Yo Everyone! Hope you are all doing well and had a great Halloween!

It’s been a busy few months here at Beer Drinkers of America! I’ve been working on a lot behind the scenes, expanding our Chapters, organizing events, improving our website, and building new ways for members to connect with each other.

We’ve now grown to 4,290 members across more than 2,000 cities, with 14 Chapters around the country! It’s been incredible seeing how far we’ve come this year, especially considering we started 2026 with just 2,010 members.

Our biggest goal right now is to reach 5,000 members by the end of the year! It’s an ambitious milestone, but one I believe we can reach with everyone’s help. Whether you’re signing up a friend or gifting someone a membership for the holidays, every new member brings us one step closer.

We’ve got a lot to share this month, so let’s get into it!

The BDOA Online Member Hub Is Here!

I’m excited to announce that our new Member Hub is officially ready for members to start using!

This is something I’ve been working on for a while now, and I’m really excited to finally get everyone involved.

The goal has always been to make BDOA more than just a membership card. I want us to have a gathering place where members from across the country can connect, share what they’re doing, and get more involved in the Association.

Through the Member Hub, you can now:

• Create and personalize your own member profile.
• Share posts, photos, and updates with the community.
• Send private messages to other members.
• Explore our member map and find other members around you.
• Mark yourself as ‘drinking now’ on the member map.
• Share your beer of the day and rate the beers you’ve tried.

This is just the beginning of what we plan to build. We’ll continue expanding the Hub with new features and improvements as more members start using it. Eventually, I’d love to turn it into a dedicated BDOA app!

For November, I want to challenge everyone to help us get 500 members set up and active on the Member Hub!

If you haven’t explored it yet, head over, set up your profile, and make your first post. Introduce yourself, tell everyone where you’re from, share your favorite beer, or post a picture of what you’re drinking.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to another member, either! You never know who you might meet or what friendships might come out of it.

I’d love to see the Hub become a place where you can jump on any day and see what your fellow beer drinkers are up to.

Our Chapters Continue to Grow!

We’re now up to 14 Chapters across the country! Our newest additions have helped us expand into more communities and create opportunities for members to get together in person.

We’ve also been working on improving the structure behind our Chapters. That includes better communication, more resources for Chapter leaders, and clearer expectations for organizing meetups and activities.

Our goal is to make it easier for members to start Chapters, recruit locally, and organize events without having to figure everything out on their own.

We’ve also introduced weekly Chapter Open Meetings where members interested in starting or helping with a Chapter can join us, ask questions, share ideas, and learn more about getting involved.

These meetings take place every Thursday from 5–6 PM PST (8 PM EST)!

I want to give a special thank you to all our Chapter Presidents, Vice Presidents, and members who have been putting in the work to build their local communities. Without all of them we wouldn’t have a local place for our members to come together – so I want to personally say thank you to all of them!

If you are interested in starting a Chapter in your city, now is a great time to get involved!

We’ve Been Busy Hosting Events!

September was a big month for us as we hosted two Beer Pong tournaments on the same weekend!

Here in Salem, Oregon, we had 40 teams compete, with the winning team taking home $1,000! It was a great turnout, and we had a blast bringing everyone together for some friendly competition. Personal shoutout to Benji (San Diego Chapter President) who drove up from San Diego to join us in Salem!

Our members in West Virginia also held their own Beer Pong tournament the following day with 10 teams competing! They also just hosted a cornhole tournament that was even bigger! Both tournaments took place at Frank’s in Barboursville, WV and they brought together over 50+ people!

In October, we held our Pumpkin Carving Competition, where members had the opportunity to submit their creations and vote for their favorites. You can check out the results on Facebook!

If you want to find out where events are happening in your area, they are now hosted on our website, where you can find information about what’s happening and how to get involved!

Head to the events page on our website to see when everything is happening.

We’re also getting ready for something a little different here in Salem!

On December 5, we’re hosting an UNO Tournament and Toy Drive in Salem (other Chapters around the country will be joining as well!) The tournament is free to enter, open to all ages, and we’re using it as a way to run a toy drive for Toys for Tots!

We’ve got plenty more ideas in the works, and I’m excited to see what we can build for next year!

And of course, if you’ve got an event idea of your own, please reach out and let me know! I’d love to help bring more member-led activities to life.

The Faces of BDOA: Limited Edition Photo Membership Cards

Another project we recently worked on was our Limited Edition Photo Membership Cards.

