A Critical Look At The Shaky, Early Days Of The Brewers Association…

Historian and writer Maureen Ogle has been posting a fascinating series of short pieces (cutting room floor bits from her book, Ambitious Brew) on the formation of the American Homebrewers Association and the Association of Brewers (which would later become the Brewers Association after a merger with the Brewers Association of America). Her most recent post focuses, timely enough, on one of the Association’s first industry-wide conferences. With the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference, and all of the articles I’ve been posting here about the Brewers Association, Maureen’s work is definitely worth a read as it provides an independent, outsider’s view of a trade group that we now take for granted. I look forward to discussing some of the issues brought up in these pieces (which, oddly enough, remain relevant to this day) with folks in town for the upcoming conference.