Headlines from April 2017 on THE BEER BEAT.

Previously, I explained several reasons why this blog has gone on hiatus, and explained that my thoughts about beer will be posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.

You'll find them there via the all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat.

However, whenever the urge strikes -- probably monthly -- I'll collect a few of these links right here. Following are April's ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some are more topical than others, and I'm past the point of caring about it.

Having noted this, I found that writing about my favorite pubs made me feel good. There may be more of it.

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THE BEER BEAT: Indie, not craft, because "There is absolutely NOTHING 'independent' about AB/InBev."

I haven't gone cold turkey on the "craft" descriptor, and find myself using the word here and there (usually in quotation marks, as intended to emphasis the escalating irony), but zero tolerance is a worthy goal to which we might aspire.

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THE BEER BEAT: Retro and dive, tavern and free house. Stages of development. A rumination.

We’re approaching an important local anniversary in the saga of better beer, because at some point in the late summer of 1992, the first keg of Guinness was tapped at the Public House formerly known as Rich O’s.

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THE BEER BEAT: The Hibernian (Hi-B) Bar, one of my favorite pubs in the world.

It's been 30 years since I climbed the stairs to the first floor (in Europe, that's how they're numbered) and beheld the cramped majesty of the Hi-B. Somewhere up or down another set of stairs was the loo. The publican Brian O'Donnell was a legend even then, and as I write, it is my earnest hope that he's still alive and scowling.

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THE BEER BEAT: The Dolphin, one of my favorite pubs in the world.

Few such pubs can boast a semi-official house artist. The late Beryl Cook was a painter who moved to Plymouth after the retirement of her husband. They opened a guest house nearby, and gradually Cook gained fame as an artist. Because The Dolphin was her local, several of her paintings chronicle pub life.

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THE BEER BEAT: BrewDog's private equity $$$ bonanza: "Not bad for ten years of being rude about the rest of the UK brewing industry."

BrewDog's antics have entertained me for a long time. The company's success reminds us that while P.T. Barnum may have been an American, hucksterism never has been confined to just one country. I hope the founders of BrewDog make a mint, whether in dollars, Euros or pounds sterling. I'll be at a local establishment somewhere, drinking myself to sleep.

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THE BEER BEAT: Jim Koch ponders whether it's "Last Call for Craft Beer."

Just my two cents. It's hard feeling sorry for Jim Koch, though in some ways I do. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is one of the most important beers in American brewing history, whether "craft" or macro. It helped pioneer a whole segment, and it's still really good for what it is.

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THE BEER BEAT: St. Radegund Free House, one of my favorite pubs in the world.

Regrettably, my paean to St. Radegund Free House in Cambridge, England must begin with the sadly belated report that former landlord Terry "Bunter" Kavanagh died five years ago at the age of 75.

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THE BEER BEAT: A neighborhood dive bar for the post-craft beer world?

It's feeling like a lab rat, as though you're part of an ongoing experiment in anxiety escalation -- like an arms race, always hoppier, sourer, stronger and plain weirder; the wheel constantly is revolving, and there's nothing upon which to hang one's metaphorical chapeau for longer than one keg (a sixth barrel), lest another begin pouring the diametrical opposite.

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THE BEER BEAT: Sometimes compliance takes a labyrinth.

Attention, oppressed Indian(a) ATC permit holders.

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THE BEER BEAT: Valley Malt. Pioneer Valley. It all comes back to me now.

And, during two recent trips to Western Massachusetts, it never once occurred to me that Valley Malt might be located nearby, as in fact it is -- in Hadley, just a few miles from Diana's niece's family in South Hadley. We almost certainly were within minutes of the malting, and may well have passed it a half-dozen while driving back and forth.

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AFTER THE FIRE: This week in solipsistic beer narcissism (2014).

AFTER THE FIRE: This week in solipsistic beer narcissism (2014).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Originally published in 2014, and with a strange sort of resonance as the most insufferable political campaign in American history limps to the finish line.

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Are you fed up with words you don’t understand?

Tired of scrolling down to your favorite contrarian beer columnist, then coming to a screeching halt when he uses words like “local multiplier effect” and “egalitarianism” in the very same sentence?

