts. Prior to attending law school (and currently), Alicia owned and operated restaurants and bars in Asheville, NC. Her background as a small business owner brings a unique perspective to the issues facing ASK Law clients.
Beer, Beyonce, and the Path to World Peace: Uniting Communities and Bridging Divides
Celeste Beatty (Harlem Brewing)
Beer has long been a social catalyst, transcending boundaries and fostering connections. In this session, we’ll explore how beer serves as a unifier—creating spaces where diverse communities can come together, spark meaningful conversations, and bridge divides. Using real-life examples, we’ll highlight how breweries are embracing fun, approachable concepts to inspire dialogue and cultivate understanding, regardless of cultural beliefs, political views, or personal differences. Whether through pop culture references, shared values, or simply enjoying a pint together, beer has the unique power to break down barriers. This session will also cover how collaboration and partnerships can amplify these efforts, ultimately creating more inclusive and connected environments.
Learning Objectives
Identify strategies for using beer as a platform to initiate conversations that bridge cultural, political, and personal divides.
Discover innovative ways breweries are creating inclusive environments that spark meaningful dialogue and connect diverse communities.
Explore the role of collaboration and partnerships in enhancing the impact of breweries as community hubs and unifiers.
Celeste Beatty’s journey into craft beer began with a spark of curiosity and a seasoned soup pot from her mother’s kitchen. Born in North Carolina and later moving to Harlem, she fell in love with brewing, blending history, food, and community into her creations. On June 19, 2001, she made history by launching Harlem Brew’s first creation, Sugar Hill Golden Ale, making her the first African-American woman to own a commercial craft beer brand in the U.S. Harlem Brewing Company quickly gained recognition, with its beers landing in iconic venues like the Apollo Theater and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Harlem Brewing has since expanded, with distribution across the U.S., U.K., and Japan, the launch of Harlem Brew South in 2018, and a taproom in South London. Celeste remains committed to “brewing it forward” by supporting Black farmers, launching collaboration beers that honor historical figures, and partnering with major retailers like Walmart and Whole Foods. Her achievements have earned her honors from the Clinton Foundation and the Harlem Business Alliance, and in 2016, Harlem Brew was featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture’s opening ceremony. Today, Celeste continues to inspire, celebrating heritage and championing diversity in craft beer.
Is Craft Beer Dead? Uncovering Profit in the Industry KPIs
Kelly Meyer (How NOT To Start A Damn Brewery)
For the past two decades, the craft beer industry has often celebrated growth for growth’s sake, leading to a landscape where many breweries struggle to achieve profitability. Hype alone doesn’t pay the bills, and mimicking another brewery’s success is rarely a sustainable strategy.
A healthier craft beer industry requires a new approach—one that acknowledges and addresses the factors leading to failure to avoid them on a larger scale. This includes fewer breweries, strategic partnerships, open distribution, and other systemic shifts.
The discussion will begin with a state-of-the-industry analysis using key performance indicators (KPIs). With 70% of breweries producing less than 1,000 BBLs annually, the current model often fails to deliver profitability. Scale, it seems, is the most reliable path to success in beer.
We’ll explore where the numbers need to be, why most breweries lack the capacity to reach them, and actionable steps for those facing these challenges. Additionally, we’ll review the peak of supply and demand equilibrium around 2015 and how those insights can inform future planning. In some cases, acquiring one or even two breweries may present the best opportunities for growth and sustainability.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the Industry’s Headwinds and Financial Impacts: Analyze the challenges breweries face, distinguishing between pivots that increase revenue and those that lead to debt, using KPIs from the past 15 years to predict industry trends.
Master Market Ownership and Defend Against New Entrants: Learn strategies for dominating your market through expertise, community engagement, product mix, location advantages, and retail partnerships to create barriers for new competitors.
Shift the Conversation Around Brewery Growth and Sustainability: Explore how to have honest, productive conversations about industry saturation, encouraging a healthier future for craft beer while keeping the community strong and vibrant.
Kelly Meyer opened his first business at 19 years old. His second at 27 and his third, a small family brewery, at 35. In 2012, the headlines, the chatter and the buzz was all about how the next decade of craft beer was going to be the best ever. But that didn’t seem to happen.
After 7 years of struggling with the brewery, he sat down and made a list of everything he and his wife has done wrong in their business and set about making a plan to fix them. That list became a 55,000 word book titled How NOT to Start A Damn Brewery.
A year later, Kelly started a podcast interviewing other failed operators around the world to draw lines between each their experiences. Now over 80 interviews and 4 years, he’s sharing what he’d learned about why breweries fail. And what you can do to prevent yours from failing.
How to Create A More Efficient Taproom Experience
Moderator: Ron Nelson (Arryved)
Panelists: Brandon Stirewalt (Town Brewing Co.), Dan Callendar (Salty Turtle Beer Co.), Kiel Arrington (Vaulted Oak Brewing Company)
Hear from a panel of experienced taproom managers and brewery owners as they share real-world insights into running smoother, more profitable taprooms. These industry pros will discuss how to streamline operations with smart technology, track key performance metrics to boost efficiency, empower staff with effective tools, and keep inventory and production in sync. This engaging conversation is packed with actionable tips for anyone looking to elevate their taproom experience.
Learning Objectives:
Learn how to streamline service to reduce wait times and create a smoother guest experience.
Discover ways to track and analyze performance metrics that help optimize taproom operations and profitability.
Explore techniques to empower your staff and ensure every shift runs efficiently and effectively.
Brandon Stirewalt is the Director of Operations at Town Brewing Co., bringing extensive experience from various breweries across the Carolinas. A proud North Carolina native, he has deep ties to the state and has lived in Charlotte since attending UNC Charlotte. Brandon’s passion for craft beer goes beyond the beverage itself; he values the community and culture it fosters. Outside of work, he enjoys live music, often with great company. His love for craft beer and the arts reflects his commitment to celebrating the unique experiences and vibrant local culture of North Carolina.
Daniel Callender is a founder and co-owner of Salty Turtle Beer Company in Surf City, established in 2017. He takes on the role of General Manager for the company and heads operations at their new satellite taproom in Raleigh. Originally from San Diego, CA and former United States Marine, he now calls this beautiful state home. Daniel enjoys spending time with his Wife, Son, and cycling around town.
Ron Nelson is the VP of Sales at Arryved, helping provide innovative solutions for the craft beverage industry. With a background in scaling software companies, Ron brings a deep passion for helping craft makers thrive. Drawn to the creativity and connection that define the craft community, he is committed to supporting breweries, taprooms, and beyond with tools that fuel their success. Under his leadership, Arryved continues to champion the unique needs of craft businesses, ensuring they have the technology to serve guests seamlessly and grow sustainably.
Weathering the Storm: Navigating Crisis and Overcoming Unforeseen Challenges
Harmony VanGundy (Blackbird Brewery), Jud Watkins (Wrightsville Beach Brewery), Karis Roberts (former Asheville Brewers Alliance), Leah Wong Ashburn (Highland Brewing)
In the world of craft beer, unexpected challenges, from natural disasters to supply chain breakdowns, can disrupt operations in an instant. This session will explore how breweries have prepared for, responded to, and recovered from crises of all kinds. You’ll hear real-world stories of resilience and walk away with actionable strategies to help your business stay grounded in uncertain times. It’s not a matter of if a crisis will occur, it’s about planning ahead and being as prepared as possible for the unknown.
Learning Objectives:
Understand how to create a flexible crisis management plan tailored to your brewery’s operations and risks
Learn effective communication strategies for internal teams, customers, and your broader community during times of disruption
Identify ways to engage your team and local partners in collaborative, values-driven recovery efforts
Karis Roberts is a philanthropist, educator, and community leader. Originally from Wilmington, NC, she moved to Asheville in 2008 to attend UNCA. Karis taught early education until 2018, dabbled in leathersmith and sewing, and most recently served as Executive Director of the Asheville Brewers Alliance. She holds several part-time roles in Asheville and proudly serves on the boards of Girls on the Run WNC, Catherine McAuley Mercy Foundation, and Mercy Urgent Care. A member of Cothinkk and a Big Sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters WNC, Karis is passionate about giving back and making a lasting difference in her community.
Leah Wong Ashburn is a second-generation family owner, President and CEO of Highland Brewing Company in Asheville, NC. Founded by her father in 1994, Highland is the first legal brewery in Asheville since Prohibition and in the nation’s top six breweries led by women.
Her board service includes the NC Brewers Guild, local chamber, tourism, and community college, and currently, the UNC Board of Visitors.
Recognitions include Woman Executive of the Year from the Asheville Chamber and James Beard Foundation Award semi-finalist.
Open to Innovation: What We Can Learn from Outside the Beer Industry
Moderator: Lisa Parker (NC Craft Brewers Guild)
Panelists: Alvaro Fernandez (Bank of America), Emily Ladd (Charlotte Hornets), Michael Krimmer (Bojangles)
“Creativity is the focused combination of unlikely things. Your mind locks onto a certain element and then searches widely for something unexpected that fits with it. What can scuba diving teach you about agriculture? What can trees teach you about public speaking? There is always some connective tissue between disciplines. If you wish to be more creative, look for the connections between two previously unconnected things.”
That quote, by James Clear from ‘Atomic Habits,’ nails it. If we continuously look to each other as our only source of inspiration, we risk becoming an echo chamber of sameness.
In this conversation, we will hear from guests who do not work in the beer industry. We will learn their stories, hear their challenges, discover similarities, gain outside-the-box ideas, and ask unique questions to inspire you to greater success.
Learning Objectives:
Hear real-world stories and challenges from professionals outside the beer industry, providing practical examples of how overcoming obstacles and applying fresh perspectives can lead to success
Recognize and apply innovative concepts from unrelated fields to the beverage industry.
Break free from conventional thinking patterns by examining how unconventional practices and ideas from other sectors can inspire novel approaches in their work.
Alvaro Fernandez is a Commercial Banking Senior Relationship Manager for the Charlotte market at Bank of America. His responsibilities include leading a team of specialists focused on understanding each client’s unique needs to deliver strategic guidance and financial solutions. Alvaro’s mission is to help local companies thrive and achieve their business goals, no matter how simple or how complex. Bringing eleven years of experience, Alvaro began his banking career at Bank of America, where he has also served as a Small Business Banker. Throughout his banking career, Alvaro has served his business clients holistically to support their growth. Originally from Tampa, Florida, Alvaro graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of South Florida. He resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Emily Ladd is the Senior Director of Game Presentation for the Charlotte Hornets. An Indiana native, she has spent her entire career with the Hornets and is currently in her 18th season. At the helm of Game Presentation, she is tasked with leveraging entertainment assets, production elements, and technology to create an engaging fan experience, help meet revenue goals, and maintain a home court advantage. Career highlights include helping bring the Hornets name back to Charlotte in 2014, and producing several All-Star Weekend events, most recently the 2025 All-Star Game in San Francisco.
A North Carolina native, Lisa Parker has worked with the NC Craft Brewers Guild since 2015. As the current Executive Director, she is a champion for North Carolina’s 410+ independent craft breweries, navigating legislative issues and fostering the state’s continued growth as a national craft beer leader. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Lisa enjoys gardening, walking her dogs, traveling with her family, and of course sampling the State of Southern Beer.
Michael Krimmer is the Director of Culinary Innovation and Menu Strategy at Bojangles. He is a comfort food enthusiast who was raised in the North, but must have been a Southerner in a past life. He has worked every job in foodservice from dishwasher to fine dining chef, but has made a career out of the obscure by applying culinary methods and flavors to large fast food chains, like Wendy’s and Bojangles. He has a passion for making food the best it can be and delivering it to as many people as possible.
Building Beer Destinations: Lessons from Charlotte and Beyond
Moderator: Nils Weldy (Rhode Island Brewers Guild)
Panelists: Adam Glover (Legion Brewing), Allison Soderberg (Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority), Jacob Virgil (NoDa Brewing Company)
Cities like Denver, San Diego, and Portland set the standard as early beer meccas, but today, new waves of strong beer destinations are emerging. A decade ago, CBP didn’t exist and Charlotte wasn’t on most of our radars as a top-notch beer city. This session will spotlight Charlotte’s rise as a top 10 beer city, exploring the key factors that contributed to its growth, from community collaboration to branding and infrastructure.
Panelists will discuss what makes a city thrive as a beer destination, offering actionable insights for breweries, guilds, and city leaders on how to cultivate a vibrant beer culture that attracts visitors, supports local businesses, and strengthens community ties.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the collaborative, branding, and infrastructure strategies behind thriving beer destinations.
Learn actionable steps to attract visitors, support local businesses, and build community.
Apply lessons from Charlotte’s success to enhance both your brewery and your region’s beer culture.
Adam Glover, Brewer at Legion Brewing (Charlotte, NC), has over a decade in the craft beer industry. His experience spans Head Brewer roles at Seaboard Brewing and Natty Greene’s Brewpub, Co-Owner/Brewer at Salud Cerveceria, and brewing positions at Fonta Flora, Appalachian Mountain Brewery, and Natty Greene’s Production Brewery. A consultant for breweries in planning and operation, he also holds a BFA in Graphic Design with a background in furniture retail and branding, including designing the Apprentice logo and Five Guys’ menu board. His favorite beer style is saisons, and he enjoys pairing Sauvignon Blanc with oysters.
As Director of Brand Marketing for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, Allison Soderberg promotes the region as a destination for visitors and locals, a host city for meetings and a site for sporting events. She leads brand marketing and communications across the CRVA, encompassing the Charlotte Convention Center, Bojangles Entertainment Complex, NASCAR Hall of Fame, Spectrum Center, Charlotte Regional Film Commission and Visit Charlotte, in conjunction with the destination marketing brand, ‘Charlotte.’
Prior to the CRVA, Allison held roles with the Washington Nationals, Charlotte Hornets and Live Nation. A graduate of Miami University, Allison and her husband have two daughters.
Before officially joining the craft beer industry in 2021 as the Director of Strategic Development for NoDa Brewing Co., Jacob Virgil had a nearly decade long career leading teams in marketing, operations, and sales for a international media company based out of Charlotte. Since joining NoDa Brewing Co. in ’21, Jacob has had the privelege and responsibility to build on the shoulders of giants to continue growing his family business. He is joined in this mission by Chad Henderson (Head Brewer, Co-Owner), Matt Virgil (Director of Operations, Co-Owner), and a best in class team who care deeply about NoDa and the craft beer industry. Outside of the brewery you’re likely to find Jacob spending time outdoors with his wife, daughter, and dog.
Nils Weldy launched Nils Weldy & Associates (NWA) in 2010 to design and execute experiential events. NWA created the Queen City Brewers Festival, celebrating Charlotte’s craft beverage producers and benefiting community organizations. In 2021, NWA developed “Court Shoes Only”, a beer supporting ACEing Autism programs with participation from 75 Carolinas breweries. Nils served as Executive Director of the Charlotte Independent Brewers Alliance (CIBA) from 2017, which prepared him for his current role as Executive Director of the Rhode Island Brewers Guild. Previously, he worked in sales and marketing for the NHL’s Boston Bruins, NBA’s Boston Celtics, and Charlotte Hornets.
Finding Success in the Transformation Economy
Corey Lord (Lord CPAS)
Experiences are all the buzz in the brewing industry right now, and they should be. But what if providing experiences is only the current phase along the path of providing even more value to guests? Well, this is the case. In order to stay ahead of the game, breweries need to know what is next on the economic offering curve and be ready to adapt to shifting consumer demands. The next frontier for breweries to explore and make a stand is the transformation economy. More and more customers are demanding experiences that not only are enjoyable but also address their personal growth needs and fulfillment in their interactions with businesses, and breweries are no exception.
Breweries are uniquely positioned to provide a transformative experience through education, special events, sustainability practices, being a third space for communities, and much more.
We’ll explore ways breweries can leverage the transformation economy to impact their business and positively track their success and challenges. We’ll also cover different tactics and strategies and how they can influence their financial outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
Identify the different types of economic offerings (goods and services, experiences, and transformations) and how they apply to guests and team alike.
Recognize key opportunities and strategies in the brewing industry to move into the transformation economy.
Gain ways to measure success in the transformation economy.
Corey Lord, CPA, is the CEO of Lord CPAs. Lord CPAs is an accounting, finance, and advisory firm and agency for the craft hospitality industry. We transform craft hospitality businesses into platforms for wealth generation and fulfillment for owners, team, and community alike by being the financial leader that these businesses need.
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Building Strong Brewery Teams and Future Leaders
Panelists: Brittany Waiss (KettleHouse Brewing Co.), Courtney Landry (Urban South Brewery), Jake Keyes (Skydance Brewing)
Moderator: Amy Mast (Craft Leadership)
Your beer is only as strong as the team behind it. Every role in the brewery matters, and success comes from people doing their jobs well while also helping others succeed. In this session, we’ll talk about how to break down walls between departments so everyone is pulling in the same direction. We’ll cover the importance of accountability, setting clear expectations, and giving your staff the tools they need to thrive. You’ll also learn how to recognize future leaders, create opportunities to promote from within, and build a culture that keeps talented people engaged for the long haul.
Learning Objectives:
Balance individual performance with supporting your team
Improve communication and cooperation across roles in the brewery
Build accountability into daily work
Identify and grow future leaders from within your staff
Strengthen retention by setting expectations and keeping people engaged
Amy Mast is an Ohio-based consultant specializing in building high-functioning teams and fostering collaboration within the brewery industry. With a passion for the good-hearted nature of brewery professionals, their entrepreneurial spirit, and their commitment to local communities, Amy brings a unique blend of expertise to enhance brewery operations. She is dedicated to contributing to the success and growth of each brewery by elevating team strengths and exposing and improving blindspots.
Brittany Waiss, ACC, SHRM-SCP, PHR, has embraced being an HR and organizational development nerd. She has a depth of experience across various industries. In 2017, she joined KettleHouse Brewing Co. merging her passion for beer and HR strategy, and following in the footsteps of her grandfather and father as a third generation “beerman.” Brittany has led the charge to develop and optimize HR strategy as the company grows. In addition, she offers leadership coaching and consulting through her company, Expedition Coaching and Consulting. When not practicing HR or talking beer, you can usually find her playing in the mountains.Building Strong Brewery Teams and Future Leaders
Courtney Landry is part owner and the Director of Human Resources at Urban South Brewery, Louisiana’s second largest craft brewery, as well as Perfect Plain Brewery in Pensacola, FL. Between the two cities, Courtney oversees a staff of 90. Prior to joining her husband in the family business, Courtney was a Teach For America corps member, staff member, and public school administrator for more than a decade. She is most proud of bringing a continual focus on staff culture and retention to Urban South and Perfect Plain. She is the mother of 4 children.
Jake Keyes graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism and spent ten years working in tribal gaming before founding Skydance Brewing in 2018. The brewery began in a co-op space and opened its own location in October 2021. In 2023, Keyes was elected Chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma for a three-year term. His recent honors include being named one of Native Business Magazine’s Top 50 Native Entrepreneurs, recognized among the OKC Metro’s Most Influential by 405 Business Magazine, and Skydance being selected as one of Hop Culture Magazine’s Top 12 New Breweries in America in 2021.
Tap Talks: 3 18-minute sessions on critical topics
Ales over Algorithms!
Ross Stensrud (TapWyse)
Thousands of years ago, the taproom gave birth to modern society! Today the taproom is absolutely critical to the future of humankind. In a world riddled with algorithms and artificial intelligence, people need human to human connection now more than at any point in our short history on this planet. How can the taproom co-exist with technology, compete with mega-corps and win with our backs against the wall? Here’s why Craft Beer will come out on top and how to take part in the greatest underdog story ever told.
New NA Opportunities, New Audiences
Dawn Kirchner (Full Circle Brewgarden)
Craft beer, the reason we’re here! It’s our love and the foundation of our businesses. But how can we adapt to changing trends without sacrificing the passion that brought us to the industry? Find out how to expand your menus, minus the alcohol, to include new tastes, preferences, and dietary restrictions, and perhaps gain a few new fans in the process.
Lovin’ on Local: Keeping Consumers Close
Kate Conway (Pickett Brewing)
This Tap Talk will use Maryland as a case study for emphasizing the choice and impact of drinking local products in restaurants, bottle shops, events and beyond. Key takeaways will include data points that support choosing local products, possibilities for funding to grow initiatives that promote local craft and working with state guilds to strengthen the power of this message.
