Over the past few years, new programs and non-profit organizations in beer have emerged. Their goal has been to raise funds to create scholarship opportunities, mentorship programs, and use networks to employ BIPOC in brewing and distilling. These groups are proactively working to create space and opportunities for the underrepresented within the industry. What has the impact been to date? Join us for a conversation with representatives and grantees from various organizations and platforms to learn how change is happening.

Panelists: Latiesha Cook,Ash Eliot, Breeze Galindo, Ren Navarro

Though the absence of beer in Caesar’s commentaries has led some to believe that Caesar’s men did not consume beer, Julius Caesar’s reliance on auxiliary forces to advance in the North ensured that cultures known for producing beer influenced legionary forces reliant on local resources to survive. In order to maintain loyalty from his auxiliary troops and to keep his legions sufficiently fueled, beer must have played a role in Caesar’s success.

Travis Rupp takes a deep dive into this unique tale in beer history.

Panelists: Travis Rupp

Historically, farmers believed themselves to be surrounded by supernatural creatures of many kinds. Some were benign, some more ambiguous, and some decidedly not benign. The best known of these are perhaps the Norwegian trolls, but there were many more.

Brewing was a complicated process that could sometimes fail for reasons that were inexplicable to farmers who had no scientific background, and this caused brewing to be seen as an activity susceptible to witchcraft and interference from supernatural creatures.

In this talk, Lars Marius Garshol outlines some of the many ways in which farmhouse brewers tried to protect their beer. The best known method is perhaps the yeast scream, but there were many other practices, such as sacrificing wort, using substitute words (noa names), using steel, and so on.

Panelists: Lars Marius Garshol (Author, Norway)

In spring 2022, graduate students at the University of Chicago participating in the Public History Practicum at the University of Chicago collaborated with the Chicago Brewseum to create a digital archive of contemporary LGBTQ+-owned breweries in the U.S. and LGBTQ+ bars and social spaces in Chicago. Through interviews and local archival research, the project engages bar and brewery owners as well as academics to document the histories of LGBTQ+-owned businesses and breweries, especially those owned and operated by women and brewers and bar owners of color.

The project, which encompasses interview transcripts, a historical map of Chicago-area LGBTQ+ bars and social spaces, and a curatorial guide for future donations to the collection, endeavors to amplify queer voices in the larger history of beer culture and brewing. The students involved in the project discuss the ongoing initiative and its future research directions.

Panelists: Roy Kimmey, Anna Winn, Kyle Wynter-Stoner

During the First Opium War, 1839-1842, British forces occupied the Chinese port city of Shanghai, and, under the Treaty of Nanking, it became one of five "treaty ports" for international trade. Britain, and, subsequently, the United States established enclaves outside the walls of the city that merged in 1863 to form the Shanghai International Settlement. Beer had been imported into Shanghai from at least 1850, but a brewery opened in the settlement in the mid-1860s.

Historian Martyn Cornell takes a look at the start of an industry that was controlled by Europeans until the settlement was occupied by Japanese forces in 1941.

Panelists: Martyn Cornell (Brewery History, UK)

For the past few years, non-alcoholic beverages have been gaining in popularity and taking up a lot more space on menus and store shelves. Non-alcoholic beer is currently the only beer segment experiencing double-digit sales growth. So why now? What's the point of NA? And why is today's non-alcoholic drinker a lot different than your grandparents drinking O'Doul's? This panel, moderated by Samer Khudairi, offers insight into numbers and also breaks down the appeal of drinking without a buzz.

Panelists: Gus Briggs, Ryan Hanson, Samer Khudairi, Sally Selwan

The years 2015-2016 ushered in a sea change in U.S. craft beer, and marked the beginning of many of the contemporary tensions that shape the industry.

They were the first years in the recent era that craft brewery volume growth began to slow. They were the years that saw hazy IPAs graduate from regional niche to mainstream juggernaut. They were the years that gave us White Claw and Truly, and saw Not Your Father’s Root Beer skyrocket in national sales. They also saw a changing of the guard among craft’s titans: Ballast Point sold to Constellation for that still-eye-popping $1 billion sum in 2015. Greg Koch stepped down as Stone’s CEO the same year. Dogfish Head sold a minority stake to private equity partners, and Sam Calagione handed over the reins as CEO.

