Brewer’s Log
Brewer’s Log entries:
Wednesday 2 December 2015 U.S. Brewery count reaches an all time high
Thursday 18 September 2014 Guild Instructors at Hop Harvest
Friday 6 June 2014 New Website
Tuesday 3 June 2014 Industry is Growing
Sunday 1 June 2014 Home Brewing Again
U.S. Brewery count reaches an all time high
Posted by Steve Parkes on Wednesday 2 December 2015 at 12:38 PM
There are now more breweries operating in the United States than at any time in our history. The Brewers Association just released their annual state of beer report and among the highlights are
- Brewery openings now exceed two a day.
- Fifteen states are now home to more than 100 breweries: California, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana.
- IPA remained the top style sold by independent craft brewers, and continues to grow faster than the overall craft category.
- Data shows that “locally made” is important to over half of craft beer buyers.
- Similarly, knowing that the beer is made by a small and independent brewery is important to a majority of craft drinkers in their purchase decision.
So there's never been a better time to train to be a brewer or to get your brewery up and running.
Guild Instructors at Hop Harvest
Posted by Steve Parkes on Thursday 18 September 2014 at 01:28 PM
Guild instructors Nick Funnell, Gwen Conley, and Peter Hoey were recently in Yakima to witness this year’s hop harvest
New Website
Posted by Steve Parkes on Friday 6 June 2014 at 02:33 PM
We are very proud to be launching our new web site today. this represents a big leap forward for us. For the first time the distance learning and public sites are in the same place. I’d like to express my eternal gratitude to Rick Hadsall, Justin Perdue and Ron Cotti for the hours of painstaking work it took us to get this far. The site looks fantastic
Industry is Growing
Posted by Steve Parkes on Tuesday 3 June 2014 at 11:47 AM
The latest press release from the Brewers Association announces that the craft beer segment of the US beer market grew by 18% last year. Given that craft beer is now growing from such a large base, that number is astonishing. Of course there are many opinions about the future of the craft beer segment. many predict that craft beer growth is a bubble that will burst , others predict that there is no limit to the potential for growth of craft beer. Obviously the future is uncertain, but here at the American Brewers Guild we’ve been around for most of the history of craft beer’s existence and have experienced first hand the highs and lows. We’ve taught classes with 6 students when the industry growth slowed down, and we’ve had 2 year wait lists for classes when the industry is booming. One thing remains true in good times and bad and that is that brewers always need trained, educated, competent staff to run their operations. A brewing system costs too much money to hand the keys over to someone who has only ever brewed in their garage, and the industry is now 30 years old and knows a bad beer when it see’s one. We must keep our production standard at the highest level if we’re bot going to screw up this magnificent industry we’ve created.
Home Brewing Again
Posted by Steve Parkes on Sunday 1 June 2014 at 01:16 PM
Started home brewing again. The beer on the left is a Belgian Golden Ale and the one on the right is an Orval Clone. Well, an ESB dry hopped with Styrian Golding and contaminated with Brettanomyces, which sounds like Orval to me.