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Way back in 2010, when 10 Barrel Brewing was but a gleam in Carlos Brito’s numbers-crunching testes, President Barack Obama returned to a theme often broached during his historic campaign for the White House. It happened during the 2010 State of the Union address.

“The best anti-poverty program around is a world class education.”

No, not the Indiana wholesaler.

Naturally, the precise components of a “world class education” are open to interpretation, discussion and debate between open-minded citizens, assuming you can find any of them in these idiotically polarized times, but the overall sentiment that education is a corrective to impoverishment has been proven to be truthful again and again.

I submit that the word “impoverishment” has more than one meaning as used in this context. We’d be correct in the assumption that there are clear and compelling correlations between education and the eradication of material impoverishment.

However, we might also consider impoverishment in creative, artistic and cultural contexts, and how one’s attitude toward the general topic of knowledge, pertaining to its veracity as an end onto itself as well as the tangible benefits gained from expansive education as opposed to a confining illiteracy, shapes what we know and the uses to which we put our knowledge.

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who drank wine: “With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it."

What I think he meant is that possessing something of supposed value for the sole purpose of the object’s ability to reflect its “value” back on the holder somewhat misses the point. The true value is derived from the object being used wisely, and a well-rounded education supplies the means to make this determination.

Given the perpetual linkages between education and personal advancement, why is it that people choose to devalue the notion of education, eschewing the why, how and wherefore, and substituting in their place a solipsistic, narcissism-driven, knee-jerk, me-first hedonism?

Perhaps it’s the logical outcome of our American strains of materialism and consumerism. When it comes to pulse-quickening snobbery, exclusionary avarice and frenzied hoarding, the very last thought surfacing in one’s fevered, acquisitive brain is the possibility that all is not what it seems.

Do you still desire the object once it is revealed that the profit chain leads straight into the Texas-sized mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, or to the owners of factory-farmed chickens wallowing in their own feces, or to that bastard Obama’s pocket … or, into the very coffers of ISIS (read: AB-InBev).

Except you really want it, don’t you? You want it right now – and by “it” I refer not to a mass-produced Trojan Goose barrel-aged ale, but to a blissfully unexamined version of capitalist doltishness, wherein there are no reasons whatever for diagnosing the nature of the itch, only interminable scratching.

The writer Aldous Huxley called this phenomenon soma. If you don’t know the source of this reference, perhaps it’s time to read a book.

But I’m nothing if not stubborn. Ideas matter, and yet at present, both the country at large and my own beer and brewing milieu are dismally stupid and mercilessly tacky places. These daily tsunamis of crass materialism and consumerist greed have come to define the American experience, and even when the topic is “craft” beer – perhaps modern America’s signature accomplishment – we have digressed just as quickly into 24-7, must-have shopping zombies, pausing occasionally to thank Jesus for the blessed privilege of possessing our baubles, and ignoring what’s happening in our own back yards because there’s not enough status in mere localism.

It’s the old Chinese proverb – yes, you guessed it, the one printed on plasticized card stock suitable for framing, and available not from the heirs to Billy Mays, but from Wal-Mart via Guangdong Province:

"It’s all about me."

Yes, it is.

And that’s also why YOU don’t interest ME any longer.

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What would happen if you combined classic sacred choral music with a thesaurus? You’d have a synonym for a seminal hymnal!

Hi, Roger Baylor here for the Sing ‘o’ Saurus. It’s no ordinary reference book.

Watch this!

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September 12: AFTER THE FIRE: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast (2013).

September 5: AFTER THE FIRE: Beer stories and bedtime for gonzo (2013).

August 29: AFTER THE FIRE: In the Red Room, we’re all left – right?

August 22: AFTER THE FIRE: Drink, smoke and enjoy.

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AFTER THE FIRE: Beer stories and bedtime for gonzo (2013).

AFTER THE FIRE: Beer stories and bedtime for gonzo (2013).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

As originally published at LouisvilleBeer.com on December 30, 2013, and previously not offered in its entirety here at the blog. It's been three years, though it seems like only yesterday.

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“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”
–Leo Tolstoy

It’s been a long, strange trip, hasn’t it?

The first brewing insurgency of the modern American era began at New Albion Brewing Company, which commenced operations in Sonoma, California, in 1976. Auspiciously, a revolution in beer was spawned in the very same year as America’s Bicentennial celebrated the culmination of a previous uprising.