These two years—though few could see it at the time—marked craft beer’s turning point from unstoppable underdog to mainstream product, ushering in all the hand-wringing and soul searching that entails.

In this panel discussion, brewers, journalists, and industry observers will analyze the pivotal moments from 2015 and 2016, with an eye toward what they mean for beer drinkers today. Finally, we’ll grapple with the narratives craft beer has long told itself, and what happened when reality began to butt up against them.

Panelists: Kate Bernot, Zach Fowle, Emily Hutto, Garrett Oliver

Patents have influenced the beer that has been drunk around the globe. In this discussion, historian Peter Symons highlights some game changing patents that endure to this day, through the styles that have been defined. The presentation will cover what is a patent, a brief history of patents, and the types of patents affecting beer – Process, Ingredients and Recipes. Included are some example beer recipes to illustrate the effect of the patent.

Panelists: Peter Symons

Our panelists tackle the questions, how do we justify the luxury of beer in our current climate? Why is the localization of beer and its ingredients important? And why does connection to beer’s true agricultural roots matter?

Panelists: Ophelia Flores (Big Grove Brewery), Daniel Pollard (Bridger Brewing Co.), Ron Silberstein (Admiral Maltings)

Moderator: Zoe Licata (Brewbound)

The movement of beer has long impacted various aspects of how we consume beer as well as the world around us. This panel will take a deep look at draft beer service on 1920s and '30s North Atlantic passenger liners and Cunard ships in the 1960s, the ferrying of beer by military transportation to theatres of operations in Europe during World War II, and the modal shift from rail to road of beer traffic in the Edwardian era in the UK, that considers the reasons why and how this reflected on the railways' service.

Panelists: Martyn Cornell, Gary Gillman, Tim Holt, Dr David Turner (University of York)

Many industries have recently begun to recognize the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI"). During this discussion, the panelists will examine what DEI means within the cider industry. The conversation will cover topics such as: intersectionality, performative inclusion, equity/access to resources, and how the panelists are creating their own space in the cider industry.

Panelists: Stephanie Cole, Hannah Ferguson ,Ashley Johnson, Jasmine Mason, Malaika Tyson

Please note: this session is a replay from the 2021 Beer Culture Summit and is replacing the Humoral Theory session by Jen Blair who is no longer able to present due to illness.

Moderator, Ruvani de Silva, will join us live to introduce this groundbreaking session, which was the first ever panel at a beer event made up entirely of South Asians in beer.

There are more than 5.4 million people of South Asian heritage in the United State, yet as brewers, brewery owners, and beer drinkers go, South Asians make up a tiny fraction of the 22.2 billion dollar craft beer market.

Malting is a trade that has had an essential link to brewing for thousands of years. Focusing on the role of the maltster, Jesse Bussard, Executive Director of the Craft Maltsters Guild, will discuss the history of the malting trade in the United States, its important relationship with the beer industry, and this bond’s evolution up to modern-day. Expect to learn about the challenges posed by Prohibition and industry consolidation, as well as the newfound opportunities craft beer presented which eventually would lead to the emergence of craft malting in the North American beer ingredient scene. Along with the local food movement, these two camps set the stage for deeper exploration of malt and, in turn, a timely push in the age of climate change to the relocalization of beer supply chains.

Panelists: Jesse Bussard

Craft Beer's rise over the last decade has included a heavy reliance on social media as a means to communicate with fans. Facebook & Instagram were able to offer a lot more reach to breweries in those early days while these platforms were still in growth mode and less concerned about monetization. As that has changed, its left breweries struggling to get their content viewed organically by a sufficient enough percentage of their followers. In an effort to find the white space, content creators and businesses are turning to TikTok, which is the fastest growing social media platform by a landslide, giving users and creators something new and exciting. But while the growth opportunity is there, that doesn't mean it's easy.

This panel will feature successful content creators around beverage alcohol and discuss who should and should not invest their brand's time and energy into making content on TikTok.

Panelists: Russell Hainline, Mandy Naglich, Doug Veliky’s

Thirty years ago, beer media was a sparsely covered niche with a lot of beer reviews—and not much else. Today, it’s a global topic appearing regularly in dedicated magazine columns, numerous independent blogs, on the pages of social media influencers, and beyond.

