Category: Operations
News How To Create Or Improve Your In-house Tasting Panel
Creating an active, engaged in-house tasting and sensory program should be top of mind for brewers of every size. You spend so much time planning, brewing, cleaning, and often just trying to survive, outsourcing the beer sensory element of your business to consumers in your taproom or even machine or lab testing can be tempting. While there is great value in using lab work or your frontline tasters as part of your overall mechanism for ensuring product quality, it remains crucial to have a diverse array of brewery employees routinely taste and assess the quality and consistency of the beers that you produce. Let’s take a look at some key points in creating a tasting and sensory program.
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News Why and How to Encourage Outside Training for Your Brewery Employees
Your team is set, and the business is humming along. Employees seem happy, the customers are keeping the coffers full and the tanks busy and for the first time in a long time you, as an owner, have a moment of peace and calm. Then reality sets in and thoughts of the future creep into your brain.
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News Developing a Successful Mentorship Program for Employees
The American craft beer industry likes to talk about being small and independent and removed from big business culture. Living in the realm of small business it cultivates a scrappy and local image that resonates with a lot of consumers.
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News TTB New Online Portal Goes Live
The new TTB portal page is now live and can be accessed here. The new site provides a preview of the “one-stop shop” experience to access TTB online services and is another step towards myTTB, the agencies new integrated and personalized online system for industry members to transact business with TTB.
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News 2022 World Beer Cup Winners Announced
It’s a wrap. The 2022 Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) and World Beer Cup (WBC) have concluded in Minneapolis with a projected 10,000 attendees. The Brewers Association handed out 307 awards to breweries from 57 different states in the largest WBC to date with over 10,000 entries.
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News Extended Time Off – Offering Brewery Employees a Sabbatical
The human condition is designed for wandering and exploration. To expand the mind, horizons, and to collect experiences as we hurdle through life. We are also the only species that pays to live on the planet and as such need employment to keep us stocked with basic necessities and shelter. At times the desires and needs can be in conflict.
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News BA Announces 2022 Industry Award Winners at CBC
The Brewers Association announced the recipients of its 2022 Industry Awards. Five members of the brewing community were recognized and awarded for their dedication and service during the Craft Brewers Conference in Minneapolis, Minn. The Brewers Association has been recognizing individuals who inspire, defend, and innovate within the craft brewing industry since 1987. New this year was the addition of the Mentor of the Year Award to recognize volunteers who provided outstanding guidance through the fledgling Brewers Association mentorship program and championed those who experience barriers to access and advancement in their professional journeys.
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Sponsored What to Consider in Starting a Brewery Career
Every beer drinker has been there at least once. It’s a great day at the local taproom. Pints are flowing and everything just tastes great. A sense of desire creeps up and the entrepreneurial spirit rises. The idea to open a brewery of your own, or at least work at one, is born.
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Sponsored Craft Beer in 10 Years Panel Discussion
If beer was first discovered today, what would it be made with? What would it look like? How would it smell? How about those tasting notes? Innovation is arguably the secret ingredient for any brewery, but in a constantly changing industry, what would beer be like if we went to sleep and woke up in 2031? In this conversation we hear from five leading voices to discuss the expectations, evolution, and predictions on a beverage that plays a leading role in our lives.
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News CBC 2022 – The Minnesota Brewing Spirit, Getting Outside the Cities, and a Few Tips of My Own
Minnesota is often derided as a so-called fly-over state that folks on the coasts never consider visiting. And for many Minnesotans, that suits them just fine. They know the value of their home state, especially the gem that is the Twin Cities. The same applies to Minnesota made beer. “Our breweries are relatively unassuming, maybe unpretentious,” says Jess Talley, the recently minted director of the Minnesota Brewers Guild. “That’s kind of a Minnesota cultural humility there that I think a lot of people may know as a stereotype of Minnesotans. Our brewers take a lot of pride in their work. And they should, we have a lot of amazing, award-winning beers here. But you’re not going to see a lot of Minnesotans gloating about that.”
