An annual gathering of innovators, business leaders, and industry professionals across all three tires of the beverage supply chain, Connect Conference is the perfect event to attend to take your craft beverage acumen to the next level. Don’t miss out!

The Connect Conference promotes best industry practices, inspires innovative solutions with a digitally connected supply chain, and empowers problem solving to some of the top challenges our industry faces with the three tiered system.

Join Encompass, along with Next Glass CEO, Trace Smith, who will be presenting at the event, for unique networking opportunities, groundbreaking speaker sessions, and a chance to get a first-hand look at why we’re working to digitally connect the supply chain.

There are both in-person and virtual opportunities to attend this incredible conference.

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As Next Glass returns to hosting in-person beer festivals around the world, our all-women events team is continually reviewing our process as part of our commitment to providing the best experience to all festival attendees. In 2021, we introduced an updated Festival Code of Conduct governing all Next Glass festivals, and we made further updates to that Code following feedback from the industry and community. We expect that our Code of Conduct and other processes will continue to evolve as we produce more festivals in 2022.

But we also recognize that having a code of conduct is only one piece of the puzzle. In an effort to contribute further to a truly safe and inclusive environment, the festival and marketing team recently completed bystander and de-escalation training administered by Safe Bars.

Founded in 2013, Safe Bars is a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit, whose mission is to prevent sexual harassment and assault in nightlife by teaching active bystander skills. Safe Bar brings together decades of work against and research on gender-based violence with the knowledge of industry professionals. In 2021 alone, they provided 40+ brewery training sessions, part of their ultimate goal of bringing real change to the industry.

The Next Glass team participated in all three available training opportunities: active bystander, de-escalation skills, and empowerment and self-defense. Next Glass’s goal in participating in these trainings is to educate, empower and equip our team to effectively assess situations and determine the best course of action to prevent and/or mitigate potentially dangerous situations that could lead to sexual harassment and assault. “We take the safety of our festival attendees very seriously,” said Talia Spera, Vice President, Festivals and Live Events. “We felt that providing additional training to the team could play an important role in our producing a safe and inclusive event and were very happy to work with Safe Bars on a customized training experience.”

Safe Bars promised that the training delivered would be “tailored to the life situations and needs of the participants, survivor-centered, trauma-informed, evidence-based, and experiential and participatory.”

And they more than delivered on that promise. Each session was interactive and tailored to suit our specific needs as festival producers. Our instructors brought extensive experience to the training, and I was deeply impressed by how truly practical it was.

Across our team we have decades of experience in producing live events. In my experience, when potentially dangerous situations arise, there is often little time to think through a response. Being prepared with a course of action ahead of time can help the team act with confidence and decisiveness in difficult situations, which are key to maintaining safe environments. I personally feel even better prepared, having gone through role play with real life situations, to be an active force for good at our next festival, the Fifth Annual Beers With(out) Beards, to be held in April in Portland, ME. The fifth annual Beers With(out) Beards takes pride in representing women and femme-identifying folks in the beer industry.

In 2018, Grace Weitz, Managing Editor, conceptualized the first Beers With(out) Beards as part of her graduate school thesis capstone project at NYU. Over the past four years, this celebration of women in beer has grown to attract thousands of attendees and showcase over sixty women-led breweries.

Grace started BW(O)B to create a space where everyone felt welcome to show up, taste amazing beers, and cultivate conversations around how to break through barriers. Creating safe spaces requires a good plan.

“I found the Safe Bars training invaluable. Our workshop leaders showed us specific skills we could use in any situation to be an impactful and active bystander,” said Grace. “As someone who considers themselves more introverted, I find certain social situations very stressful. In the past, I’ve doubted I had the tools to step in and change the discourse. But after taking part in Safe Bars training, I learned simple strategies that even I can deploy to make a difference. Any organization, brewery, bar, or restaurant dedicated to creating more inclusive and safer spaces should consider Safe Bars.”

The addition of Safe Bars training complements Next Glass activation of #NotMe, a digital, resolution-seeking reporting platform for those who’ve experienced or witnessed racism, harassment or any type of discrimination or misconduct. Along with the code of conduct, signage throughout the festival provides visibility into this tool as an important resource for festival participants.

“As an experienced live events executive who has received formal training in emergency planning, active shooter, and sexual harassment, I am keenly aware of the need to be prepared,” said Talia. “Safe Bars training was a very unique and effective solution for me. It not only reinforced some of these same tools, it also equipped me with more practical measures to mitigate and manage misconduct, harassment and discrimination.”

