The Debut of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame

A new Hall of Fame made its debut today. Yes, the American craft beer industry now has its official Hall as the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame makes its debut in the virtual world as its inaugural class will be announced in the Fall of 2024.

From its time known a microbreweries in late 1970s before transitioning to the current term as craft beer, the industry has yet had a place to formally recognize the individuals whose efforts elevated the industry to become one of the nation’s most favored beverages. The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame (ACBHOF), a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, celebrates not the beer itself, but the human hands, minds, and passions that have made it what it is today.

The ACBHOF is the vision of Marty Nachel, a long-time beer writer, beer judge, and beer educator, who wanted to recognize and memorialize the people who made the American craft beer industry happen.  For this project, Nachel has organized an impressive team of Directors, Advisors and Electors that is a veritable who’s who in the American craft beer world.

In addition to Nachel (Founder, President), the others Board of Directors include John Freyer (Vice President), Aaron Gore (Secretary), Lisa Morrison (Board Member at Large), and Matt Simpson (Board Member at Large). There are also over three dozen of other beer industry people that are part of the ACBHOF’s Board of Advisors.

“American craft brewers have changed the global landscape of beer,” says Nachel, in a press release. “Forty-plus years into this ‘renaissance,’ I think their stories need to be etched in history.” 

In the creation of this new Hall, the founders have come up with the following mission statement.

The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame has been established to honor, celebrate, and commit to history those people who are responsible for initiating, sustaining, and promoting the American craft beer industry.  This Hall is to ensure that the memories of their contributions and achievements will not fade with time.

People from all facets of the industry – brewery owners, brewers, writers, educators, and others – will be recognized by The Hall, chosen for their involvement in and support of the American craft beer industry. It is hoped that by recognizing the achievements and efforts of those who have helped push the industry into the modern era, it may inspire others to put their passions toward carrying it still further into the future.

As mentioned earlier, the ACBHOF currently only exists in the virtual world and does not have a physical presence. It’ll reside online as the website will include biographical information about the inductees, provide historical perspectives of the industry, details about the key events that helped form it, and the greater significance that craft beer brings to other areas of American life.

The current website offers up additional details on the Board of Directors and the Board of Advisors. It also has created a craft beer timeline with select dates and events that are a highlight of the craft beer industry as selected by the Hall’s board.

There’s a lot of fun facts mentioned in the “Craft Beer History Timeline” section on the website. It provides for an interesting read on the historical events that the Hall decided to highlight. Of course with any timeline some historical significant moments may have been overlooked but a couple we found are a bit inaccurate.

Just from a cursory read of the timeline a few items appeared to be a bit off. One was the date of the sale of Goose Island Beer Co. to Anheuser-Busch as it was off by four years. The brewery was actually sold in 2011, not 2007 as posted. The other one we noticed was on when Heady Topper from Alchemist Brewery made its debut. It is listed as debuting in 2013, though the Hazy IPA had been around for nearly a decade prior. Regardless, the timeline does provide a nice perspective of the current history of craft beer and our guess it’ll continually be updated.

The inaugural class of inductees to The Hall will be announced in the Fall of 2024.  The ACBHOF would like to recognize Hankscraft AJS Tap Handles for their generosity and expertise as the sponsors and producers of the trophies to be provided to the inaugural class.

You can learn more about the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame or to donate to the organization by visiting its website at americancraftbeerhalloffame.com.