NABA NEWS
Latest Articles and Information

Happy New Year!

Here is a quick update on some of the happenings of your club. Please note that we’ll be emailing a survey shortly to get your feedback on the direction of NABA.

• Breweriana Collector magazine: We are excited to be bringing you the 200^th issue of NABA’s magazine, marking 50 years of continuous publication. At 88 pages, it is a bit bigger than our usual 80-page quarterly, and has some great feature articles, including in-depth examinations of the once nationally famous Stroh and Ballantine breweries. More than 100 NABA members contributed to the magazine, which was delivered to the printer on January 10 and should arrive in your mailbox in early February. Why not until February? Our printer is experiencing “back-up” and also is changing over into new production equipment. We are in discussions with them about avoiding these kinds of delays in the future.
• Annual Auction: Our online auction is our most important fundraiser for the club’s increased operating expenses and it enables us to keep dues at just $35/$90 for 3 years. We want to ignore inflation and keep dues unchanged. We are fortunate to have Morean Auctions as our partner for our auction on July 30, 2023. Please consider consigning items you may want to sell that have a minimum value of $250. Please email Auction Chair Matthew Olszewski at Mattski323@gmail.com to arrange your consignments. Matt will be collecting consignments at the Blue & Gray Show at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport from February 16-19 and the Spring Thaw Show in Harrisburg PA from March 30-April 1.
• 2023 Convention in Chicago, Aug 1-5: We have some amazing plans for what will be yet another record-breaker in attendance. Our host hotel, the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg, IL, is sold out of rooms at the NABA rate. Because of incredible demand, we sold 40% more room nights than our previous all-time high in Pittsburgh in 2022. Rooms may still be available at the Hyatt Place hotel, which is next door to the Hyatt Regency. NABA does not have a contract with the Hyatt Place, but at last check, a AAA rate of $123 was available. If you’d like to get on the waitlist for the Hyatt Regency, please email Convention Chair Mike Michalik at therunningwaiter@yahoo.com. Please also email Mike if for any reason you must cancel an existing Hyatt Regency reservation, so that we can get in others from our waitlist.
• Convention Brewmaster’s dinner: NABA is proud to announce that this year's Brewmaster's Dinner at the Convention is on Wednesday evening, Aug 2^nd and will be hosted by Marty Nachel, the nationally-known beer expert and author of such books as "Beer for Dummies" and "Homebrewing for Dummies." Marty is also a professional beer judge and The Great American Beer Festival, The Festival of Barrel Aged Beers and The World Beer Cup are among the major competitions that he's judged. Marty has been teaching on the subject of beer for over 30 years.
• Convention Registration Form will be emailed to you as a PDF soon and in a separate communication. Those who register by April 30 will receive a FREE tin-over-cardboard sign commemorating the convention. More to come about this soon!
• Membership Survey is coming to you via email in the next week or so. Your opinions are critical toward determining the direction of the club, so please watch for the survey in your email and complete it right away.
• Membership in NABA continues to grow! We are on the march to 1500 members and have more members now than at any time in our 50+ year history. Importantly, we now have 53 local chapters and counting. Many thanks to Membership Chair Charlie Smith and all of you who serve as ambassadors for our organization!

Happy Collecting!

Your NABA Board of Directors

A Springfield man opens a restaurant in Chatham so he will have a place to exhibit his enormous collection of Illinois breweriana.

Hello Fellow NABA Members!

There has never been a better time to be a NABA member. That’s a pretty bold statement to make for an organization that’s 50 years old. But it’s absolutely true. Here are some reasons why:

Biggest membership numbers: Consider that NABA now has more members than at its previous peak in the early 1990s, when we were the beneficiary of the beer can collecting boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. NABA is growing at an unprecedented pace thanks to the work of our members, local chapter partnerships, social media, and organization leadership.

Expanded magazine: We went from 48 pages per issue just a few years ago to varying from 64-80 pages. Every edition of this magazine has more than 100 members participating in its publication!

Largest convention attendance: We set a record last year for our 50th convention in Milwaukee and hotel bookings for this year in Pittsburgh are 50% above last year! The Pittsburgh convention has some amazing programming—there’s still time for you to register.

More local chapter affiliations: We now have 48 local chapter affiliates—more than twice as many as we had 5 years ago. The strength of our hobby is at the grassroots level and NABA is happy to help promote our chapters and their events.

