Advocates & Innovators

This wing includes people who are a diverse but integral part of the craft beer industry. It includes Allied Trade (equipment and ingredient suppliers), Educators (including Beer Chefs), and Media (including publishers, writers, authors, bloggers, and podcasters)

2025 INDUCTEE

Michael Jackson

(March 27, 1942 – August 30, 2007)

Michael Jackson was the son of a Lithuanian Jewish Father who settled in Yorkshire, England, and anglicized their family name. Jackson began his working career at age 16, becoming a cub reporter for his local newspaper. He later relocated to London to write for larger publications, both national and international. During an extended assignment in the Netherlands, he crossed over to Belgium, having been intrigued by a Trappist Ale he’d enjoyed the day before, and that began his own love affair with beer. His first book, 1976’s “The English Pub,” came about through a happy accident when the originally contracted author quit, and Jackson’s version focused more on the beer. But it was his next book, written a year later, “The World Guide to Beer,” that solidified his fame and influence. It introduced the taxonomy and concept of our modern beer styles, and at that time he began visiting the U.S. often, inspiring countless new brewers. In the mid-1980s, he held what was arguably the first beer dinner in New York City, expanded his writing to include whisky and wrote and starred in a UK-produced six-part television documentary series on beer. He went on to pen over a dozen books on both beer and whisky, received numerous awards and accolades and continued tirelessly to promote beer around the world. Throughout his life he was known both as “The Beer Hunter” and “The Bard of Beer.” Jackson passed away from complications due to Parkinson’s Disease in 2007, at the age of 65.

2025 INDUCTEE

Charlie Papazian

Papazian grew up in New Jersey, and attended the University of Virginia, majoring in Nuclear Engineering. During college, an older neighbor, who learned to homebrew during Prohibition, showed him the ropes, and he was hooked. After college, he traveled the West. A chance passing through Boulder, Colorado, made him smitten enough to stay, eventually finding a teaching job. He converted his garage to a home brewery, and even started teaching homebrewing. Once it became legal again in 1978, he founded the American Homebrewing Association, and published his seminal book, “The Joy of Homebrewing.” The following year, he founded what would become today’s Brewer’s Association, the trade association for craft breweries. In 1982, the first Great American Beer Festival was held, and he also launched the World Beer Cup in 1996. He’s subsequently published seven books on homebrewing, and recently retired from running the BA, although he’s still homebrewing and living by the maxim he coined, “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”

2025 INDUCTEE

Fred Eckhardt

(May 10, 1926 - August 10, 2015)

Eckhardt was born in San Francisco, California, but soon after was adopted and raised by a family in Everett, Washington. He enlisted in the Marines at age 17, and during World War II served on Okinawa and later in the South Pacific during the Korean War. Eckhardt began homebrewing in 1968 and became a mentor to many at the oldest homebrew shop in America, F.H. Steinbart. In 1970, encouraged by his success, he published “A Treatise on Lager Beer.” He wrote prolifically for newspapers, beer magazines and his own newsletters for the next five decades from his home in Portland, Oregon, including publishing his seminal “Essentials of Beer Style” in 1989. He also helped found the “Oregon Brew Crew,” a Portland-based homebrew club. Nicknamed the “Dean of American Beer Writers,” Eckhardt passed away at age 89 in 2015.