When the destination is the Great American Beer Festival or World Beer Cup, how your beer gets there can dramatically affect what waits at the end of the road.

Fortunately, Eric Toft looks pretty good wearing lederhosen. The Wyoming native is feeling right at home as brewmaster at Private Landbrauerei Schönram in Germany.

Ken Grossman became a craft beer pioneer during a time of few resources, reference points and mentors. In 2010, he and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. celebrate 30 years.

Pick any point on the compass (OK, better not head east into the lake!) and you’ll find something exciting, as Chicago gears up to host the 2010 Craft Brewers Conference.

In a year when other brewers saw a slowdown in sales, craft brewers saw sales dollars increase 10.3 percent and volume increase 7.2 percent over 2008.

Brewery-restaurants are better positioned for economic hard times than non-brewery restaurants, as evidenced by their 2-percent growth in a tumultuous year.

The numbers have been kind to craft brewing for nearly a decade now, especially in the microbrewery segment, which showed an impressive 18.7-percent growth rate for 2009.

Recession be damned. Americans might be putting off buying that new home or car, they might be making do with last year’s fashions, but they continue to splurge on better beer.

Slowing sales, layoffs, forced consolidation, and more recently a general falling out between big brewers, craft brewers and distributors made the headlines in 2009.