On Tuesday, the Brewers Association (BA) — a not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to small and independent American craft brewers — announced that Bart Watson will be taking on the role of president and CEO of the organization starting January 6. The news arrives months after current president and CEO Bob Pease gave word of his plans to retire in early 2025 after 32 years with the BA.
Watson joined the BA in 2013 following a tenure in the world of academia, where he served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Iowa Department of Political Science, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Berkeley Roundtable on the international economy, and a University of California Berkeley School of Public Health lecturer. After holding the role of the BA’s chief economist for 11 years, he took on the additional responsibility of vice president of strategy and membership in April 2024. On December 12, the BA board of directors confirmed that Watson would be stepping up to the new roles during a meeting in Atlanta.
