The plan, such as it is, is to spread the word about your favorite brewers’ contributions to your life, to the community of great beer and to society itself in several ways:

1. Brewer Profiles: On July 18, I hope everyone who writes a beer blog will post something about a brewer they know personally, similar to the way we do with The Session, but just once a year. It take the form of an interview, a video or a more traditional article about the brewer. Whatever you’re comfortable doing will be perfect, I’m sure. If you run a brewery website, perhaps putting up some sort of profile highlighting your brewer or brewers on July 18 would also be great. Import companies could highlight brewers from the products they bring into the country, too. The only constant I’d like to see is if you would please include the brewer’s birthday (day, month and year) so that I can add it to my database of brewer birthdays. Anything that helps spread the word about the men and women who make beer will be appreciated. On or before July 18 of each year, just send me an e-mail at jbrookston (@) yahoo (dot) com and I’ll add do a post about your contribution and also add a link to it so we can create an archive of brewer profiles.

2. Events: While I don’t expect much this first year, in the future I’d like to see beer bars and restaurants have brewer’s events on July 18 to feature local brewers and their beers. Even the breweries themselves could have “meet the brewer” events on July 18. In the long run, I’d like to see the holiday used as a forum to spread awareness, not just about good beer, but about the people who make it. Their passion and commitment to their craft makes all of our lives a little richer, so at least once a year we can have an opportunity to say “thank you.”

3. Hug A Brewer: In keeping with the original spark of this idea, I think we should all hug any and every brewer we happen to see on July 18. We could make a game of stalking them on July 18. Or perhaps we could create a contest to see who can hug the most brewers in a single day.