Tuesday was the big day on the floor of the Sacramento Convention Center. The day started with a round-up and introduction of the board members and the double team of keynote with David Walker and “Vulcan” Bart Watson.
The overall gist of the talk was that there is probably tough sledding ahead as California is lagging behind national averages during this recovery phase from the pandemic. As draft sales are not catching up to the go-go times. A key fact brought up is that craft was just beginning to head downward BEFORE the pandemic.
According to Walker the best route through is to curate the beer experience and lean into our strengths instead of chasing the “baubles” of seltzer or RTD’s that he said could be made by Monsanto and no one would notice.
After that I learned about Thiols and how to unlock their tropical flavor bounty with new genetically modified yeast. I then learned about some Sacramento area barley malt tests that were done to see how can grow local malt. California could conceivably grow enough brewing malt for all California craft breweries.
Then it was onto the expo floor and the exhibitors from the expected hop growers and label makers to the less expected banking and information management systems. If you needed to talk canning, canning was there. Multiple hop booths dotted the floor as well interspersed with malts of all kinds and a plethora of fruit puree booths.
After a bit of snacking at one of the sparse pairing sessions, it was time to hit the night VIP session which started as rain was bucketing down outside. So many beers on offer but after a day filled with sampling and a trip to Moksa Brewing scheduled for the night, the food was calling more. More on that tomorrow.