In an effort to share the techniques and best practices we learned during our sessions, Next Glass and Safe Bars have partnered to deliver a specially designed training program to teams from our participating brewers who will be serving at the festival. The training will be provided on-site in Portland on April 8th, and we expect a very good turnout.

We look forward to producing our first live festival of 2022 in the coming weeks, raising a glass to celebrate women and femme-identifying folks in the beer industry. Throughout 2022 we’ll continue to work with others in the industry and our community to productively explore ways to put our values into action both in our day-to-day work and in the festivals and events we produce.

Over the past few years, Untappd has witnessed the relentless strength of our community as brewers and app users have repeatedly banded together to support those hit hardest during difficult times. Whether it has been to navigate COVID-19, to raise funds to assist natural disaster victims, to push for a more diverse and inclusive industry, or to increase awareness of ALS and its research, we are proud to have partnered with this community on these important efforts.

Once again, we are truly heartened by the outpouring of support in this industry for the people of Ukraine. Several breweries have shared that they are releasing specially-brewed beers with the purpose of donating proceeds to benefit various charities.

In an effort to help amplify their message, Untappd is releasing a special badge – earned by checking in any beer released as part of this community effort.

See a list of participating breweries and eligible beers.

If you are brewing a special beer in support of Ukrainians, please submit your beer using this form to be included with this special badge, “Support for Ukraine.”

In addition, Untappd is making a donation to the International Committee of the Red Cross to support their Ukrainian relief efforts.

At Untappd, we are committed to being a partner to the breweries, bars, restaurants, and retail locations where beer drinkers come together not only to enjoy the craft, but to offer their support to those in need in this global community.

As 2021 nears its end, the team here at Next Glass, which includes our Untappd, Hop Culture, BeerAdvocate, Oznr, Ollie and FermentAble brands, are reflecting on some of the achievements and milestones we are most proud of this year.

This year saw Untappd reach its one billionth check-in, just a few months after celebrating its 10th anniversary in late-2020. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Untappd users supported their local breweries by purchasing beer to-go and checking-in through the Untappd at Home venue. Throughout the year, Untappd partnered with the Brewers Association to promote craft beer, including November’s Small Brewery Sunday, issuing a call to action to support local breweries alongside other local businesses. More than one million impressions were generated across the entire Next Glass ecosystem, helping spread the word about this important campaign.

We welcomed Angela Cearns, CEO of TrueTwins, a blockchain-based authentication platform, to our Board of Directors. Angela brings deep e-commerce experience across several verticals, including the food and beverage industry. Read more about Angela’s appointment to the Next Glass Board here.

During 2021, our LIVE! team had the opportunity to partner with some incredible sponsors to produce festivals and events. While we had to shift many events from in-person to virtual, we still produced several exciting festivals, including Beer Advocate’s Extreme Beer Fest presented by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, and Hop Culture’s fourth annual Beers With(out) Beards presented by Yeti. Over the past four years, this celebration of women in beer has grown to attract thousands of attendees and showcase over sixty women-led breweries. We were honored to listen to the keynote conversation delivered by Mariah Calagione, and if you missed it, no worries! You can still check it out on our YouTube channel – you’ll be glad you did!

And while COVID-19 interfered with our original plans, we were still thrilled to hold Hop Culture’s inaugural Queer Beer Festival, presented by Sam Adams, virtually.

Queer Beer aims to capture the unique, vibrant, diverse, and thriving voices of the queer community in the industry. There were so many highlights during this festival, it’s hard to recount them all. Panels included “How to be an LGBTQ+ Leader in Craft Beer” and “Authenticity in Queer Spaces in Craft Beer.” If you didn’t get a chance to check out the programming, you can catch the entire event here. Please don’t miss the keynote delivered by Ren Navarro, Founder of Beer Diversity, we invite you to check it out and promise you will be inspired.

For Untappd, an important Untappd milestone was holding the community’s first in-person beer festival since the pandemic paused live events. Held at San Diego’s Petco Park, the Untappd Beer Festival saw more than 7,000 attendees enjoy conversations, connections, and incredible beer from around the country.

The amount of work that goes into putting together an event of this size and scale is tremendous, especially as attendee safety takes center stage. In addition to COVID-19 precautions, the Next Glass family of brands recently introduced enhanced safety measures built around an improved Next Glass Festival Code of Conduct, which was inspired by discussions of the many reports of sexual harassment and misconduct in the industry. This Code of Conduct will be an important staple of all future BeerAdvocate, Hop Culture, and Untappd festivals and will help ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all attendees and participating brewery staff members.

