Colorado Craft Brewers Summit

Brought to you by the Colorado Brewers Guild

Trainer: Cinzia Wallace

Do you have staff that needs to be TIPS certified? Do you know that they need to be re-certified every three years? Even if you don't require it, having your staff TIPS certified is not only a good business practice it may reduce your liability insurance rates. This training can be used as an official training.

Topics include:

- Program Introduction.
- Alcohol and its effects. Effective server responses.
- Skills training. Evaluating Cues.
- Skills training. Evaluating Responses.

We have secured this training for cost at $20.00 per person. Attendees will pay the trainer directly at the end of the training. You can pay with Venmo (preferred), cash, or check.

This is limited to 35 attendees. You must pre-register here. If we fill up, we will secure another trainer.

Speakers:

Michelle Stone-Principato, Director of Liquor Enforcement Division

Andrea Jones, Deputy Director of Liquor Enforcement Division

Liquor Enforcement Division Director Michelle Stone-Principato and Deputy Director Andrea Jones will give a brief presentation on hot topics and legislative updates in the Colorado alcohol beverage marketplace landscape. Topics will include Festivals and Special Event parameters, the role of the Division in licensure and investigations, and the distinctions between Rulemaking and Legislative activities. There will be time for a Q&A at the end of the session. Please join us for this important regulatory update.

Speaker: Robert "Chas" Runco, Runco & Proffitt, P.C.

Join us for a follow-up presentation to the LED update diving into how the updates to the Liquor Code and Rules over the last two years may be utilized by your business. We will then discuss the most common compliance issues for breweries and brew pubs; from licensing multiple locations to brand registrations, formulas, COLAs, contract brewing, and alternating proprietorships. Find out the compliance matters that often trip up brewers followed by a Q&A session to address any additional compliance questions.

Note: this session is only open to brewery and brewery in planning members.

Speakers:

Jeff Biegert, CSU

Katie Fromuth, CSU

A co-presentation between Jeff Biegert (FST's Head Brewmaster) and Katie Fromuth (FST's Quality Lab Director) providing transparency around how a malt Certificate of Analysis (CoA) is created, key buckets and indicators on a CoA as it relates to malting and brewing performance, and how the CoA is a powerful tool that can be used to increase efficiency, save money, and maintain high quality beer.

Speakers:

Paul Mueller, Mueller Pye & Associates

Robyn Pye, Mueller Pye & Associates

Among the most generous, yet the most complex, Covid relief programs has to be the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC). Congress and IRS did their best to tinker and change the rules numerous times, such that business owners had a tough time keeping up.

CPAs Paul Mueller and Robyn Pye, of Mueller Pye & Associates will sift through all the noise and serve it up straight. Their clients have filed refund claims of nearly $3 million and keeps climbing. At up to $33,000 per employee, the ERTC can add up to real money, real fast!

Speaker:

Danny Wang, Fermly

A discussion about shelf life - real talk about presenting the best product in a crowded marketplace. We’ll go over how to set up a sensory SOP that you can stick to in your brewery, whether you employ just a few or hundreds of people. From learning best practices on properly defining True To Brand to setting up a sensory panel in your operations, this presentation will help you extend the shelf life of your beers and achieve better consistency.

Speakers:

Randal Stinson, Equitable Advisors
Alex Osmond, Equitable Advisors

Chad Daedlow, Equitable Advisors

This presentation covers the importance of financial planning for individuals, families, and small businesses. It starts with developing a strategy for the future, whether it's short term, intermediate or long term. This presentation strives to reduce confusion around the financial services industry, and present some basic concepts that can help people be more confident in their decision making going forward.

Speakers:

Dawn Thilmany, Colorado State University

Nathan Palardy, Colorado State University

Jeff Callaway, Colorado State University

Our presentation describes the implications for Colorado Craft Breweries of beer sales expanding to grocery and convenience stores. Our goal is to help breweries adapt to the new regulatory environment by identifying the estimated change in buying patterns and considering how that may influence tradeoffs across the distribution strategies brewers consider (with a particular focus on differences across the scale of brewer). Approximately 1,580 small, independent liquor stores operated in Colorado before a policy change that allowed an additional 1,700 grocery and convenience stores to sell full-strength beer, more than doubling the number of beer-selling retail establishments and increasing the competitive pressure faced by stores. We find that expanding beer retail had a moderate negative impact on liquor stores, a historically important outlet for off-premise beer sales. Foot traffic to liquor stores declined by ~5%, corresponding to an average of 65 fewer monthly visits to a representative store. Larger breweries may be able to offset a drop in liquor store sales by selling in grocery stores, however, as brewery size declines, so does the ability to spread the higher costs of reaching consumers through grocery stores across a higher volume of units. Rural liquor stores appear substantially less impacted compared to their urban counterparts, good news for small breweries in rural areas with few off-premise retailers. Contracts with distributors may facilitate access to the new market channels but the use of distributors comes with its own set of trade-offs. Preliminary results using Nielsen sales data from a panel of Colorado consumers largely confirm our foot traffic analysis. As we find only a moderate negative effect on liquor stores, these retailers are likely to remain an important outlet for reaching consumers and distributors represent one option.