We created a special run of 100 cards featuring members’ own photos, names, membership numbers, and QR codes linking directly to their Member Hub profiles.

The response has been incredible! More than half of the available cards sold within the first two days.

One of my favorite parts about this project is that the cards connect directly to the Member Hub. Members can scan the QR code on someone’s card and visit their profile, giving everyone another way to connect.

It’s been a lot of fun seeing the photos everyone submitted and putting these cards together. Each one is unique to the person who ordered it, and together they represent the people who make BDOA what it is.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this project!

We still have about 20 cards available for $34.99 if you’d like to get one before they’re gone!

The Push for 5,000 Members!

We’ve got one big goal to finish 2026: 5,000 BDOA members by December 31!

When we started the year, we had just 2,010 members. We’ve already more than doubled that number and expanded into over 2,000 cities across the country.

Now we’re setting our sights on the next milestone.

I’d love to see every member help us bring at least one new person into the Association before the end of the year.

It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Tell a friend about BDOA, bring someone to a meetup, show off your membership card, or sign someone up as a gift for the holidays.

At $14.99 for a lifetime membership, it’s an easy way to bring someone into a community of fellow beer drinkers while helping us continue to grow.

If even one out of every five current members brings in someone new, we’ll reach our goal!

I don’t just want to reach 5,000 for the sake of the number. Every new member represents another potential friendship, another person at a meetup, another Chapter leader, or another city where we can build something.

That’s what makes growing BDOA so exciting to me.

Something Special for Member #5,000!

We’re also planning something special for our 5,000th member!

We’re putting together a BDOA care package that we hope to deliver across the country through our own members!

The idea is to have members personally hand it off to one another, traveling from community to community until it reaches our 5,000th member, wherever they happen to live.

The goal is to get members meeting with each other in-person for a beer and handing the package off to the next member.

Imagine a package traveling thousands of miles, passing through the hands of BDOA members along the way, before reaching its final destination.

I think it’s a cool way to celebrate the milestone, and show just how far our community has grown.

We’ll share more details as we get closer to the milestone!

BDOA Updates

• Member Count: 4,290 (November 1)
• Members at Start of 2026: 2,010
• Cities Represented: 2,066
• Chapters: 14 Chapters
• Biggest States: California (506), Texas (304), Pennsylvania (201), West Virginia (196), and Michigan (177)
• Year-End Membership Goal: 5,000 members
• November Member Hub Goal: 500 members set up and active
• Upcoming Activities: National Running Challenge, Turkey Leg Field Goal Competition, nationwide toy drive, and UNO Tournament

Upcoming Events

Member Voices

Below are unedited messages submitted by BDOA members. This section is for shoutouts, stories, Chapter updates, meetups, beer trips, ideas, and anything else members want to share with the Association.

Thank you to everyone who submitted something for this month’s newsletter! I love being able to share your stories and give our members an opportunity to have their voices heard.

Closing Remarks

When I started building BDOA, I wanted to create something that brought people together through a shared love of beer. Something that could grow beyond a membership card and turn into a community where people could meet, make friends, and most importantly, never have to drink alone.

Seeing that start to happen has been one of the most rewarding parts of this whole experience.

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how we turn all these individual memberships into a real community.

Having thousands of members is great, but what really matters is getting those people involved, making connections, and giving everyone a reason to be proud of being part of BDOA.

That’s why I’ve been investing so much time into the Member Hub, Chapters, and events. I want to keep building something that gives everyone an opportunity to participate, whether you live near an established Chapter or you’re the only member in your town.

For November, I’m asking everyone to do two things: get involved in the Member Hub and help us bring one new member into BDOA.

If you’ve been a member for a while but haven’t participated much, I’d really encourage you to give it a try. Introduce yourself, post a photo, reach out to someone nearby, or join us for an event.

You never know who you might meet!

We’ve come a long way this year, and with just two months left, I’m excited to see how close we can get to that 5,000-member milestone.

As always, I’m here to chat, answer questions, and help out however I can. If you have ideas, feedback, or just want to say hello, reach out to me directly at hayden@beerdrinkersofamerica.org.

Thank you all for your continued support, for participating in our events, for supporting our Chapters, and for helping me build Beer Drinkers of America into what it is today.

Let’s finish 2026 strong!

Cheers!
Hayden R.
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