As a casual student of history, I’m aware that almost inevitably, revolutions consolidate into their own systematized pecking orders, even as they mature and gravitate toward future appointments with reinvention (arguably the best case scenario) or, more often, messy counter-revolutions.

Maybe we’re witnessing one or both of these outcomes just now in the world of beer.

These days, what used to be known as microbrewing bears the designeration of craft beer, and in terms of consumer recognition, the siren’s call of mainstream acceptance beckons. If this weren’t the case, there’d be no Blue Moon or Shock Top, those sleek mockrobrews designered and distributed by mass-market brewers for the express purpose of pilfering craft brewing’s vibrant foundational imagery for the benefit of shelf space and engorged multinational shareholders.

Yet in fairness, there’d also not be a Sierra Nevada factory perched incongruously amid the Appalachians, or Lagunitas situated on both the Pacific and Gold Coasts. When it comes to robber baron capitalism, pecking orders frequently can be brutal, and maybe we’re not doing so well with our own institutional imagery if the misty mythology no longer seems worth protecting.

Not everyone sees it this way, and the fact that I persist in doing so clearly marks me as an aging craft beer militant, one whose radical worldview was shaped by an active desire for better beer, close to home, amid a denuded landscape of ridiculously limited choice. There were fewer than 100 breweries in the United States when I attained legal drinking age in 1981; more than 30 years later, the number is 2,500. The beer scene has mutated beyond recognition and comprehension, and the revolutionary cadres have splintered into multiple spheres of specialized interests.

A homebrewing culture analyzes beer by ingredients and methodology, espousing a “brew it yourself” ethos, while traders and swappers revel in the mechanics of the chase, the art of the deal, and the joy of collecting.

There is a priestly ratings caste trumpeting the presumed exactitude and objectivity of language in quantifying beer, and a localist persuasion embracing the personal, grassroots experience of craft beer in the context of places and people.

On widely scattered occasions, albeit rare, these spheres even manage to overlap. Me? I’m an ardent localist, with an asterisk.

For those of us who grew to beer-turity prior to the Internet’s incursions, when social media was a figment of Dick Tracy’s wrist radio – the downtrodden tightly clutching dog-eared books written by the late beer writer Michael Jackson and anointing him as a reliable guide for pursuit of the perfect pint — one of the most important aspects of craft beer is the ability to tell a good story.

Jackson excelled at it. He was a journalist by trade, and relentlessly factual in his approach, yet a sheer delight in storytelling is his primary legacy, especially through a knack for linking good beer with interesting people in specific places. At the end of the day, what else is there?

I found myself reacting to these stories first by repeating them, and later, augmenting them with embellishment from personal experiences, the latter gained initially by traveling, and later by operating my own pub. They became personal gateway beer tales, tied inextricably together, addressing the past and advocating the future.

In 1992, the pub itself represented the logical conclusion to my quest. What we needed in my hometown was a beer culture of its own, one embodying the litany of who, what, where and why. Elements of other beer cultures could be adapted and deployed toward this end, but the objective never was to “be” Bamberg (to cite one example).

Rather, it was to create a milieu that would provide a local experience similar to Bamberg, primarily for those of us living here, and also for those who’d like to come visit. Eventually, we’d have our own brewery, which would be the apogee; locally brewed beer as restorative and springboard.

Central to all of this was, and is, storytelling. Nowadays, quality craft beer storytelling is hardly dead, although I fear it’s gone into some manner of cryogenic hibernation. In the present time, craft beer enthusiasm is expressed with a throwaway brevity, defying any true depth of feeling; miles-wide, inches-deep. Social media affords an abundance of minimal exposure, trivializing and often eliminating context. Beer lovers check in, tweet, post and rate – and yet they hardly ever tell stories.

I find it profoundly sad.

Consider the typically triumphant craft beer photo on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Usually it’s a hard-to-find beer from a highly rated brewery, the further from home and harder to source, the better. The beer’s “proper” signature glass is strategically situated, half-filled and seductive.

Unfortunately, what’s missing are human beings and an explanation for why any of it matters, and the end result is craft beer objectified, little more than accumulated beer porn to the practicing fetishist, without any need for an accompanying story because fellow beer narcissists are expected to already feel the tumescence of the titillation, and automatically shift into fully salivating Pavlovian mutt at the first glimpse of the visual prompt.