Taproom Revenue Lab: New Models Beyond Pint Sales
Panelists: Cory Smith (Twin Oast Brewing), Leah Jensen (Parleaux Beer Lab), Tom Paynter (No Label Brewing Co.)
A few years ago, it was arguably just about the beer. Today, taprooms have grown into something much bigger: restaurants, community gathering spaces, event venues, and producers of far more than one product. The breweries seeing real stability aren’t relying on one revenue source, they’re stacking them. From memberships and mug clubs to run clubs, collabs, sold out merch programs, and taproom experiences that create true regulars, these operators have turned ideas into repeatable revenue they can count on. This panel digs into the systems behind those wins including how they structure offers, price them, and decide what’s worth continuing. If you’re looking to build a stronger business model and get more out of the relationships you’re already creating, this panel will give you real examples, fresh ideas, and approaches you can test the moment you get home.
Learning Objectives:
Learn how to identify and test new revenue ideas without overextending your team or drifting from your core taproom experience.
Understand how successful breweries price, package, and promote programs like memberships, events, partnerships, and limited releases so they generate repeatable results.
Walk away with a simple framework to measure performance and decide which revenue streams should scale, which need refining, and which aren’t worth continuing.
Cory Smith is a Co-Founder of Twin Oast Brewing, located on Catawba Island, Ohio. What began as a small dream on his family’s 60-acre farm has grown into a destination brewery known for great beer, beautiful views, and authentic experiences. Cory brings a mix of creativity and practicality to his work, always focused on crafting memorable moments that keep guests coming back.
Leah Jensen is the Founder & Owner of Parleaux Beer Lab, a small neighborhood-based brewery & taproom in Bywater New Orleans, overseeing the taproom and business aspects. Parleaux’s ethos is equal parts quality, innovative beer program and customer experience, creating a welcoming space for all to gather and exchange social capital. Leah previously had a 15 year career in public health, and serves as past vice-president and board member of the Louisiana Craft Brewers Guild. She’s lived in New Orleans for 20+ years, and when not in the brewery their family enjoys the rich and vibrant culture on NOLA streets.
Tom Paynter is the co-owner and marketing director of No Label Brewing Co. in Katy, Texas, where he has helped redefine what a taproom can be. A former co-host of ESPN’s Drink of Ages radio show, Tom brings storytelling and culture to the forefront of craft beer. Under his leadership, No Label earned back-to-back Platinum Craft Beer Marketing Awards in 2024 and 2025 for Coolest Taproom. Through mug clubs, run clubs, high-demand merchandise programs, and deep community partnerships—all anchored by marketing moments that drive traffic, such as the statewide Month of Murkey beer collaboration. He speaks on taproom strategy and modern revenue models.
Multiculturalism on Tap: New Orleans as a Model for Community Engagement
Angi Thomas (Being Black in Craft), Ari Ballard (Collective Vibration), Jon Renthrope (Cajun Fire Brewing Company), Shalanda Jackson (Urban South Brewery)
This panel will explore the vibrant cultural tapestry of New Orleans and how it serves as a visionary blueprint for impactful community engagement in the craft brewing industry. Led by the Being Black in Craft’s Angi Thomas, and local cultural ambassadors from Cajun Fire Brewing Company, Bywater Brew Pub, and the New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund, this conversation will delve into the essence of culture, the vital distinctions between cultural appreciation and appropriation, and the profound ways to genuinely connect with diverse communities. This session will illuminate the power of culturally aware marketing, inclusive event planning, and community outreach as essential tools for fostering deep and meaningful relationships within local neighborhoods.
Learning Objectives
Engagement Strategies: Ignite creativity by developing and implementing authentic engagement strategies with diverse cultures, creating meaningful partnerships with local artists and community leaders, and incorporating community feedback sessions to ensure initiatives resonate passionately with local populations.
Celebrate Diversity through Events: Inspire unity by organizing inclusive events that honor the rich tapestry of cultures in New Orleans, focusing on fermentation as a powerful theme. Consider planning culturally themed beer releases or hosting events that spotlight local traditions and culinary practices.
Community Involvement: Harness the spirit of goodwill by leveraging business resources to nurture community relations through volunteering, sharing space for community events, or sponsoring local cultural celebrations. This not only enhances brand visibility but positions the brewery as a supportive neighbor, actively invested in the vibrancy and welfare of the community.
A proud Dallas native, Angi Thomas brings over 11 years of experience as a Brand Ambassador and a passionate advocate for diversity in craft beer. As Moderator of Being Black in Craft, Angi amplifies voices and fosters conversations that celebrate inclusion. She has served as Co-chair for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) with the Pink Boots Society, where she also holds the national role of Communications Director. In addition, she contributes to industry growth and representation as Social Curator for Lifting Lucy. Her work reflects a dedication to building community, elevating equity, and shaping a more inclusive craft culture.
Ari Ballard is a hospitality professional and Certified Distiller based in New Orleans, LA. After completing the Turning Tables NOLA program, she shifted her focus to distillation, supported by a scholarship from the Michael James Jackson Foundation. Driven by a commitment to community empowerment and continued learning, Ari launched Collective Vibration—a business that champions hospitality professionals through education and curated events, while also supporting producers such as farmers and suppliers.
Jon Renthrope, a beverage manufacturer, exporter, and brewmaster (Beer expert) by trade profession. Renthrope is an entrepreneur, native to New Orleans, majority of businesses are headquartered in Louisiana, and is a tribal member of the United Houma Nation. Renthrope serves on the Louisiana District Export Council that he was appointed to by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the New Orleans Regional Business Park, 100 Black Men of Metro New Orleans, and is President of the National Black Brewers Association. Renthrope is also recognized as a cultural ambassador of the historic Treme neighborhood. He is the founder and CEO of his family owned beer brand Cajun Fire Brewing Company. Historically, the company is federally recognized as the first Native American owned beer brand in U.S. history, the first Black American owned beer brand in the U.S. South history, and internationally the second longest continuously operating Black owned beer brand in the world (13th year of operation). My company is even featured in the Smithsonian Museum of D.C. The company’s most awarded beverage is the flagship Honey Ale that is distributed in more than 300+ retail locations. Renthrope also has site control of the largest privately owned commercial development in Eastern New Orleans, the New Orlean East Cultural Hub that will serve as a 14 acreage food/beverage manufacturing campus and distribution hub. Notably Renthrope is one of the first Black American to sell his alcohol products to the countries of Japan, Spain, Canada, and Peru. Renthrope’s efforts have attracted the #1 Beer Festival in America, Barrel & Flow Fest, to host an inaugural sister city version in New Orlean April 17-19th 2026 dubbed Barrels on the Bayou. It is estimated the festival will attract 2,000 attendees and contribute to more than half a million dollars in revenues for the City of New Orleans and small businesses in the community.
Shalanda Jackon is a brewer who is originally from New Jersey. She started her brewing career in 2019 at a brewpub in Princeton NJ after her career change from a K 8 music teacher. In her brewing career she started out as an apprentice, worked her way to become an assistant brewer and is now on a brewing team at Urban South in New Orleans LA. She has her bachelor’s degree in music education from Westminster Choir College which is a performing arts conservatory in Princeton NJ and is a certified teacher for K 12 in New Jersey.
She is a Michael James Jackson Foundation recipient which funded her two brewing science certifications. Those certifications are from Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago IL and from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia PA.
Since moving to New Orleans in 2023, Shalanda has joined four different dance and social groups. These groups are Nola Chorus Girls, WoW (Woman of Wakanda), The Nola Lolas and TAP Dat. You may find her dancing and participating in parades quite often due to the variety of her memberships.
Shalanda is also a part of PBS, Pink Boots Society, which is a society that aims to assist, inspire and encourage women and non binary individuals in the fermented and alcoholic beverage industry to advance their careers through education. She is a part of NB2A, the National Black Brewers Association, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a more inclusive and vibrant beer industry by providing Black brewers access to the resources, mentorships and networks needed to thrive.
She has most recently participated in the Yakima hop selection in Yakima Valley Washington in September 2025 and taught the Yeast and Fermentation class for Turning Tables which is a bar training program.
Crafting the Big Picture: Building Impactful Marketing
In today’s crowded beer market, quick promotions and one-off campaigns only take you so far. If you want to grow in a meaningful way, you need more than just social posts and special releases. Long-term success comes from knowing who you are, what you stand for, and how to share that in a way that connects with the right people.
This session is a chance to take a step back from the daily hustle and think bigger about your marketing strategy. We’ll walk through practical ways to define what makes your brand stand out, create a plan that’s actually useful, and make smarter decisions about where you’re putting your time and money. It’s about doing less guessing and more building with intention.
Learning Objectives:
Learn how to define what sets your brand apart and build a marketing foundation that supports long-term growth.
Gain tools to evaluate your current efforts, spot missed opportunities, and make smarter, more strategic marketing decisions.
Walk away with a clear, practical framework to align your brand, goals, and team so that your marketing actually drives results.
Warren Bondi is a digital marketer, brand strategist, beverage sales guy, and father of three—all before turning 30. Talk about an overachiever. After dabbling in distribution and surviving the chaos of agency life, Warren realized he was after something more. He’s still figuring out exactly what that is, but co-founding Beer Marketeers with one of his best friends and opening his own brewpub, Wood Foot Beer Co., feels like the right path.
When he’s not obsessing over strategy or dropping buzzwords like “Nielsen data,” you’ll find him mastering the art of fire-cooked cuisine on his outrageously expensive Breeo fire pit. Picture a dad-sized audition for Chef’s Table: Over The Fire Cooking—while three kids launch a coordinated attack from all sides.
Don’t be fooled by the chaos. Warren thrives in it. He’s the chaos whisperer, the strategy guy with a plan—except when his wife leaves him alone with the kids. Then it’s all survival mode.
With a sprinkle of dad jokes, a dash of marketing expertise, and an obsession with craft beverages, Warren is here to shake up the beverage industry one well-targeted campaign at a time.
Surviving Seasonality: How Smart Taprooms Beat the Slow Months
Panelists: Abby Leonard (Parish Brewing Co.), Bobbi Keyes (Skydance Brewing), Heidi Guerra (Abita Brewing)
Moderator: Dan Watson (Arryved)
The holidays are finally behind you. The gift card promos ran, mug club renewals came through, and now the taproom is quiet. Welcome to Q1. This panel explores what every brewery is thinking: how to keep things moving when guest traffic slows to a crawl. You’ll hear from experienced operators who have figured out how to turn gift card redemptions into foot traffic, build out smart programming in January and February, and keep guests engaged with seasonal menus and beer releases. We’ll also dig into how you can use this downtime to dial in staffing, inventory, and training, and get creative with campaigns like Dry January alternatives, winter events, and loyalty perks built for the slow season.
Learning Objectives:
Understand how to strategically leverage holiday gift cards, memberships, and seasonal offers to boost Q1 visits and spending.
Discover effective off-season programming and marketing tactics to drive guest engagement during historically slow months.
Learn how to use winter downtime, or slower seasons, to strengthen operations—from staffing and training to inventory management and event planning.
Abby Leonard is an inside sales manager at Parish Brewing Company, where her passion for business and craft beer come together. With a strong focus on building relationships and driving growth, Abby plays a key role in connecting the brewery’s exceptional products with partners and customers across the region. Her dedication to quality, communication, and collaboration reflects Parish’s commitment to excellence and innovation in craft brewing.
Bobbi Keyes is the Director of Operations at Skydance Brewing Company, Oklahoma’s first Native American-owned craft brewery in Oklahoma City. She’s been with Skydance since day one, helping shape the brewery’s growth and the heart of its taproom experience. With over 20 years in customer service, Bobbi’s passion is creating spaces where people feel welcome, connected, and part of something bigger. Whether it’s a pint, a plate, or a friendly smile, Bobbi’s mission is to make every guest feel at home and part of the Skydance story. For her, a great taproom is more than great beer; It’s about the memories made, the community built, and the good times shared around the table.
Dan Watson is an Account Executive at Arryved, a leading provider of software solutions for craft beverage makers. With over 14 years in the industry, Dan spent nine years working at breweries including Echo Brewing Company, Renegade Brewing Company, and Good River Beer, where he held roles ranging from bartender to sales and operations. Based in Leadville, Colorado, Dan particularly loves Belgian styles of beer and is also passionate about snowboarding, fly fishing, his wife and dog, flannel/plaid shirts and has a mustache. He is pretty much the stereotype of the craft beer/tech/outdoorsy broski you’d expect to meet in Colorado.
Navigating A Changing Beverage Landscape: A SWOT Analysis
Pulkit K. Agrawal (Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient)
This interactive session is broken into three parts: a short presentation, group work, and open discussion. Attendees will split into five groups based on their primary role at the brewery—owner, production, sales, taproom, or marketing. If someone wears multiple hats, they’ll choose the group that fits best.
Each group will work through a SWOT exercise, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for their area of the business in today’s evolving beverage landscape. After brainstorming, we’ll come back together to share insights and explore potential solutions. Everyone will leave with a personal game plan: one item from each quadrant to act on—lean into strengths, improve a weakness, pursue an opportunity, and address a major threat. We’ll also encourage cross-department sharing to bring fresh ideas back to the team.
Learning Objectives:
Identify key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within your role at the brewery.
Collaborate with peers to explore solutions and actionable next steps.
Create a focused plan with one takeaway from each SWOT category to bring back to your team.
Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA worked as a Process Engineer at Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer. In December 2022, PKA was selected to the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and entrepreneurship coaching.
Open to Innovation: What We Can Learn from Outside the Beer Industry
Moderator: Jacob Landry (Urban South Brewery)
Panelists: Christa Cotton (El Guapo Bitters), Drew Ramsey (Hubig’s Pies), Howie Kaplan (Howlin’ Wolf Music Club), Mark Romig (New Orleans Saints/New Orleans & Company)
“Creativity is the focused combination of unlikely things. Your mind locks onto a certain element and then searches widely for something unexpected that fits with it. What can scuba diving teach you about agriculture? What can trees teach you about public speaking? There is always some connective tissue between disciplines. If you wish to be more creative, look for the connections between two previously unconnected things.”
That quote, by James Clear from ‘Atomic Habits,’ nails it. If we continuously look to each other as our only source of inspiration, we risk becoming an echo chamber of sameness.
In this conversation, we will hear from guests who do not work in the beer industry. We will learn their stories, hear their challenges, discover similarities, gain outside-the-box ideas, and ask unique questions to inspire you to greater success.
Learning Objectives:
Hear real-world stories and challenges from professionals outside the beer industry, providing practical examples of how overcoming obstacles and applying fresh perspectives can lead to success
Recognize and apply innovative concepts from unrelated fields to the beverage industry.
Break free from conventional thinking patterns by examining how unconventional practices and ideas from other sectors can inspire novel approaches in their work.
A Georgia native, Christa Cotton moved to New Orleans after helping her parents establish Georgia’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. Christa is passionate about all things Southern, from cocktails and entertaining to the strong farming traditions and community essential to Southern culture. Christa became the CEO of El Guapo in 2017. As a certified sommelier, she sources the finest raw ingredients for her bitters, syrups, and mixers and is dedicated to sustainability—using only recycled materials for the labels, glass packaging, and supporting local farmers. When she’s not being a full-time mom or at the office, she also serves on the board of Glass Half Full, a New Orleans non-profit focused on glass recycling. Christa is the recipient of the 2025 Tory Burch Foundation Founder Award as well as Wine Enthusiast’s 2025 Future 40 Tastemaker.
Drew Ramsey is the third generation of his family to own and operate Hubig’s Pies, a beloved New Orleans institution. Famous for their individually wrapped, glazed hand pies, Hubig’s has been a local favorite since 1921. The path hasn’t been without challenges—after a devastating fire destroyed the factory in 2012, Drew’s tenacity resulted in a complete rebuild and a triumphant reopening in 2022. Today, Hubig’s Pies are once again delighting customers in local stores and via Hubigs.com. Beyond the bakery, Drew loves supporting local restaurants, canoeing, playing poker, and spending time with his wife, their teenage daughters, and friends.
Howie Kaplan was the founding Director of the Office of Nighttime Economy for the greatest city in the world, and the birthplace of modern music, New Orleans. Since 2000 he has been the owner and operator of the multi room venue, the Howlin’ Wolf. For over 19 years he has been the manager of the Grammy Award Winning Rebirth Brass Band.
Howie is also a precinct captain for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) that was responsible for the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) and was crucial in saving independent venues, movie theatres, Broadway, Performing Arts Centers and non- profits that were devastated through the pandemic closures.
At the beginning of the covid shutdowns he started Meals for Musicians. This program, in conjunction with the New Orleans Musicians Clinic was responsible for distributing over 60,000 meals and assisting culture bearers and first responders in accessing health care, housing assistance and unemployment payments. Mr. Kaplan also received the SBA Phoenix award for his efforts after Hurricane Ida severed all power to the city. Working with supplies donated from over 100 restaurants and hundreds of volunteers, they created over 20,000 meals in eight days in a makeshift street kitchen.
A native New Orleanian, Mark Romig is Senior Advisor for The Ehrhardt Group, the Gulf South’s leading public relations firm, and New Orleans & Company, New Orleans’ travel industry’s marketing, sales and promotion organization. He also serves as Honorary Consul in Louisiana for the Kingdom of Thailand.
In 2013 Mark became the Stadium Announcer for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, succeeding his father, Jerry (who served in the same role for 446 consecutive Saints home games over 44 years). In addition, Mark is a member of the Board of Directors of Fidelity Bank(NASDAQ: FBLA).
Active in his community, Mark is Vice-Chair of the Board for the Emeril Lagasse Foundation, Chair of the Board of Trustees for WYES-TV, Chair of the Board of Fore!Kids Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of Methodist Health System Foundation and YouthForce NOLA. He recently completed a fifteen-year term of service at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Travel and Tourism Advisory Council. In addition, he serves as an advisor to the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation and St. Andrew’s Village.
Don’t Do That! HR Mistakes That Can Tank Your Brewery
Jon Hyman (Wickens Herzer Panza)
Too many breweries are one bad decision away from a costly legal disaster. In this interactive session, employment and craft beer attorney Jon Hyman will dive into the most common HR mistakes that violate the law and put your brewery at risk. From misclassifying employees as exempt or independent contractors, to botching terminations, ignoring harassment complaints, and denying medical accommodation requests—these aren’t just bad practices, they’re lawsuits waiting to happen. With real-world examples and brewery-specific insight, you’ll learn how to spot legal landmines, tighten your compliance, and protect your business before the government or a plaintiff’s lawyer comes knocking.
Learning Objectives:
Identify common HR and employment law violations specific to the craft brewing industry, including wage and hour issues, worker misclassification, and unlawful termination practices.
Understand the legal obligations breweries face under employment laws, and how failing to meet them can lead to government investigations or costly litigation.
Apply practical, brewery-specific strategies to improve compliance, reduce legal risk, and create defensible documentation for hiring, discipline, and terminations.
Jon Hyman is a shareholder at Wickens Herzer Panza, a full-service business law firm in Avon, Ohio, where he chairs both the firm’s Employment & Labor and Craft Beer practice groups. As outside general counsel to breweries and other small and mid-sized businesses, Jon understands the unique challenges craft brewers face: managing people, protecting culture, and staying compliant in a highly regulated industry. A nationally recognized employment lawyer, he’s known for delivering practical, plain-English legal advice that business owners can actually use.
Jon also has a deep passion for the craft beer community—often found speaking at industry events or checking out new breweries in and around Northeast Ohio and wherever his travels take him. He helps breweries build strong, engaged teams, because better culture brews better beer.
Derek Smith (Small Batch Standard)
Brewery Profit Makeovers: What Worked, What Didn’t, and Why
If you own or operate an established brewery, and want to increase profit this year, this session shows exactly how. Drawing from 15 years of financial insight across 285+ U.S. craft breweries, we’ll break down three common paths to increase profit by $100k/year or more using adapted examples from real-world scenarios:
We’ll work through the step-by-step process together for each scenario to find profit opportunities, build a +$100k/year profit strategy, and create an action plan the brewery team can execute without hiring, buying equipment, or spending more. No matter where your business is today, there’s always a path to more profit. Our goal is to help you find it.
Learning Objectives:
Learn how to leverage price, margin, and labor ratios in the taproom to unlock way more value from the same exact beer, food, and foot traffic you have today.
Understand how to guarantee your wholesale beer makes money using a margin-first portfolio approach.
Uncover the powerful profit impact expanding your events can have on the bottom line, using your current team, space, and customer base.
Walk away with strategies, templates, and examples to find profit within your brewery, take action, and see meaningful progress in as little as a week.
