Towards the end of last year, The Crafty Pint’s founder received an email from the guys responsible for the US Brewers Association Export Development Program. Those who attended Good Beer Week last year may well have bumped into them at one of a number of events or sampled some of the American craft beers they brought over for the week.
The email was an invitation to travel to Washington DC to speak to American brewers at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference, as part of the Export Development Program series of seminars. It was an invitation that was as unexpected as exciting, offering the opportunity to spread the word about the thriving craft beer scene here in Australia in the world’s largest craft beer market.
Following the success of the likes of Brooklyn Brewery, Sierra Nevada, Rogue and Moylan’s, the team at the US BA is keen for someone to talk not only about the Australian scene but also the opportunities for American brewers Down Under. This latter element of their request caused some raised eyebrows in the local industry, where there are some legitimate concerns about the impact a rising tide of quality imports could have on homegrown growth.
Considering The Crafty Pint spends pretty much its entire waking life promoting Australian craft beer, it’s a concern we don’t take lightly. However, we also have no financial or vested interest in whether American craft beers do or don’t come to Australia so are pretty sure we can give a balanced and honest view of the market and such opportunities as they exist. And so, having consulted with various people throughout the beer industry – Australian and American brewers, importers, distributors, drinkers, reps, brewers association members – we jump on a plane bound for Washington DC today, ready to host a seminar and present some certificates to winners from last year’s Australian International Beer Awards on behalf of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria later in the week.
When preparing the presentation we popped a number of the aforementioned interviewees on camera for a short film on the state of the Australian craft beer industry, which we’ll put in the new TV section of the site later in the week once the seminar has been delivered. And, while we’re there, we’ll endeavour to do as much research as possible; feel free to suggest any beers, breweries, bars and so on at the bottom of this page that we should be checking out in the DC or New York areas (ah yes, we figured it would be remiss to head all that way and not spend a few days in New York tooâ¦).
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology (and the growing band of Crafty contributors), there’s little stopping us from keeping you up-to-date with the latest goings-on here in Oz while we’re away. However, anyone wishing to get in touch with stories, queries or ideas would be well placed to copy nick@craftypint.com into any emails to the site and to remember that events should be sent to events@craftypint.com. We’ll endeavour to post as many updates as we can from the States too, most likely to the Crafty Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts as on here.
Image at top © Jason E Kaplan
