The 2021 Beer Now Conference will take place November 10 – 14 in Austin, Texas. We have secured an outdoor venue at Vista Brewing and are implementing protocols aimed at keeping all attendees safe. The agenda below is subject to change.
NOTE: We’re excited to host this conference outdoors at Vista Brewing, located in rural Texas on a ranch. With that, however, comes potential for poor cell and Wi-Fi service. Please note you may experience both.
Wednesday, November 10
1:00 PM Overnight Excursion – San Marcos Brews and Boats: You know what pairs well with craft beer? A crystal-clear river to enjoy it on. Join us in San Marcos for three Texas Hill Country breweries, great food, and, of course, a ride down the San Marcos River. Read more about it here. @toursanmarcos
Thursday, November 11
3:00 PM Drop off from San Marcos Pre-Conference Excursion
6:00 PM Austin Brewery Crawl organized and sponsored by Craft Beer Austin. Check out the brewery crawl stops here.
Friday, November 12
Breakfast/Coffee on Your Own (if staying at our host hotel, your reservation includes breakfast, open at 7:00 AM)
8:00 AM Depart Downtown Austin for Vista Brewing (group transportation will pick up in front of our host hotel; advance RSVP required)
9:00 – 9:10 AM Conference Overview from the Zephyr Conferences Staff
9:10 – 9:30 AM Welcome to Texas & Vista Brewing with Karen & Kent Killough
9:30 – 10:15 AM Keynote with Harry Schuhmacher of Beer Business Daily
10:15 – 10:30 AM Break
10:30 – 11:30 AM Industry Overview with the NBWA: National Beer Wholesalers Association Chief Economist Lester Jones will examine where the industry has been and where it is headed. He will help attendees understand the data that shape stories on the growing alcohol beverage marketplace. He will present compelling data and insights to help beer writers better understand the policy, economic, and demographic factors shaping the industry in 2021 and beyond. @NBWABeer
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Lunch Provided by Vista Brewing: Sample from our host brewery, Vista Brewing, and several other Hill Country breweries. Take a tour with Vista’s team to see the historic 21-acre ranch, brewery, barrel house, farm, and apiary. Enjoy a farm-fresh lunch sourced from Vista’s onsite organic farm and neighboring ranchers.
1:00 – 2:00 PM Where Do We Stand? Q&A with Breweries: The pandemic has affected pretty much every industry, including the beer industry. So much has changed in the last two years: tap room closures, curbside sales and delivery, cancellation of events, legal changes, and so much more. This is our opportunity to check in with breweries and get their perspective. Panelists include Karen Killough from Vista Brewing, Bryan Townsend from Oskar Blues, and Joni Ekovich/Nicky Yardley from Czechvar with moderator Charles Bockway.
2:00 – 2:30 PM Conservation and New Technologies for Brewers: Join Amy George founder of Earthly Labs and learn how she created new technologies for breweries by capturing carbon dioxide during the fermentation, processes, and cools it, then allows the brewery to use it in the packaging process.
2:30 – 3:00 PM Better Beer Photography: This session will take us through a step-by-step process of capturing beautiful beer photos using natural light at home with any type of camera you are comfortable operating (including a phone). Best beers for photography, lighting, props, glassware, and tricks for capturing foam will be addressed. Creative ideas will be shared for thinking outside the box to capture beer photos that get attention on websites and social media. Our presenter is food and drink photographer Lori Rice.
3:00 – 3:15 PM Break
3:15 – 3:40 PM #BeerNow21 Lightning Talks sponsored by our friends at Bell’s Brewery: Attendees deliver five-minute, Ignite-style “Lightning Talks”. With 20 slides each advancing automatically on 15-second intervals, speakers have to be on the top of their game to deliver fun, informative, often hilarious talks. Want to present? You can fill out our application form, and we’ll take interested individuals on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Owen Ogletree: 18 Classic Beer Styles That Deserve a Comeback
- Brian Welzbacher: How NOT to write a history of brewing book!
- Paige Latham Didora: Brewing under Ration – From Cassava to Corn
- Sterling Stokes Jr: Set the Beer To Music – How to Build a Unique Musical Beer Tasting Event
- Mike Pennington: Untappd – Angel or Devil
3:40 – 4:25 PM Beer Media: Caring and Sharing: This session will be moderated by Jeff (Huck) Bowles and the panelists include all of you! A lot has happened in 2020 and 2021 and we want to check in. This is your opportunity to share your thoughts on beer blogging, breweries, changes you’ve experienced during COVID, and more. We do not have a set agenda, so please come prepared to contribute and with questions.
4:30 – 5:30 PM Beer Expo: The Beer Expo is your opportunity to taste beers and meet representatives from all of our sponsors. Return transportation to our host hotel will be provided after the Expo.
Saturday, November 13
Breakfast/Coffee on Your Own (if staying at our host hotel, your reservation includes breakfast, open at 7:00 AM)
8:00 AM Depart Downtown Austin for Vista Brewing (group transportation will pick up in front of our host hotel; advance RSVP required)
9:00 – 9:30 AM Blog to Book: Insights into the Publishing Process: Ever dreamed of writing a book? There are many factors to consider when taking the leap from short-form content creation to long-form writing. In this presentation, Texas Craft Brewers Guild Deputy Director Caroline Wallace, who got her start in the beer industry as a blogger and co-author of the books Austin Beer (2013) and Trappist Beer Travels (2017), will take Beer Now attendees through some of the differences in these forms of writing before diving into the publishing process–including identifying and pitching a publisher (or going it alone!), writing, editing, design, sales, and promotion.