DEREK SMITH is the Brewery Consulting Manager at Small Batch Standard, the premier financial agency built to serve the craft industry. In this role, Derek works with breweries to increase profits through a better understanding of their financials. When he’s not building financial analysis tools and benchmarks, Derek can be found exploring the mountains around his home in Salt Lake City or experiencing the growing beer scene in its young market.
In a beer industry facing rising costs, shifting consumer habits, and increased competition for attention, taproom events can no longer exist just to “fill a Monday night.” This talk is for craft brewery owners, managers, and staff who want their events to drive real engagement and revenue, not fade into the background.
We’ll start by looking at how today’s economic realities are impacting foot traffic and guest behavior, followed by an honest assessment of common go-to events like trivia, open mics, and live music, and why they often struggle to differentiate or deliver meaningful returns.
From there, we’ll explore real-world examples of creative, purpose-driven taproom events that actually stand out, including hyper-local collaborations, experiential programming, and events rooted in storytelling, education, and community. You’ll walk away with practical frameworks for evaluating ideas and building events that are scalable, repeatable, and aligned with your brand.
We’ll wrap with an interactive discussion focused on your challenges and how to turn inspiration into next steps.
Chris came to the world of craft beer after spending nearly 2 decades in corporate sales management and training. Since making the leap, he has combined that rich experience with a genuine love for this industry. After spending years in General Manager positions for multiple craft breweries, Chris built and opened Nine Spot Brewing in 2022. He currently hosts a popular NY State craft-focused social media channel called the New York Minute, in which he travels the state to find unique stories, and heads a consulting organization called Horse 2 Water that focuses on affordable, actionable plans for successful taproom management.
Your Story Matters: Preserve It, Share It, Use It w/Tim Hohl (The Narrative Studio)
Think about your brewery’s story — not the polished version on your website, but the real one. The batch that went sideways at 2 AM. The regular who talked you off a ledge during COVID. The moment you knew this crazy idea might actually work. Those stories? They’re probably still just living in someone’s head.
And here’s the thing: memories fade. People move on. If we don’t capture these moments, they disappear — and with them, pieces of what makes your brewery special.
I want to show you how to preserve your story in ways that actually feel doable. We’ll talk about sitting down with your founder or longtime bartender and just listening. Digging through old photos and tap lists. Figuring out which moments matter most before they slip away. And then — this is the important part — how to organize it all so it’s not just shoved in a box somewhere.
Because your history isn’t just sentimental. Breweries that know their story build stronger brands. Staff who understand where you came from stick around longer. Customers feel the difference when there’s real depth behind what you’re pouring.
Whether you’ve been open six months or sixteen years, you have a story worth telling. This session will give you the prompts, the simple tools, and the encouragement to start capturing it now — then actually use it to strengthen your team, your brand, and your connection to the people who keep coming back.
Let’s make sure your story doesn’t get lost.
Tim is a career storyteller: first as a broadcast journalist and news anchor in Seattle and Portland, then as founder of Coin Toss Brewing in Oregon City. After nearly a decade of building a brewery rooted deeply in local history, Tim sold the business in 2024. Today, through The Narrative Studio, he helps breweries, nonprofits, & businesses preserve their origin stories through oral histories, narrative documentation, and creative storytelling. He is also a contributor to the Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives at Oregon State University.
Your Ideal Brewery Distribution Partner: How to Identify a Great Fit (Panel Conversation)
Considering distribution? In the market for a distributor in a new territory? Or maybe simply trying to figure out what’s missing in your current distribution equation? Join us to discuss both the most important traits of a great distribution partner and some warning signs to watch out for when you’re shopping & interviewing. Plus, learn more about evaluating portfolios, market position, sales teams, & personality to determine whether a terrific distributor is really the right fit for you & your brand.
Your discussion panel includes:
Chris Black (Founder & King of the iconic Falling Rock Tap House in Denver, CO)
Bill Wetmore (Sales & Marketing Director and Head of Beer Strategery for Fat Head’s Brewery)
John Anthony (Sales & Distribution Manager for Goat Patch Brewing Co. & Pike’s Peak Brewing Co.)
Moderator: Laura Lodge (Author of Distribution Insight for the Craft Brewer, Co-Founder of Start A Brewery, and Owner/ Strategic Business Consultant at Customized Craft Beer Programs)
Despite their best efforts, most Owners, GMs, and Taproom Managers leave money on the table because their taprooms operate below their true potential. In this session, we break down 12 proven tactics the most profitable taprooms use to generate 2x-5x more profit than their peers.
We’ll walk through the 4 pillars of successful taprooms, outlining specific tactics and performance benchmarks, drawn from our work with 285+ U.S. craft breweries over the past 15 years. These tactics span pricing, product, margin, labor, events, merchandise, marketing, management, training, and customer service. So whether you just opened a new location, or want to fine-tune a long-standing operation, you’ll walk away with actionable steps you can use to make your taproom a consistent profit generator for your brewery.
Julia Grubbs, CPA is a Brewery Consultant with Small Batch Standard, who has also previously held positions in accounting, tax, and compliance over her 4 years with the agency. Originally from Kentucky, she’s about as far from a one-dimensional bean counter as you can get, as a professional dancer and CPA living in New York City. Her love for small businesses and the relationships they enable combined with her uncanny knowledge of numbers led her to advising the brewing industry, acting as a trusted, specialized advisor for SBS’ wide range of clients across the country. She has had the pleasure of presenting at a variety of craft brewery conferences around the nation in Georgia, New York, Iowa, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
ESOP as a Succession Plan w/Alan Kandel (Husch Blackwell LLP)
An ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) can be the right succession strategy for a craft brewer. This presentation will offer a detailed look at how an ESOP can enable an owner to receive fair value for transferring ownership while preserving the unique culture and legacy of the business even after the founder steps back. We will demystify the structure and legal aspects of an ESOP, making a complex process more approachable. Attendees will learn about the significant tax advantages both for selling owners and for a craft brewery after becoming ESOP-owned, and how an ESOP enables workers to become owners. The presentation will also provide practical guidance to assess whether an ESOP is feasible for a craft brewer.
Alan is a partner in the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation group at Husch Blackwell LLP. His practice encompasses the gamut of employee benefits law, with a particular focus on ESOP transactions and compliance. Many lawyers play golf. Instead, Alan plays squash and tennis, which provide him with a frequent reminder to keep his day job.
How AI and Technologies Can Drive Brewery Growth, Efficiency, & Strategic Advantage w/Timothy Croushore + Waqqas Mahmood (CBIZ)
The craft beer industry is more competitive than ever. Rising costs, shifting consumer preferences, and complex supply chains require brewers to think beyond traditional methods of growth and efficiency. Advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, and smart automation are no longer reserved for big corporations – they are increasingly accessible to breweries of all sizes.
This session will demystify these tools and show how craft breweries can practically apply them to improve operations, enhance customer engagement, and gain measurable return on investment (ROI). Understand key factors from a valuation perspective, where and how to expand and grow. Attendees will walk away with actionable strategies and real-world examples of how AI can help with demand forecasting, quality control, inventory management, and even personalized marketing – unlocking new levels of competitiveness and sustainability in today’s crowded marketplace.
Waqqas Mahmood is a senior director at CBIZ. He has been in the innovation space for almost two decades, helping organizations architect their digital future. Waqqas believes in creating a culture of innovation that nurtures new technologies and media that promote powerful and engaging solutions. He has a strong background in digital product management, human-centered design, and business transformation.
Timothy Croushore has more than 39 years of valuation consulting experience. Prior to joining CBIZ, he held partner and managing director positions with “Big Four” and other national accounting and consulting firms in the valuation space. He has served in service-line leadership roles in various industries including sports, leisure and entertainment, restaurant and retail, consumer business, technology and private equity/hedge funds.
Brewery Collaboration Structures: What Works & Why w/Kevin McGee (The Law Office of Kevin McGee)
Recent years have seen dramatic growth in brewery collaboration structures ranging from simple contract brewing to regional platforms consolidating brands under shared infrastructure. These models offer craft breweries access to professional capabilities, competitive scale, and optimized capacity utilization while maintaining independence – but only if you choose the right structure for your specific challenges.
This session examines the major collaboration models available to craft breweries and provides a practical framework for evaluating which approach fits your situation. Drawing on 30 years of practicing law and over two decades of direct operational experience running and restructuring businesses across the alcoholic beverage industry, we’ll discuss when collaboration makes sense and what makes them succeed.
We’ll cover production partnerships (contract brewing and alternating proprietorship), shared infrastructure models (co-location facilities and cooperatives), ownership structures (platforms, joint ventures, and M&A), and industry alliances (purchasing cooperatives and distribution coordination). For each structure, you’ll understand how it works, when it makes sense, and what the regulatory and financial implications are.
More importantly, you’ll leave with a decision framework addressing: capacity constraints and production solutions, overhead reduction without sacrificing brand control, when professional infrastructure justifies integration, regulatory compliance requirements across different structures, and exit strategy planning before problems arise.
Whether you’re exploring your first collaboration or evaluating platform acquisition, this session provides the analytical tools to match structure to strategy and the context to set yourself up for success.
Kevin McGee is a California-based attorney and a graduate of the Executive Program at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In addition to his extensive legal practice, he has served in executive roles across private equity, finance, and consumer brands, and has led companies through mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, aggressive growth and has advised on over $2.5b in transactions. His unique blend of legal and operational experience allows him to deliver practical, results-oriented counsel that combines legal precision with business pragmatism to arrive at solutions that empower his clients. Kevin works with companies at all stages of development, private equity firms, investment banks, family offices, and individual entrepreneurs.
Adding Spirits to Your Brewery w/Donald Snyder (The Mallet Spirits)
Join Donald Snyder, a 20+ year spirit industry leader, as he discusses the many opportunities and challenges that brewers will face when adding spirits to their brewery operations. Adding a spirits program to a brewery is never a one-size fits all. From space constraints to unique state laws, every spirits journey will be different. Donald will walk through the federal licensing steps, TTB monthly reporting requirements, equipment considerations, packaging options, the current spirits sourcing market, a well-rounded spirits portfolio (from cocktails to spirits based RTDs to off-premise bottle sales), and even review an example Profit and Loss Business Model for different spirit types. Revenue diversification for brewers will becoming more and more critical and adding a spirits program could be a great way to bring in new customers.
Donald Snyder, distilling industry consultant and previous President/Founder of Whiskey Systems Distillery Management Software, has 20+ years in the alcohol and beverage industry including holding senior management roles at the Buffalo Trace Distillery and MGPI of Indiana (formerly the Seagram’s Distillery). Donald now helps distilleries of all sizes with licensing, internal audits and TTB compliance checks, spirit sourcing, aged whiskey barrel brokering, packaging supply chain management, equipment and vendor selection, business valuations, merger & acquisition support, team training and development, software utilization, and many other areas to drive profitability. Donald is now bringing his spirits experience to the brewing world to help brewers unlock potential revenue to help them offer high quality spirits in their taproom to the meet an ever-changing customer palate.
Is DtC Right for Me? Understanding the Risks and Rewards of Shipping Beer w/Alex Koral (Sovos ShipCompliant)
For brewers looking to grow their market, the prospect of the direct-to-consumer (DtC) shipping channel—and the potential to sell to consumers across the country that it brings—can be tantalizing. Indeed, a brewer with a successful DtC shipping program can reap benefits beyond simple remote sales, including eliciting distributor attention for three-tier sales. But as a complicated market, with numerous logistical and regulatory hurdles to overcome, DtC shipping is still not for everyone.
Hear Alex Koral, regulatory general counsel at Sovos ShipCompliant, talk about the ins and outs of DtC shipping, including how to build your DtC presence, how to manage the compliance requirements, what logistics services you will need to ship, and how we can grow the DtC market further so that more consumers and breweries can benefit from this still limited but growing market.
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alex Koral is Regulatory General Counsel for Sovos ShipCompliant, where he serves as lead legal researcher for beverage alcohol regulation and has become a leading expert on interstate distribution of alcohol. He has spoken on the topic at many industry events including Craft Beer Professionals Virtual Conferences, Craft Brewers Conference, American Craft Spirits Association Convention, as well as meetings for the National Council of State Liquor Administrators and the National Liquor Law Enforcement Association. Alex has been in the beverage alcohol arena since 2015, after receiving his J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School.
Dealing With Seasonality (panel conversation)
Seasonality hits every brewery differently. A beach town in July looks nothing like a mountain town in February. In this panel, we are bringing together breweries from very different markets to talk about how they plan for the swings, manage staffing and inventory, adjust events and marketing, and keep revenue steady when foot traffic shifts. This conversation will include real examples of what has worked, what has not, and how they think about cash flow, community, and long term sustainability when the busy season ends and the quiet season begins.
This conversation features:
Cory Smith (Twin Oast Brewing)
Daniel Callender (Salty Turtle Beer)
Jenna Brown (South Lake Brewing Company)
It’s Okay To Not Be Okay: Mental Health at Breweries w/David Nilsen (Freelance Beer Writer)
Craft beer is all about friendship and fun, and that can ironically make it harder for folks who are dealing with anxiety, depression, or suicidality to open up about their struggles. Because craft beer is in the business of selling a good time, the industry can be resistant to acknowledging that some of its members are struggling. Some of beer’s favorite spaces and events, such as taprooms and festivals, can be uniquely aggravating to individuals dealing with anxiety in particular.
In this talk, journalist David Nilsen will talk about how the industry can better support its workers who are struggling and provide mentally safer spaces for customers and employees alike.
AI Beyond the Caption: Scaling Taproom Voice with Intent w/Madeline McMahon (Madeline Fleehart Consulting, LLC)
In an industry built on authenticity and community connection, most teams resist AI because they worry it will dilute the brand’s voice or sound generic. Used strategically, AI can protect creative energy, support consistency, and make marketing more sustainable without replacing personality.
This session explores how breweries can use AI as a calibration tool that supports brand tone, improves operational communication, and helps repurpose existing conversations and knowledge into usable marketing and training material. We will walk through how AI can bridge the gap between operations and marketing, support seasonal storytelling, accelerate employee onboarding, and create content frameworks that still feel like the people behind the beer.
The session includes a live example build showing how to turn raw ideas or taproom dialogue into platform ready content while keeping voice intact. No technical background required. The focus is on structure and intention rather than automation.
Participants will leave with prompt techniques, best practices for brand consistency, and methods for using AI without outsourcing identity.
AI should not replace your voice. It should protect it so you have the energy to keep using it.
Madeline McMahon is a fractional marketing strategist and founder of Madeline Fleehart Consulting specializing in sustainable visibility for small teams in the food and beverage sector. Their background includes organic storytelling, CRM architecture, and process design with a focus on strengthening consistency without adding complexity. Madeline has led AI education sessions for the Virginia Brewers Conference, Pink Boots Society, SCORE, and regional startups with an emphasis on practical use of AI by non technical teams. Their approach integrates narrative thinking with light touch tools to improve alignment across operations and marketing. They believe successful brewery marketing is intentional, repeatable, and grounded in lived brand experience rather than produced through automation.
Taproom Marketing 101: Life After Social Media w/Ross Stensrud (TapWyse)
It’s hard out there for a brewery. With follower reach at an all time low and Meta no longer recommending alcohol pages, we need to flip the script. We need profitable & owned channel marketing programs!
Bring your scalpel and your bunsen burner. In this session we will dissect the most profitable App Marketing programs. We will look at proven ways to drive repeat visits, real life tactics to sell through aging beer more quickly and how to stack recurring monthly revenue for the slower times.
No “pie-in-the-sky” or fluffy marketing ideas allowed. Just real-world examples, numbers & best practices. So you can skip the guesswork and start implementing proven programs right away.
This session is for micro to mid-size brewery owners, GMs, marketing managers and head janitors (because let’s face it, you do all these jobs anyways). Whether your goal is to grow weekday traffic, launch a paid membership, or turn first-time guests into lifelong fans, you’ll leave with a clear action plan tailored to your brewery.
Ross Stensrud accidentally graduated from UCSD while studying lacrosse and spending plenty of time at O’Brien’s. After a brief stint designing pool cleaners (yes, really) in an effort to justify the cost of his degree, he pivoted and began recruiting smart friends to help build app marketing tech for local businesses—starting with music, then golf, and now craft beer with TapWyse. He lives in Carlsbad with his wife Laurel and their two boys, Roscoe (11) and Mason (9). When he’s not working, you’ll likely find him biking down PCH or shuttling his kids to basketball, golf, music, and skateboarding.
Ball Theory for Brewers: Protect the Glass, Drop the Rubber, and Lead Without Burning Out w/Jennifer Goetsch (Alpha Brewing Operations)
If you’ve ever felt like you’re juggling tanks, taplists, payroll, a stuck mash, and three “quick questions” before your coffee kicks in? You’re not alone. Ball Theory for Brewers is a simple, fun way to sort out which parts of your job are glass balls (don’t drop these!) and which ones are rubber balls (let them bounce). This session breaks down brewery chaos into something you can actually manage. You’ll leave with a prioritization system that helps you protect safety, quality, and your people—while letting go of the tasks, expectations, and “fires” that aren’t worth the stress. Because good beer shouldn’t come at the cost of burnout.
Jennifer Goetsch is the Vice President at Alpha Beverage Operations, a brewery equipment manufacturer serving craft producers across the industry. With more than a decade of experience in commercial operations, customer experience, and leadership development, Jenn is known for helping teams bring clarity to complex, fast-moving environments.
Her work focuses on building sustainable, high-performing teams and practical systems that support people without burning them out. Jenn brings a people-first perspective to leadership, using simple frameworks—like the Ball Theory—to help leaders prioritize what truly matters while letting go of what doesn’t.
Outside of work, Jenn is a fitness coach, mom, and advocate for sustainable leadership in the craft beer industry. Her sessions are honest, relatable, and designed to leave attendees with tools they can actually use the next day.
Turning Tourists into Taproom Revenue (Panel Conversation)
As breweries look for new ways to grow, many are exploring opportunities beyond their local audience. Travelers are actively seeking out breweries as part of their journeys, creating an opportunity to connect with new faces and drive additional taproom revenue.
In this session, we’ll share insights from working with hundreds of brewery partners across the country to highlight how breweries are using Harvest Hosts as a marketing and visibility tool to attract travelers and turn those visits into real sales. We’ll explore how RV travelers discover breweries, what influences their decisions to stop, and why welcoming travelers on-site often leads to increased foot traffic and word-of-mouth.
Rather than focusing on big operational changes or new marketing campaigns, this session centers on practical, approachable ways breweries are using Harvest Hosts to support growth. Attendees will learn what hosting looks like in practice, how it fits into existing operations, and how breweries are generating incremental taproom revenue while staying focused on making great beer and running a smooth taproom.
This conversation features:
Ryan Worthen (Harvest Hosts) Paul Oettinger (Pals Brewing Company) Ashley Meyer Howe (Farmcraft Brewery)
Using Nutrients, Enzymes, and Yeast to Improve Beer Quality and Brewhouse Efficiency w/Eric Abbott (Lallemand Brewing)
Brewing beer is easy. Four simple ingredients, and a process so straightforward that the earliest beers were brewed by accident when wet grains started to germinate and ferment. But brewing consistently high-quality beer is a different challenge, and the modern brewing process extends far beyond the simple equation of beer = water + malt + hops + yeast. Differentiating your product in a competitive market is a challenge that all brewers face. Doing all of this on a tight budget is a major challenge for many brewers today. While costs can be cut to an extent by purchasing cheaper ingredients, this comes at the risk of reducing product quality, consistency, or flavor.
Through careful optimization of each step of the brewing process, you can improve yields and efficiency, allowing you to continue to use the high-quality ingredients that define your brand. In this presentation, you will discover the full range of tools available in the Brewer’s Toolkit. Learn how to use nutrients, enzymes, process aids, flavor additions, specific yeast strains and inactive specific yeast products to improve beer quality and brewing efficiency.
Eric Abbott has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry, a M.Sc. in Botany, and 20 years of experience in the beverage industry. Since 2017, Eric has brought experience as a brewer, R&D scientist, and technical sales manager to the Lallemand Brewing technical team. As the main point of contact for brewing technical support and troubleshooting, Eric is keenly aware of the challenges that brewers face everyday. In collaboration with the Lallemand Brewing innovation team, Eric works to develop new products and resources to help brewers to improve product quality and increase brewing efficiency. Eric is a father of three daughters in the Montreal area, and he enjoys kayaking on the Rivière de Milles Iles, when it is not frozen.