We all do it, even me.

As Billie Holiday sang long ago, “Them that’s got shall have, them that’s not shall lose.” I don’t root for the haves. Underdogs are way more appealing.
I’m tired of losing, not in the superficial sense of final game scores or reds and blacks on a bank balance sheet, but from acquiescing for far too long in a process whereby the collective I’ve spent a quarter-century assembling somehow tosses away the thread of its own narrative.

Rather than gaze longingly upon someone else’s masturbatory beer glass, I’d rather be able to tell the story of why the liquid in the glass is important, assuming it still is – and to be perfectly honest, there are times when I have serious doubts as to whether any meaning remains to be examined, although as a contrarian of long and sincere standing, I’m honor-bound and forever obliged to doubt and re-examine even those precepts nearest and dearest to my heart.

However, what I know beyond a shadow of doubt is that in the year 201417, it is time to tell more stories, not fewer, and to remove craft beer from its selfie-induced vacuum by relating it to the real world outside. Stories build community by reinforcing beer’s local origins, and stories just might be the best way to reach the next 10%, absent the pomp, circumstance and end-zone chest-thumping that has come so infuriatingly to define and bastardize the genre.

In order to complete the journey, perhaps we must come back to town, back to the origins, and back to the notion of there being no such thing as strangers, only those who haven’t yet become friends. Maybe the best way to become friends is to have a chat, not compare soiled raincoats.

Just think about it. Quite possibly, there’s something left to learn.

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August 29: AFTER THE FIRE: In the Red Room, we’re all left – right?

August 22: AFTER THE FIRE: Drink, smoke and enjoy.

August 15: AFTER THE FIRE: Listening to "Dixieland" jazz, and thinking about drinking a beer.

August 8: AFTER THE FIRE: A pre-digital Bohemian vignette, 1989.

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Let's flip this over: The Life of the Flagships.

I didn't read Chelsie's piece until after I'd already written these words.

AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

... My contrarian instincts tell me that the beer climate is ripe for a modest, thoughtful return to basics, emblemized by a relatively small list of classics on draft, and in bottles and cans, to be accompanied by some good, old-fashioned beer education, which seems to have been tossed aside in the era of mile-wide, inch-deep “craft” fandom.

It would be churlish to differ with Chelsie on stylistic grounds, because all the relevant points are there for consideration.

She is describing reality as it is viewed by the digital white whale chasers, and if the digital white whale chasers view their scene as reality, so it must be -- it says so right here, on the Internet -- except the contrarian in me stubbornly believes that this viewpoint skips past the default setting of a significant chunk of better beer lovers.

Hence my current fascination with piloting the vessel straight back to the future, and establishing a pub beer program that is as stolid and set as the remainder of "craft" beer is flashy and ever-changing. Lots of people are drinking Victory Prima Pils and Saison Dupont. If not, these brands wouldn't be available.

Why not consciously appeal to beer lovers who don't chase the white whale, don't stockpile swap booty, and just wish to enjoy a good beer or three over conversation?

Maybe it's impossible, but maybe it's just being undervalued. Maybe it isn't being tried, though maybe the tried and true is tomorrow's freshest approach.

Death of the Flagships: But Why?, by Chelsie (Stouts and Stilettos)

I must admit. I have had this post swirling around in my head for well over a year now… maybe even longer. I’ve often talked about the downturn of flagship beers in great length to many-a-folks who belly up to the bar with me and on Twitter with fellow craft beer minded individuals. Now it’s time to document it all and get it out to the masses, because it’s a recent phenomena that’s really disheartening to some and to others it’s “goodbye. good riddance!” It’s an emotional parting of something classic and sacred yet on the other hand a parting of something boring and forgettable.

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THE must-read for 2016, from Lew Bryson: "IPA is a playground; it’s not a prison."

Pete's Landscape of Beers (circa 1990).

Lew's remarkable rumination comes along at just the right time, when my mind is filled with plans and schemes to recapture some of the lost joy by simplifying my approach and maybe ... MAYBE ... getting back to my roots.

The counter-revolution.

At last, maybe it's here.

Enlist me in the Michael "Beer Hunter" Jackson Brigade, please.