This panel will touch on the history of beer media but will focus on its current role and look at the future that’s evolving right now. How can breweries leverage relationships with media to inform, educate, and promote their business, and what should they be doing in-house to control their narrative? How do beer writers seem themselves as part of the beer industry, and what are the expectations from both journalist and subject? How can journalists balance editorial work with advertorial work, and what are the rules of transparency from both sides? As print dwindles and media budgets shrink, where do we see the future of beer media going?

Panelists: Jeff Alworth, Tristan Chan, Courtney Iseman

Moderator: Beth Demmon

Heritage methods of producing beverages adjacent to beer and wine have for many years been dismissed, marginalized, and even repressed. However, in our current moment, some of these traditions are gaining traction not merely as peculiarities or niche interests, but as viable heritage based products that help push the larger trajectory of the beverage industry towards a more diverse and inclusive future.

In its seven year journey to what it is today, Hana Makgeolli has introduced traditional Korean sool to the beverage world using an education-based approach to both branding and service. The goal? To lay a strong foundation for the long term legitimacy of the sool category in a world in which it has previously been overlooked. By using traditional methodologies, accurate terminology, offering targeted and culturally attentive tasting notes, and producing a diversified product line that responds to both the history and future of sool, Hana Makgeolli may act as an example for how other heritage beverage companies can operate authentically and competitively.

In this session, Alice Jun will speak on the traditional methodologies utilized at Hana Makgeolli while paying particular attention to how the lessons, practices, and ethos of Hana Makgeolli might offer a framework for other heritage producers to not only become accepted as marginal parts of the beverage world, but celebrated for all that they offer.

We encourage you to drink along! Please us the code “BREWSEUM22” for 10% off your order on nationwide shipping or local pickup & delivery stores. (This single-use code will be active from October 10th through November 13th.)

Panelists: Alice Jun

It’s back! Mostly because the researchers spoke!

Do you think, research, or write about beer's sudsy past? Does the thought of dusty old books filled with beercentric tales make your heart flutter? Do some of your greatest dreams involve sitting in a 19th century saloon? Yeah, us too. Please join us for another edition of Beer Historian Happy Hour!

Tune in and enjoy a chat with like-minded Summiteers. Introduce yourself and your work to others engaged in pondering beer's long past. BYOB (or BYOLunch) to an informal gathering hosted by the one and only, Maureen Ogle.

Host: Maureen Ogle.

We gather with a panel of four Latinx beverage industry leaders who live across the U.S. They will discuss how Latinx identity informs their experience as beverage industry professionals, as well as the cultural principles that inspire their work. The conversation will also aim to demystify how notions of Latinidad can be the sole driver of their work. Combining testimonies of lived experience, professional roadblocks and personal goals, the panel will reveal the common threads and diverse paths that led our panelists to a career in the beverage industry.

Panelists: Jessica Fierro, Francisco Garcia, Oscar Salinas

Moderator: Jesse Valenciana

From beer and bread to kimchi, coffee, tea, and cheese, fermentation is a popular topic in both food and health circles. Food historian and fermenting expert, Dr. Julia Skinner, explores the fascinating roots of a wide range of fermented foods in cultures around the world. She’ll take a close look at the many intersections fermented foods have with human history and culture - from the evolution of the microbiome to food preservation techniques, distinctive flavor profiles around the globe, and the building of community.

Panelists: Julia Skinner

Prior to mass immigration from Europe and the industrialization of American brewing in the mid to late 1800s, brewing beer in the United States was primarily a household chore. Enslaved people, women, and other domestic laborers were many of the the nation’s earliest brewers. Because of the commonplace nature of their work and the identities of those who brewed, however, historians know little about their life stories.

In this session, Theresa McCulla, curator of the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, will talk about a recent essay in which she worked to reconstruct the world of one of these figures: Patsy Young, a young woman who was enslaved in early 1800s North Carolina. This project began with scant details: two short “runaway ads” that sought Young's recapture after she had fled from her enslaver--twice. One of the ads revealed that Young was a skilled brewer. She used the profits from her brewing to support herself as a free woman during nearly 15 years as a fugitive from slavery. McCulla will talk about how she used the two runaway ads as jumping-off points to research the broader histories of economics, agriculture, politics, and beer in the time and place in which Young lived, as well as the questions that remain about Young's story. Such research can be challenging but deeply rewarding. Learning about the life and work of Patsy Young helps bring her skill and bravery--and those of others in similar situations--into focus.

Panelists: Theresa McCulla (National Museum of American History)