In April this year, twenty of the Brewers Association’s (BA) Technical Committee members from across the country and several BA staff members gathered in Boulder, Colorado for two days to attend and participate in the fifth bi-annual Technical Summit. The purpose of the summit is to envision a strategic plan for the upcoming two years and beyond within the technical subcommittees.

During this time, BA industry volunteer members have space to be creative and generate ideas without limitation. It is a 10,000 foot perspective across all technical brewing topics and the greater craft brewing industry rather than the boots-on-the-ground tactical approach technical subcommittee’s typically take in their monthly meetings throughout the calendar year. It is also a time for reflection and discussion to better understand the challenges of the BA’s diverse membership. As part of the summit preparations, the extended technical subcommittee network was asked to talk with other craft breweries and provide their insights in order to capture an accurate reflection of the status and needs of the industry, and then use that information during the strategic planning.

In summary, this group put their minds together to develop an updated strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of the craft brewing industry, which was last conducted in 2015, brainstormed ideas around the BA’s new and developing learning management system, and generated a list of resource ideas and strategic actions that BA staff, alongside the technical subcommittees, can use to plan the upcoming two years of work. The BA would like to again thank the members who traveled to the summit and showed up engaged with the planned work. Their involvement and dedication to the craft brewing industry help the BA provide relevant and timely technical resources for our members.

If you are interested in volunteering for a subcommittee, visit the BA committees page for more information and fill out the BA Committee Interest Form. For questions and comments related to technical work at the BA, email technical@brewersassociation.org.