04/24/2026
Missed Craft Brewers Conference 2026 (CBC)? Here are my 4 biggest takeaways 👇
Every year, certain topics rise to the top and become the conversations everyone’s having - brewers and vendors alike. (Post-COVID recovery, tariffs, THC/hemp, distribution… you know the drill.)
This year was no different:
#1) FOOD, FOOD, FOOD 🍔🍕
So many breweries have added food or are trying to figure it out.
They’re dialing in costs, management, kitchen setup, staffing, and processes. Or they’re thinking about adding a kitchen and have a million questions.
The consensus? It’s costly, complicated, and comes with real growing pains.
If you’re jumping in (or trying to fix what you’ve got), be ready for a learning curve and lean on people who’ve done it before.
Our Food Program (https://lnkd.in/gxEzFDhF) where
we help lower distributor costs (Sysco, PFG, Gordon, etc.) and our partners at JBH Advisory Group, with their “Brewpub” program (10 common kitchen mistakes) were both hot topics at our booth.
#2) THC / H**p ☘️
Retreat, pause, or charge ahead?
This felt a lot like last year’s tariff conversations. Lots of opinions, plenty of frustration but still not enough data to make confident long-term decisions.
Some are pushing forward until told otherwise. Others are hitting pause.
The one universal theme: everyone just wants clarity.
This isn’t about operating in the grey - it’s about knowing the rules so you can run your business. Demand is real, interest is high (pun intended), and producers want regulation so they can build safe, high-quality, profitable products.
#3) NA Products 🍺🚫
Huge amount of discussion here.
How do you do it? Equipment, recipes, ingredients, process - it all came up.
What stood out most: there’s no single path.
- Contracting / co-packing ( if you are one, you can list on our Free/Public Contracting directory https://lnkd.in/eTrkUiwQ)
- Major equipment investments
- Small-batch experimentation (“mad scientist mode”)
Breweries of all sizes are trying to figure out how to add NA options and there’s real momentum behind it.
#4) AI 🤖
This one surprised me. And yes… people have STRONG feelings about AI in craft.
There were even panels on it (shoutout to Chris Overlay at Get Hoptimized and John Szymankiewicz Esq, PE at Law Center for diving into this topic). It’s a hot-button topic, but the conversation is starting -which is a good thing.
The focus wasn’t on replacing creativity or jobs.
It was on:
👉 saving time
👉 reducing costs
👉 helping teams work smarter, not harder
Bottom line:
The industry is evolving fast and the brewers who ask questions, test ideas, and adapt are the ones who will win. And that is exactly the group the Brewers Association assembled. Yes they had a drink in hand but they were there to learn, grow and swing for the fences.
If you saw another theme I missed - drop me a note👇