In a World of Good Beer, Hospitality Wins w/Taylor Smith (GoTab)
With more high-quality beer available than ever before, great beer alone is no longer enough to stand out. Guests may come for the beer, but they return for how they are treated. This session explores the critical role hospitality plays in shaping guest perception, driving repeat visits, and turning casual visitors into loyal brand advocates. Designed specifically for breweries and taprooms, the talk reframes hospitality as a core business strategy—one that influences reviews, word-of-mouth, and long-term growth. Attendees will leave with practical insights into how intentional service, staff engagement, and guest experience design can become a brewery’s most powerful competitive advantage.
Taylor is a 25 year hospitality industry professional beginning with a summer job cooking breakfast at a small-town diner where he grew up, and ending as the Executive Chef of Drakes Brewing Company, bringing the simple philosophy that brewery food can be better than it needs to be. Now, as a Solutions Consultant at GoTab, he leverages that lifetime of firsthand experience with the day-to-day realities of hospitality and the challenges operators face at every level. His deep operational background and culinary training help hospitality teams learn to focus on customer sequence, reduce friction, and improve customer experience and profitability. Driven by a passion for creating great guest experiences, Taylor works closely with brewery taprooms, beer gardens, and hospitality operators to remove operational noise and let teams focus on what matters most—the customer.
From Brewhouse to Beverage House: Scaling into New Product Categories w/Alex Labonge & Aaron Keefner (Ollie + Ekos)
In today’s competitive market, simply producing high-quality beer is often no longer enough to secure sustained growth. Many forward-thinking breweries are strategically diversifying their product portfolios, expanding into high-growth categories such as hard cider, spirits, wine, RTDs, can cannabevs.
While this expansion opens up exciting new revenue streams, it simultaneously introduces a new set of operational, financial, and regulatory challenges. The question for many producers is: where do we even begin?
Industry experts Alex and Aaron with lead a discussion focused on demystifying the diversification process and will guide attendees through the critical considerations required when integrating an entirely new product line into an established brewery operation.
The session with specifically focus on how production software, like Ollie and Ekos, can act as the cornerstone for a successful transition. We’ll focus on key areas such as streamlining procurement for new ingredients and packaging, adapting the production process, ensuring financial accuracy, and managing sales efficiency.
Don’t let complexity slow your growth. Learn how to successfully expand your portfolio while maintaining efficiency and compliance.
Alex was born & raised in North Carolina. He is an alumni of Grimsley High School and UNC-Wilmington, and currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a former swimmer and grilling enthusiast. His first craft beer was Natty Green’s Freedom IPA, and North Carolina beer holds a special place in his heart. Alex has spent 9 years with Next Glass, and currently is a Solutions Consultant supporting the Producer Solutions team. While coming from outside of industry initially, Alex brings valuable experience after thousands of conversations with brewery owners around the world.
Aaron Keefner is happily approaching his 14th year in the craft beer industry, having started out in marketing with Goose Island in early 2012. He eventually moved to an operations role in wholesale support in order to gain experience on both the production/operations side, as well as the knowledge already obtained via marketing/sales. After 5.5 years he found himself at Revolution Brewing running their specialty beer program, including their celebrated Deep Wood barrel-aged program, as well as spearheading the rollout of their small batch program. In 2019 he assumed the role of Executive Director of Brewery Operations with More Brewing Company helping them expand and open their production facility in Huntley, IL and planning of a 3rd facility in Bartlett, IL. With his leadership, More was able to weather the storm of the pandemic and grow 600% in a span of just under 3 years. At the end of 2022, Aaron assumed his current role as a Solutions Consultant with Next Glass, serving as a product expert on Ollie & Ekos, ERP/CRM softwares for beverage production.
The Science and History of Lager Production w/Nathaniel Ferguson (Escarpment Laboratories)
What makes a good lager?
How do we make a good lager?
Join us as we explore the various methods used to craft high-quality lager, breaking down the classic techniques to help you choose the best approach for your best beer.
Nathaniel Ferguson is one of the owners of Escarpment Laboratories, A yeast manufacturer in Guelph, Canada, where they focus on teaching about yeast fermentation. Additionally,Nathan has been a professor at Niagara College for over 10 years, teaching in the Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Program.
Beyond the Sale: How Relationship-Driven Selling Builds Lasting Craft Beer Brands w/Carey Beralderi (Grey Sail Brewing Company)
The craft beer market has changed, competition has increased, distributor portfolios have expanded, and dollars are stretched thin. But one thing still moves beer more than anything else: relationships. Not forced “sales relationships,” but genuine, consistent partnerships built over time.
In this session, Carey Beralderi, Sales & Marketing Director and co-owner of Grey Sail Brewing and Outer Light Brewing, shares lessons from nearly two decades working across multiple brands, states, and distributor networks. Carey will walk attendees through how to develop a relational sales approach that strengthens every part of the supply chain: retail accounts, distributors, and internal teams.
Attendees will learn:
• How to build authentic relationships that outlast staff turnover
• Practical scripts for better account check-ins and follow-ups
• Why relationship capital is more valuable than incentives
• How to create distributor partnerships where both sides win
• How to be a brewery partner wholesalers want to work with
• How to maintain trust during tough seasons (flat sales, out-of-stocks, reduced budgets)
• Simple mindset shifts that make the sales role more enjoyable and sustainable
This session is ideal for brewery owners, sales reps, brand managers, and anyone looking to improve their impact in market. Participants will leave with concrete tools and habits they can apply immediately to drive growth without chasing gimmicks or outspending competitors.
Carey Beralderi is the Sales & Marketing Director and co-owner of Grey Sail Brewing Company (RI) and Outer Light Brewing Company (CT), with nearly 20 years of craft beverage industry experience. She has led brands through growth, distributor transitions, market expansions, rebrands, and product diversification, including spirits and non-alcoholic segments. Known for her relationship-driven approach, Carey has built long-standing partnerships with distributors and key accounts throughout New England. She is passionate about mentoring, building community, and helping small breweries create sustainable, people-focused sales strategies.
Brewhouse design decisions have long-term consequences. Layout, drainage, flooring, access, and workflow choices made early can either support efficient operations or create daily friction that is expensive to fix later. In this session, we’ll bring together an architect, a flooring specialist, and experienced brewery operators to walk through real-world brewhouse design dos, don’ts, and practical recommendations. The focus is not on theory or perfect builds, but on what actually works once the tanks are full, the floors are wet, and the brew team is trying to get through a long day safely and efficiently.
This conversation features:
Chris Klein (Cascade Floors)
Curtis Holmes (Alaskan Brewing)
Dustin Hauck (Hauck Architecture)
Managing Your Managers (Panel Conversation)
As breweries grow, the role of the owner or senior leader shifts. You’re no longer just managing people, you’re managing the people who manage people. And that comes with a whole new set of challenges. This session focuses on how to support, coach, and hold your managers accountable in a way that builds trust, creates consistency, and takes some weight off your shoulders.
You’ll hear from brewery owners and leadership experts on how they set clear expectations, create simple systems for communication and feedback, and identifying what great management actually looks like inside a brewery. Join us to walk away with practical ways to develop stronger leaders, address issues earlier, and build a management layer that helps your business run better day to day.
This conversation features:
Bailey Borzecki (Golden Hour Consulting)
Clay Keel (Keel Farms Agrarian Ale and Cider)
Jake Keyes (Skydance Brewing)
Harnessing AI for Marketing: How to Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Brewery’s Growth
AI-driven tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing how breweries market themselves, engage customers, and grow their brand with fewer resources. This session will provide brewery owners, managers, and marketing teams with actionable insights on leveraging AI to enhance content creation, automate customer interactions, and generate fresh ideas to stay competitive in an evolving industry.
During this 45-minute session, attendees will discover:
How AI can streamline brewery marketing efforts, from social media and email campaigns to website content and customer service.
Practical ways to use AI in daily operations to save time, enhance creativity, and maintain brand consistency.
Real-world examples from the craft beer industry showcasing AI-driven strategies that have worked for other breweries.
Common pitfalls and ethical considerations when integrating AI into your marketing plan.
Whether you’re a small taproom or a growing brewery, this session will leave you with actionable takeaways and AI-powered marketing strategies you can implement immediately.
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Madeline McMahon is a Fractional Marketing Strategist and founder of Madeline Fleehart Consulting, LLC, specializing in organic marketing, branding, and customer engagement for breweries and beverage brands. With years of experience in brewery marketing, influencer engagement, and social media strategy, Madeline has helped craft breweries enhance their brand presence and connect with customers authentically.
A former craft beer influencer, they have a deep understanding of how digital trends impact the industry and how AI can be leveraged to optimize marketing efforts without requiring large budgets or teams. Passionate about education, Madeline breaks down complex marketing strategies into actionable steps that breweries of all sizes can implement successfully.
Designing an Effective Distribution Strategy
What does winning in the market look like for your brand? Most breweries never design a real distribution strategy—they aim for growth in all directions and are left scrambling when volume falls short. In this session, you’ll learn a clear, intuitive framework for matching your brand’s positioning to the metrics that actually matter. We’ll break down wholesale performance into four key drivers that will allow you to focus your efforts where they’ll have the most impact. Let’s translate some industry jargon into plain English tools for thinking clearly about strategy, data, and building a business that grows on purpose.
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Ben Lewellyn worked as the Sales Director at Good People Brewing Co. for ten years, managing distributors, national accounts, strategic planning, and a team of salespeople, helping to grow annual sales from 500 to 20k bbls. In 2021, Ben founded Full Count Analytics to offer craft producers the sorts of tools and insights he wishes he’d had along the way. Ben lives in Charlottesville, where he splits his time between Full Count clients and Irresistible Foods Group, home to King’s Hawaiian Bread, Grillo’s Pickles, and Killer Brownie.
Rediscovering Virginia’s Brewing Heritage: Alternative Grains and Ancient Flavors
The next frontier in craft brewing isn’t found in new technology or trends—it’s hidden in ancient grains and forgotten varieties that once defined American brewing and distilling. This panel will explore how grain artisans in Virginia and beyond are uncovering the potential of lesser known alternative and ancient grain varieties that have the potential to set your beers apart in an increasingly competitive market.
This panel will discuss the untapped potential of alternative grains for brewing. Learn about the brewing possibilities of hulless barley, Tennessee Winter, and ancient varieties like buckwheat, spelt, and einkorn that are generating excitement in the brewing industry. This panel addresses a challenge facing today’s brewers: How can alternative grain varieties give your brewery a competitive edge and create distinctive beers that command premium pricing?
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The Common Grain Alliance (CGA) was established in 2018 by a group of artisan bakers, millers, and grain farmers in Roseland, Virginia. Our mission is to connect grain farmers, processors, and artisans to build a vibrant, regenerative, and integrated regional grain economy in the Mid-Atlantic. Since its inception, CGA has expanded into a network of over 190 members, including farmers, millers, maltsters, bakers, brewers, distillers, and food businesses, spanning from southern Pennsylvania to northern North Carolina.
CGA’s efforts focus on facilitating collaboration among small, regional food and farming businesses to enhance the production, processing, and utilization of high-quality, local grain. We envision an integrated grain economy of local and regional businesses that produce nutritious, flavorful, and consistent regional grain products for the communities they serve. These businesses empower communities by granting control over their supply of staple crops, stewarding the land, creating livable jobs, and producing delicious food.
What The Firk? Cask Ale: Methodology and Culture
In this presentation, we will focus on what is considered “real ale” according to CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), British brewing techniques, priming calculations, yeast counting, finings, distribution, and serving proper cask ale. There are many challenges that face the American brewer when discussing cask ale production; lack of cellars, distribution concerns, climate, little education throughout the market, and interference with other production demands. This presentation aims to help other brewers in their quest to bring a successful cask ale program to their brewery.
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Chris Richards is the Head Brewer at both MoMac Brewing Company and Nansemond Brewing Station. He began his brewing career in 2009 as an assistant brewer at St. George Brewing Company while earning a diploma in British Brewing Technology from Brewlab in the United Kingdom. He later obtained a General Certificate in Brewing (CASK) through the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.
Chris has also brewed abroad, spending time in Cyprus at a British brewpub before returning to the U.S. to join Starr Hill Brewing Company, where he managed their cask ale program. With a deep foundation in traditional brewing techniques and international experience, Chris brings both technical expertise and a global perspective to his work.
How to Successfully Motivate Your Brewery Team
Most brewery owners didn’t start with a passion for managing people, but building and leading a team is key to long-term success. In this panel, industry professionals will explore what truly motivates staff and how to create a culture where your team can thrive.
You’ll learn how to design incentive structures that encourage the right behaviors, avoid common pitfalls in leadership, and build a workplace that supports both performance and satisfaction. Whether you’re looking to improve retention, boost morale, or simply reduce the stress of managing people, this conversation will offer practical tools and fresh perspectives to help you lead more effectively.
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With more than a decade of sales, retail management, and business analytic experience in the craft beverage industry, Aaron MJ Gore loves the opportunities that he has every day to make a difference for small business owners across the country. He is the Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for Beer30, one of the drinks industry’s leading software providers, is a co-founder of the Court Shoes Only charitable collaboration beer, and serves on the Board for the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame. He is an Advanced Cicerone, Certified Pommelier, Certified Cheese Scholar, WSET Level 2 Spirits Certified, and is (AF)(NA) Beer Certified. Additionally, he is an active industry advocate, public speaker, beer and cider educator, and the father of two daughters who are the true passion of his life.
Ryan Mayfield is a leadership coach who helps brewery professional build healthy leaders and high-performing teams.. As a coach with Craft Leadership, he provides brewery professionals with the skills and tools they need to lead effectively, improve communication, and create a thriving workplace culture. Craft Leadership has worked with top craft breweries like Other Half Brewing, Creature Comforts, Lockport Brewery, Scofflaw Brewing Co., and Rhinegeist, helping them navigate the challenges of leadership and teamwork.
Despite experiencing countless leadership trainings and personality assessments, Ryan never felt like those trainings left a truly lasting impact on himself or his colleagues. Now, he equips brewery leaders with practical, no-nonsense strategies to manage people with confidence, reduce frustrations, and focus on what they love: making great beer.
Besides great beer, Ryan is passionate about good coffee, travel, and helping leaders fight for the highest possible good of their teams. He lives in Tulsa, OK, with his wife, 13-year-old son, and a very opinionated 4-year-old beagle named Rooster.
Matt Splain is the General Manager of the Washington, DC Other Half location. His 15 year career in the craft beverage industry began at a local, family owned package store and bar, where he worked his way up and into the GM role. Matt’s strong work ethic and advanced leadership skills got him recognized and recommended for a management position with Other Half. In the summer of 2020, he was invited to join the Other Half team and happily accepted. During his five years with the company, he has led the front of house team through busy weekends and successfully grand brewery events. His dedication and commitment to the craft beer industry, his team and Other Half continues in the form of education and training through Craft Leadership, and currently the newest program designed specifically for the brewing industry. When Matt isn’t working or in leadership training, he enjoys drinking hazy IPAs and visiting local breweries. He’s excited to be speaking on his first panel and is greatly looking forward to spending a few days in Richmond and attending the Virginia’s Brewers Conference.
Ask The Brewer: Pro Tips and Tricks
Join a panel of seasoned brewers for an engaging session packed with essential tips and tricks learned over 20 years in the industry. Discover simple methods for developing a Congress mash, creating sensory kits, and preparing hop teas for recipe development. Learn proper malt and yeast storage techniques, clever yeast management tricks, and practical ways to fill kegs with adjuncts. Plus, find out how to decarbonate your beer or seltzer if you left the CO2 on overnight. Perfect for brewers of all levels, this session will help you streamline your processes and produce exceptional brews.
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Marcus Raschke spent 26 years as a Navy engineer before trading ship engines for brew kettles. Over the past six years, he’s worked his way from cellarman to head brewer, and now serves as Assistant Brewer at Afterglow Brewing Co. in Norfolk, VA. Whether at sea or in the brewhouse, Marcus believes precision, patience, and a little creativity are the key to smooth sailing—and great beer.
Michele Lowney has been brewing beer for over 25 years, with experience spanning the United States, Scotland, Belgium, and Canada. As a World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival judge for 23 years, Michele brings a wealth of expertise and discerning taste to the craft. She is currently the Head Brewer at Makers Craft Brewery in Norfolk, VA, where her extensive knowledge and global experience continue to elevate the brewery’s offerings.
Stefan McFayden is the head brewer at Vasen Brewing Company and has nearly a decade of experience brewing in Richmond. After leading the brewing program at the Three Notch’d Collab House for a couple of years, Stefan connected deeply with Vasen’s brand and vision, where he has continued to produce a wide variety of core and innovative beers. He enjoys spending time with his growing family, outdoor adventures and is currently working towards a Diploma in Brewing from the Chartered Institute of Brewers and Distillers.
Lessons Learned from Buying & Growing a Brewery
9 months ago we purchased an existing brewery from an owner looking to exit. This talk is a collection of lessons learned throughout the process and how those lessons can translate into growth and revival for other existing breweries. From staffing to filling the taproom to dealing with the city and ABC there’s a ton of insights to gain whether you’re considering buying another brewery or just looking to grow the one you already work at.
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Seth Caddell is husband to Bethany, dad to Enosh, and co-owner of Coastal Fermentory & now Rip Rap Brewing. Seth teaches future industry people in the Beer Brewer Professional Program for the University of Richmond. He also sits on the board of the Newport News Green Foundation & Newport News Education Foundation. He’s won “Best Local Leader Making a Difference” from CoVa Biz magazine the last 2 years and was a 2024 winner of the NextGen Award.
You’re in the Hospitality Business: Creating Memorable Taproom Experiences
Beer might be what brings guests through the door, but hospitality is what keeps them coming back. This session will focus on what it actually takes to create memorable taproom experiences. You’ll walk away with simple, proven ways to build stronger teams, make confident decisions, set clear expectations for guests, and represent your beer the way it deserves. We’ll also talk about the role of online reviews and how to use them to your advantage. Whether you’re running a small taproom or a busy destination, the goal is the same: make hospitality your edge.
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Daniel Chiles is a father of two, a longtime Virginia resident, and a dedicated fan of Volkswagens, pilsners, and traditional stouts. With a degree in sociology and a minor in religious studies, along with a background in construction, he brought a unique perspective to the craft beer world when he joined Fine Creek Brewing Company at its opening in 2017.
Daniel thrives in the setting of a rural farmhouse brewery, enjoying the slower pace and deeper connection to the ingredients used in brewing—despite never having brewed a beer himself. What keeps him passionate about the industry is its constant evolution, the challenges it presents, and the rich history that underpins it all.
Sustainability on Tap: Recognizing Virginia’s Green Breweries
Hop in to explore how breweries are embracing sustainable practices and discover how sustainable sips aren’t just good for the environment but can also be good for your business. Join us to recognize Virginia brewers that have successfully implemented strategies to reduce water usage, increase energy efficiency, and reduce hazardous materials usage.
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Erik Filep is the founding/head brewer from Patch Brewing Company in Gordonsville, Virginia. He is a twelve year veteran of the Virginia Brewing Industry having started at Three Notch’d Brewing Company before moving on to Devils Backbone Brewing Company, and finally landing at Patch. His passion is German style lagers with a focus on community, green initiatives, and quality control to make memorable high quality beer.
Keith Boisvert has been with DEQ since early 1999. In that time, he has been involved with many pollution prevention efforts. He coordinated programs like State Agency Pollution Prevention, Businesses for the Bay and EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities. He was the Virginia Electronic Recycling Coordinator and developed the Virginia Information Source for Energy (VISE) website. He is also a key member of the VEEP implementation team and is the lead on most facility reviews and site visits. Mr. Boisvert has participated in numerous facility site visits focusing on environmental management system development and identification of P2 opportunities. Mr. Boisvert has an undergraduate degree in Natural Science from Worcester State College and a master of science in Biology from the University of Richmond.
Meghann Quinn has managed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Pollution Prevention for the past 10 years. The Office of Pollution Prevention promotes green practices that go beyond regulatory requirements through programs including the Virginia Environmental Excellence Program, Virginia Green, and the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards. Prior to working with DEQ, she gained experience working with industry and municipalities on compliance and environment management systems. Ms. Quinn has a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Mary Washington. She grew up on Long Island. In her free time you can find Meghann running or chasing her 2 young boys around.
