Ten years of Craft Brewers Conferences
In San Francisco on Saturday March 26th, I found myself in the Thirsty Bear Brewpub sitting with Fab Specht who brews with Gary Lohin at Central City Brewing in Surrey, BC. We were hearkening back to hanging out at the Craft Brewers Conference in Portland in 2001. It then occurred that this meant we’d been at these conferences for a decade. I didn’t go for a few years after the Portland conference, until the event returned to Cascadia in 2006 in Seattle, but have seen it grow quite a bit even since then. The standard opening reception in a brewery seems to have been replaced by fancy shindigs in museums. Apparently it is now the Craft Brewers Fossil Appreciation Conference, as, like at the Field Museum in Chicago the California Academy of Sciences brewers were welcomed to the reception gala by a towering tyranosaurus.
The conference included a lot of fun events, including the keynote “fireside chat”with craft beer pioneers Ken Grossman (founder of Sierra Nevada) and Fritz Maytag (savior of the Anchor Brewery). The introduction from Tom McCormick of the California Small Brewers Association, described the family tree of craft brewing, and it was easy to see that we were all gathered at Grandpa Fritz’s knee to hear the stories of the early days. Throughout the conference week the roots of the tree were clearly visible.
Bob Brewer gives a tour of the Anchor brewhouse
Don Barkley, who was the first brewer
“hired” by Jack McAuliffe at the New Albion Brewery (he had to apprentice actually) in Sonoma in 1976 was on hand promoting the beers he now makes at NapaSmith brewery.
San Francisco and Oakland’s beer bars were a testament to that family story. Craft brewers have certainly “gone forth and multiplied.” From the classic Tornado to newer places like the Trappist and Beer Revolution in Oakland, the family is alive and well. There were said to be people from 650 new startup breweries at the conference, showing that that growth continues. There are currently 1717 brick and mortar brewing facilities in the US, up from about 35 in the 1970′s when McAuliffe got his start.
Look for more detailed information on this year’s CBC coming soon.
