I am happy to answer any questions you may have for me about my candidate statement, or my thoughts on the AHA or the hobby in general in the comments section here.
Matt, I’ll ask you the same question I ask all the candidates. What do you think is the biggest issue facing homebrewers today and what can the AHA/GC do about it?
Thanks for the question, Denny! I’m happy to give some thoughts.
I think that when we talk about the ‘biggest issue facing homebrewers today’, it can be very different based on location. We (AHA members) tend to think of homebrewing here in the US - but the hobby is worldwide. There are growing regions of the world where people are interested in getting in to the hobby, but they don’t have access to the right equipment or ingredients. Though the AHA is the “American” Homebrewers Association, the truth is that there are no other national homebrewing organizations quite as successful as the AHA outside of the US - so people in other parts of the world often try to emulate what the AHA is doing with mixed success.
I think the AHA has a real opportunity here to help grow the hobby internationally. The GC might not have the power to get fresh malt or hops into underserved countries - but the GC does have the ability to facilitate a sort of ‘sister homebrew club’ program, (for lack of a better term). It could be sort of like most US cities have a ‘sister’ city internationally, and there are programs built out to connect their citizens (student exchange programs, public art gifts, etc). Homebrew ‘sister clubs’ could do that on a much smaller scale. It would need some more input from the whole GC, but I think it would be a great structure for the AHA to rely on it’s members to grow the hobby internationally.
Of course, there are a lot of other factors that are challenging to homebrewers like rapidly increasing ingredients prices, and the declining number of locally-owned homebrew shops. However, the GC’s ability to impact both of those things is hard to measure. There is not much that can be done by an elected group of 15 homebrewers to combat the change of economic factors that make up this hobby… and I think that having the experience as an AHA staff member for many years gave me a great insight into truly understanding what the GC can control, and what is simply beyond their influence.