Tom Griffin is the owner of RVA Green Management Services and has served as the Executive Director of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance since 2014. Mr. Griffin is inspired to help businesses and organizations make incremental changes that are sustainable and profitable. Through RVA Green Management, he has focused on waste stream auditing services and sustainability services in the hospitality industry. Through the Virginia Green Travel Alliance, Mr. Griffin has administered the Virginia Green Travel certification program and provided technical assistance and recognition opportunities for all sectors of Virginia’s hospitality industry. Mr. Griffin has an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Virginia and a master of science in Urban and Regional Planning & Environmental Management from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Cost-Saving Yeast Management in Breweries
Fermentation is the heart of brewing, where science meets craft. This presentation is designed for both novice and seasoned brewers, offering practical insights to optimize all that yeast cultures have to offer. We will show that you can keep costs low without having to compromise quality. We will touch on the essentials of fermentation and talk about how temperature, pitch rate, nutrients, oxygen levels and other factors shape yeast performance and beer flavor. Guidance on monitoring and how to adjust will be given. Next, we will explore lagering and yeast reuse—techniques that save money and elevate consistency. We will share easy methods to harvest and feed yeast for reuse in multiple batches. Quality control is key and we will cover simple, cost-effective ways to do this.
The focus throughout is fermenting economically without cutting corners. Expect actionable tips backed up by science. Regardless of whether you are a novice, intermediate, or seasoned brewer, this presentation will offer valuable insights for all skill levels.
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Jasper Akerboom received his PhD in microbiology and food technology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He joined Lost Rhino Brewing Co. in 2013 as a Brewing Scientist, where he managed the QA/QC lab, yeast propagation, and barrel-aged beer programs, isolating unique yeast strains for commercial use. Jasper Yeast was co-founded by Jasper Akerboom and Travis Tedrow to provide craft brewers with affordable, high-quality liquid yeast strains. Together, they built Jasper Yeast to prioritize cost-effective fermentation, offering tailored yeast cultures and guidance on yeast reuse, fermentation optimization, and quality control. Supporting brewers of all levels, Jasper Yeast blends Akerboom’s microbiology background and Tedrow’s extensive brewing experience to deliver science-backed, actionable solutions.
New Marketing Strategies to Put More Butts on Bar Stools
The loyal customer is more valuable today than at any point in the history of craft beer. Let’s take a look at how to turn your casual guests into raving fans. Strap on your SCUBA gear and get ready for a deep dive into the data and taproom execution of 3 highly successful modern loyalty and membership programs. These programs go beyond the 20oz pour to bring in recurring revenue and put more buts on barstools!
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Ross Stensrud accidentally graduated from UC San Diego while studying lacrosse and spending plenty of time at O’Brien’s Pub. After a short-lived attempt to put his engineering degree to use designing pool cleaners, he pivoted to programming—first building websites, then mobile apps. Since then, he’s co-founded several small businesses focused on bringing top-tier mobile technology to small businesses across various industries.
A San Diego native who grew up during the heart of the craft beer boom, Ross jumped at the opportunity to launch TapWyse and support the industry he’s long admired. He now lives in Carlsbad with his wife, Laurel, and their two boys, Roscoe (9) and Mason (7). When he’s not working, you’ll likely find him shuttling between basketball courts, golf courses, music lessons, and skate parks.
Navigating 2025: Key TTB & Virginia ABC Regulatory Updates
This session offers a comprehensive overview of pivotal regulatory changes from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) that impact craft breweries in 2025. Attendees will gain insights into federal and state-level updates, including labeling requirements, excise tax modifications, and event licensing constraints. The discussion will also cover the implications of these changes on daily operations, distribution strategies, and compliance obligations. By understanding these developments, brewery professionals can proactively adapt their business practices to maintain compliance and leverage new opportunities.
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Kevin Anderson has spent over a decade helping breweries, distilleries, wineries, retailers and importers navigate the ins and outs of alcohol regulations. Before stepping into consulting, he served as a Special Agent with the Virginia ABC. Today, he’s the Executive Director of the Loudoun County Brewers Association and a senior consultant with ABC Consulting and BreweryCompliance.com. Kevin has worked with hundreds of clients in over 30 states, making complex rules a lot easier to understand and follow. Named one of Virginia Business’s “100 People to Meet in 2020,” Kevin brings a practical, approachable perspective to compliance, because running your beverage business shouldn’t be harder than it has to be.
Maximizing Your Event Space + Using Live Music to Drive Traffic
Part 1: Maximizing Your Event Space
Your event space can be just as impactful to your bottom line as the beer you’re pouring. In this session, we’ll talk about how to make the most of it—whether you’re hosting private parties, community gatherings, or full-on festivals.
We’ll cover things like:
What types of events actually work in your space (and which ones don’t)
How flexible your setup is for different needs
Who your ideal event customer is—and how to reach them
When it makes sense to offer full brewery rentals (and how to price them)
How to drive more mid-week bookings through smart local partnerships
The logistics—staffing, food and drink, managing expectations
When to charge for the space, when not to, and why it matters
And whether big events (500+ people) are a fit for your brewery
Plus, we’ll talk about building consistency with recurring events like trivia, game nights, or live music. If you’re trying to bring more people into your space without adding more stress to your team, this session will give you ideas you can actually use.
Part 2: Using Live Music to Drive Traffic
It isn’t 2015 anymore. As the craft industry has plateaued, running a profitable brewery has become more and more challenging each year. This presentation will provide craft business owners a deep dive to understand why this is and, more importantly, the strategic changes owners need to make in order to sell the right beer, to the right consumers, at the right margins, to generate cash and finally get ahead.
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Michele Hanson has been part of the craft beer scene for over a decade. She currently serves as the Taproom and Events Manager at Tradition Brewing in Newport News, where she’s been for nearly five years. With more than 20 years of experience in event planning—including catering, weddings, and now craft beer—Michele has developed a deep understanding of how to adapt to the unique needs of each customer and venue. During her time at Tradition, she has successfully tripled the brewery’s event revenue through thoughtful planning, creativity, and a focus on delivering great guest experiences.
Dan Spears is the Vice President of Industry Relations and Licensing at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). In his capacity as Vice President, Mr. Spears works closely with BMI’s Licensing management team to create strategic, value-driven sponsorships and customer events. He serves as a pivotal bridge between the company’s Licensing, Creative, and Business Affairs teams. In this role, Mr. Spears continues to develop new customer initiatives and strategic partnerships that feature BMI songwriter performances and help educate key accounts, while providing new sources of revenue for affiliates and licensees.
Tightening the Screws: Strategies for Safeguarding Profitability
The business of brewing is incredibly complex, with each department executing its core functions in support of the overall goal of selling beer at a profit. Production, marketing, TR, outside sales – every unit and team member is responsible for adding value to the broader enterprise.
But today, already slim margins are being challenged by a variety of headwinds – rising costs, supply chain issues, and macro trends in alcohol consumption, to name just a few. In a time when breweries are feeling the pinch, even minor inefficiencies can move a company from the black to the red.
In this session, Virginia SBDC Craft Bev Manager Chris Van Orden will ask a panel of brewery owners and industry experts to share strategies for sharpening up operations different departments with an eye on the bottom line. Attendees will walk away with real-world best practices from their industry peers and practical, industry-tested tips for improving efficiency across their operations.
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While pursuing his B.S. in Computer Science, Brian Faivre continued his true passion of making beer as a homebrewer. After 5 years of working as a software engineer, Brian took his first professional brewing job at a small pub in San Francisco. Two years later, Brian attended the UC Davis Master Brewers Program and earned his Diploma in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, then joined Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, where he spent nearly 17 years and his final 10 as Brewmaster. In 2021, Brian joined New Realm in Virginia Beach, VA, where he currently serves as COO.
Chris Van Orden is the Manager of the Craft Beverage Assistance program at the Virginia Small Business Development Center, where he provides confidential, no-cost, sector-specific guidance to the Commonwealth’s breweries, wineries, cideries, & distilleries. With over thirteen years of varied industry experience, Chris has valuable insights into the inner workings of craft beverage businesses.
Grace Wheeler is the Marketing Director at Lark Brewing Co.,located in Aldie, Virginia, where she brings the brand’s story to life through creative campaigns, dynamic events, and community engagement. She is known for blending strategy with imagination, building a recognizable identity that resonates both locally and beyond. From large-scale festivals like Larktoberfest to intimate dinners and community events, Grace ensures every experience reflects the brewery’s signature voice and vision. Her expertise spans brand development, content creation, and event management, all rooted in a passion for connecting people through craft beer and memorable moments at Lark Brewing Co.
Massie Wallace has enthusiastically dedicated eight years to Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, stepping into the role of Taproom Director just ten days before the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic in March 2020. With extensive hospitality experience spanning from Las Vegas to Virginia, Massie brings a passion for fostering community through memorable experiences. For over two decades, Massie has made the hospitality industry a core focus of life and career. Cheers!
Since 2013, Nassim Sultan has been deep in brewery operations, from hauling grain to leading production. He’s brewed everything from classic German lagers to experimental small-batch recipes, always with an eye on quality, consistency, and efficiency. As head brewer at Gordon Biersch, Nassim oversaw all things production—raw material procurement, managing schedules, running quality checks, and getting front-of-house and production staff genuinely excited about why the details matter. Now, through his consultancy, BarrelVision, he helps craft beverage producers streamline their processes and cut costs without sacrificing flavor. Equal parts brewer and problem-solver, Nassim’s all about making operations smoother, smarter, and more sustainable.
Producing THC Beverages in a Brewery: What’s It Take?
Everyone wants to make a THC beverage. But, it’s not beer. Or is it? Can I make a THC beer? What do I have to do – legally – to make a THC beverage? Come to the talk to find out! This presentation will provide an up-to-date overview of federal and state hemp and cannabis regulations, with a focus on the potential to produce THC beverages in breweries or other licensed alcohol production facilities. It will explore key topics including federal hemp laws, state-level cannabis rules, production and formulation considerations, packaging and labeling requirements, product approvals, distribution challenges, and industry best practices.
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Since founding Beer Law Center, John Szymankiewicz ’s practice has centered on the craft beverage industry. John works with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals. With a background in chemical engineering and homebrewing, John loves the industry and has dedicated his career to making a difference for artisanal beverage businesses everywhere. John is a BJCP Judge, holds a certification in WSET Level II – Wine and in Beer, and is the US’s only Certified Cicerone Alcohol Attorney. John’s book “Beer Law: What Brewers Need to Know” is also a great reference for anyone in the industry.
Keynote: It Takes a Village, People: The YMCAs of Community-Driven Growth Alison Wisneski and Betsy Lay (Lady Justice Brewing)
We all know the craft beer landscape is changing. With five generations actively being of drinking age, we may currently have the widest audience available to us in modern craft beer history. Despite this, a lot of attention is focused on how drinking preferences are moving away from beer and into other markets. So, how do we thrive? It may not be up to us. Keynote speakers Betsy Lay and Alison Wisneski of Lady Justice Brewing in Englewood, CO will talk about how your greatest product might not be beer at all. Learning from their own brewery’s successes and failures, they will discuss how your own local community can become your greatest asset.
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Alison Wisneski wears many hats, but most of them fall under sales and marketing, including content creation, management, and strategy, along with authentic social media. She is the co-owner of Lady Justice Brewing alongside her wife, and is the owner of Alison Wisneski Strategy, LLC. In her free time, you can find her sipping a local pale ale or Negroni on a patio no matter the season (a true Wisconsinite to the core), preferably surrounded by dogs.
Betsy Lay is the co-founder and owner of the social enterprise Lady Justice Brewing in Englewood, CO. She knows a little bit about birds and lot about how to use craft beer to build communities that make the world a better place. In her time off from the brewery, Betsy can be found with a good whiskey, a good book, and a good dog.
Top 10 Things to Consider When Locating a Craft Building
This engaging session will focus on the current state of commercial real estate for craft beverage businesses. Key topics include tenant and buyer priorities, buildout costs, and the pros and cons of leasing versus buying. The discussion will also cover common challenges in acquiring commercial buildings, such as lease negotiations and tenant improvement expenses. Whether you own, lease, or are looking to secure a space for your craft beverage business, this session offers valuable insights you won’t want to miss.
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Tom Hudock’s journey into craft brewing began more than a decade ago, fueled by a deep appreciation for the movement and its evolving trends across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio. This passion led him to launch My Beer Brand in 2015, a company that blends his love for brewing with his extensive background in branding and marketing. In 2019, Tom expanded his impact by launching Craft Buildings, a sister company that serves clients nationwide. Craft Buildings specializes in the acquisition and negotiation of commercial real estate for craft beverage businesses, offering services to help clients evaluate properties suitable for new or existing ventures.
Jeffrey O’Brien began his legal career at a firm that focused on both real estate and traditional corporate transactions, and he quickly discovered that he thrived on closing deals. Almost a quarter century later, he still finds it exciting and rewarding to get a client’s deal across the finish line, and he loves seeing the business growth that results—especially when it’s tangible real property that can be visited in real life.
Primarily a business attorney with a focus on corporate transactions, Jeffrey regularly oversees mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and private securities offerings. He also frequently handles ancillary real estate deals, including commercial leasing, land acquisition, loan documentation, purchase and sale of residential and commercial property, and resolution of title matters. While Jeffrey supports clients in a variety of industries, he has built a strong niche practice in the hospitality realm, often representing restaurants, bars, and breweries. After cannabis was legalized in Minnesota in 2023, he began representing businesses in the burgeoning industrial hemp and cannabis industries as well and has become a leading attorney in the Minnesota cannabis world.
Jeffrey works with clients who have branches, offices, and restaurants across the country, and he joined Husch Blackwell in 2024 to ensure nationwide coverage for the organizations he represents. He’s now the leader of the firm’s Alcohol Beverage practice group. Jeffrey handles deals with values in the low millions.
The Jack Brown’s Story: Simplicity, Culture, and Craft Beer
Jack Brown’s started with a simple idea: burgers, peanuts, and beer. No plans to grow, just a place to meet some people and make a memory. Sixteen years later, they’re nearing 25 locations, built on a strong culture, clear values, and a deep love for craft beer.
Founder Aaron Ludwig will share the pillars that make Jack Brown’s what it is today. He’ll talk about building the Notch Club into a family of beer-loving ambassadors, the power of collaboration, and how to stay grounded as things scale. When it starts to feel more like business than beer, structure and values can keep you focused. This session is a reminder that with the right foundation, craft beer continues to bring people together in powerful ways.
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Aaron Ludwig is the Co-Founder of Jack Brown’s Joint. He and his wife, Patrice, have three daughters—Lucy (18), Molly (17), and Frankie (14). Originally from Alexandria, VA, Aaron moved to Harrisonburg after graduating from Radford University to open a ski shop with a friend. He finds the most joy in skiing, hiking, boating, and fly fishing.
In 2008, after a tough day at work, Aaron called his best friend, Mike. He shared that after 15 years running the ski shop, he and his business partner wanted different things, and he found himself stuck in a windowless office, unhappy behind a desk. After some conversation, Mike said, “Screw it, let’s open a bar together.” That moment marked the beginning of their journey.
Fermenting Great Lagers
Join us for an insightful presentation on “Fermenting Great Lagers” led by Pablo Gomez, Technical Account Manager at White Labs. This session will delve into the rich history of lagers and light beers, exploring their evolution since the development of pure yeast cultures by Emil Christian Hansen in the 1880s. Learn about the diverse array of lager styles recognized by the Brewers Association, and the reasons behind the remarkable resurgence of these beers in today’s market.
Pablo will highlight the challenges brewers face when crafting lagers, including temperature control, yeast management, and the necessity for patience throughout the fermentation process. He will share innovative fermentation techniques, including warm pitching, pressure fermentation, and alternative yeast strains, while providing analytical data that illustrates successful lager production.
Drawing on real-world examples, this presentation will empower both novice and experienced brewers to elevate their lager-making skills. Discover how advancements in fermentation practices can enhance flavors and characteristics.
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Pablo Gomez is the Technical Account Manager at White Labs. His knowledge of yeast and fermentation enables him to travel to breweries, educating on topics ranging from setting up a small system to troubleshooting process issues and developing a successful yeast management program. Pablo worked as the Spanish translation editor for the AHA’s Zymurgy magazine and the Cicerone Program, and currently hosts a podcast for The Brewing Network.
Creating Safe and Welcoming Spaces
A truly great taproom offers more than just drinks; it provides an environment where everyone feels comfortable, respected, and secure. This isn’t just about preventing negative incidents, but actively cultivating an inclusive and positive experience for all patrons and staff. Creating safe and welcoming spaces in bars is paramount for fostering a positive atmosphere, ensuring customer retention, and upholding a venue’s reputation. It’s a holistic endeavor that involves proactive measures, clear policies, and consistent enforcement. In this talk, you’ll hear from Pink Boots Society members from across the Commonwealth and gain actionable strategies on how you can strengthen your team, set clear expectations, and create a space where everyone thrives.
Jenna Weinstein has spent 15 years in the service industry, with the last four dedicated to the brewing world. She began her brewing career by helping at beer festivals and quickly fell in love with the craft beer community. From there, she started pouring beers, moved into management as a taproom manager, and then became a district manager overseeing four brewery locations. Today, she serves as Taproom Manager for both Alewerks Taprooms in Williamsburg, VA. Jenna is passionate about creating welcoming spaces, building community, and beer.
Lindsay Adkins is the Head Brewer at Dragon Run Brewing in Shacklefords, VA, which she co-founded with her brother Tommy after 10 years of home brewing. A chemist and forensic toxicologist with 20 years of experience, she now shares her passion as a chemistry and forensic science teacher. Off the clock, she enjoys time with her beloved dog, Tessa.
Michele Hanson has been part of the craft beer scene for over a decade. She currently serves as the Taproom and Events Manager at Tradition Brewing in Newport News, where she’s been for nearly five years. With more than 20 years of experience in event planning—including catering, weddings, and now craft beer—Michele has developed a deep understanding of how to adapt to the unique needs of each customer and venue. During her time at Tradition, she has successfully tripled the brewery’s event revenue through thoughtful planning, creativity, and a focus on delivering great guest experiences.
Michelle Venzke is a people-first professional with a passion for pints. Her career reflects a consistent dedication to working with and empowering others, whether supporting vulnerable populations, serving the military, or engaging with beer enthusiasts. She has been immersed in the craft beer world since 2016, taking on roles as Brand Ambassador, Sales Representative, and Beertender.
Michelle has visited breweries in all 50 states and 22 countries. Her beloved dogs, Jasper Park and Dunkel Bock, are named in homage to her passions for travel and beer. She currently serves as the chapter leader for the Hampton Roads chapter of the Pink Boots Society.
Tasha Dixon has worked in the craft beer industry for over 11 years, taking on roles ranging from bartending and taproom and operations management to events. The focus has always been on the community beer creates and the connections it fosters. As co-leader of the Richmond chapter of the Pink Boots Society, Tasha helps support and celebrate women and non-binary professionals in the industry. Beer, for Tasha, is as much about people and stories as it is about what’s in the glass.
Originally from Western New York, Tina Luers now lives in Yorktown, VA. Living just two miles from the St. George Brewing Company (STG), Tina and her husband, Scott found themselves frequent visitors. Interested in becoming owners of a brewery themselves, they have become investors in STG and remain involved in many aspects of the business. Their latest brewery adjacent adventure involved buying and running a food truck which provides delicious and economical food options to the patrons of STG. Married for almost 25 years, Tina and Scott have two adult children, Aiden and Keira, two dogs, Juniper and Locust, and two cats, May and April. In her spare time Tina is the Command Archivist for Air Combat Command, Dept. of the Air Force. She also enjoys being with her closest family and friends, running, travelling, and remains ever hopeful that the Bills will finally win a Super Bowl.
Virginia Consumer Taproom Trends: 2023-Present
In a competitive market, great beer alone is no longer enough to attract and retain customers. This session explores the motivations of Virginia craft beer consumers, from taproom visit drivers to beer and food preferences and return-visit motivators. Insights are drawn from thousands of brewery experiences and survey research, offering actionable tactics to connect with customer segments and craft resonating messages. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of their customer base and strategies to enhance the full taproom experience.
3 Key Takeaways:
How has the Virginia craft beer consumer base changed from January 2023 to present?
What do different segments (e.g., men, women, families, social drinkers) desire in taproom experiences?
Which consumer types are most likely to visit your specific taproom?
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Michael Varda is the Founder of Craft Beer Advisory Services, a market research and analytics firm dedicated to craft beverage companies. Craft Beer Advisory Services was born after a career in market research and brand consulting for universities and major Tech companies. His research has been used by breweries nationwide to understand their customers and differentiate from competitors within their market.
