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The Session is back and the topic today is, \u201cWhat is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?\u201d<\/p>\n
This sounds like a big picture<\/em> question that requires a big picture<\/em> answer, not something along the lines of \u201cHalfway Crooks Beer opened in Atlanta\u201d or \u201cRochefort still brews amazing beer.\u201d As good as those things are.<\/p>\n Instead, something important like \u201cLukr faucets\u201d or \u201cterpenes.\u201d (Granted, both existed before, but many words have been devoted to them since 2018. Not that either is my final answer, Alex.)<\/p>\n The best thing to happen in beer since 2018 is positive change, more specifically the establishment of the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling<\/a> and the National Black Brewers Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver has been central to both. That\u2019s why he\u2019s pictured at the top, sending a message (really) last April to Tapped 33 Craft Brewhouse founder Robert Young III<\/a> to stay on top of his studies in Germany. Young was there studying brewing on a scholarship. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oliver announced the formation of the MJF<\/a> in 2020 to \u201cfund scholarship awards to predominantly people of color within the brewing and distilling industries or who wish to join those industries.\u201d <\/p>\n Young\u2019s story sounds like one brewers have been telling ever since former sailor Jack McAuliffe founded New Albion Brewing in 1976 \u201cto emulate the flavorful beers encountered on his travels beyond American shores.\u201d A native of Georgia, Young was serving in the navy when drinking a Pilsner Urquell in Czechia ignited his interest in beer. After he returned to Georgia he began homebrewing and soon decided he wanted to open a brewery.<\/p>\n \u201cI can read all day. From a hobby standpoint, you are just following directions,\u201d Young said. He investigated enrolling in a brewing school, but the cost was prohibitive. He learned hands-on as an assistant at Savannah River in Augusta, where he launched Tapped33. He brews the beers at Savannah River while looking for a location in and from which to make and sell beer.<\/p>\n \u201cI would not have been able to do this without the scholarship,\u201d he said from Chicago last March before heading to Germany as part of the World Brewing Master Brewing Program, a six-month course split between Siebel Institute in Chicago and Doemens Academy outside of Munich.<\/p>\n (This is the part of the story I am not particularly comfortable with, because as an observer I don\u2019t belong in it. I took the picture at the top because I crossed paths with Oliver at the Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas and asked him to wag his finger at Young, and he did. I sent it on to Young via text.)<\/p>\n This interview with executive director Kevin Asato<\/a> illustrates just how much else the NB2A has going on under the hood. Here\u2019s a sample:<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to have a $30 million fund and say, \u2018Great, let\u2019s go get you your equipment. Let\u2019s go get you your space. Boom, here\u2019s a check to go get your business started.\u2019 But that would be so irresponsible if we didn\u2019t give them the education and the financial understanding, perhaps even the marketing components. It\u2019s not lost on us that to be a business owner producing beer is just one facet. It\u2019s so important that we provide those resources of financial management, legal management, regulatory compliance, quality control, marketing, sales, distribution\u2014all those other disciplines must be included to ensure a level of success.\u201d<\/p>\n Equipment donation awards<\/a> have also had an immediate impact, a reminder of the importance of access to capital (something else Asato addresses in the interview).<\/p>\n Equity matters. Teo Hunter at Crown & Hops Brewing, another founding board members, made that clear last summer during a panel discussion at the Crafted for Action Conference<\/a> (another very good thing to happen since 2018).<\/p>\n \u201cYou can usher diversity and inclusion,\u201d he said. \u201cEquity is an investment. It is one of the most underdeveloped aspects of DEI. Actually, in my opinion, it should be called EDI, because without equity people will not see themselves in these roles, in these positions in these companies, and the ownership of these companies.”<\/p>\n In other words, an investment in change.<\/p>\n For more Session posts, head on over to A Good Beer Blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Session is back and the topic today is, \u201cWhat is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?\u201d This sounds like a big picture question that requires a big picture answer, not something along the lines of \u201cHalfway Crooks Beer opened in Atlanta\u201d or \u201cRochefort still brews amazing beer.\u201d As good as … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-session"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-4Ur","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18875"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19087,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18875\/revisions\/19087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Great](\"https:\/\/kfi.jpm.mybluehost.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250131-session.jpg\")
Oliver is one of the founding board members of the National Black Brewers Association (NB2A), which was formed in 2023 and came out of the chute generating excitement, for instance establishing Black Brewers Day<\/a>. The photo to the left shows association member brewers pouring their beer at the Great American Beer Festival, which overlapped with Black Brewers Day celebrations elsewhere.<\/p>\n