Yesterday, the Brewers Association formally introduced CraftBeer.com to the public. The site actually went live at the end of last year. If you were wondering what took so long, you are not alone.

Don’t get me wrong; I like what the BA is doing with this site. However, considering “craft beer” is arguably the title of our niche, why didn’t we see a premium domain like CraftBeer.com take shape until now?

A quick search through archive.org shows that RealBeer owned the domain back in 2000. A representative from RealBeer was unable to provide any further information but it looks like the site was sold or simply let go within a few years after that.

In 2003, Flying Dog Brewery purchased the domain.

“I was looking for ways to optimize our website traffic and read an article that Captain Morgan’s owns and uses rum.com,” Flying Dog’s former Director of Marketing, Neal Stewart, explains. “So I looked up craftbeer.com and found that I could buy it for $1700, so I bought it.” Stewart thinks they may have bought the site from a broker as opposed to buying it from RealBeer.

As for what FD did with it . . . “We linked it to our Flying Dog website but always looked at other ways we could put it to use. We had a few ideas, but never did anything because it would have taken an additional investment.”

A couple years later, the Brewers Association contacted Flying Dog with an interest in purchasing the domain. Stewart negotiated a deal for them to buy it and says that it was a win/win for both sides.

The Brewers Association has a number other domains including Beertown.org, BrewersAssociation.com and BrewersAssociation.org.

Aesthetically, this is definitely the BA’s best effort to date and it shows promise from a content perspective as well with a number of quality beer videos and a section dedicated to beer and food. It’s not yet a daily destination site but I wonder if it will eventually grow into one.