The 2024 Fingers CBC Superlatives

Plus: The fight for hard cider's soul!

Editor’s note: I’m still on the road out here in Las Vegas after a three-day gauntlet covering the 2024 Craft Brewers Conference. No Weekender this Sunday, but we’ll be back to normal programming next week. Have a great weekend, thanks for your patience.—Dave.

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The biggest trade show in craft brewing took place earlier this week in the The Venetian Expo Center, which is different than The Venetian Resort and does not have Sphere access, so stop asking, you rubes. You Philistines. Accessing Jimmy Dolan’s orb d’failson directly from the convention center next door? What are we, Medicis?!

Ahem. Anyway. The 41st-annual Craft Brewers Conference drew 9,500 attendees this year, according to a spokesperson from the Brewers Association, the org that produces the gathering. That’s down considerably from 2023’s attendance estimate (12,000), but neither that dip, nor the flat-to-down sales outlook for the American craft brewing business put a major damper on the vibes. They were surprisingly upbeat! Maybe it was all the beer, I don’t know.

I’ve got a column out today at VinePair with some initial reactions from the conference, and I’ll have more reporting rolling out in the coming weeks/months as stuff develops. Watch this space. In the meantime, here are some high school yearbook-style 2024 Fingers CBC Superlatives from my week in the desert, including:

• Biggest bogeyman;

• Best presentation slide;

• Most confusing message;

And many more. Congratulations (?) to all the winners (??) of these coveted honors (???), and thanks especially to all the Friends of Fingers who came and found me on the trade show floor this week. To the superlatives!