Innovation takes many forms, but what does it look like? This panel will bring together innovation experts from a broad variety of breweries to discuss what innovation means to them, how they approach the process, how it helps them as brewers, and how it affects their brewery’s bottom line. The panelists have more than 70 years of combined professional brewing experience at breweries ranging in size from 700 barrels per year to more than two million barrels per year annual production.
Learning Objectives
- Think about how to define innovation for you and your brewery
- Walk away with ideas on how to approach and foster innovation for you and your brewery
- Learn how continuing to innovate can help your brand stay relevant, continue to push boundaries, and ultimately help your bottom line
About the Speakers
Natalie Rose Baldwin, Brewmaster
Wayfinder Beer
Natalie Rose Baldwin (she/her), brewmaster at lager-focused brewery Wayfinder Beer in Portland, Oregon, worked as a research and development brewer at Breakside Brewery from 2017 to 2023, and has been brewing since 2014. Natalie's brewing interests vary with a predominant focus on esoteric lagers and specialty beers using seasonal flowers, tea, spices, and fruit. Natalie has won several medals at the Great American Beer Festival® (GABF) and is also a professional judge at GABF and the World Beer Cup® (WBC). She works with the Oregon Brewers Guild Diversity and Equity Committee, is a Pink Boots Portland Chapter co-leader, and was the recipient of a Pink Boots scholarship in 2018. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, backpacking, baking, and frolicking in fields of flowers with her dog Beef.
Tonya Cornett, Innovation Brewmaster, 10 Barrel Brewing Co.
Tilray
Tonya Cornett (she/her) began her career at H.C. Berger Brewing Co in 1995. After gaining experience at several breweries, she decided the only way to gain respect and advance in the industry was to get a formal education. She attended the World Brewing Academy, a partnership between the Siebel Institute of Technology and Doemens Academy of Munich.
After assuming the brewmaster position at Bend Brewing Company in 2002, Tonya's first of many accolades came in 2006 when she won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival® (GABF) in the American IPA category. During her 10 years at Bend she won eight GABF medals and four World Beer Cup® (WBC) medals. In 2008, Tonya was honored as the first woman to win the title of WBC Small Brewer of the Year.
In 2012, Tonya joined the 10 Barrel team focusing on recipe design. In 2016, 1859 Magazine included her in their list of 16 women who have made Oregon history, crediting her with "breaking the pint glass ceiling for women in the craft brewing industry." Continuing her medal-winning momentum for 10 Barrel, she is personally responsible for eight GABF and eight WBC medals.
Kelly McKnight, Lead Research & Development Brewer
New Belgium Brewing
Kelly McKnight (she/her) studied pre-med and chemistry at Harvard and decided to become a brewer instead. She was the head brewer at a small brewpub in Boston before getting the call to move back to her hometown and brew for New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado. Ten years ago, she began brewing in production and then moved into the research and development (R&D) department where she has been the lead R&D brewer for the last five years. Kelly spends her time working with her team to create new small batch recipes on the 10-hectoliter pilot system that range from one-offs, collaborations with other breweries, base blends for the wood cellar, pure research, or versions of future large brands that will go to scale on the production systems.
Megan Parisi, Head Brewer, Samuel Adams Downtown Boston Taproom
Boston Beer Company
In a career spanning two decades, Megan Parisi (she her) has had the fortune of brewing at several breweries, including Cambridge Brewing Co in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and overseeing brewery buildouts and commissionings at Bluejacket in Washington, D.C., Wormtown Brewery in Worcester, Massachusetts, and at her current home as head brewer of the Sam Adams Downtown Boston Taproom. Her first several years at Sam Adams were spent running the nano-scale component of their research and development and new product development program. Megan has also served as a Great American Beer Festival® and World Beer Cup® judge since 2010.
In 2011, Megan spearheaded the first known collaboration brew featuring all women brewers. "Project Venus" brought Megan together with Laura Ulrich of Stone Brewing and Whitney Thompson of Victory Brewing Co for this groundbreaking project. She previously served on the board of directors of the Pink Boots Society and has been a regular invited presenter at the Kiesbye Braumeister Camp in Austria. Megan has passed the Institute of Brewing & Distilling General Certificate in Brewing & Packaging and earned the Professional Brewers Certificate from the University of California, Davis.
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