Craft Brewers Conference '14

March 19, 2014, by Crafty Pint

Craft Brewers Conference '14

The man who brewed the very first craft beer in Australia, founded the original Matilda Bay and was a founder of Little Creatures (as well as building BridgePort in the US) will give a keynote speech at the second Australian Craft Brewers Conference. Phil Sexton, who now runs Innocent Bystander/Giant Steps in Healesville, will tell his story and offer his thoughts on craft beer as part of the two-day event taking place at Melbourne’s Arts Centre during this year’s Good Beer Week. It is one of the highlights of a busy program of events put together by the Craft Beer Industry Association.

Also taking to the stage will be Frank Peifer, head brewer at Weihenstephan, for a talk on yeast management, while there will be a greater number of panel discussions on subjects including starting a brewery, hops, malt and the opportunities and challenges facing craft beer in Australia, as well as specialist breakout sessions. You can download the full program here.

The event follows a highly successful debut in 2013, where it was held at the Lithuanian Club in North Melbourne. Moving to the ANZ Pavilion at the Arts Centre is a significant step up, as acknowledged by CBIA chair Dave Bonighton, co-owner of Mountain Goat.

“For ACBC 2014 we have set the bar high for ourselves,“ he says. "We have secured a great new venue and the program is top class. Our committee has spent many months working on this, trying to find ways to improve on what we did last year and we think we have done that.

“Chief among these changes is the introduction of a keynote address to kick off proceedings. We are extremely fortunate that industry pioneer and legend Phil Sexton has agreed to deliver the inaugural ACBC Keynote.

“Our industry owes Phil a debt of gratitude for the work he did in establishing craft beer in Australia and we look forward to hearing his views on where we came from and where he sees us heading.”

Industry leaders in the area of sales and marketing will present on ­topics including managing relationships with large retailers, exporting and social media. Interactive panels that generated so much discussion last year will also return for the final session of each day.

Also returning will be the ACBC Tradeshow, presenting attendees with an opportunity to interact with a number of industry suppliers.

“We were very happy with last year’s Conference,” says CBIA’s executive officer Chris McNamara. “Attendance was a lot better than we had expected or hoped and the feedback from the survey was overwhelmingly positive – just one negative comment out of more than 100 replies.

“We were keen to expand from last year and the move to the Arts Centre gives us a much more prominent location. The space itself is great.”

Tickets for the CBIA Australian Craft Brewers’ Conference cost $200 for CBIA members and $350 for non-members. This includes entry both days and catered lunches.

Tickets are on sale via the Good Beer Week website.

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