The Brewers Association Online Forum is for association members only with a purpose to foster discussion amongst members of the professional brewing community.  The focus is wide ranging, within the boundaries of professional brewers' interest: brewing beer; brewery operations; restaurant operations; selling and promoting beer and/or beer businesses, wholesale distribution; alcohol and regulatory issues.

Rules of the Brewers Association Online Forum

1. No maligning, disparaging or "flaming" of any other brewer, supplier, or other industry participant.
2. No posting of press releases or otherwise blatant marketing of your company's products.  Members of the allied trades are encouraged to contribute their technical expertise to discussions on the Brewers Association Forum (but are asked to refrain from discussing specific products unless asked). Allied trade members may provide electronic contact information (email and website, no phone or mailing addresses) so interested readers may contact them directly.  Members who would like to publish specific product information, press releases or new product availability should contact the Brewers Association advertising department for information regarding advertising opportunities on the Brewers Association Forum and elsewhere. Monthly sponsorships to the Brewers Association Forum are available, as are daily classified ads. Contact advertising@brewersassociation.org for more information.
3. Brewers are encouraged to post notices of used equipment available or sought after, or job openings.  Contact information should be provided so interested readers may contact the seller/hirer directly. In this case, any contact information may be given (phone, mailing address, email and website).
4. Opening and closing announcements of breweries, supplier warehouses and other professional brewing businesses are encouraged on the Brewers Association Forum. Posting this kind of information keeps everyone informed about changes in the community. All contact information may be used when announcing an opening/closing.
5. No anonymous postings.  Every posting should be signed with your a) name; b) company name; c) city and state, and country if outside the U.S.  Exceptions to this rule can be made in special circumstances.
6. Please keep comments relevant to the world of professional brewing. Save your reflections about other non-related topics for other newsgroups.
7. Brewers Association Members may post to the Brewers Association Forum twice regarding a special event they are hosting. If the event is happening prior to or concurrent with a Brewers Association Event (Great American Beer Festival, Craft Brewers Conference, World Beer Cup, etc) the event may be posted up to three times before the start of the Brewers Association Event. Sponsors of a Brewers Association Events may have special conditions regarding posting their events, if such language is included in their sponsorship agreement with the Brewers Association. The Brewers Association will use the Brewers Association Forum to inform members of Brewers Association events.
   Education for Fee: Advertising a product or service, such as education that costs the user a fee is not allowed. Where we make the exception is for special events, where the following apply:
   • The organizers are not a school, but offering a seminar for a cost.
   • The cost being charged is only to cover expense, not to make a profit.
   • The organizers are marketing a product, but this is not the business they are in.
   • This is a "special event" that the organizers are hosting, but it is not aligned with one of our major events (GABF, CBC, etc.)
8. Submissions to the Brewers Association Forum may only be made by Brewers Association members. Please refrain from forwarding the Brewers Association Forum to non-members as this devalues everyone's membership. Please encourage non-members to contact Brewers Association Membership Coordinator, Erin Glass, for details on how to join the Brewers Association and access all the benefits available to members.
9. Pricing: The legal advice we have is that we should stay away from publishing any material about pricing that could be seen as "guidance" to any brewer. The Forum is one area that we directly checked into to see whether that applies. Where we are allowed to discuss pricing is in aggregated industry information, such as in surveys like we published in the January/February issue of The New Brewer for packaging breweries and in the July/August issue of The New Brewer for brewpubs.Trade associations can work on certain items that individuals cannot.
   
   Trade associations can perform collective functions on items such as data collection and publishing aggregated averages, such as has been done with salary surveys.
   
   We cannot participate in promoting activity that our counsel believes is illegal, so even a pointer to another site is not something we can do.
10. The Brewers Association Online Forum, while limited to members, is policed by the users. If you see a post that violates any of the protocols, please flag the post. The post will be quarantined until Brewers Association staff reviews to see if a protocol is violated or not.
11. The Brewers Association online Forum is a private Forum and can only be viewed by current members of the Brewers Association. Despite the ability to share posts on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the posts shared are only viewable to those who are logged in as members to this site.
    

Thanks for your participation!