Outstanding leadership team: I have the privilege of working with a truly dedicated and talented team that we’ve steadily assembled to drive NABA forward. This includes our Board members, Membership Committee, and magazine staff. Check out the names of this terrific group of people on page 1 of this issue. They are truly some of the finest people to work with on behalf of our club and hobby.

Strategic partnerships: This magazine has covered the news about our partnership with The Mill/Cone Top Brewery Museum, an incredible project in development in Vicksburg, MI. Our association with Cone Top will provide NABA with tremendous exposure and gives our members an opportunity to curate displays in a state-of-the-art museum—at no cost to our organization—when this amazing facility opens in 2026.

We are in the second year of our successful partnership with Morean Auctions, a leading breweriana auction company, to host our convention auction and reinvigorate it to the premier level it once enjoyed before the days of the Internet. This is NABA’s most important source of operating funds and allows us to do all the things mentioned above—without raising dues!

NABA also has sponsored the Trayman2.0 brewery tray capture project, which will provide a website of all known North American trays and will be packed with information—and available to all collectors at no cost.

And stay tuned…we are on the verge of announcing another major partnership that will hugely broaden NABA’s exposure, build membership, and offer our members an additional opportunity to create exhibits and displays of their breweriana.

Has there ever been a better time to be a NABA member? We don’t think so. And we are glad to have you as a member and grateful for your involvement and support!

See you in Pittsburgh!

The NABA Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Charlie Smith has been unanimously elected to the Board and will take leadership of NABA’s Membership Committee. A past president of the BCCA, Charlie is well known and highly regarded within our collecting community as an outstanding hobbyist.

Charlie, of Harrisburg, PA, is a longtime collector. During his tenure as an officer and president of the BCCA, collaborated on a number of joint marketing and informational initiatives with NABA to the benefit of the hobby overall.

Please join us in congratulating Charlie on his addition to the NABA Board. We are honored and fortunate to have him join our outstanding team!

Hello Fellow NABA Members!

I’ve been a NABA member for more than 40 years, and one of the biggest benefits of being a part of NABA is attending our wonderful conventions and meeting so many terrific people from across the country. One of those great people is Reino Ojala, who has attended 50 straight conventions, and I hope he will be at his 51st in Pittsburgh from Aug 2-6. Unlike Rei, I have not made it to the convention every year. Sometimes other things in life got in the way.

That may be true of you, too. But I hope it’s not the case this year, because we’ve got such a great agenda planned for you in Pittsburgh! There is a packed itinerary full of new and interesting events like The Back Bar and Speakeasy, as well as the popular traditional ones, like the Bus Tour and Brewmaster’s Dinner. Please read all about it in this issue on pages 8-10.

And how about that NABA convention hallmark—room-to-room trading? There will be plenty of that, especially as we already have record room bookings, exceeding last year’s 50th convention in Milwaukee, our previous all-time high.

But wait, there’s more! Co-packed with this issue of the magazine is your registration and merchandise ordering form. If you register for the convention by May 31 (must be postmarked by then), you will receive a custom-made, limited run tin-over-cardboard sign absolutely FREE!

NABA Convention Auction: Please support our annual auction where your items will have the same worldwide sales audience enjoyed by Morean Auctions, our partner again this year. Proceeds from this auction go to NABA’s operating funds, which enable us to avoid raising dues or the convention registration fee, despite dealing with inflation. See details on the next page for consigning.

NABA Leadership: As NABA grows in membership and regional expansion, so does its membership committee. We are excited to add Jared Sanchez of Oshkosh, WI to this outstanding team.

This magazine: Thank you to all who contributed to our seventh 80-pager in a row. And welcome to our new Associate Editor, Doug Hoverson of Minneapolis, MN.

Our artwork for the 2022 Convention sign is complete. We took the iconic Fort Pitt "Running Waiter" and tweaked it by having him serve up the iconic Running Waiter and Fort Pitt Ale cans! This will be an 8" square TOC sign, with beveled edges and embossed waiter. The best news of all, is that this sign will be free to all NABA members that register for the convention by May 31st! The free offer does not apply to guest registrations. If you register beyond May 31st, the sign will cost $15. If any signs remain, you may purchase one for $20, plus shipping if applicable. This is a limited run and when they're gone, they're gone. Registration will open up soon, so keep an eye on this page and your inbox.

NABA is collaborating with Pittsburgh's preeminent craft brewer, Dancing Gnome, on a special beer for our 51st Convention. NABA's Creative Director, Barry Travis, designed a label that was based on a Fort Pitt brand from the 1930's & Dancing Gnome's current label. 4-packs of the 16oz cans will be available at the convention.