Milwaukee District

Hi all,

Here are some notes from the BOG meeting on January 21st:

-The executive committee is talking with the Chartered Institute of Brewers and Distillers (formerly the IBD) about the possibility of collaborating on course offerings. I've gotten some extremely useful information from the IBD's publications, so I'm pretty excited about this.

-The executive committee is looking into how the organization should manage the Technical Quarterly without a paid Editor-in-Chief (thanks to John Palmer for all of his hard work over the years).

-Changes to the course offerings in 2025:

• On-demand virtual Packaging Light course instead of the full Brewery Packaging Technology course. The the Packaging Light course was designed for people with experience levels similar to new employees on established packaging lines who would benefit from a broad overview of packaging considerations. See www.mbaa.com/education/courses/Pages/Brewery-Packaging-Light.aspx for more information. The full Brewery Packaging Technology course will return in 2026.
• New on-demand virtual Brewery Safety Series course about lockout/tagout. See www.mbaa.com/education/courses/Pages/LOTO.aspx for more information.
• New virtual course about basic brewing calculations (not on demand). See www.mbaa.com/education/courses/Pages/BrewingCalculations.aspx for more information.

-The member referral program is extended through this year, and the promo code is NewBrew25.

-The budgeted loss for 2024 was $144K, but the actual loss was $242K. This was driven primarily by still-declining memberships. Overall, both revenue and expenses were lower than projected.

-A more conservative budget for 2025 was approved by the BOG. Lower revenue was projected and up-front expenses were decreased (e.g. the TQ Editor-in-Chief position and offering the Packaging Light course instead of the Brewery Packaging Technology course) for a projected overall loss of $37,918.

-Despite light membership and a budgeted loss for 2025, the organization is still healthy with a net worth of $5,597,314 on 12/31/2024.

-The Executive Committee needs a new 2nd Vice President, who would rotate to 1st VP the next year and President the year after that. If you're interested, let me know before March 20th and I'll help you figure out the paperwork.

-The 2025 Brewing Summit (joint technical conference with the American Society of Brewing Chemists) will be held August 13-15 in Palm Desert, CA. See brewingsummit.org/Pages/default.aspx for more information.

I'll give a quick rundown of that information at our March meeting as well. I'm looking forward to visiting Pals Brewing Company because my family and I stopped by their original Nebraska location on a road trip last summer, and we had a great evening there. I didn't didn't know at the time that they were opening (or had maybe already opened) a location in Wisconsin Dells. Our industry is sometimes small in surprising ways!

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Joe Walts
Quality Manager and R&D Brewer
Karben4 Brewing
Madison WI
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