The implementation of Next Glass’s new Code of Conduct included #NotMe, a resolution-seeking reporting platform for those who’ve experienced or witnessed racism, harassment, or any type of discrimination or misconduct.

Working with input from industry stakeholders, the Next Glass events team researched best practices, vetted reporting vendors, identified gaps, built reporting infrastructure, trained staff, and integrated with venue security. This Code of Conduct is a natural extension of the work that has been done — and continues to be done — on inclusion and safety by employees of all Next Glass brands.

“As an all female identifying team who has been affected by sexism and misogyny ourselves, influencing change is something we take very seriously,” said Talia Spera, Vice President of Festivals & Live Events. “Every day we continue to prioritize ensuring a safe and inclusive festival experience. Sadly, misogyny, bias, discrimination, racism and harassment is still found in our industry, so there’s more to do. The team at Next Glass will continue to work together with industry and community stakeholders in 2022 to do our part in positively impacting the industry culture.”

Looking forward to 2022, the team continues to expand upon the Code of Conduct ahead of what is turning out to be an incredible festival lineup. These improvements include festival staff training as well as an enhanced vetting process and participation criteria.

The Next Glass commitment to diversity, inclusion and community service extends beyond festivals and events. Throughout 2021 we were able to work with and support some truly incredible organizations.

“At Hop Culture, it’s important to us that we’re creating the type of beer community in which we want to participate,” says Hop Culture founder and Next Glass Creative Director Kenny Gould. “Last year, we worked with Brewers Association Equity and Inclusion Partner Dr. J Jackson-Beckham to help codify our mission and values, and those are things we continue to discuss internally.”

As part of our 2021 festivals, Next Glass companies made donations supporting ALES for ALS, the Pink Boots Society, the Transgender Law Center, Wildlife Waystation, the pediatric abdominal transplant unit at the UPMC Children’s Hospital, and the Last Prisoner Project, among others. Additionally, our CEO, Trace Smith, personally matched all employee donations to 100 Black Men of America, Black Girls Code, and the It Gets Better Project, continuing financial commitments he and Next Glass made in 2020 to those organizations.

“Our team at Next Glass has prided itself on our philanthropic commitments and corporate social responsibility efforts,” said Trace Smith, CEO of Next Glass. “Our brands each have a long history of rallying their respective audiences to support causes committed to bettering both the bev-alc and tech industries. We will continue to commit resources – both time and money – to driving continued change.”

That work includes working on a local level. In the past, Next Glass has supported workplace training initiatives in the Wilmington area, home to one of Next Glass’s offices, including the TRU Colors training program. This program was designed to give gang members an opportunity to develop professional workforce skills. This year, we were also happy to have sponsored an intern in collaboration with Beer Kulture — our inaugural intern spent eight weeks with the Next Glass team getting hands-on experience and mentorship. This past summer, Untappd provided a full tuition scholarship to Appalachian State’s Summer Brewing Short Course to an individual who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to attend. Hop Culture’s Grace Weitz asked 20 questions of the recipient of the scholarship and wrote about it here!

And, lastly, Next Glass’s Marketing department is helping to provide opportunities in partnership with COOP Careers, a program designed to overcome underemployment amongst the BIPOC community by providing career and networking opportunities in marketing. If you are a business looking to hire marketing staff, please check out the link below in our resources section.

As 2021 comes to a close, we know we’re not done. We recognize that effecting real change is an ongoing journey, and in 2022 we’ll continue to work with others in the industry and our community to productively explore ways to put our values into action both in our day-to-day work and in the festivals and events we produce.

For those interested in learning more about the magnificent organizations Next Glass has partnered with and/or supported philanthropically, please check out the following resources:

• #NotMe
• 100 Black Men of America
• Beers With(out) Beards 2021
• BlackGirlsCode
• Queer Beer 2021
• It Gets Better Project
• Ales for ALS
• Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream
• TRU Colors
• Beer Kulture
• Appalachian State Brewing Short Course Scholarship
• COOP Careers

Wondering how to improve your beverage menu? Interested in improving your beverage sales? Curious about the benefits of Untappd for Business? Looking for advice on how to maximize your Untappd for Business account?

Join PourMyBeer, the self-pour technology that’s helping operators boost beverage sales, for an exclusive webinar on How to Take Your Beverage Sales to the Next Level.

