The NABA Convention and The Cone Top Brewery Museum.

There is so much great stuff going on with your club! In fact, there was so much to show and tell you in this issue of the magazine that we had to extend it from the typical 80 pages to 96 pages!

The 2023 convention shattered previous attendance records by 25% and our club continues to grow—we have been adding new members at the rate of almost one per day. The convention was by all accounts a huge success—we hope you will enjoy reading about it in these pages and attending the next “NABA Family Reunion,” our 53rd annual convention, to be held in St. Louis, from July 29- August 3, 2024. At publication time, we sold nearly 1000 room nights and are approaching sellout at the hotel. We are far ahead of last year’s pace and it is likely to be another record breaker!

The amazing “Northern Lights”

You can read about many of the convention highlights in these pages, but you have to be there to truly experience and appreciate them. Perhaps the best example of this was the “Northern Lights” exhibit put on by NABA’s partner, the Cone Top Brewery Museum. A suburban hotel suite was magically transformed into a cozy Northwoods cabin thanks to the creativity and hard work of the Museum’s crew. It presented the perfect environment to display some of Cone Top’s classic, outdoorsy-themed breweriana from the 1940s–1960s that featured scenes of the popular pastimes of hunting, fishing, and camping.

NABA’s “Front Door”

You will continue to read more about the NABA/Cone Top partnership in these pages, as it continues to progress.

Ultimately, the Cone Top Museum will be an integral part of The Mill at Vicksburg, the huge, multi-purpose entertainment and hospitality complex under construction in Michigan, not far from Kalamazoo. Fittingly, The Mill also will house an Old Stove Brewery—similar to but different from the three Old Stove facilities that exist in Seattle—owned by The Mill’s developer, NABA member Chris Moore.

Chris envisions Cone Top as being “NABA’s Front Door,” which will enable our organization to have a physical, “brick and mortar” presence but without the corresponding costs that could impede a non-profit organization like NABA. Chris and his team envision a highly dynamic museum, with interactive and experiential displays that not only tell the story of the breweriana but bring it alive.

Importantly, there are plans in development for the Museum to feature displays that highlight the history of NABA and its founders as well as to provide opportunities for NABA members to display parts of their own collections on a rotating basis. A key goal for the Museum is to communicate and celebrate breweriana in an engaging way that will generate interest in both the hobby and NABA.

The “Northern Lights” exhibit is a taste of things to come from Cone Top, and another exciting exhibit is already in the works to develop in Vicksburg and bring to St. Louis. Just another reason to make sure you make it to the 2024 NABA convention