The Future of Hops: Innovation, Research, and Virginia Growth
Join us for a dynamic panel exploring the evolving landscape of hops, with a spotlight on innovation, research, and regional growth in Virginia. As the brewing industry continues to diversify, so do the hop products available to brewers. This discussion will delve into emerging alternatives to traditional hop formats—such as hop oils, extracts, and other advanced applications—that are reshaping flavor, efficiency, and sustainability in brewing.
We’ll also highlight the cutting-edge research happening at Virginia State University, where researchers are studying hop cultivation, disease resistance, and varietal development tailored to Virginia’s climate. Learn how this research is influencing the future of local hop farming and expanding possibilities for brewers across the Mid-Atlantic.
In addition, this session will feature one of Virginia’s up-and-coming hop growers, offering firsthand insights into the challenges and successes of growing hops in the region. Panelists will share stories of innovation, community collaboration, and what it takes to build a viable hop operation in today’s market.
Whether you’re a brewer, grower, or simply curious about the next chapter in craft beer ingredients, this panel will provide valuable perspectives and practical knowledge on where the field of hops is headed—both literally and figuratively. Come with questions and leave with fresh ideas and new connections.
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Dan Jablow serves as Director of Brewing Education at University of Richmond’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. A serial entrepreneur at heart, he owns his own custom print-on-demand t-shirt business, serves as CFO for Wayfinders Collective and is also Founder and CEO of Small Batch Brewing, based right here in Richmond, working directly with customers to provide unique brews and experiences, all while always managing to stay hydrated.
Josh Evans, founder of Afterglow Brewing, transitioned from a 15-year career in physical therapy to pursue his passion for brewing, transforming a personal hobby into a community hub. His innovative spirit drives us to create unique beverages in an atmosphere where families and friends feel welcome.
Located in Norfolk’s Rail Yard, Afterglow Brewing offers a cozy indoor setting and an inviting outdoor area, perfect for relaxation and socializing. Founded in 2023, this family- and pet-friendly brewery is committed to crafting a diverse range of beers and seltzers. Josh won the 757 Battle of the Beers in year 1 and recently won 2 Gold Medals from the US Open Beer Championship.
Ross Hunsinger is a Siebel Institute alum, former owner of Atlas Sodaworks, and terpene beverage specialist for the last 6 years. Ross has overseen the development, implementation, and scaling of Abstrax’s growth in the brewing industry backed by world-beating technology and good vibes.
Russ Sabbag turned his hobby into a career in 2017, beginning at the South Florida staple Funky Buddha Brewery, known for its culinary-inspired ales and sought-after barrel-aged stouts. In 2019, he relocated to Northern Virginia, where he continued pushing the boundaries of what we call “beer” at Adroit Theory Brewing and later at Juicy Brewing Co. With hops often being both the most hyped and most costly ingredient, Russ constantly focuses on when and how to use them to maximize impact.
Activate the Visitor Economy to Grow Revenue
Ready to bring in new business? Learn how to activate the visitor economy with Virginia is for Lovers/Virginia is for Craft Beer Lovers. Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) offers a variety of marketing grants, merchandise programs, digital marketing opportunities, and advisory services to help you grow revenue. You’ll learn about upcoming marketing grants, how to create a targeted marketing plan, and how to engage with VTC’s partnership marketing team.
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Staci Martin has spent over ten years working at Virginia Tourism Corporation as a Destination Development Manager, Grants Manager, and Grants Director. She also spent ten years with the Virginia State Park service marketing ecotourism and outdoor recreation opportunities.
Where’s The Profit?: How to (Actually) Make Money Selling Your Beer in 2025
It isn’t 2015 anymore. As the craft industry has plateaued, running a profitable brewery has become more and more challenging each year. This presentation will provide craft business owners a deep dive to understand why this is and, more importantly, the strategic changes owners need to make in order to sell the right beer, to the right consumers, at the right margins, to generate cash and finally get ahead.
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It all started in 2010 when Chris Farmand was fortunate enough to assist a start-up brewery with establishing back-office processes. This gave him a firsthand glimpse into the complications of running a brewery. Shortly thereafter, he founded Small Batch Standard, which has become the premier financial agency for craft over the past decade. Everyday, Chris and the SBS team are seeking the opportunity to assist an industry full of entrepreneurs who have proven to create amazing, local products. Small Batch Standard helps breweries uncover profit through outsourced accounting, tax compliance, and benchmark consulting. Chris has worked with over 200 breweries and is driven by building long-lasting deep relationships.
Chris graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Business Finance in 2002. Then in 2006, he received his Master of Business Administration from the University of North Florida. He is an active member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Chris’s crew is made up of his wife and 3 children…They rock!
The Power of Data Visualization in Brewery Operations
As breweries face increasing financial pressures, optimizing production efficiency and reducing costs have never been more critical. With ongoing global economic challenges, breweries are seeing significant increases in the costs of raw materials such as hops, malt, and aluminium for cans, all of which are impacted by tariffs and supply shortages. These rising costs directly affect profitability, making it essential for breweries to have a data-driven approach to cost management. However, breweries don’t need more data, they need better insights. In this presentation, we will begin by looking at how we can transform siloed data into clear visuals, to start showing a better trend analysis.
We will explore how aggregating real-time production data can provide critical insights into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). We’ll then use real-world examples to provide tools for breweries to generate data visualizations for their breweries in the areas of Tank Utilization, Batch Efficiency, Beer Loss, COGS per BBL, Ingredient Usage, and Sales Summaries. Attendees will walk away with actionable strategies to track, analyze, and utilize real-time metrics to make smarter business decisions and drive long-term success.
Attendees will be able to explain the meetings that they need to have on a weekly and fortnightly basis to keep their team on track for their goals, and the real-time updates that need to happen on their objectives. The learning objective is to look at the production data from a new lens to find areas of improvement to optimize inventory, reduce costs, streamline operations, and generate increased profit. This presentation is not just about data — it’s about applying data to navigate today’s economic challenges.
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Pulkit K. Agrawal (PKA) is the Founder and CEO of Beer30 by The 5th Ingredient®, a leading brewery operations management software aimed at enhancing beer quality and consistency. After graduating from Harvard College, PKA worked as a Process Engineer at Ballast Point Brewing, where he focused on packaging lines and nitrogen beer. In January 2018, PKA launched Beer30®, a brewery data management system that offers grain-to-glass process and quality data tracking, while expanding beyond the standard inventory tracking of other systems. Beer30 focuses on real-time brewing data input, raw material inventory, cost of goods analysis, quality and sensory tracking, sales and distribution, and accounting integration. Beer30 is in over 450 breweries globally, helping to #BrewMoreBeer and #BrewBetterBeer. In December 2022, PKA was selected to the Forbes 30 Under 30, Class of 2023, in the Food and Drink category. In his free time, PKA enjoys traveling, scuba diving, and entrepreneurship coaching.
Attracting the Right Talent to Your Brewery
For years, you have heard that people are your most important asset, but how exactly do you attract the type of people who will help propel the success of your brewery?
During this workshop, Executive Coach Dorian Cunion of Your Path Coaching and Consulting will share tips, best practices, and processes that he has successfully used to help hundreds of small business owners over his more than 20 years as a business consultant, attracting employees, reducing turnover, and improving business operations.
During the workshop, we will discuss the role that organizational mission, vision, and values play in determining what types of employees will thrive within your brewery.
Then we will discuss how to craft and communicate roles, compensation plans, and organizational environment so that applicants are excited to join your organization.
Finally, we will discuss how to refine your selection process so that you can increase the likelihood of identifying individuals who possess the character, skills, and potential to help you achieve your organizational goals.
Participants will walk away from this presentation with practical steps that they can implement immediately to attract the right talent. As a bonus, we will discuss low-cost best practices for raising awareness of job postings, so that you have a large pool of candidates to pick from.
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Dorian Cunion is an executive coach and small business consultant with over two decades of experience, primarily from a 21-year career at 7-Eleven. He held various leadership roles there, including Vice President of Operations, where he managed a $2.5 billion operating zone with over 1,000 stores and 10,000 employees.
He is the co-owner of Your Path Coaching and Consulting, a company that offers executive coaching and small business consulting services. Dorian focuses on helping leaders clarify goals, improve communication, and develop strategic thinking. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Randolph-Macon College and an MBA from the University of Maryland Global Campus, and is an ICF certified coach.
Taproom Food Profits: Maximizing Margins with Menus and Metrics
In this presentation, we’ll show brewery owners and managers how to make more money from their food program by focusing on profitability, not just sales. You’ll learn how to optimize your menu, truly understand your food costs, price for profit, and use software tools to dynamically track ingredient cost changes. We’ll also cover the key performance metrics that drive a successful and sustainable food operation in your taproom.
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Kary Shumway is the founder of Beer Business Finance which offers online financial training resources for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for more than 20 years as a certified public accountant and a chief financial officer for a beer distributor and a brewery.
Inside Virginia Beer Distribution: Challenges and Successes
This panel discussion will explore the evolving role of the Virginia Beer Distribution Company (VBDC) from the perspective of Virginia breweries, highlighting both the challenges and successes experienced since the VBDC’s operational changes took effect on July 1, 2024. As the craft beer market in Virginia continues to expand rapidly, distribution strategies have become a critical factor in brewery growth and market competitiveness. The session will be moderated to facilitate an open dialogue among brewery owners and operators who utilize VBDC for their product distribution, providing firsthand insights into how the company’s model supports or complicates their business operations.
Two board members of the VBDC will join the panel to share key accomplishments and ongoing challenges faced by the organization, offering transparency and a strategic outlook on distribution within the state. Their perspectives will shed light on how VBDC is adapting to the needs of craft brewers and the broader market environment. Additionally, a retail buyer will participate to provide the retailer’s viewpoint on working with VBDC-distributed products, addressing how distribution impacts product availability, selection, and consumer demand at the retail level.
Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the current distribution landscape in Virginia, practical lessons learned by breweries partnering with VBDC, and actionable strategies to optimize distribution relationships. This session is ideal for brewers seeking to navigate Virginia’s unique distribution environment effectively.
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The Virginia Beer Distribution Company is a non-stock, non-profit corporation housed within the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. VBDC is modeled off the Virginia Winery Distribution Company which has been in operation since 2007. This company provides a path for Virginia breweries to self-distribute up to 500 barrels of their product each calendar year. The VBDC is comprised of a 5-member Board of Directors, an operations manager, and a financial analyst.
Dakota Rust is the Operations Manager for Virginia Beer Distribution Company. He started with (VDACS) in February 2024 and has been working tirelessly with his team on getting VBDC setup for success. Dakota came to VDACS with a little more than three years of experience at Virginia ABC where he worked in the Bureau of Law Enforcement. His unit was responsible for many things including helping businesses apply for ABC licenses and staying licensed.
A hospitality veteran with over two decades of experience, Tommy Adkins spent a career immersed in the world of hotels, specializing in sales and events management. His passion for creating memorable guest experiences extends beyond the corporate world and into his personal life as an avid homebrewer of over 10 years. This hobby led to his latest venture as the Co-Owner of Dragon Run Brewing with sister Lindsay, where he blended his business acumen with his love for craft beer.
Turning Organics into Opportunity via Zero Waste to Landfill Solutions
Food and beverage waste represents one of the largest contributors to landfill volume and greenhouse gas emissions. As regulations tighten and sustainability expectations grow, businesses are increasingly pursuing zero waste to landfill solutions to reduce environmental impact and operational costs.
This presentation will explore the spectrum of waste diversion options available to the food and beverage industry. We’ll explore how different waste streams, from packaging materials to organic byproducts, can be redirected from landfills through different disposal solutions according to the EPA’s Wasted Food Scale.
Successful zero waste programs require understanding waste composition, identifying appropriate diversion pathways, and implementing systems that work within existing operations. We’ll discuss how breweries and other industries can assess their waste streams and develop tailored approaches that maximize diversion rates while maintaining operational efficiency.
The benefits extend beyond environmental impact: reduced waste disposal costs, improved regulatory compliance, enhanced brand reputation, and alignment with sustainability commitments that appeal to consumers and investors. Risk mitigation also becomes important as landfill capacity decreases and disposal costs continue rising.
Through case studies from various food and beverage sectors, we’ll demonstrate how different organizations have achieved landfill diversion. Join us to discover how comprehensive waste diversion strategies can transform your operations, turning waste management from a cost center into an opportunity for environmental leadership and operational efficiency.
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Erin Kane is the Director of Client Success at Vanguard Renewables, where she partners with leading food and beverage companies to implement sustainable food waste recycling solutions and advance the circular economy. With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, operations, and client strategy, Erin brings a unique blend of business acumen and environmental stewardship to her work.
She holds dual degrees in Geology and Psychology, an MBA, and is a certified life coach and Level 1 Sommelier—giving her a well-rounded perspective that bridges science, sustainability, and the culinary world. Erin is passionate about helping brands turn waste into a force for good and is a frequent speaker on sustainability, client engagement, and leadership.
She resides in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two beloved Siberian cats, and can often be found outdoors—hiking, skiing, or exploring nature with her camera in hand.
How to Win Over Gen Z Without Losing Your Soul (or Your Shirt)
Think Gen Z doesn’t drink beer? Think again. While the headlines love to focus on “less alcohol” and “shorter attention spans,” the real story is that Gen Z isn’t checked out—they’re just expecting more.
Join brewery tech veterans from GoTab and Gen Z marketing expert Evan Blum (BrewedAt) for a candid, interactive conversation about how taprooms and brewpubs can evolve to meet the expectations of a new generation of guests—without abandoning the heart of what makes them special.
GoTab brings nearly a decade of experience working directly with taprooms across the country to optimize their operations. Evan represents the next wave: a Gen Z drinker and co-founder of BrewedAt, a Philly-based agency helping breweries like Other Half engage younger guests through creative events and campaigns.
Together, they’ll unpack:
What Gen Z really wants from their taproom experience (hint: it’s more than just beer)
How decision-making, spending habits, and brand loyalty differ from past generations
What types of events and offerings resonate—and what’s falling flat
The role of technology, mobile ordering, and even (gulp) TikTok
How operators can stay authentic while tapping into new revenue streams
Expect practical takeaways, real-life examples, and a lot of honest talk—plus plenty of laughs along the way.
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Adam Howe is an established operator, trainer, and problem solver. He currently serves as a Solutions Engineer with GoTab, implementing high-end, user-friendly technology in various concepts, including breweries, eatertainment, and multi-vendor setups. Adam brings a wealth of operations knowledge gained from his background in brewery and eatertainment spaces including operating multi-unit brands with Pyramid Brewing (Seattle, WA, Berkeley, CA, Portland, OR), Plank (Oakland, CA), Drake’s Brewing (San Leandro, CA, Oakland, CA), Upland Brewing (Bloomington, IN, Indianapolis, IN, Columbus, IN), Taxman Brewing (Bargersville, IN, Fortville, IN, Indianapolis, IN). Between training staff on the importance of guest experience and product knowledge, Adam developed and nurtured his relationships with his staff and guests alike, providing the tools and resources for success. Now with GoTab, that passion has been able to be applied to even more operations in providing the guidance and tools to help them succeed in an ever-changing guest experience landscape.
BrewedAt is a Gen Z-led experiential events marketing company that partners with breweries to create unforgettable, data-driven campaigns and in-person events to connect with our generation. From custom taprooms pop-ups such as gaming tournaments and watch-parties to passport programs and brand collaborations, BrewedAt specializes in building both real-world and digital connections that convert unaware locals into casual visitors and ultimately, loyal brand fans.
Evan Blum brings over six years of experience in the beverage industry. He began his career in supply chain at Nestlé Waters North America, where he spent three years learning the inner workings of large-scale beverage operations. He later shifted into creative marketing for local craft breweries and bars, combining his operational background with a passion for local business, brand building, storytelling & Gen Z.
Brewing and Selling Hazy Beer in 2025
Remember when people lined up for hazies? Those days feel like a lifetime ago. In this panel, we’ll talk with brewers across production, marketing, and hospitality about how they’ve adapted to keep hazy beers relevant. We’ll dig into brewing techniques, industry trends, and what’s changed when it comes to selling and promoting hazies today. Hear what brewers are actually doing right now to keep these beers moving and profitable.
Panelists: Ben Butler (Top Hat), Matthew Poselwait (Stone Brewing), Savannah Roberts (Triple Crossing Brewing)
Moderator: Elinor Reina (The Veil Brewing)
Ben Butler, APR is an accredited communications professional and the founder of Top Hat: one of the nation’s leading creative, web, and marketing agencies. In his past life, he owned a craft brewery focusing on resurrecting dead beers. Ben has been inducted into the PRSSA National Hall of Fame, invited to serve on the Forbes Agency Council, and has been named: Pittsburgh Business Times 30 Under 30, and North Allegheny Under 40 Distinguished Alumni.
Elinor Reina’s craft beer career began with Trillium Brewing Company in Boston as a server and Merchandise Coordinator, where she was also the Secretary for the Boston chapter of Pink Boots Society for women and non-binary individuals in the industry. She moved to Richmond in 2019 to begin working as a server and packaging technician with The Veil Brewing Co., and is now General Manager for both Richmond tasting rooms. She is currently the co-chapter leader for Pink Boots Society RVA, assists with planning/social media for the Scott’s Addition Beverage District group, and is a trainer with Safe Bars RVA (an organization dedicated to violence prevention in the hospitality field), is pursuing her Cicerone – Level 2 certification, and trying to find time to sleep.
Matthew Poselwait is the Head Brewer of Sapporo-Stone Brewing in Richmond, VA, producing 250,000+ bbls annually with a team of 24 brewers. Matthew holds degrees in Chemistry and Industrial Management with certificates in Brewing, Pharmaceutical Science, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. Matthew also serves on the education committee for the MBAA. His professional experience ranges from R&D, Quality, and Operations in various industries. Before beer, Matthew worked for Campari and Sazerac, distilling bourbon and various spirits in KY. Matthew’s passion is to drive enhanced community engagement in the VA beer scene while promoting education within the alcoholic beverage industry.
Savannah Roberts is the Production Manager at Triple Crossing in Richmond, VA, where she’s been making beer and managing chaos for the past 7 years. A former co-chair of the RVA Pink Boots chapter and proud partner of the VA Department of Wildlife Resources (raising $21K+ in 2025), she’s passionate about her community, thoughtful brewing, and building a team that’s excited to show up. She’ll be speaking on surviving the ever-shifting beer industry, from evolving trends to rethinking ingredients year after year.
Keynote: Trailblazers of Virginia Beer featuring Dave Warwick (Three Notch’d) + Eric McKay (Hardywood) + Geoff Logan (Alewerks)
Join three Virginia Beer Trailblazers for an intimate conversation about their careers, the impact they’ve made, and the challenges they’ve faced along the way. We’ll dive into the strategies that have helped them grow, how they’ve stayed relevant after 12, 14, and 17 years, and where they see things heading next. They’ll also take questions from the audience.
It’s a chance to learn from the people who helped pave the way for where Virginia beer is today.
Dave Warwick, a Salisbury, MD native, has spent the past 30 years in the food and beverage world. After a short stint in beer sales with Molson Coors, he quickly realized the brewery floor—not the boardroom—is where he belonged.
Dave’s brewing journey kicked off in 2006 with the Rock Bottom Brewpub chain in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the next seven years, he brewed at four different locations before making the jump to production brewing. In 2013, he co-founded Three Notch’d Brewing Co. and stepped into the role of Brewmaster.
A graduate of Davidson College, Eric McKay began his beverage industry career as a brewer’s apprentice in 2002, then worked the bulk of the next decade for what became one of America’s leading craft beer wholesalers. In 2011, Eric co-founded Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, and shortly thereafter, lobbied for the passage of SB 604, the law allowing taprooms in Virginia. A Certified Cicerone and past GABF judge, Eric serves on the James River Association board. Outside of work, Eric most enjoys spending his time with his family and pursuing outdoor adventures.
Geoff Logan serves as Managing Member and Brewmaster at Alewerks Brewing Company in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Delaware native and West Virginia University graduate began his professional career as a touring musician before discovering his passion for brewing when he joined Alewerks in 2007. During his tenure, Logan pursued formal brewing education, earning his Diploma in Intensive Brewing Science and Engineering from the American Brewer’s Guild and achieving Certified Cicerone certification. Promoted to Managing Member in 2016, Logan has guided Alewerks to prominence within Virginia’s craft beer landscape through innovative barrel-aging programs and specialty beer development. Outside the brewery, Logan cherishes time with his wife and two children.