On Tuesday, Oct. 26th, at 2pm CT, PourMyBeer will welcome Tessa Young, VP of Inside Sales at Untappd, and Austin Capps, Inside Sales Manager at Untappd, to share tips and strategies on how Untappd can help you boost your bottom line and bring your beverage business to that next level.

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This webinar will feature:

Tessa Young, VP of Inside Sales at Untappd – Tessa has led a sales team dedicated to advancing the global beverage industry through innovative technology since May of 2016. She carries out this mission by growing sales reps and managers that are thoughtful, intentional, and absolute rockstars at challenging and changing the way people do business.

Austin Capps, Inside Sales Manager at Untappd – Austin has been with Untappd for Business since 2018, first as an SDR, then an Account Executive, and now in Management. He has worked with thousands of businesses to help them grow, save time, and engage with their customer base through our unique technology. As an Inside Sales Manager, he leads a team of amazing salespeople as they learn the needs of the hospitality industry and show how we can help meet those needs.

TUNE INTO THE WEBINAR ON TUESDAY, OCT. 26th, at 2PM CT

As France begins to experience its own craft beer revolution, the Brewers Association and Untappd are working together to showcase American craft beer to French beer enthusiasts through a multi-media campaign highlighting American craft producers, beer styles and food pairings.

The campaign features a website that includes educational content related to US Craft Beer styles and where to find American craft beer in France, along with beer rankings powered by Untappd.

Santé!

Untappd for Business provides an easy-to-use QR code tool that generates contactless menus for your customers.

In a post-COVID world, customers are increasingly demanding contactless, digital experiences. During the last few months, our business partners asked for more functionality in creating expanded contactless menus within the Untappd for Business platform.

You asked, we listened.

Now, within Untappd for Business, all it takes is a few clicks to create QR code menus for all of your menu items: beer, food, wine, cocktails. QR codes can be downloaded for digital use or embedded on easily customized printable menus or posters, all within one simple interface. QR codes can be downloaded for use in your custom marketing materials as well.

This new feature is included with your Untappd for Business subscription.

Small businesses are more than an important driver of our economy, they are part of the fabric of a neighborhood, of community. 2020 was a tough year for small businesses, and the neighborhood brewery was no exception. But we have seen stories of perseverance and resilience, of community and support, that helped keep many of these small businesses going during difficult times.

At Untappd, we are committed to being a partner to the breweries, bars, restaurants, and retail locations where craft beer drinkers come to learn, share, and purchase the world’s most enjoyed fermented beverage. Today, we share stories from some of our craft beer partners across the U.S. who found innovative ways to stay the course during the COVID pandemic.

In some cases, tap rooms and bars were able to serve a limited number of customers on-premise, in others, they shifted to ecommerce and to-go service. To support our brewery partners and our more than 9 million registered Untappd users around the world using the app to check-in beers, Untappd introduced its Untappd at Home venue, allowing users to continue to enjoy the social aspect of sharing a beer with friends – virtually.

For these community brewers, finding a way to continue to serve their employees and the community required some creative approaches.

With 2020 fading in the rear view mirror, and businesses making plans to reopen and welcome guests back in-person, many brewery and bar owners are hoping to make 2021 the best year yet. Getting together over a beer just isn’t the same over Zoom, the beer community is ready to raise a glass in person.

We would love to join you.

At Untappd, we serve data and analytics on beer trends to over 20,000 Untappd for Business partners; gathered from our over 9mn app users globally. But more than that, we engage with app users, brewers, bar, bottleshop and retail owners, and beer influencers who each bring a unique perspective – and a whole lotta great stories.

Our goal here at The Lounge is to share both data and experiences to help inform, inspire, educate and sometimes, just share some humor.

So whether you’re looking to make a comeback or start a new venture and are just getting off the ground, we’re here to provide super valuable content for all business types and sizes. Drop into The Lounge regularly for guides, tips and tricks, and interviews from some of the craft beer industry’s most experienced and influential veterans. Plus cool video from the best beer has to offer.

We’ll also share content that will help make the most of your investment and partnership with Untappd for Business – case studies, new feature tutorials, and more.

Lastly, we are working with a number of organizations to help bring craft beer drinkers back into brick-and-mortar locations. We are excited to be working with the Brewers Association to help raise awareness and engagement amongst craft beer drinkers by supporting various campaigns throughout the year. Stay tuned for more information – our first campaign will be in the coming weeks in support of American Craft Beer Week!

We hope you’ll join us. While you’re here, sign-up for the Untappd for Business newsletter – The Lounge Delivered – to get our content delivered straight to your inbox every week – no spam, we promise!