I was presenting to a big crowd, and I was nervous — which was a little funny in itself, since I’d spent twenty years modeling on stages. Standing in front of a room was nothing new. Talking in front of one was. It was still the early days of getting up on stage and actually saying something, not just being looked at. In draft beer, I was used to polite attention, rarely deep interest, until I got on that stage at the Beer Business Daily Beer Summit. But the opportunity for draft beer is right there: it’s the single greatest sampling opportunity in any consumer packaged goods category. Nowhere else does a brand put its product directly in a customer’s hand, poured fresh, in the exact moment they’re deciding what they like. It’s something special — and every time I go out and talk about it, that’s what first makes people care.

So I braced for the usual “don’t care” moment.

Instead, a woman came up to me afterward and said something I didn’t expect: people would really be interested in what you have to say.

I filed that away and kept moving. Then came a bigger stage — the Beer Business Daily Summit at The Breakers. I walked in with no idea what to expect, more than a little shell-shocked by the room. I got up there and delivered it anyway. The response was better than I’d let myself hope for.

That’s what led Jenn Litz

-Kirk to pull me aside and ask a question that changed the next two and a half years: could we run these as a regular series inside Beer Business Daily?

I said yes before she finished the sentence. It was exactly the kind of visibility draft beer needed — not a feature story once a year, but something top of mind, consistently, in front of the people making purchasing and placement decisions every day.

Two and a half years later, that little graphic at the bottom of the newsletter — the Draftline Top 10 Draft Beer Brands list — still generates more attention than anyone expected. A good reminder: people are paying more attention to draft than the industry gives them credit for. The data’s there. The interest’s there. We just have to keep showing up with it.

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July — we had a good one here in Orlando. Here’s to a strong second half of the year.

See you on the next one.

Jen