Craft Beer Con returning August 13

The San Diego Brewers Guild will host the 2024 Craft Beer Con on Tuesday, August 13 at Mira Costa College’s San Elijo campus in Cardiff. The annual half-day conference that discusses trends in the local craft-beer industry is open to the general public.

The theme for this year’s conference is “The Heart of the Community”, celebrating the internal communities that give life to craft beer for San Diego and beyond. Highlighting the discussion topics is “Bridging Borders: Connecting Baja Brewers with San Diego”, featuring representatives from Tijuana breweries Farland Aleworks and Cerveceria Insurgente.

The conference will begin at 11 a.m. and include three educational tracks, a trade show and beer tastings. Tickets can be purchased online – $70 for the general public and $60 for Brewers Guild members – and the price includes lunch from Culver Beer Co.’s Locally Toasted and the happy hour beer tastings, which start at 4 p.m.

“This year’s conference is especially exciting because some of our friends from Mexico will be joining us,” said Brewers Guild Executive Director Erik Fowler. “Many of the topics are a little nuanced for brewers and brewery owners, but we welcome anyone who might want to learn a little more about the industry, including from breweries just across the border. Several of their business principles apply to any business, of course.”

The three education tracks are “Your Beer”, “The People of Beer” and “Business, Sales & Marketing”. Attendees can learn from such topics as navigating distribution models to getting hands-on with hops. Speakers from some of San Diego’s most well-known breweries will be on-hand as part of the panels, including Hopnonymous Brewing, Modern Times Beer and Societe Brewing.

Craft Beer Con is co-produced by MiraCosta College’s BrewTech Program, a 210-hour course that trains students to become production brewers and is the only Master Brewers Association of the Americas-recognized brewing program in the State of California.