New SIBA conference to follow BeerX in 2017

A new event from The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), dubbed 'Beer Now' and an evolution of the European beer bloggers and writers conference, will immediately follow BeerX in Sheffield next year.

SIBA has worked with Zephyr Conferences to put on the event, which will take place next March 17-19, focusing on "marketing, tourism and communications" in the modern beer industry.

The conference will take place at ICE Sheffield, the same venue as and immediately following BeerX.

Due to the fact BeerX primarily focuses on issues related to brewing, Beer Now's co-location in Sheffield will broaden the scope of the events to cover the marketing side of today’s industry.

SIBA director of operations, Nick Stafford, said: “We are extremely pleased to be hosting the Beer Now Conference at BeerX in 2017.".

“BeerX is already the UK’s biggest beer and brewing event, so the addition of the Beer Now conference widens the scope even further and brings its own audience of beer bloggers and writers who are so influential to our industry.”

The beer bloggers and beer writers come from the European Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference (EBBC), which operated the last six years in various European cities including London, Dublin, Brussels, and Amsterdam.

Zephyr Conferences, the organizer of the EBBC, elected to broaden the scope of the conference to include industry representatives and change the name to Beer Now.

President of Zephyr Conferences, Allan Wright, said: “Beer Now, with its focus on marketing, tourism, and communications, will still be extremely applicable to beer bloggers and writers."

"We are not losing our focus on this audience. At the same time, the expanded content and the opportunity to interact with these beer writers should be of great interest to marketing and communications professionals in the beer industry.”