According to CBIA Chair Brad Rogers the association is pleased with the new system.
“The CBIA Board has received a lot of feedback from the craft beer industry over the last 12 months regarding the various categories for membership,” he says.
According to information released, the changes have a threefold purpose: making membership more affordable for the smallest brewers in the country, lessening the financial impact for breweries making the category jump from Microbrewer to the Regional Category and from the Regional category to the National category.
He went on to say that the industry also has a number of breweries that are ready to make that jump up to the next output level, and so having such steep increase in their membership fees was asking too much.
“Many small breweries have told us that they want to join but just don’t have the room in their budgets for $500,” says Rogers. We hope that by halving the membership fee we will make it easier for them to be involved.”
Finally, the third change aims to “recognise the changes created by Lion Co’s takeover of Little World Beverages to form the nation’s largest craft entity”.
“We have also had to adjust the upper limit of our membership structure due to the Lion takeover of Little World Beverages,” he says. “Our Constitution prohibits one entity from having two votes so Malt Shovel and Little Creatures will now be represented under the one membership. The national category will still have three members though with Burleigh Brewing Co recently joining the CBIA.”
The changes to the membership categories are effective immediately and contract brewer membership categories remained tied to the corresponding production levels listed below.
The revised membership category structure is:
Nano 0 – 49 999 litres p.a. $250
Microbrewer (Band 1) 50 000 – 99 999 litres p.a. $500
Microbrewer (Band 2) 100 000 – 299 999 litres p.a. $1000
Regional Craft Brewer(Band 1) 300 000 – 699 999 litres p.a. $3000
Regional Craft Brewer(Band 2) 700 000 – 999 999 litres p.a. $5000
National Craft Brewer (Band 1) 1 million – 2.5 million litres p.a. $7000
National Craft Brewer (Band 2) 2.5 million – 10 million litres p.a. $10 000
National Craft Brewer (Band 3) 10 million – 20 million litres p.a. $20 000
National Craft Brewer (Band 4) 20 million – 40 million litres p.a. $30 000