WE CHANGED THE WORLD … FOR THIS?, by Lew Bryson (All About Beer Magazine)


... It took 30 years, but we’ve almost come full circle. Back in the ’80s, almost everywhere you went offered you a choice of light lagers, and maybe a Guinness or a Bass, and if you were lucky, a cream ale. Now most of the places I visit offer me a broad choice of IPAs, and maybe a couple of sours or saisons, and a couple of big dark ales. There may be a pilsner, if I’m lucky; it’s probably hopped to the gills.

It’s so boring! We’ve reached the point where brewers are stuffing things into IPAs to make them more interesting: grapefruit, peppers, ginger, lemons, blood oranges, flowers. One brewer had the tongue-in-cheek puckishness to describe his IPA as “beer-flavored.” I can’t decide whether I should salute or punch him in the nose ...

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Death to chains: "MillerCoors Buys Out Oregon Brewery With History of Sexism Scandal."

It probably comes as no surprise that a multinational brewer accustomed to unprincipled pillage would be utterly titillated at the prospect of such a beer.

From January, 2014:

"Mouth Raper," a Horrible Idea for a Beer Name, by Shannon Finnell (Eugene Weekly)

And you thought "Double D Blond" was eyeroll-worthy. Hop Valley got some bad press when Rebecca Rose of Jezebel wrote about a post from Beervana's Jeff Alworth that claimed the real name of Hop Valley's "Mr. IPA" is "Mouth Raper." Alworth cited an alias page from ratebeer.com as proof, and a commenter added that she'd looked up the brew on Untapped after seeing it on Twitter as "Mouth Raper," and all the reviews there listed that as its name.

This makes Indiana's legendary Leg Spreader sound positively quaint -- but has MillerCoors made an offer for Route 2 Brews?

MillerCoors Buys Out Oregon Brewery With History of Sexism Scandal, by Martin Cizmar (Willamette Week)

They Now Own a Majority Stake In The Maker of "Mouth Raper"

There have been two very hot topics in the world of craft beer over the past few years.

First, there are the buy-outs.

Today, Oregon had another one. The Brewbound blog reports that a majority stake in Hop Valley has been acquired by MillerCoors for an undisclosed sum. The purchase follows on the heels of 10 Barrel, Ballast Point, Elysian and Lagunitas being bought for massive sums of money. In the case of Ballast Point, a billion dollars.

But unlike those other breweries, there will be no mourning period for Hop Valley. They make very, very average beer with shiny packaging. It's the IPA your mom brings over for dinner because she knows you like hoppy beers and it says "hop" right there on the label.

Nikos Ridge, co-owner of Ninkasi, another Eugene Brewery, did throw a little shade, which will likely be the last you hear of it.

"We are always disappointed when a member of the craft industry becomes part of one of the big two macrobreweries," Ridge told the Register-Guard. "The craft industry was built on being the antithesis of big beer, and has been competing successfully with the global conglomerates for the last 30 years."

But there is a second big issue in play over the past few years: the increasing awareness of sexism in craft beer ...

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Crouch: "The craft brewing industry still suffers from a serious cleverness deficiency."

File under "classic elegance."

Telling it like it is. Is anyone paying attention? Earlier in the week at my public affairs blog, I indulged in conjecture.

ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.


It can't help being noticed that the list of European classic beers suggested therein for the most part contains beers with names simple and direct: Brewery name + style.

Schneider + Weiss.
Bell's + Two Hearted.
Samuel Smith + Oatmeal Stout.

Not a penis innuendo to be found, although this isn't a one-method-fits-all suggestion. It's merely an observation. At the end of the day, it's all about the beer, isn't it?

Time to Grow Up: Beer Branding’s Cleverness Deficiency, by Andy Crouch (Beer Advocate)

... Despite the clear value in welcoming outsiders and newbies, our behavior and messages often send signals of exclusion. The first way many potentially interested consumers interact with beer brands is through labels, tap handles, and point of sale materials. Slogans, imagery and appeals joking about breasts, dicks, vaginas, crapping, bestiality and ejaculation are awesome if we’re trying to sell beer to seventh-grade boys. But I’d like to think that even the most immature of fan boys, after a quick chuckle, think such attempts are pathetically juvenile.

