Aaron Rote wants to advance industry

The first of the year, Aaron Rote will take office as the new president of the West Virginia Craft Brewers Guild. He succeeds Sam Mauzy, who served diligently in that role for the past two years.

Aaron is co-founder and co-owner of Short Story Brewing Company in Rivesville, who along with his sister and brother-in-law, runs one of the state’s most exciting, respected and fastest growing breweries.

“I started going to the guild meetings probably a year before our brewery was even open,” Aaron explained. “So I definitely became interested in the guild as it tried to rebuild. Everyone was so nice to me to let me attend that meeting even though I wasn’t nearly on their level yet.”

So now it’s about two and a half years later and he becomes their leader. He see a lot that needs done. “I think it’s a really good opportunity,” he says

Aaron says he hopes to strengthen the position of the guild overall and get some legislative and regulatory changes enacted that will help everybody, whether you are a brewer, a retailer, or a beer consumer.

“I think our first priority is trying to grow the guild,” Aaron says, explaining that the young organization still has a ways to go to establish itself as a leader among business trade groups. Recruiting more enthusiast members and associate members is important to him. While he would love to see a few more breweries join the guild, he also see the need to get current members more active in guild meetings and activities.

“Eighteen of the 24 licensed breweries are members, which is actually really good,” he said. “But we’d like to have them all, obviously.” He sees that as a strength that he can build upon.

“Overall, I think the state of West Virginia beer is great,” he says from first-hand experience of working daily in the brewery business.

He feels our current alcohol laws are “fairly amenable” to brewers. Not that things couldn’t be better, but he says “it’s doable” to open a brewery in West Virginia and establish yourself in the restaurant and bar scene.

“There’s definitely a hunger for beers, and you can definitely get people to come into your taproom.”

Among his legislative issue interests are a couple left over from previous years. Initially, the guild wants to see legislation increasing the growler sales limit and eliminating or raising the ABV limit on beer.

He said an eight-member guild steering committee will revisit legislative priorities early in 2019 and new items could be added. He says he will encourage guild members to continue to meet with their own legislators and explain the importance and needs of breweries as local businesses.

“The first step is education. We have to let our legislators know that what we’re trying to do is not to make major changes. I think this is going to be a good time to be president of the guild.”

At Short Story Brewing, Aaron leads the marketing activities, in much the same role that his guild president predecessor Sam Mauzy has at Big Timber Brewing. In fact, Aaron says the Big Timber folks mentored the Short Story folks as they were getting things started. It should be no surprise then that Short Story Brewing’s marketing program finished right up in the top echelon in Brilliant Stream’s survey of the best in WV breweries for 2018.

Aaron definitely has a good skill set and is full of energy, two things that should help him in his new role. Brilliant Stream congratulates Aaron Rote for the confidence shown in him by his peers in selecting him guild president. Now let’s get to work.

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