CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland has been approved as the site of the 2018 Ohio Craft Brewers Association's annual conference by the group's board, according to the organization's executive director.

Mary MacDonald said a contract is not signed, but the board OK'd the city selection.

The conference is scheduled to be at Huntington Cleveland Convention Center on Lakeside Avenue on Tuesday-Wednesday, Jan. 30-31.

The non-profit association represents and lobbies on behalf of the state's breweries, which number more than 200 and keeps rising.

The annual conference brings brewers and brewery owners in one place for several days of panel discussions. But it also attracts many people in tertiary professions that affect the industry, from lawyers who guide nascent brewery owners on avoiding pitfalls of starting a business to hop growers and many others.

And it's come a long way. In 2013, the group hired MacDonald as executive director. MacDonald, who grew up in Cleveland Heights, has coordinated the annual conferences and acted as a liaison between brewers - no small task considering the scope of the organization and the fact that it continues to grow. She attended a similar one in Michigan, took away the positives, and approached her board about the idea of Ohio having its own.

They bought into it.

"When they hired me I was the first executive director, I didn't have a road map," she said. "I kind of made my own way."

The path she paved is one that values education and quality.

"I was excited two years when we hit 100 breweries," MacDonald said. "Now we're at 220."

In 2015, MacDonald said, 130 attendees gathered in Wooster. A year later, Jim Koch of Boston Beer Co. delivered the keynote address before 350 people in Dayton. This February, the conference drew 500 people in Cincinnati.

"I still expect 500 to 600 people," she said about 2018's gathering. "The nice thing about Cleveland is we have the opportunity to grow the trade show."



The conference encompasses "the whole craft industry," she said. "It's people who make labels or sell insurance or grow hops."

Mike Foran, one of the four owners of Market Garden Brewery, lauded the growth of the conference.

"I think it's been great to see it grow for the last several years," he said. "What started as a guild meeting is now a full-on convention."

This year, the trade show itself included 55 vendors, MacDonald said, but the convention center offers considerable room for growth.

The size of the conference and city sites is commensurate to Ohio's flourishing craft-brewing industry. While the industry's growth is not relegated to urban areas, it's no secret that the brewery presence in Cleveland and Columbus is very strong. Northeast Ohio has about a fourth of the state's 220 breweries, with startups continually popping up in neighborhoods across Greater Cleveland.

In addition to representing breweries, the association holds one of the state's best beer festivals in Cleveland: Winter Warmer Fest. The event, a fundraiser for the OCBA, packs in a crowd at the Powerhouse in the Flats. It's not only well-attended by beer lovers but by brewers themselves who serve an array of creative styles.

The conference itself is organized with specific panels covering everything from dry hopping to brewery automation. Northeast Ohio brewers have turned out in full force - both in attending panels and in speaking on them.

As with most conferences, it comes with an economic boost for the host city. MacDonald said many of the organization's "allied" members are expected to come in. These include everyone from architects to equipment manufacturers, media members, transportation companies and others.

"If we bring in 500 people and our allied members are from around the U.S. and everywhere in between," she said, "plus brewers from around the state buying hotel rooms, going out to dinner, doing things people from out of the area do at conferences, going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ..."

And the breweries themselves get to shine with well-orchestrated bus routes looping through neighborhoods. In Dayton, for instance, buses ran continuously to breweries, brewers bellying up to several bars to sample and compare various styles.

In Cleveland the same option exists. The Cleveland Brew Bus and other shuttles could be employed to wind attendees through the city's various neighborhoods, with the added idea that a 35-minute ride to Akron could be considered for that city's breweries.

Collision Bend Brewing Co.'s Luke Purcell, who formerly sat on the OCBA's board and was instrumental in planning for past conferences, was ecstatic about the news.

"That's huge," he said. "It's very exciting news to me. It's awesome for all breweries and the whole state but also the whole city."

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