If craft brewing wants to extend its audience beyond the traditional market of youngish, wealthy dudes, then it should encourage its more adolescent-obsessed elements to grow up a bit. To call out any particular brewery or beer here would only give it greater attention, which is perhaps the point of these efforts. But we all know such brand immaturity is rife in the industry.

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Why does local matter? Let me count these three ways, courtesy of Tristan at BIG.

Authored by Tristan Schmid, communications director for the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG), it's a three-part refresher course on the theory and practice of localism in beer.

Taught him everything he knows ... well, not really.

First, follow the money.

Why does “local” matter when it comes to craft beer and beer fests? Part 1: Economics

“Money from the beer value chain is made up of producer-distributor-retailer (and taxes). Where that money goes varies by retail channel, product, etc., but on average, roughly one-third ends up with the producer. When that producer is local, that means the money goes to local workers, investments, businesses, taxes, and more. When that producer isn’t, you still get the value from the other portions, but you simply lose that 1/3 that would have gone to the producer.”

Next, think about the community.

Why does “local” matter when it comes to craft beer and beer fests? Part 2: Community

You may have heard of Ray Oldenburg’s concept of “third places,” those which “host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Nearly 2/3 of Hoosier breweries are brewpubs–the epitome of Oldenburg’s “third place.”

These are places where, in addition to beer direct from the source, you can enjoy local food, artwork, music, events, and much more. Locally owned brewpubs are places to hang out with family, meet new friends, and talk with the brewers about the beer you’re drinking.

Finally, take a bow.

Why does “local” matter when it comes to craft beer and beer fests? Part 3: You

Consumer support of finely crafted local beer is key to the industry’s continued growth and strength. Thanks to demand for a good, local product, it’s been possible for Brewers of Indiana Guild to lobby for efforts like legalizing Sunday growler fills at Hoosier breweries.

People like you made it possible to raise barrelage limits last year from 30,000 that could be sold in state to 90,000–meaning that it’s easier to get Three Floyds and Sun King across Indiana because they can legally sell more of it in their home state.

If it weren’t for Hoosiers supporting their local brewers, we wouldn’t have been able to launch the Drink Indiana Beer campaign or the app or the forthcoming DrinkIN magazine (which–plug!–features a handy-dandy regional map of all the state’s breweries.)

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Joshua Pietrowski shares a story, and I'm grateful.

Joshua Pietrowski is the brewer at Turoni's in Evansville. We've been friends on Facebook for a while, and I finally got to meet him in Ft. Wayne at the Brewers Conference in March.

He's a big, ebullient, well-spoken character in the Falstaffian vein, and it turns out that we have mutual friends. Joshua grew up with the son of my buddy Lee's brother-in-law.

I trust he won't mind this reprint of a Facebook status update, from just after the conclusion of the Craft Brewers Conference in Philly last week.

My days are spent bemoaning the sterility of what passes for "craft" culture these days, when this wonderful transformational art form sinks so very often to the same level of vapid "me first" consumerism that impelled the revolution in the first place ... and then comes Joshua Pietrowski to remind me that all is not lost, and we're still capable of literacy and feeling outside the narcissistic box.

Thanks, man. I needed this. A lot.


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I took an abnormal amount of pictures today. I was going to put them all on Instagram for everyone to see all the great places I ran to and from in Manhattan. I'm not going to share those with you. I would, however, like to share a story.

Merl and I wrapped the night up at the Skylight Diner. This thing could have been straight out of Seinfeld. I got there, ordered a crappy beer, and took my chances on a real New York Reuben (where they use Cole Slaw instead of sauerkraut and Russian Dressing instead of thousand island), and after it had been cooked and delivered to the diner counter where I sat, something strange happened.

Two bites in, I noticed a man about my size, decked out in full construction gear, still wearing his orange helmet, watching something on his phone. It was so odd, because whatever he sat watching for at least five minutes had classical music playing in the background, not exactly what you'd figure a three hundred pound third shift behemoth of a man in the middle of picking up a round of cheeseburgers for his crew to be in to.

Two bites later. I couldn't get this weird thing out of my head so I looked back over at him to realize, fully, what was going on. On his cell phone danced little girls in leotards, delicately and out of rhythm to the suspect classical music, as I put two and two together. One of those was his daughter, and he had to settle for video because he was stuck at work. I looked up from the phone to the man's face and caught him choking back tears, slowly using grimy fingers to wipe away those tears beneath his glasses as he watched the most important thing in his world bob and weave and twirl back and forth across a stage.

