Mendocino at the California Craft Beer Summit
The California Craft Beer Summit was held this weekend in Sacramento, and it was fantastic! Beer luminaries and experts in their field shared their advice and inspiration in capacity crowd rooms, and booths of different beer-related exhibits lined the Expo floor.
Most of the educational talks and short tap talks were meant for people already in the brewing industry, or hoping to get into it. Candace Moon, an attorney specializing in beer laws, reminded all of us how important it is to navigate bureaucracy carefully—even down to the photos you share on your website—and Mike Hess was a fan favorite, since he is known for bringing his tiny “pico brew” up to a grand scale.
California hops are growing!
On the Expo floor, marketers and manufacturers got to showcase their wares. It inspiring to see how many different kinds of businesses turned out with a focus on encouraging craft brewers. Banks sympathetic to small businesses (and brewers) sat next to filter manufactures, hops growers, and label makers, and a few California towns had sent their Chamber of Commerce representatives to court potential breweries.
All day throughout both days, California breweries were pouring special releases brewed just for the event (Mendocino Brewing shared their Dry Hop Heritage Ale), and the event culminated with a festival featuring 150 California breweries!
Brewers’ row at the California Craft Beer Summit.
The Beer Summit was an excellent way for small brewers to get resources and inspiration, and also demonstrated the growing support of craft brewing in general. Here were hundreds of people, all gathered to support the spirit as well as the craft itself, and all willing to share their knowledge so others can succeed. Seeing the Capitol building at the end of a street full of craft beer brewers and advocates was a reminder of how far craft beer has come since Prohibition was repealed, and how much we owe to those brewing pioneers.