Lead a Virtual Educational Session
Thank you for being interested in sharing your knowledge and expertise with our Craft Beer community. We host Tuesday, 11am, and Wednesday, 4pm, ET presentations featuring experts covering all aspects of our industry. All presentations will be in the Craft Beer Professionals group on Facebook via live video and also streamed on YouTube. Each session will be 60 minutes in length.
Submissions are welcome on a continual basis and will reach out when we have openings.
Conference Proposal
Thank you for being interested in sharing your knowledge and expertise with our Craft Beer community.
All presentations will be in Craft Beer Professionals via live video and also streamed on YouTube. You can view sessions from past conferences here.
Each session will be 45 minutes in length. Any Q&A will be included in this time period. Please review our presentation guidelines.
All submissions must be received by Friday, August 12, 2022. Please save a copy for your records. Each proposal will be reviewed and selected presenters will be contacted by Monday, August 15, 2022. Once selected, we will contact all presenters to discuss your presentation time and instructions.
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5 Strategies to Save Money When Your Don’t Have Time w/James Stutsman (Independent Brewers Alliance)
In today’s competitive craft beer market, saving money can boost your bottom line faster than chasing every new trend. This session will share five quick, practical strategies you can use right now to cut costs without cutting corners. You’ll learn how to tap into your network to find trusted vendor recommendations, leverage your state guild’s discounts and preferred partners, and re-negotiate with your current suppliers for better deals. We’ll explore how to contract strategically—locking in pricing where it makes sense without overextending yourself—and how to boost buying power through industry co-operatives, whether by joining one or creating your own. Attendees will walk away with cost-saving tactics they can implement immediately, even with a packed schedule.
James Stutsman knows this industry and the headwinds brewers are facing. His experience includes nearly 15 years in the industry with stints as Director of Marketing and Sales for Kansas City Bier Company and Marketing Manager for Deschutes. Then he co-founded and served as head brewer for City Barrel Brewing Company where he helped build distribution, open two restaurants and win a GABF medal for Hazy/Juicy IPA in the process. Now he works for the Independent Brewers Alliance and helps brewers navigate the time-sucking maze of sourcing and negotiating with vendors.
The Role of Oxygen in Brewing: A Double-Edged Sword (panel conversation)
This session will explore the science and practical outcomes of using pure oxygen in brewing fermentation compared to compressed air. By focusing on microbial activity, oxygen purity, and nano bubble dynamics, this session will highlight why pure oxygen is the superior choice for fermentation.
Key Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Understand the role of oxygen in yeast metabolism and fermentation efficiency.
Compare the effects of oxygen versus compressed air on microbial activity and product consistency.
Explain how oxygen purity and bubble size (micro/nano) influence dissolved oxygen availability throughout the fermentation tank.
Recognize the contaminants introduced by compressed air (nitrogen, argon, water vapor, oil) and their impact on brewing chemistry.
Evaluate practical strategies for transitioning from compressed air to pure oxygen in fermentation processes.
This conversation features:
Colton Grimmer (B.S. Biological Sciences, Brewer Four Peaks Brewing Company, Arizona)
Darren Yates (Quality Beverage Concepts)
Gary Fogg (Maintenance Manager, Four Peaks Brewing Company, Arizona)
Fall Reset: Small Fixes Now for a Smooth Holiday Season w/Matt Hon (Brew Ninja Software)
The busy summer season often masks small inefficiencies that quietly drain time, money, and energy from your brewery. In this practical, no-fluff session, we’ll guide you through an essential “autumn reset” to identify and fix hidden inefficiencies before the holiday rush hits.
Whether you’re managing your brewery with a whiteboard, spreadsheets, or brewery management software, this talk is for you. We’ll share actionable tips that anyone can use to improve access to key information so that your team can make smarter, faster decisions.
Plus, we’ll introduce Brew Ninja’s 5-minute Brewery Health Check Survey to help you reflect on your current operations and pinpoint where small changes could deliver big results. No matter your current tools, these insights will help you reduce last-minute chaos, avoid costly mistakes, and boost your margins.
If you’re ready to reclaim time and confidence ahead of the holiday rush, this talk is for you.” “Brew Ninja is the complete, affordable and easy to use brewery management software. With Brew Ninja your team gets time back to focus on what they do best.
Brewers are on top of production schedules and inventory, ensuring you never run dry or overproduce. Sales teams have real time access to accurate inventory, meaning they can close deals faster without endless back and forth. Owners see margins and profitability with just a few clicks, and your whole team communicates seamlessly.
Co-Founder and Sales Director, Matt Hon has worked with brewers across North America over the past 7 years to help them improve operational efficiency through better access to information, and simpler workflows.
Equity on Tap – Tools for Raising Capital and Structuring Your Exit w/Megan Farley & Alison Kinnear (Allen Stahl + Kilbourne)
This session will walk you through the key legal steps to build a business that’s ready for investment and eventually for sale. We will dive into the legal side of raising capital. From friends and family to private investors or venture capital. We will demystify the capital raising process – covering commonly used private placement exemptions like Regulation D (Rules 506(b) and 506(c)), basic compliance responsibilities, and the kinds of disclosures and filings that may be required to stay on the right side of the law. Next, we’ll look ahead to your exit strategy. Whether you are planning to retire, sell to a competitor, or transition the business to current owner, we will discuss what makes the business sellable, what buyers expect, how deals are structured, how businesses are valued, and the professionals who can help you do it right. This session is ideal for business owners who want to grow with intention, raise money the right way, and make choices that keep their options open for a successful exit.
Megan Farley is a partner at Allen Stahl & Kilbourne, PLLC where she focuses her practice on business, nonprofit, alcoholic beverage law, intellectual property (trademark) law, and creditor rights.
She regularly advises business clients on a range of matters from formation, contracts, commercial lease review and negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, applying for and maintaining trademark registration, and other business operational matters. Megan also assists craft beverage business clients with federal, state, and local ABC permitting, compliance, contracting, intellectual property licensing, and through the nuances of buying and selling ABC-permitted businesses.
Megan has sat on the board of directors of the North Carolina Craft Beverage Museum and Invest Collegiate Imagine charter school. Her practical nonprofit experience helps her guide nonprofit clients through the unique challenges they face. In addition to advising nonprofit clients, Megan provides workshops for boards and facilitates strategic planning meetings to assist nonprofits in defining clear goals and strategies to further their missions.
Alison Kinnear is a seasoned corporate and securities attorney with nearly 30 years of experience advising clients on complex business matters. Her practice focuses on business transactions, corporate governance, private placements, and compliance with state and federal securities laws.
Alison’s work spans a wide range of legal areas, including corporate structuring and restructuring, governance, commercial contracts, and private placements under Regulation D, with deal sizes ranging from $500,000 to $50 million. She regularly handles partner buyouts, buy-sell agreements, and mergers and acquisitions involving transactions from $10,000 to $100 million. Her experience also includes business succession planning and overseeing legal due diligence for major transactions.
In addition to her transactional work, Alison serves as outside counsel to startups and growing companies, providing both strategic input and practical legal guidance that supports their long-term success.
From Brewer to Boss: Leadership Skills Brewed for You w/Ryan Mayfield (Craft Leadership)
Making great beer doesn’t automatically mean you’re ready to lead people—but in most breweries, that’s exactly what happens. Talented brewers, servers, and production crew get promoted into leadership without ever being shown how to actually lead. The result? Frustration, burnout, and team dynamics that drag down quality, morale, and margins.
In this session, you’ll learn three proven leadership tools that will help you coach, challenge, and develop your team—without losing the heart and vibe that make craft beer special. First, we’ll introduce the Support-Challenge Matrix, a simple framework for setting the right tone as a leader. You’ll learn how to be “high support, high challenge” and create a culture of empowerment instead of fear or entitlement.
Then, we’ll walk through the 100X Leader Assessment to help you evaluate not just how well you’re performing, but how well you’re helping others perform. Finally, we’ll break down the Developing Others Square—a step-by-step model to train and grow your team with intention (and avoid the dreaded “Pit of Despair”).
You’ll leave with practical tools you can use right away and an invitation to take the next step through the new Craft Leader Certification, a professional development path built specifically for leaders in the craft beer industry.
Ryan Mayfield is a leadership coach who helps brewery professionals build healthy leaders, strong teams, and thriving cultures. Through Craft Leadership, he equips clients with practical tools to lead with confidence, improve communication, and reduce daily frustrations. Craft has supported top breweries like Other Half, Rhinegeist, and Creature Comforts in navigating leadership and team challenges. Based in Tulsa, Ryan lives with his wife, teenage son, and opinionated beagle, Rooster.
How to Build a Brewery Budget You’ll Actually Use w/Kary Shumway (Beer Business Finance)
Say goodbye to boring spreadsheets and hello to a budgeting process that actually works. In this workshop, we’ll show you how to create a practical, profit-driven brewery budget using real numbers, easy tools, and a dash of fun. You’ll leave with a clear plan, the right templates, and the confidence to take control of your finances. Without falling asleep at the keyboard.
Kary Shumway is the founder of Craft Brewery Financial Training.com and the Beer Business Finance Association which offer online resources for beer industry professionals. He has worked in the beer industry for more than 20 years as a certified public accountant and a chief financial officer for a beer distributor and a brewery. Craft Brewery Financial Training publishes a free weekly beer industry finance newsletter, offers online training courses on topics such as cash flow planning, financial forecasting, and brewery metrics.
Craft Under Pressure: Strategic Marketing to Survive and Scale in Craft Beer w/Scott Kolbe (Market Your Craft)
2024 saw more brewery closings than openings. Uncertainty is growing around rising costs and tariffs. Production is down. Consumers are looking for more diverse offerings, including non-alcoholic. Industry associations are promising bright days ahead, while member breweries are not so sure.
Tired promotions and liquid social posts aren’t going to save craft. Throwing more resources and budget at the problem doesn’t make it go away. Festivals and retail demos are drying up. It’s time to start thinking more strategically about sales growth, starting with your marketing plan. Owners and industry experts alike are placing their bets on one simple blueprint:
• Design your website to help drive organic search • Create content to build community on social media • Schedule email campaigns for broad calls-to-action • Develop a branded mobile app for activating individual drinkers • Leverage AI for operational efficiency
The data is available to help brewery owners and managers take a more thoughtful, deliberate approach to business growth. We’ll discuss how to track marketing efforts using tools like Google Looker Studio and weekly dashboard reporting, as well as best practices for success in each channel. Presentation attendees have access to 10+ Guides with techniques to keep fans engaged and proven tools to fuel excitement around your unique story.
We started Market Your Craft to help small-to-mid-sized producers quickly adapt to the changing Marketing landscape with storytelling. Because we believe every craft brand has an exciting story to share. Led by Scott Kolbe, we’re a team of dreamers and doers, passionate about all things beverage with the creds to match. We’ve created a series of Workshops and Guides to help define your brand story and inform your Marketing efforts. To learn more or to schedule a session with one of our storytelling experts, visit marketyourcraft.com.
Marketing Rules for Every Beverage Product You Sell w/Shana Metzger (Barnes Beverage Group)
We know that you know beer! But what if you’re adding additional product categories? This presentation aims to give you a solid understanding of the rules and regulations around the advertising and marketing of all your brands, alcoholic beer as well as non-alc, spirits and hemp-derived beverage products.
Key Objectives:
Know what is considered an advertisement and the “Golden Rule” to avoid most TTB/FTC concerns.
Advertising alcoholic beverage brands and what rules/regulations you are required to follow, including social media and print
Understand how the rules/regulations may or may not change if you are advertising a spirit, non-alc or hemp derived product?
Understand where some companies selling only non-alc beer and/or hemp-derived products have more flexibility than you do as a producer of alcoholic beverages.
How to get the influencers that you work with to understand all of this, or at least what they need to know to keep you from getting into trouble
Shana Metzger, Senior Counsel at Barnes Beverage Group, provides strategic counsel on the full spectrum of commercial operations, from crafting distribution, sales, and expansion strategies to negotiating complex agreements.
Shana excels in drafting and managing distribution contracts, alternating proprietorships, and other key commercial arrangements, in both traditional and emerging beverage sectors. Beyond commercial work, she advises clients on labor and employment issues as well as intellectual property matters, ensuring comprehensive support for client businesses.
Streamlining Your Brewery: Lessons from Lawson’s Finest Liquids (panel conversation)
Breweries are under pressure—tight margins, unpredictable production, and old ways of managing inventory, compliance, and procurement that just aren’t cutting it anymore. In this session, we’ll explore how mid-sized breweries can reclaim efficiency and stay competitive using smarter systems, without needing an enterprise IT team.
You’ll hear from Lawson’s Finest Liquids, a regional brewery navigating this transformation firsthand, alongside their technology partners. Together, we’ll break down how integrated solutions have driven automated compliance, smarter purchasing, and greater operational efficiency—while delivering measurable ROI.
Through a panel discussion grounded in real brewery experiences, we will spotlight three high-impact areas where smarter tools are turning friction points into competitive advantages:
Automating and backing up TTB and state excise reporting with live data
Leveraging Material Requirements Planning (MRP) to improve purchasing decisions and reduce waste
Building a business case for moving off QuickBooks and other standalone solutions into more robust, scalable systems
Whether you’re trying to reduce reporting errors, tighten up inventory, or free up your team’s time, this session delivers practical strategies and actionable steps for brewing smarter without overwhelming your budget.
This conversation features:
Alyssa Sorrentino (Lawson’s Finest Liquids)
Anthony Shibata (Wipfli LLP)
Dane Koepke (Wipfli LLP)
Fiona Gray (Lawson’s Finest Liquids)
Randy Smith (Vicinity Software)
Would You Do It Again? Stories and Takeaways (panel conversation)
Every big decision comes with lessons, some you are glad you learned and others you wish you could have avoided. In this panel, brewery owners and managers share the moves they have made, from expansions to new revenue streams to tough calls that changed the direction of their business. Hear what worked, what did not, and what they would do differently so you can make smarter moves in your own business.
This conversation features:
Ben Acord (Mucho Aloha Brewhouse)
Mike Garcia (Loose Screw Beer Co.)
Nicole Carrier (Throwback Brewery)
Tyler Forbes (Burzurk Brewing Co.)
The Brewery Talent Crisis: What to Know and What to Do w/Steve Hopkins (Wipfli LLP)
We are experiencing an unprecedented talent crisis in the US. We are producing more jobs than we have workers to fill them, companies are now competing for talent across all industries – not just within their own. Engagement is at its lowest in almost 10 years and the expectations among Millennials and GenZ have created the long overdue awakening about what leaders need to do to build engaged and productive teams. See the compelling statistics and learn how, as a leader, you can realize the ROI of talent development and build a more productive and sustainable organization.
Steve Hopkins leads Wipfli’s leadership consulting team within the Organizational Performance group, helping clients grow their people, culture, and organizations. With over a decade of experience in leadership development and executive coaching, Steve builds on a diverse career that includes managing global sales, leading business units, and teaching at the University of Kentucky. He is known for his eclectic background and passion for empowering leaders through frameworks, training, and tools. His consulting approach is thoughtful and thought-provoking, with a focus on enhancing employee performance, team cohesion, and organizational growth.
Brewery Expansion: Golden Ticket or Achilles’ Heel? (panel conversation)
Business is consistent, staff is solid, cash flow is more than adequate, and I have a great idea/opportunity for another tap room….so should I do it?”
This feels like the ultimate question for the brewing industry right now, since a significant number of closings seem to be happening on the heels of a major expansion. So what are the best metrics to use when weighing this question (or) any type of major expansion?
We pulled together a panel of industry veterans with different backgrounds to see what their approach would be to this question.
Dustin Hauck of Hauck Architecture looks at the industry through the lens of the budgets, building, infrastructure, and state/county/city regulations for 300+ breweries, and he’s got lists of considerations for you.
Erik Fowler of the San Diego Brewers Guild has traveled the country as an industry educator with brewing roots, and he’s now representing the interests of a very strong American brewing region. He’s seen brewing & business approaches of every stripe.
Kary Shumway of Beer Business Finance and Kary’s Financial Training has worked with many breweries facing this question, and he sees the world through spreadsheets with financial & growth metrics. Hard to argue with the numbers!
Jeremy Carney of Central Coast Analytics IS data. It’s his jam. His mission is to empower breweries to make smarter, data-driven decisions, so be ready for guidance around how to collect, slice and dice what you know.
Jon Carpenter of Opensō Consulting has lived it. He’s worked in the areas of engineering & design, NPD & operations, staffing/training, and construction/ installation/ startup of equipment, systems, brands, and facilities throughout his 19 years….so he has an opinion. Perhaps more than one.
Our moderator, Laura Lodge of Start A Brewery & Customized Craft Beer Programs, has likewise walked many different paths within the industry, notably distribution, education, events, and startup consulting.
Join us for a deep dive into the search for that Golden Ticket. After all, breweries & chocolate factories have a lot in common!
Staff Education For Customer Service w/David Nilsen (Beer Educator)
Your service staff is tasked with presenting your beers to customers in your taproom or brewpub, which makes each of them ad hoc members of your sales staff. They might be great bartenders or servers, but if they came to you from a restaurant or other hospitality background, they might not know much about beer, and we all know how quickly beer misinformation can spread.
Brewery owners are sometimes reluctant to invest time and money in a staff education program, fearing they’ll have to watch that investment walk out the door if an employee leaves a few months later. However, far more damaging than a trained employee who leaves is an untrained one who sticks around. You give your sales staff the information they need to get your beer into new account, and your service staff needs it to.
In this talk, Advanced Cicerone and beer educator David Nilsen will talk about the benefits of establishing a service-focused beer education program at your brewery and what does and doesn’t need to be included in the program.
How to Thrive in Chaos: Revenue vs. Profit Strategies for Volatile Markets w/Dustin Jeffers (Ollie)
Running a craft brewery today isn’t easy—markets are unpredictable, costs are rising, and competition is fierce. The real question is, how do you not just survive, but thrive in all this chaos?
Join us as we tackle the biggest challenges facing craft breweries today—rising raw material and packaging costs, fierce competition, and unpredictable pricing and demand. We’ll break down revenue vs. profit and show you how Ollie can help transform your passion into a profitable, sustainable business. By the end, you’ll leave with clear, actionable strategies to boost profitability and thrive in an ever-changing market.
Dustin Jeffers is a VP, Brewery Product & Experience at Next Glass. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Connecticut and his Master’s Degree from Florida Atlantic University. He has been in the beer industry since 2012, working at Saltwater Brewery as the Head Brewer and Chief Operations Officer, and at 3 Sons Brewing Co. as the Director of Operations. Dustin has been a part of multiple aspects of the brewing industry, including brewing, front-of-house, sales, and operations. Dustin now works for Next Glass, Inc as a Brewery Solutions Consultant discussing all the solutions Next Glass has to offer for the beverage alcohol industry.
Beer Excise Tax Across the Country: Tax Obligations When Selling Interstate w/Alex Koral (Sovos ShipCompliant)
For better or worse, the U.S. beer market is built on top of a sea of excise taxes, which every successful and compliant brewer must learn to navigate. As your brewery grows and enters more state markets, your overall excise tax burden only increases, adding to the confusion and risk of missing something. And, of course, each state has unique rules for how they apply and administer their excise tax systems. Understanding the ins and outs of this burden, from your federal liabilities to the rules of the individual states is critical when expanding your sales footprint across the U.S. Come hear regulatory expert Alex Koral of Sovos ShipCompliant provide a review of the different excise tax rules and scenarios that brewers face.
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alex Koral is Regulatory General Counsel for Sovos ShipCompliant, where he serves as lead legal researcher for beverage alcohol regulation and has become a leading expert on interstate distribution of alcohol. He has spoken on the topic at many industry events including the Craft Beer Professionals Virtual Conferences, Craft Brewers Conference, American Craft Spirits Association Convention, as well as meetings for the National Council of State Liquor Administrators and the National Liquor Law Enforcement Association. Alex has been in the beverage alcohol arena since 2015, after receiving his J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School.
