INDIANAPOLIS — “How was everyone’s 2024?” Matt Gacioch asks. The near-capacity crowd in this conference hall here at the Indiana Convention Center murmurs. The Brewers Association’s new-ish chief economist surveys the room like an improv artist waiting for a prompt. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” he says. Finally, somebody chimes in. “Crappy!” No improvisation necessary: It’s an answer everybody sort of expects, including Gacioch. The question that brought America...