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For every one thing that divides us, there are ten that make us family, sometimes before we even know each other. For every fresh crack or new divot on the surface of our old souls, there are ten patches of scar tissue that remind us that we have survived. That we are surviving. This is not an easy time to feel unified, here in the easiest time there's ever been to be alive, and I know that some days we wake up and think that nothing is worth anything anymore.

I only got half way through that Reuben, and that guy was gone about two minutes after I caught him sobbing. I think he had to get back to work. And I decided not to post those forty pictures because at the end of the day, those places, they're just brick and mortar and some other man's memories. I truly love to travel, and I get to do my fair share of it. But my favorite thing to bring home is not a new Michigan hat, or a new pint glass for my collection at home, but a lesson. The kind that teaches you to step back, put the sandwich down, and realize that even the Skylight diner can be a holy place, and witness to those fleeting moments when heaven crashes into humanity.

"Craft beer is so white, in fact, that there’s an entry for 'microbreweries' in Stuff White People Like."

From the article.

As though to illustrate the impeccable axiom that a stopped clock is right twice a day, I give you a well-written, thought-provoking article from Thrillist.

It isn't a pleasant topic. Neither is sexism in "craft" beer. However, the more uncomfortable the topic, the greater the urgency.

Or, you can just have another IPA.

There are almost no black people brewing craft beer today. Here's why, by Dave Infante (Thrillist)

I’M IN A CRAFT BEER BAR IN BROOKLYN, sipping a $9 stout and looking for black people. “Juicy” is on the speakers, and Notorious B.I.G. grew up a five-minute walk from my barstool here on the dividing line between Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant. This is a traditionally black neighborhood, but right now, at 10:30pm on a Thursday, the only people in the bar are me (white), the bartender (white), and a stocky guy with a beard down at the end mouthing lyrics and nursing a bomber of what looks like Hill Farmstead (he’s white, too).

My search isn’t going well so far.

That’s because craft beer is white. Whiter than a ski lodge. Whiter than a Whole Foods in the suburbs. Craft beer is so white, in fact, that there’s an entry for “microbreweries” in Stuff White People Like, a book based on a blog written by a white person making fun of white people for being white. The passage concludes with this sentence: “Most white people want to open a microbrewery at some point.”

__

Craft beer, thriving communities and "winning back the neighborhood."

Here are two relevant essays about "craft" beer and community, representing a valuable component of one's better beer values system, and something that cannot be measured by the narcissism of beer ratings and crowd-sourced palaver:

"Take the selfie drinking THIS special beer, and you'll get laid!"

Whatever. This is my sweet spot: Neighborhoods, communities, and how breweries make our lives better.

Breweries are the mark of a thriving community, by Jeff Alworth (All About Beer Magazine)

... But breweries aren’t like the average industrial plant. They are people magnets, bringing folks in who are curious to try a pint of locally made IPA. In fairly short order, breweries can create little pockets of prosperity in cities that can (and often do) radiate out into the neighborhood. Pretty soon, other businesses see the bustle and consider moving in, too. It doesn’t hurt that breweries often find run-down parts of towns that have great buildings. Once a brewery moves in and refurbishes an old building, it reveals the innate promise of adjacent buildings to prospective renters.

The focus here is on how "craft" brewers optimize their own community.

Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood, by A.C. Shilton (Yes! Magazine)

Good beer comes from collaboration, not competition. By working together, small-brewers everywhere are giving corporations a run for their money.

... Since the beginning, craft beer has been about community. Before your neighborhood taproom started stocking hoppy IPAs, before most of us sampled nitro-infused coffee porters, before growlers were part of our dinner party lexicon—the craft beer movement was mostly a loose coalition of home brewers tinkering in their basements and sharing recipes over the beginnings of the Internet. And since beer brews in batches, they needed friends to help drink it. In living rooms and back porches across the country, the gospel of good beer was spread one kicked keg at a time.

___

"So this page is just for posting pictures?"

There is a Louisville-area Facebook group of "beer snobs," and just prior to New Year's Eve came a post that connects beautifully with my most recent column at Food & Dining Magazine.