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News Evan Sallee of Fair State Brewing Cooperative’s Guide To CBC Eating And Drinking
If you’re traveling to the Craft Brewers Conference this year, Northeast Minneapolis should be near the top of your list for areas to visit. Also known as NE and sometimes Nordeast (in local parlance or for those celebrating with the Schell’s Brewery beer of the same name), this neighborhood boasts about a dozen solid breweries, many within a short walk of one another, along with great distilleries and beer bars. Just over the Mississippi River from downtown Minneapolis, Northeast is a bustling commercial and arts district that still possesses much of its original 19th and early 20th century architecture, including grain silos and mills.
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Expert Topic THRIVE – Your Roadmap to a CBC Experience that Fosters Safe, Inclusive, and Equitable Cultures
THRIVE at this year’s 2022 Craft Brewers Conference is a roadmap to a CBC experience that fosters safe, inclusive, and equitable cultures where everyone in the craft brewing community can thrive. It includes a variety of seminars and workshops, a screening of the documentary film ‘One Pint at a Time’ and other activities.
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Expert Topic Making the Most of the Craft Brewers Conference: How to Follow Up on the Educational Experience
There is a lot of planning that goes into making sure you get the most out of the educational experience at the Craft Brewers Conference. Selecting tracks and seminars and making sure the schedule works to get from one room to the next with plenty of time. Notebooks are ready, pencils are sharpened.
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Expert Topic Glen Hay Falconer Foundation Offering Scholarship to Seibel Institute
In collaboration with the Seibel Institute of Technology, the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation is offering a full-tuition brewing education scholarship in 2022. The scholarship is a full tuition grant and comes with a travel and lodging stipend.
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Expert Topic Chuck’s Picks. Top Technical Seminars at the Craft Brewers Conference from Chuck Skypeck
Chuck Skypeck has a brewing resume that’s almost as long as his hair. In 1992, he opened Boscos, Tennessee’s first brewpub. Following that success, he opened Ghost River Brewing in Memphis. Chuck’s love and dedication to the craft brewing industry earned him the Brewers Association Recognition Award in 2006.
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News Sergio Manancero of La Doña Cervecería’s Guide To CBC Eating And Drinking
The boom in new breweries throughout the Twin Cities has offered brewers the opportunity to eschew generalized businesses in favor of focusing their efforts on more specialized concepts. A 5-minute drive west of downtown Minneapolis, you will find the colorful La Doña Cervecería, the first Latin-influenced craft brewery in Minnesota. Founded by former Marine Sergio Manancero, La Doña opened its location in 2018. The brewery and taproom offers live music, salsa dancing evenings, an art gallery, and even a 3v3 soccer league on its own short pitch. Bright murals light the cinder block space at La Doña, which also offers tacos and other food from its in-house kitchen. As the Craft Brewers Conference falls on Cinco de Mayo, the brewery will be hosting specialty events as well.
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Expert Topic How to Maximize Your Employee’s Craft Brewers Conference Experience
Business trips are not as common in the beer industry as other industries, so as the annual Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America approaches next month breweries that are sending employees to Minneapolis should take the time to implement company policies and expectations to make sure the conference is a professional success as well as a bit of fun.
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News BA Will Partner with CLEAR to Provide Easy Proof of Vaccination or Negative Test for CBC Attendees
The Brewers Association (BA) announced on Friday that they have partnered with CLEAR to utilize the Health Pass feature, to provide easy proof of COVID-related health insights for faster entry.
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Expert Topic Jill Pavlak of Urban Growler Brewing’s Guide To CBC Minneapolis Eating And Drinking
A decade ago, you could reliably navigate local beer scenes with the help of a few beer websites. With nearly 10,000 breweries in operation today, it’s challenging to distinguish between them as a visitor to a new city or state. Which breweries are must visits? Where should I eat? Are there tourist destinations I can’t miss?
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