9:30 – 10:00 AM Finding The Stories Behind the Beer: Stories that educate, motivate and inspire us can be found inside every beer. While lists of the top 5 IPAs are always popular, better told stories behind the beer or the brewer often are more evergreen and have more long-term impact. Jeremy Storton, founder of Good Beer Matters, will help attendees uncover these stories, to dig deeper and to hold a discussion on how to tell a better story.
10:00 – 10:30 AM The Pen Is Not Mightier Than the Law – Legal Issues in Beer Writing: Beer writers and social media influencers rarely take the time to stop and consider legal issues involving what they do. Yet not paying attention can get you in trouble. Mike Drumm, owner of BeerAttorney.com, will provide practical information on common legal pitfalls that beer writers encounter and how to avoid them. This will include topics from intellectual property to defamation and more.
10:30 – 10:45 AM Break
10:45 – 11:15 AM Advanced Instagram: Instagram is the fastest growing major social media network in the United States and is now used by over 35% of U.S. adults. It is also one of the most popular sites for food and drink influencers, which is probably why it was rated by our alumni as the #1 topic of interest for the next Beer Now. We are thus lucky to have Instagram pro Caitlin Johnson from Big World, Small Girl presenting advanced Instagram topics. During this talk, you’ll learn the newest strategies and tools and hear advice on building relationships with brands.
11:15 – 11:45 AM Top SEO Priorities for Bloggers: So you have a site or podcast and want more traffic from Google and Bing? Join Dave Rohrer as he walks through how to learn from your site what users want, how to find more people searching for things you want to write about and just how to optimize your site to perform better in the SERPs (search engine result pages). Expect to have not only a better understanding of SEO, but a number of free tools that will help you drive more traffic to your site.
11:45 AM – 12:15 PM Welcome to the Republic of Beer – Presented by Czechvar: Grab a beer with Czechvar, the last authentic Czech lager, from the #1 selling beer country, per capita, in the World. We will dive into the history and characteristics of what has made the Czech Republic National Beer what it is today and take you on a tasting experience as you immerse yourself into the Czechvar story. You will be immersed in the Czech culture through pictures, stories, possibly a video/live feed from our brew master, and a sampling experience you won’t forget.
12:15 – 1:45 PM Lunch on Own: We’ll be bringing in an Austin food truck favorite with tacos, tortas, and more available for purchase.
1:45 – 2:15 PM Travel Writing in the Beer Industry: There are a number of advantages to adding travel stories to your beer writing. First off, your readers are probably interested in beer tourism. Second, there are a lot more eyeballs on travel stories than on beer stories. Third, travel writing can open up new opportunities to you that might not be available to you just as a beer writer. Our presenters, Ken & April Pishna of Living a Stout Life, spend their lives traveling and chasing beer stories and will explain the benefits of adding a little travel writing to your world.
2:15 – 3:15 PM Shape Tasting with Craft Beer sponsored by Deschutes Brewery: Shape tasting is a sensory technique developed by Patrick Rueter of Dominio IV for describing his wines. In collaboration with Deschutes, this technique was expanded to beer which included the exploration of beer specific icons. Shape Tasting brings together tasting notes (the words) with concept art (the shapes) to illustrate a visual description of beer. Veronica Vega, Director of New Product Development, will share how Deschutes was introduced to this concept through our winery connections and how our brewers use Shape Tasting as another form of sensory. Learn how to bring more senses into your next beer tasting by experiencing and practicing shape tasting yourself in an interactive exploration of beer flavor. @DeschutesBeer @deschutesbrewery (FB) @deschutesbrewery (IG) YouTube
3:15 – 3:30 PM Break
3:30 – 4:15 PM Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Paycheck (Or At Least Hobby That Pays for Itself): What’s stopping you from taking the leap from blogger, writer, or influencer to a career in beer? A bad breakup that left him searching for answers. A natural disaster that scared the living sh*t out of her. That’s a small slice of the compelling origin stories Tristan Chan of PorchDrinking.com will share that will inspire you to make the leap to turn your passion into full-time careers (or at least self-funded hobbies) in beer.
4:15 – 4:20 PM Conference Close
4:20 – 4:50 PM Live Beer Social is the signature event of the conference, in which breweries each have five to seven minutes to speak to the audience from the stage while attendees taste the beer at their table. Bloggers, writers, and influencers taste, analyze, and write about the beer or brewery on the spot.
4:50 – 5:20 PM Live Beer Social: Meet the Breweries: We’ll gather around after Live Beer Social to spend time with our breweries, have a second taste of your favorites, and mingle before we depart for this evening’s main event.
5:30 PM Depart for Reception & Dinner at Oskar Blues: Oskar Blues brewed the full core line-up along with Austin-only specialties at their 50,000 square foot facility. Since beer pairs really nicely with groovy sounds, they’ve got a stacked live music calendar, with tunes every weekend. @oskarbluesatx (The bus from Vista Brewing will drop you off directly at Oskar Blues; transportation back to the hotel is on your own.)
Sunday, November 14
Breakfast/Coffee on Your Own (if staying at our host hotel, your reservation includes breakfast, open at 7:00 AM)
9:45 AM – 6:00 PM Post-Conference Excursion to Shiner Brewery: Shiner will be hosting a private tour exclusively for Beer Now attendees at their facility and will provide round-trip transportation, lunch at the Spoetzl Brewery, a tour of the production facility, and additional unique experiences including a private tasting with the Master Brewer. A representative from Shiner will be on the bus to and from the brewery, and it is legal to enjoy beers on the bus in Texas! Read more about the excursion here.