Many industries have a hall of fame, a place to immortalize people and places that have shaped a trade like barbers or a sport like baseball. Now, craft beer has this as well: The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame (ACBHOF).
Since its beginnings almost a half century ago, the American craft beer industry will now formally recognize individuals whose efforts have elevated it to become one of America’s most beloved drinks. In the last 50 years, the American craft brewing landscape has grown from a few breweries to almost 10,000 throughout the country. Most Americans now live 10 miles from a brewery and American craft beer has spawned a worldwide renaissance in new brewing traditions which is recreated all over the globe. Beer styles like hazy IPA are now brewed from Japan to South Africa by craft breweries taking cues from the U.S. beer scene.
The Hall of Fame is the brainchild of Chicago based beer educator, author and international beer judge Marty Nachel, who wants to recognize and memorialize the people that made craft beer what is it today.
“American craft brewers have changed the global landscape of beer,” said Nachel. “Forty-plus years into this ‘renaissance,’ I think their stories need to be etched in history.”
So who will be recognized? The hall and its advisory board have yet to say who the inaugural class will be but it will feature people from all facets of the industry: brewery owners, brewers, writers, educators, and many others. These people will be chosen for their involvement in and support of the American craft beer industry and will be forever enshrined in craft beer forever.
Nachel has organized an impressive team of directors, advisors and electors that is a veritable who’s who in the American craft beer world and they will help choose the inaugural class that will be announced in the fall of 2024.
Aaron Gore is the secretary of the ACBHOF and waxed poetically about craft beer’s importance within America.
“What the craft beer industry has accomplished over the last five decades is nothing short of miraculous,” said Gore. “Beer had been a commodity for so long, and it was never an easy task to convince customers that they should care about things like quality or flavor or craftsmanship. It took a grassroots movement of people who were both visionary and unafraid of taking big risks at a time when the success we are enjoying now was impossible to predict, much less to enact.”
Gore is also excited to be involved with the project and is looking forward to getting its first class elected.
“Being able to work on a project as important as the ACBHOF, particularly with a legend like Marty, has been nothing short of humbling,” said Gore. “I came up in the craft beer industry thanks to the efforts of so many that came before, and I hope one day to have played my own small role in leaving it better off than it was when I first entered it.”
The Hall of Fame does not have a brick and mortar location as of yet but will reside online. It is hoped to have a physical location for those to visit sometime in the future.