Minding
Your Business
Brew Boosters
Virginia is for beer lovers, or at least that’s the word pouring from
the Mid-Atlantic Association of Craft Brewers, a small trade group of microbreweries and
brew pubs located mostly in Virginia and the District of Columbia.The
association launched a promotional campaign in October and has lots of ideas on tap to
leverage its beverage, not the least of which is borrowing the famous Virginia slogan.
"We hope to brand Virginia breweries as the choice for beer lovers, especially in our
local market," says the association’s president, Mark Duros.
Executive Director Sheri Winter says the Arlington-based organization represents 15
Virginia breweries "that are brewing less than what Anheuser-Busch spills in a
day."
To compete against the big beer boys, the 5-year-old association works to change
distribution laws and promote awareness of smaller craft breweries through local festivals
and events.
Unlike Virginia’s wineries, says Winters, breweries do not receive financial
backing from the state department of agriculture. They’re still taking a lesson from
the vintners’ success. "We’d like to emulate what the wineries have done.
They’ve ... [put] Virginia wine on the map. Just a few years back, you never heard
anyone talk about a Virginia wine. It was always California or imported wines. We’d
like to make that same kind of mark with Virginia breweries."
And so the breweries — including Old Dominion Brewing Co., Williamsburg Brewing
Co., Richbrau Brewing Co., Monticello Brewing Co. and Shenandoah Brewing Co. — have
teamed with the Virginia Tourism Corp. Visitors can now link to their tasty drink sites
from the tourism Web site. Next year the association hopes to have a slick brochure at all
the tourism centers.
Meanwhile, the "Virginia is For Beer Lovers" ads are popping up in
"brewspapers" all along the East Coast. Even the governor is in on it: He has
declared May Virginia’s beer month.
According to Washington, D.C.’s Beer Institute, Virginia’s brewing industry
— 20 microbreweries and operations of brew barons like St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch
— directly or indirectly employs more than 17,600 people and contributes more than
$112 million in state and local taxes.
That’s one reason to keep the association’s efforts and the brewers’
products flowing.
— Mike Ashley
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