Reflections from the 2026 Brewers Association Hill Climb
By Cait Schut - Senior Manager, Marketing and CommunicationsLast week, Country Malt Group had the opportunity to attend the 2026 Hill Climb hosted by the Brewers Association in Washington, D.C.
Before diving in, it’s important to recognize the broader political environment. There are many pressing issues being discussed at the federal level, many of which affect people’s daily lives in profound ways. While craft beer is just one small piece of a much larger landscape, small businesses and the communities they support are still part of that conversation.
Independent and family-owned breweries are small businesses. They employ local people. They revitalize neighborhoods. They support farms, nonprofits, and neighborhood events. They are gathering spaces, and in many towns, they are anchors in the community.
The Hill Climb is about ensuring that when legislative decisions are made, the realities of small breweries are understood.
What is a Hill Climb?
The Brewers Association Hill Climb brings brewery owners, employees and guild leaders to Capitol Hill to meet directly with members of Congress and their staff. This year, nearly 100 participants showed up from across the country. We met with representatives from both sides of the aisle, reflecting the truly national footprint of independent breweries and reinforcing that support for small businesses spans political lines.
Because one thing remains true: beer is bipartisan.
With more than 9,000 small and independent breweries nationwide and roughly 197,000 direct jobs, our industry has real economic presence. But numbers alone don’t carry influence, which is why the BA Hill Climb is such a critical opportunity for our industry.
The Issues We Discussed
Our conversations focused on policies that create unnecessary pressure on small breweries in an already challenging beer market. Among them:
- The Brews to Barns Act – Incentivizing the donation of spent grain to local farms and ranches through excise tax relief.
- Common-sense regulatory and tax modernization – Updating standards to better reflect how breweries actually operate today.
- The Credit Card Competition Act – Addressing costly credit card swipe fees that disproportionately impact small businesses.
- The CHEERS Act (Creating Hospitality and Economic Enhancement for Restaurants and Servers) – Supporting hospitality investment in draft programs.
- Tariff impacts – Communicating how aluminum, steel, and ingredient tariffs ripple through small breweries.
- FY2027 appropriations – Supporting adequate funding for the TTB and for USDA agricultural research that directly impacts barley, hops, and long-term supply chain stability.
Standing Alongside Small Brewers
Country Malt Group was proud to sponsor this event for the second year in a row. While the BA Hill Climb is primarily attended by brewery owners and guild leaders, we participate on behalf of CMG and the Soufflet Malt family to provide added context from the ingredient supply chain perspective.
Tariffs, USDA agricultural research funding, and other regulatory decisions have downstream impacts on brewers, especially small breweries that do not have the scale to easily absorb volatility. Our role is to reinforce what we hear every day from our growers, vendors, and customers and ensure policymakers understand the full picture, from farm to glass.
Ways to Get Involved
Advocacy does not have to mean flying to D.C.
It can mean:
- Connecting with your state guild.
- Sharing how a policy is affecting your brewery.
- Providing data or stories that help illustrate real-world impact.
- Showing up locally when opportunities arise.
Elected officials need education on how their decisions impact independent breweries. If these stories are not shared, someone else will define the narrative for us. That is why gatherings like the Hill Climb are so valuable, and why we look forward to continuing this work together in February 2027!
A sincere thank you to the Brewers Association team. Bringing together nearly 100 advocates and coordinating meetings across dozens of congressional offices takes an incredible amount of work and dedication. Their leadership helps ensure small and independent brewers have a real voice in the rooms where decisions are made.
