A Visit To Craft Beer's Alternate Universe

A presentation led by Elysian and 10-Barrel marketers entitled “Actually, Words Can Hurt You” warned a visibly shaken room of future FCBs about the backlash to expect when shifting to “former” status.

While the CBC featured a sprawling array of 500 vendors of must-have equipment, the FCBC hosted a room of 500 must-meet venture capitalists, hedge funders and small-brewery swallowers.

In lieu of a World Beer Cup-style gathering, FCBCers attended a “This Cup’s For You: Urine Analysis for FirstTimers” instructional before enjoying a former-craft-beer dinner prepared by Giada De Laurentiis and Mario Batali.

That feast led into the final and most anticipated segment of the FCBC: “How to Contact the Acquisitions Departments at SABMiller, AB/InBev and MillerCoors.” The program drew the biggest crowd of the week, including several hundred CBC badge holders who’d crashed the seminar.

It began with a handout of an FCBC-branded zip drive (bearing a slogan of “Beer Too Big to Fail”) that held contact info for the check writers at the world’s biggest beer buyers. It ended 60 seconds later when attendees abruptly raced from the room, zip drives in hand and CBC and FCBC badges flying over their shoulders, to boot up their laptops and hit cell phones to place “urgent” calls. OMG.