Craft Brewers Conference Returns to Nashville

The Brewers Association’s (BA) is returning to Music City for the trade group’s annual Craft Brewers Conference (CBC).

CBC, America’s largest craft brewing conference, will take place May 7-10 at Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. More than 11,000 people are expected to attend the event, along with BrewExpo America, the coinciding trade show featuring nearly 600 exhibitors.

The expected attendance is still below the 14,000 who attended in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as U.S. craft breweries continue to battle inflationary pressures, supply chain constraints and increased competition from spirits producers and traditionally non-alcoholic beverage companies – such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola – entering the category.

Highlights of the BA’s program include:

• BA chief economist Bart Watson will give a state of the industry talk, sharing insights from the BA’s annual craft brewery survey, as well as national trends and predictions for what’s on the horizon for craft. In the BA’s 2022 Year in Beer report, Watson labeled 2023 as a “reset” year for craft breweries, predicting that brewery openings will be “the lowest in over a decade” and that distributed craft volume will not grow.

• After Watson’s keynote address, CBC’s general session will conclude with a panel of beer’s trade group leaders, including BA president and CEO Bob Pease, Beer Institute (BI) president and CEO Brian Crawford and National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) president and CEO Craig Purser. The trio will discuss the challenges and opportunities for beer with increased competition and changing consumer habits. The panel will be moderated by Leah Cheston, co-owner of Washington, D.C.-based Right Proper Brewing Co. and Vice Chair of the BA’s board of directors.

• The BA will once again host a day-long THRIVE workshop on May 7, which will encourage attendees to “take a deep and integrated dive” into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), human resources and wellness topics. This year’s keynote speaker will be Catherine Mattice, founder and CEO of Civility Partners, a La Mesa, California-based Human Resources consulting firm. Her keynote address, titled “Adventures in Turning Around Toxic Work Environments: Real Case Studies from the Trenches,” will explore what creates toxic work culture and tangible steps for organizations to take to “turns things around.”

• For this year’s CBC Community Engagement Project, the BA is partnering with the Community Resource Center to combat housing insecurity. Event attendees can help assemble personal and household hygiene kits, which will be given to communities in middle Tennessee. Attendees at CBC in 2022 helped assemble nearly 3,000 pantry packs, in partnership with the Greater Twin Cities United Way, which were filled with different cultural food staples and given to households dealing with food insecurity.

Brewbound will also be at CBC for the first Brew Talks meetup of 2023. Brew Talks, presented by Dogfish Head, will be held Sunday, May 7 at Nashville Underground (105 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37201) from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. CT. The event will feature networking, beers and several panel discussions, including an introduction to the National Black Brewers Association. Other confirmed speakers so far include Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione, Athletic Brewing’s Bill Shufelt and Greater Good Imperial Brewery’s Colleen Quinn.

A portion of the proceeds from Brew Talks will be donated to the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild. Industry members can register to attend the event at https://www.brewbound.com/event

This story was updated April 12 to detail this year’s Thrive keynote speaker.