Program areas at Vermont Brewers Association
The VT craft brewing industry has an estimated economic impact of $384 million, supports 2,593 jobs at an average wage of $38,887. Current membership size is 60, with 15.6 breweries per 100,000 21+ residents (ranks #1 in the nation) producing 324,505 barrels of craft beer annually. We have 5 active committees focused on executive our strategic plan in the areas of advocacy, marketing, education, sustainability, and diversity equity and inclusion. The Vermont Brewers Festival in Burlington has been running for 31 years and is one of the premier beer festivals in the world attracting over 7,000 people and is the major fundraiser for the VBA.
In November of 2023 we hosted the first annual Vermont Craft Brewers Conference at the Hilton Burlington. We had around 300 registered attendees, 55 exhibitors, 24 break-out sessions, and 2 keynote speakers. We worked with Delaney Event Management on the logistics side and Brothers Malloy on the sponsorship and exhibitor side. The expenses were $96,243 and the income was $123,147 netting a profit of $26,904. We will host the second Vermont Craft Brewers Conference on November 11-12, 2024 at the DoubleTree by Hilton and continue to work with Delaney Event Management.We launched our brewer portal and public facing website this year which was partially funded by a grant. The brewer portal technology is $420/year and the development of both cost $19,992the grant covered $15,000 of this. The brewer portal allows for our brewers to log-in and have access to job boards, announcement boards, a directory, calendars, and a resource list.
Our technical and education committee's goal is to provide education and training to member brewers with the goal of improving and maintaining the highest quality standard of beer brewed in Vermont. We have 1 technical and educational day a year planned by the committee and hosted the first annual Vermont Craft Brewers Conference in November of 2023 which was a 2 day educational event focusing on sustainability & safety, technical brewing, and business development. We also launched a new public facing website with a brewer member only portal which allows for a comprehensive brewery directory, events calendar, announcement board, job board, and resource page.