Craft Beer Colorado kinda sort secedes from the Colorado Brewers Guild.

It isn't entirely clear what this secession means. Read this account, and tell me.

Colorado isn't Indiana. Although our Hoosier "craft" beer business has grown exponentially, it isn't as big as Colorado's. And, there's always the obvious: Nationwide, the gap between the smallest and largest "craft" breweries continues to widen.

Legislatively, this gap has ramifications. What's needed to assist on-premise brewpubs can differ from the framework for big-time production brewers.

The work we did at the Brewers of Indiana Guild to increase barrel limits was very important -- and it applied to only a few of the state's breweries. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Indiana brewers aren't going to see 30,000 barrels any time soon, or ever.

Personally, I think we did well keeping everyone together.

But probably there are times when togetherness doesn't work. Alt-Indie-Beer is big business now, and the ka-ka likely will continue to occur.

The Colorado Brewers Guild Has Fractured in the Face of Changing Industry, by Jonathan Shikes (Westword)

The Colorado Brewers Guild, which has represented the interests of the state’s craft breweries for the past twenty years, has imploded in the face of a rapidly changing industry.

At least fourteen independent craft breweries, including Colorado’s four largest —New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Odell Brewing and Left Hand — are forming a new organization called Craft Beer Colorado that “aspires to be open, responsive, proactive and effective on issues that impact its members.” Some of these breweries will remain as members of the Guild, but others will not.

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