Speakers:

Craig Knobbe, Moye White

Jessica Hunter, Moye White

Over the last eighteen months, we’ve had a unique and unprecedented opportunity to reflect on our lives – both business and personal. COVID helped many realize that maybe we need a change. That change could mean increasing sales channels to grow and expand your existing business. For some, it meant a personal pivot altogether.

If you have decided that you’re ready to sell off assets or move toward an exit strategy, you will need to do some legal tidying up. If you’re ready to acquire another brewery or other assets, you’ll need to be prepared for the process. Either way, this is a presentation you do not want to miss!

Join us to learn about the basics of mergers and acquisitions, get comfortable with vernacular, and collect tips on how to do some corporate hygiene.

Speakers:

Charlie Hoxmeier, Gilded Goat

Lizzy Waters, Upslope Brewing

Charlie and Lizzy recently published papers in the MBAA Technical Quarterly journal about sustainability in the craft brewing industry at various production sizes. The speakers will provide examples of interventions that are suitable for various sized craft breweries, focusing on water and electrical use, tools for monitoring use, how to evaluate the ROI and impact of interventions, and how to begin a sustainability program in a craft brewery.

Speaker:

Dan Christopherson, Christopherson Brew Law

As more and more breweries open each year, fewer and fewer quality beer names remain available. Craft brewers (as well as macro brewers, distilleries, wineries, and bars) are inevitably getting into more and more battles over the brewery and beer names, logos, and slogans they use to market themselves and define their identity. This presentation will provide guidelines for brewers to refer to when deciding how to enforce their trademark rights, as well as providing an overview of what a trademark owner should expect after obtaining a trademark registration.

Considerations presented will include:
1. The scope of protection for an unregistered common law trademark;
2. The scope of protection for a US registered trademark;
3. Factors that change the scope of protection;
4. International trademarks; and
5. Strategies for enforcing trademarks.

Speakers: TBD

TBD

Speakers:

John Giarratano, Inland Island Yeast Laboratories

Brynn Keenan, Grist Analytics

With the overwhelming popularity of IPAs in a craft brewery's portfolio, brewers have had to adapt their brewing practices to deal with increasing hop additions, mid fermentation dry hopping, increased VDKs, refermentation and insufficient yeast harvests. All of this is a huge added expense to the brewery when compared with more traditional styles. Using analytical brewing data and publications from all around the country, John Giarratano from Inland Island Yeast Laboratories and Brynn Keenan from Grist Analytics will answer questions about fermentation performance in heavily hopped beers and provide advice for avoiding pitfalls like fermentation lags, increased diacetyl, and under attenuation due to poor yeast viability. By increasing brewer's knowledge of what is actually happening to the yeast during fermentation, John and Brynn will help brewer's decrease fermentation time, troubleshoot fermentation issues as they're happening, decrease costs and improve the overall quality of their most expensive and high profile brand.

Speakers:

Amanda Oberbroeckling, 4 Noses Brewing

Shaye Holdaway, Upslope Brewing

Frank Novak, Cerebral Brewing
Patrick Combs, Stem Ciders (formerly of WeldWerks Brewing)

Emily Wang, Fermly

The delivery method for beer continues to vary from draft to can to bottle to crowler, but quality remains a necessity regardless. In this guided panel, learn from experts that know the story of a beer from brewhouse to glass and how some found a happy ending and others met a different end. Sensory, plating, technology, and more will be covered as well as an opportunity for open Q and A!

Speaker: Todd Fredrickson, Fisher Phillips

Attendees will get up to speed on tip sharing/pooling and other wage and hour issues under Federal law and COMPS Order No. 37; paid sick and emergency leave under the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act; pay and posting requirements under the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act; FAMLI Act paid leave starting in 2023; and, other new requirements for Colorado employers.

*Note: this session is 1.5 hours due to the amount of information included.