THE BEER NUT: Mass. Brewers Guild hosts first technical and business conference

FRAMINGHAM – Aaron Mateychuk has been brewing beer professionally for more than 20 years. Despite all of his experience, the head brewer at Natick's Lookout Farm Brewing & Cider Company learned a few new things at the first Mass Brewers Technical Brewing & Business Conference Monday.

“You will never learn enough,” said Mateychuk. “You can’t learn too many things. Even today, you hear things that you start remembering that you used to do forever ago, and realize you still should do it. I got a lot out of this.”

The Technical Brewing & Business Conference, held at Jack's Abby Craft Lagers in Framingham, was put on by the Massachusetts Brewers Guild, a trade group that includes a majority of the state's more than 150 brewers. The guild works to protect craft breweries’ interests in the legislature while providing education to brewery owners and employees.

The goal of the conference, according to Massachusetts Brewers Guild Executive Director Katie Stinchon, was to provide something for those in all aspects of the brewing industry. About 170 people attended the conference.

“A lot of state guilds run conferences similar to this, and we’ve never had something like this,” said Stinchon. “I polled my board and my members to see what kind of content they wanted. This was something that was needed.”

The conference was broken up into two types of seminars – business and technical. Some of the seminars on the business side included “Social Media Best Practices and Beer Photography 101,” and “Finding Funding to Grow & Thrive.” Technical seminars included “Hop Selection and Working with Suppliers” and “Yeast Handling: Getting the Most from Your Culture.”

“The goal is to provide something to the startup brewers (and) to the Harpoons,” said Rob Burns, president of the Massachusetts Brewers Guild and co-founder of Night Shift Brewing Company in Everett. “I think, overall, it was a success. We had a good turnout and I think we had good seminars."

Among the speakers was Neil Witte, quality ambassador for the Brewers Association, a trade group for American craft brewers. Witte, the keynote speaker, stressed the importance of having a strong lab program and to make sure the beer a brewery brews is the best in can be. He said it is also important to talk to other breweries.

“Don’t be afraid to speak to your fellow brewers who may be brewing beer that is not as good as it can be,” said Witte. “It may be an uncomfortable conversation, but we have to help each other. A new craft drinker may start with them and may be turned off. It helps everyone if we help each other.”

Danielle Babineau, who is trying to open a brewery in central Massachusetts, said as someone new to the industry, the conference was a good learning tool.

“It really reinforces the things I knew, but really need to do,” she said. “It’s stuff we all should do. It was really good to get into a deep dive into a subject.”

Norman Miller is a Daily News staff writer. Email him at nmiller@wickedlocal.com or call at 508-626-3823. Check out the Beer Nut blog at http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/section/blogs01?taxid=646&start=2. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RealBeerNut and on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerBeerNut.