What a week and many more to come.
I remember many moons ago when I and all my brothers and sisters in craft beer would get together once a year in a major city around the US. We would sit and talk about sales, beers, distributor successes and failures, and how we would make it through to the next Craft Brewers Conference. We would spend our evenings running around to different accounts trying to see who carried our beers. This week was very different the DNA of our industry is changing rapidly. In four days I met with 20% of our entire wholesaler network, I attended 7 seminars and yes found many venues at night that serve our beer. What a difference craft beer can make. All of a sudden we are significant, we do make a difference, consumers do enjoy our beers, wholesalers are telling our stories every day of the week, bar owners and retailers alike are driving our message to there every day drinker, we have grown up a little. Don't get me wrong we are still only 6% of the entire beer business, big imports and big brewers own our entire category, yet we are still the most talked about segment in the category. This is just the start of our evolution of our revolution. We still have mountains to climb and barriers to break but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Without the support and hard work of all of those between us and the final sip of our Ales we wouldn't be able to do the things we do at the brewery. We salute you! CheersAdam