Brewers Association Craft Seal of Independence

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of In partnership with the Brewers Association. All opinions are 100% mine.

It was a proud moment when I converted my 64 year old father to Independent craft beer. Since I was little, he has always had a distain for the mega beer corporations. After exposing him to many different strengths, colors and flavors, he finally saw the light and traded in his lawnmower beer for the far more flavorful craft beer.

Now that dad is a big fan, I get many text messages during the week from him asking about beers he wants to try at restaurants or his local liquor warehouse. Whether he is rattling off a brand name or sending an actual picture, I’ll quickly tell him whether I have heard of the beer or not, and if I have, whether he might like it or not. Having a son who runs a beer publication is a pretty good perk sometimes!

Because dad is in semi-retirement, he has much more free time on his hands, and sends more text messages than I can answer in real time. If he doesn’t hear back from me quick enough about a beer, he’ll take a gamble on his beer purchases, and I’ll get some brutally honest feedback after the fact.

One time, I missed out on a text where he was asking me about this canned porter called NVP. I didn’t get back to him quick enough so he went ahead a purchased it based on the picture it painted. A luscious vanilla porter sounded great to him. A day later, he said, son, the verdict is in, I did not enjoy NVP. I asked him, NVP, I am not sure I’m even familiar with that beer, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it was a beer from one of the mega corporations he’d rather not support. When I told him who owned it, he said he would have passed on buying it for that reason alone.

Had his local liquor store showcased the independent craft brewer seal at point-of-sale using the resources from the Brewers Association, he would have been able to identify independent craft beers.

My dad is a savvy beer drinker, and it would be nice to have this kind of info handy, without digging through weblinks and blog posts to crack the case. There are many good reasons retailers should implement these educational materials, just follow this link to Learn More