Beer Innovators: Meet the People Impacting the Beer World
Julia Herz has preached the gospel of American craft beer as a guest on high-profile television and radio shows. Photo by Sean Buchan.
Julia Herz
Don’t let her diminutive stature deceive you. Julia Herz fills big shoes in the American brewing industry. A longtime employee of the Brewers Association, Herz advocates on behalf of the craft beer community with a trifecta of job titles. Originally hired as the BA’s program director, she has since assumed the roles of BA spokeswoman and publisher of Craftbeer.com.
Within these capacities, she’s frequently called upon to speak to diverse audiences ranging from beer lovers, to retailers and wholesalers, to the media. She’s preached the gospel of American craft beer as a guest on high-profile television and radio shows including “Good Morning America Live,” the Food Network’s “Unwrapped,” CNBC’s “Squawkbox” and NPR’s “Splendid Table.”
In front of an audience, she exudes boundless energy and a contagious enthusiasm whether enlightening the masses to the joys of beer and food pairing or rallying brewers to sponsor events in support of American Craft Beer Week. Herz says her rapid-fire delivery style is partly the result of being the child of fast-talking New Yorkers from Brooklyn and the Bronx. Advocacy appears to run in her family. Her father and brother both work for associations, the former with the National Football League Players Association.
Like many of the brewers for whom she advocates, her passion for craft beer developed in college when she was, in her words, “a pipsqueak homebrewer.” She continues to homebrew, and as a fashion statement, wears a small hose clamp as a ring, a reminder of her homebrewing roots.
This profile appears in the November 2014 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here for a free trial of our next issue.
Hello, I was kind of surprised that you chose to highlight people with major breweries and none of the small guys doing great things with beer!! like Chuckanut (our brewmaster has been around since the early 80′s and set up breweries across the world), Fremont, Elysian, and so many more across the USA.