What’s the Brewers Guild, and Why Are They Awesome?
The word guild means a medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power. The Connecticut Brewers Guild is exactly that, well minus the medieval part I suppose. They are an organization of Connecticut brewers using their collective power to, according to their website, “promote the interests of the fledgling craft beer scene in Connecticut.” This mission manifests itself in at least three ways, definitely more, but let’s looks at the ones we know about.
CT Craft Beer Fest
The Guilds most public thing that impacts the average CT craft beer consumer is the Connecticut Craft beer fest. This beer festival is one that is a great look at the Independent craft beer scene in our little state. It is held at the end of March and it is coming up soon. (get your tickets here) If you’re into it, but tickets quick, last year they sold out. This year there will be lots of people getting to go for free if they visited enough breweries on their Trail passport, which brings us to the next awesome accomplishment of the guild:
CT Beer Trail Passport
The other way the Guild is making an impact on the average CT beer drinker is with their Beer Trail Passport. Inspired by the incredibly successful Wine passport, this goal based passport lets you collect a stamp at each participating brewery. At the end of January you can submit your passport and win cool swag for different levels of participation. The more visits the better the stuff. If you visit enough you even get a free ticket to their beer fest, maybe a hat, some stickers, and other cool swag.
No Limits
Not to be confused with the delicious hefeweizen brewed over at Two Roads, the No limits campaign is an effort to make a change to legislation that is holding back the growth of Connecticut craft breweries. Right now there is a law that limits the volume of beer a person can purchase at the source of production. Currently one person can only purchase 9 liters of beer from a brewery per day. That is 4 growlers, one case of 12 oz cans, or 19 16 ounce cans. In contrast there is no limit to the volume of beer a person can purchase right down the street at their local liquor store.
Why can I buy a keg of Sam Adams at the package store, but not a keg of NHV ale at the brewery?
That doesn’t quite make sense, and so the guild and brewers all over Connecticut are trying to change that.
Are you asking yourself, “What can I do to help support Connecticut beer?” Well we have an answer. Actually the guys over at Beer’d have already put together a pretty concise little guide for what you could do, CHECK IT OUT HERE. Also, Armada has a similar but equally informative guide CHECK THAT OUT HERE.
Just as a quick disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with the brewers guild at all, just a lover of beer and know that they are doing good stuff with their hearts and minds in the right place. So throw them some support if you can, go to the brewers fest, buy a shirt, gather some stamps on a trail map, or just get out to a brewery and buy some beer. Cheers!