Sell Smarter, Not Harder: How to Drive Growth Without a Traditional Sales Team w/Julie Rhodes (Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions)
Hiring a whole sales team isn’t always realistic, but that doesn’t mean your growth has to stall. This session explores how independent beverage brands can scale sales using lean, digital-first strategies that replace manual processes with intelligent systems. You’ll learn how to blend brand storytelling, targeted marketing, and smart automation to boost both retail and wholesale revenue. Whether you’re self-distributing, working with a wholesaler, or selling direct-to-consumer, you’ll walk away with a practical plan to build a sustainable sales engine that doesn’t rely on cold calls or constant hustle. We’ll cover how to structure a digital sales strategy that complements in-person outreach, as well as how content, email, and automation can be leveraged to nurture leads, drive conversions, and foster long-term customer relationships. You’ll also learn how to generate and track qualified leads with the same tools used by successful, resource-conscious brands across the industry. If you’re an owner or operator looking to sell more without hiring a traditional sales team, this session will help you rethink your approach to sales, replace outdated tactics with effective ones, and provide a clear roadmap for driving revenue growth.
Julie Rhodes is a 20-year veteran of the food and beverage industry, the owner and operator of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, a fractional consulting and educational services company, and the co-founder of Kick Fizz, a low-dose hemp-infused beverage brand. She specializes in beverage sales, digital marketing, distributor management, and business strategy, helping craft beverage brands work smarter, not harder. A sought-after speaker, business journalist, and instructor for multiple university programs, Julie was named the 2023 Brewers Association Mentor of the Year. She is also an active member of numerous trade associations and state-level guilds.
What to Know Before You Buy or Sell a Brewery w/John Szymankiewicz (Beer Law Center)
There’s a lot of consolidation in the brewing industry right now. And, there are a lot of people looking to make an exit. We tell clients that, right now, it’s probably cheaper to buy a brewery than to start one. Whether you’re buying or selling there’re thing you need to think about and protections you need to have. From transaction structure to warranties to owner financing to employee issues, there’s a lot to think about. In this presentation we’ll give you best practices for evaluating and completing an alcohol producer/seller purchase or sale transaction.
As an attorney at Beer Law Center, John’s practice centers on the craft beverage industry. Handling everything from business formation to TTB/ABC, to trademark, and buying/selling an alcohol business, John works with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals. John authored the book Beer Law: What Brewers Need to Know and is a Certified BJCP Judge, holds Level II Certifications in Wine and Beer from WSET, and is the country’s only alcohol attorney who is also a Certified Cicerone. John is based in Raleigh and practices in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
What the Hemp? Adding THC Beverages to the Menu w/Ricky Wojcik (Perfectly Dosed)
In this session we will dive into the world of hemp beverages, exploring the state of the industry, market trends, technical details, and, most importantly, giving you ample time to ask questions! Topics covered will include formulation considerations, production SOPs, navigating the regulatory landscape, and understanding what consumers want in a THC drink.
Attendees will leave the session with checklists to get you from formulation to launch, a rough outline of COGS and ROI modeling, and samples to begin developing a THC drink of your own.” “Ricky is the Revenue Director at Perfectly Dosed. He has worked with hundreds of breweries assess the viability of the hemp beverage market and ultimately scale their THC product lines to 10%+ net new revenue in less than a year. Breweries that work with Perfectly Dosed range from local taprooms to major regional craft breweries.
Perfectly Dosed makes ultra stable and affordable hemp emulsions. We’ve powered over one billion servings and our team of experts would be happy to help you launch and scale your hemp products.
This presentation explains the various scenarios in which stainless steel equipment can be damaged and how to avoid damaging the equipment by understanding the cause effects. We will also discuss various field examples and how the equipment can be protected and repaired, if necessary.
Born and raised in Cologne, Germany, Dirk graduated in Cologne with a degree in business administration. After working for a BASF subsidiary, he joined the Loeffler family business, where he worked in sales, technical services and research and development. In 1992, Dirk came to the United States to lay the groundwork for the US operations of Loeffler which led to the incorporation of Loeffler Chemical Corporation in 1994. Until 2019, Dirk served as the CEO and Technical Director for Loeffler Chemical Corporation. After the company merged in 2019, Dirk left the new company and took a sabbatical and focused on teaching and enjoying some time with his family. In 2024, Dirk founded SEKA Chemicals together with his wife Alexis. As the Executive Vice President of Technical Operations and Sales he continues to develop new products and process technologies for breweries and distilleries.
Dirk lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Alexis and their twin boys Kai and Sebastian. Dirk has been an active member of the Master Brewers Association since 1992 and currently serves as the President for the MBAA Districts Mid-South and Georgia. Dirk is also an active member of the Brewers Association since 1993 and serves on the Board of the German School of Atlanta as Safety & Security Officer.
In today’s challenging beverage landscape, most breweries aren’t chasing overnight success as the next big regional or national player. Instead, growth comes from intentional moves that fit the business. In this panel, you’ll hear from owners who have expanded by adding kitchens, stepping away from distribution, and building private event programs — all without losing control. The right next step might not be bigger, just better for your business.
A full taproom is a happy taproom, but gone are the days of “If you brew it, they will come.” We need new ideas and strategies. We need profitable marketing programs that are proven to put butts on barstools and make money!
This session is for micro to mid-size brewery owners, GMs, marketing managers and head janitors (because you do all these jobs) who want to implement 10X+ ROI marketing strategies at their breweries. We will look at the most profitable membership programs, proven ways to drive repeat visits and tactics to sell through aging beer more quickly.
No “pie-in-the-sky” or fluffy marketing ideas allowed. Just real-world examples, numbers & best practices. This way you can skip the guesswork and start implementing proven programs right away.
Whether your goal is to grow weekday traffic, launch a paid membership, or turn first-time guests into lifelong fans, you’ll leave with a clear action plan tailored to your brewery.
Ross Stensrud accidentally graduated from UCSD while studying lacrosse and spending plenty of time at O’Brien’s. After a brief stint designing pool cleaners (yes, really) in an effort to justify the cost of his degree, he pivoted and began recruiting smart friends to help build app marketing tech for local businesses—starting with music, then golf, and now craft beer with TapWyse. He lives in Carlsbad with his wife Laurel and their two boys, Roscoe (11) and Mason (9). When he’s not working, you’ll likely find him biking down PCH or shuttling his kids to basketball, golf, music, and skateboarding.
Crowdsourced: A Collaborative Hour of Problem Solving
CBP Connects attendees continually list the ability to connect and learn from others as a highlight from our workshops. We are excited to host a session dedicated to learning from your peers. In this session, we will field questions from you and then develop the best solutions together. Plan to walk away with strategies to problems many of us are facing and best practices to improve brewery operations. Together, we can grow stronger.
Learning Objectives:
Build new relationships that you can reach out to with future questions
Collaborate with your peers to solve problems faced by other Craft Beer Professionals
Discover new strategies and solutions to help you see greater success at your brewery
The Role of Flavor in 2026
Panelists: Katie McNulty (Revolution Brewing), Nic Bortolin (Amoretti)
Moderator: Jason Pratt (Cicerone)
Consumer expectations are shifting faster than ever. Preferences around flavor, style, experience, and even the role a brewery plays in a community evolve with every new trend on tap. In this conversation, a mix of sensory experts, market analysts, and brewery leaders will break down the flavors and drinking occasions winning today, what is starting to fade, and what signals point to the next wave of demand. From nostalgia to premiumization, from beyond-beer beverages to zero proof options, we will explore the choices guests are making and why. Attendees will leave with a clearer view of where the market is heading and practical ideas to keep their taplist and taproom aligned with consumer behavior.
Learning Objectives:
Develop actionable strategies to align taplists, product development, and taproom programming with evolving flavor expectations to increase relevance, repeat visits, and spend.
Identify the flavor profiles and drinking occasions gaining momentum in 2026 and understand the consumer motivations driving those choices.
Recognize early signals of shifting demand, including what styles, ingredients, and experiences may be plateauing or declining.
Evaluate how trends like nostalgia, premiumization, beyond beer beverages, and zero proof options are influencing purchasing behavior across different guest segments.
Tap Talks: 3 18-minute sessions on critical topics
Ales over Algorithms!
Ross Stensrud (TapWyse)
Thousands of years ago, the taproom gave birth to modern society! Today the taproom is absolutely critical to the future of humankind. In a world riddled with algorithms and artificial intelligence, people need human to human connection now more than at any point in our short history on this planet. How can the taproom co-exist with technology, compete with mega-corps and win with our backs against the wall? Here’s why Craft Beer will come out on top and how to take part in the greatest underdog story ever told.
New NA Opportunities, New Audiences
Dawn Kirchner (Full Circle Brewgarden)
Craft beer, the reason we’re here! It’s our love and the foundation of our businesses. But how can we adapt to changing trends without sacrificing the passion that brought us to the industry? Find out how to expand your menus, minus the alcohol, to include new tastes, preferences, and dietary restrictions, and perhaps gain a few new fans in the process.
Lovin’ on Local: Keeping Consumers Close
Kate Conway (Pickett Brewing)
This Tap Talk will use Maryland as a case study for emphasizing the choice and impact of drinking local products in restaurants, bottle shops, events and beyond. Key takeaways will include data points that support choosing local products, possibilities for funding to grow initiatives that promote local craft and working with state guilds to strengthen the power of this message.
Bitter Honesty: How Malört Turned Hate Into a Disruptive Brand Strategy
Tremaine Atkinson, Anna Sokratov, Zach Jarosz (CH Distillery, home of Jeppson’s Malört)
Malört is a cultural phenomenon built on wormwood, Chicago grit, and the kind of brutal honesty you can taste. In this session, Malört’s marketing and leadership team will unpack how a once-niche shot grew into a nationally recognized brand without changing the recipe or compromising its identity. We’ll share the origin story behind one of America’s most infamously polarizing beverages and dig into why embracing the hate can be a powerful tool rather than a liability. Attendees will learn how Malört continues to find growth in a market where consumers are drinking less overall – yet not drinking less Malört – by leaning into curiosity, self-deprecating humor, and genuine storytelling. We’ll discuss how packaging innovations, unique collaborations, national distribution expansion, and a cult-like social following have led to success.
Most of all, this session is about empowering brands to be authentically themselves. When you start owning your voice, you cut through the noise. Attendees will walk away entertained, educated and armed with tangible examples for building brand loyalty, one shot at a time.
Learning Objectives:
Attendees will learn how brand authenticity, even when it’s polarizing, can be a strategic advantage that drives cultural relevance, loyalty, and growth.
CH Distillery is the home of Jeppson’s Malört, the famously bitter Chicago spirit turned national phenomenon. Leading the charge is CEO and Founder Tremaine Atkinson, whose passion for craft beverages and Chicago’s hospitality culture helped revive Malört and expand CH into a multifaceted, innovation-driven distillery. Head of Marketing Anna Sokratov has been instrumental in transforming Malört’s polarizing reputation into a strategic advantage, using sharp, irreverent storytelling to turn skeptics into loyalists. Director of Operations Zach Jarosz, a lifelong Chicagoan and Malört superfan-turned-maker, brings deep experience in food manufacturing and supply chain, plus an unshakable love for the Bears, to the operation. Together, the team champions authenticity and the belief that great brands stand boldly, unapologetically apart from the pack.
Signal vs Noise: Making Better Decisions When Everything Competes for Attention
Jake Keyes (Skydance Brewing)
Brewery owners are constantly surrounded by reports, opinions, benchmarks, and instincts, all competing for attention. This session explores how leaders separate signal from noise when making real business decisions. Grounded in real world experience, the conversation will highlight practical strategies owners can use to prioritize initiatives, pressure test ideas, and decide where to focus limited time and resources. Rather than tracking more metrics, attendees will leave with clearer ways to interpret information, ask better questions, and make more confident decisions in a resource constrained environment.
Learning Objectives:
Better separate useful signal from the noise that comes from reports, benchmarks, opinions, and instincts
Pressure test ideas and initiatives to decide what’s actually worth their limited time and resources
Ask better questions and feel more confident about where to focus, even when the data is messy or incomplete
Jake Keyes graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism and spent ten years working in tribal gaming before founding Skydance Brewing in 2018. The brewery began in a co-op space and opened its own location in October 2021. In 2023, Keyes was elected Chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma for a three-year term. His recent honors include being named one of Native Business Magazine’s Top 50 Native Entrepreneurs, recognized among the OKC Metro’s Most Influential by 405 Business Magazine, and Skydance being selected as one of Hop Culture Magazine’s Top 12 New Breweries in America in 2021.
The Wild, Wild West: Preparing for the Next Frontier
The beer industry is entering uncharted territory. New constraints, emerging technologies, and changing consumer expectations mean breweries can no longer rely on the playbook of the past. This panel will dig into how to plan ahead, innovate with purpose, and recognize the next drivers of success. You’ll hear honest perspectives on doing more with less, building awareness without big budgets, and resourcing for growth. The conversation will also explore innovation beyond beer, why it can be healthy to get smaller, and how to strengthen your community while balancing business expectations in an unpredictable market.
Learning Objectives:
Identify the key shifts reshaping the beer industry and why old growth playbooks no longer apply
Learn how to plan, prioritize, and innovate when resources are limited and uncertainty is high
Understand practical ways breweries can build awareness and momentum without large marketing budgets
Explore when getting smaller, more focused, or more local can be a strategic move that strengthens both the business and the community
Doug Veliky is a CPA who led Internal Audit at Reyes Holdings from 2009-2016. His love of craft beer led him to create his social media presence under the handle @beeraficionado, as well as his industry Substack Beer Crunchers. Content helped open the opportunity to join Revolution Brewing as their CFO in 2016, then eventually evolve into their CMO in 2021. This past year, Doug joined BrightBev as a Partner, where he and his partner Jeff work with early stage start-up beverage founders on their route to market strategies and execution. Doug continues to actively create content and in late 2025, Beer Crunchers won Best Blog / Newsletter from the NA Guild of Beer Writers.
Tracey Ireland is the Vice President of Marketing at Rhinegeist Brewery, Ohio’s largest craft brewery and one of the Top 20 independent craft breweries in the U.S. She joined Rhinegeist in 2015 as the company’s first marketing leader, working directly with the founder to build and scale the brand across new categories, brands, and channels.
Today, Tracey leads brand, creative, content, digital, and eCommerce, partnering with sales, production, and executive leadership to drive portfolio strategy, new brand development, and go-to-market execution. She is known for strong judgment and collaborative leadership, with a deep belief that strong brands are built by strong teams.
Open to Innovation: What We Can Learn from Outside the Beer Industry
Moderator: Dan Abel (Pilot Project)
Panelists: Andy Blackburn (Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field Events), Brendan Kelly (The Lawrence Arms),
“Creativity is the focused combination of unlikely things. Your mind locks onto a certain element and then searches widely for something unexpected that fits with it. What can scuba diving teach you about agriculture? What can trees teach you about public speaking? There is always some connective tissue between disciplines. If you wish to be more creative, look for the connections between two previously unconnected things.”
That quote, by James Clear from ‘Atomic Habits,’ nails it. If we continuously look to each other as our only source of inspiration, we risk becoming an echo chamber of sameness.
In this conversation, we will hear from guests who do not work in the beer industry. We will learn their stories, hear their challenges, discover similarities, gain outside-the-box ideas, and ask unique questions to inspire you to greater success.
Learning Objectives:
Hear real-world stories and challenges from professionals outside the beer industry, providing practical examples of how overcoming obstacles and applying fresh perspectives can lead to success
Recognize and apply innovative concepts from unrelated fields to the beverage industry.
Break free from conventional thinking patterns by examining how unconventional practices and ideas from other sectors can inspire novel approaches in their work.
Brendan Kelly has been a driving force in Chicago punk rock since his teens. Best known as bassist and co-vocalist of The Lawrence Arms, he built his career on DIY ethos, sharp storytelling, and a healthy dose of irreverent humor. A Northwestern graduate, Kelly also created the viral Nihilist Arby’s persona, blending absurdism with cultural commentary. Whether on stage or online, he brings wit, heart, and an unapologetically independent perspective to every room he steps into.
Dan Abel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pilot Project Brewing, a beverage incubator based in Chicago and Milwaukee. Described as a “recording studio for the beverage industry,” he has helped launch 23 brands, scaled Pilot to eight-figure revenue, and led its recognition as the #8 fastest-growing food and beverage company by Inc. 5000. Under his leadership, Pilot has expanded to 3 locations—with 2 more on the horizon—and partnered with comedian John Mulaney to create a non-alcoholic brand. Previously, Abel spent five years at Google/YouTube before serving as CMO at Reverb.com, where he helped drive its nine-figure acquisition by Etsy. He lives in Highland Park, Illinois, with his wife, two kids, dog, and an ever-growing guitar collection.
The People and the Process: Real World Tools to Lead, Protect, & Support Your Team
Jessica Hart (Jessica Hart Consulting)
Managing people is hard. Managing people in a brewery — where alcohol is part of the product, teams interact directly with the public, and roles change throughout the day — adds another layer of complexity. In this environment, informal practices and “we’ve always done it this way” decisions can quietly create risk.
This 60-minute interactive session uses real, anonymized brewery stories to show how everyday people decisions can resurface later as audits, investigations, or costly mistakes. Attendees will hear how a misunderstanding — not misconduct — triggered a Department of Labor audit, and why a single undocumented workaround from years earlier resulted in a significant fine. They’ll also explore a story where untracked shift beers and after-hours cleanup led to an investigation, and how unclear boundaries and dishonesty — not alcohol itself — became the real issue.
The session then shifts from stories to action. Leaders will walk through a practical self-check of common people and pay risk areas, including tip credit use, tip and service charge documentation, salaried classification thresholds, and pay stub clarity. Participants will work in table groups to assess a realistic brewery scenario, identify red flags, and discuss how they would respond.
This session is designed to be practical, engaging, and immediately useful — helping brewery leaders leave with clearer instincts, better questions, and simple steps they can take back to their operation.
Learning Objectives:
Understand how everyday shortcuts and missing documentation can create serious risk, and learn what to document, when, and why to protect your business and team.
Learn why informal practices and inconsistent rules create the biggest risk during investigations, and how clearly defining, tracking, and setting boundaries protects both leaders and staff.
Gain a practical checklist to identify common wage, tip, and classification risks and know which questions to ask to reduce exposure and stay compliant.
Jessica Hart, MBA is the founder of Jessica Hart Consulting, where she helps craft beverage and hospitality businesses build people systems that actually work in the real world. Her experience spans large, well-known brands like Heineken and Lagunitas, growing regional producers like CaliCraft, and small, single-brewer operations navigating growth for the first time. Jessica specializes in the in-between space where good intentions, fast growth, and limited process often collide. She supports leaders with HR audits, role clarity, compensation strategy, and practical compliance — always with an eye toward protecting both the business and the people behind it.
Known for her relatable stories and straight-talk approach, Jessica brings a mix of humor, honesty, and real-world lessons to every room. She believes clear processes make it easier to lead, easier to scale, and easier to keep good people — especially in an industry built on community.
Turning Taproom Regulars Into Super Fans
Panelists: Cody Lannom (Cedar City Brewing Company), Kevin ‘Swirv’ Irvin (Atlantucky)
Moderator: Ross Stensrud (TapWyse)
What if you never had another new customer? How would you make your current audience even more valuable?
In this session, we’ll focus on actionable strategies to help you increase guest spending, build loyalty, and keep people coming back more often. From creative promotions to enhancing the guest experience, you’ll walk away with tools to drive higher revenue per visitor. Discover the power of focusing on your current audience and turning them into passionate super fans. It’s about making every guest count.
Learning Objectives:
Learn practical ways to increase guest check averages and drive repeat visits through loyalty programs, memorable events, front of house training, and continuous improvement in the guest experience
Explore creative strategies from brewery owners on how to strengthen loyalty and turn casual visitors into passionate super fans
Understand how to identify meaningful guest experience signals and use them to improve consistency, recognize strong performance, and make smarter decisions across the business
Walk away with a clear playbook of customer experience strategies you can put into action right away to boost spending and repeat visits from your current audience
Cody Lannom is one of three Operating Partners at Cedar City Brewing, a fast-casual hospitality and beverage production brand based in Lebanon, Tennessee, serving more than 65,000 guests annually and generating over $2.5M in gross revenue. He leads guest acquisition, brand development, and community-focused programming, with responsibilities spanning brand management, digital marketing, loyalty initiatives, live events, merchandising, packaging, and wholesale distribution.
He has built and operated a self-distributed wholesale program for packaged kegs and cans, produced ticketed events and large-scale festivals in partnership with the local municipality, and remains closely involved in brewing operations, compliance, and regulatory oversight. He also serves on the board of the Tennessee Brewers Guild.
Harness the awe-inspiring power of memberships and rewards! Customer Loyalty is on the line, and the nightmare of managing these monster programs is about to get an epic upgrade.