The PC: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?"

Since the names of those posting are irrelevant, I've retained only the initials (save for my sole comment).

The verdict? Beer porn is a mile wide and a millimeter deep.

It begins with L.

"Hello fellow snobs. I have been a member of this page for about two weeks and I have noticed a lot of people posting pictures of their unusual beers but no reviews or thoughts about them. Please give reviews of them. An honest review. If you like stouts don't downgrade an IPA just because it's not a stout. Give us your opinion on how good of an IPA it is compared to other IPA's. I don't want to run and buy a $10 bottle of beer because it has a nice label. So if we all give reviews of these beers everybody will come out ahead. Thank you."

RS
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/

L
I know about Beer Advocate. So this page is just for posting pictures?

RS
A bunch of snobs bragging about what they drink.

JC
Or what they possess. Too many posts that do not involve drinking the stuff. Maybe people don't want to say that $15 bottle tastes like the $4 alternative. I usually say a little bit about a beer, but not a full-on BJCP rating.

A
I use this page primarily to see what I'm going to miss by 15 minutes at Liquor Barn.

Roger A. Baylor 
Sight alone is supposed to lead to arousal -- or envy. Can't remember which.

JB
A lot of us use this page to share new arrivals. In many such instances a review isn't possible, since we're posting pics of stuff we just bought. I do agree, however, that if you're gonna post a pic of the bottle and a glass of beer a few words would help.

JP
As a graphic designerer, I'll buy anything in a bottle based on visual appeal.

JB
An article in one of the better magazines, don't recall which, actually did a study on that. Their conclusion: buying a beer based only on the label art is no better or worse than any other method of picking out new beers.

A
In all seriousness, I don't have a problem with people posting beer reviews, but I don't read many of them because A) everybody's experience with a beer is going to be different, and B) I honestly don't think I have a sophisticated enough palate.

M
I'm guilty of posting only photos. Most of the time, I'm either in a crowded bar, at a bottle share, at a bottle release party or having a few cold ones with my friends and don't have time to write a full review. Usually the picture alone is enough to get a conversation started. I get PM pretty often because of a pic I have posted. This generally leads to more bottle shares and new friends.

W
Everybody's tastes are different. Beer as with a lot of things like it are mostly a matter of personal opinion, which is why I barely ever even go by reviews myself. That being said, if it's something special and really rad, I usually try to explain how great it is in short phrases.

L
The other day somebody posted a picture of Xocoveza Charred . Cool looking bottle. I didn't know what was so I looked it up. Found out it was a mocha Stout. I hate mocha and would never buy it. So all I am saying is if the poster would say just a few words about what it is it would help everyone out.

_

The PC: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?"

The PC: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?"

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yes, it's been a while. When last we met:

Euro ’85, Part 26 … The Hansa brewery tour, and a farewell to Norway.

The next installment of the Euro '85 travelogue has resisted my best efforts at corralling a huge volume of content and forcing it into a vague 1,500 word framework -- which is to say, I can't seem to remember much about three days in Stockholm.

It may be time for hypnosis, or maybe Scandinavian mead. Wait ...

Until then, here is the full text of my last column at Food & Dining Magazine (Winter 2015; Vol. 50; November/December/January). The next issue will be published in February, and should include my profile of Donum Dei Brewery and Floyd County Brewing Company.

---

Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?

When Food and Dining Magazine published its inaugural edition in 2003, there hadn’t yet been an American Craft Beer Week. It came along three years later.

As for the descriptive term itself, “craft” first arose in the mid-1990s, and it took a long time for many of us to assimilate the usage. When we finally moved past “microbrewery,” it already was time to question the meaning of craft. Truly, the curmudgeon’s work is never done.

However, developments entirely divorced from semantics have contributed mightily to how we see craft beer today, and in the most literal of senses.

The first camera phones were developed in South Korea in 2000. After a period of Japanese honing, they reached America in late 2002, to become widely available amid continuing technical improvements.

Camera phones were absorbed and redefined by smart phones equipped with increasingly sophisticated capabilities, all of which has brought us to an unprecedented juncture in the history of contemporary beer appreciation.

Suddenly, beer taste became visual, and at times viral. First a revolution in brewing changed the way we think about beer, then technology changed the way we process, document and disseminate these expanded thoughts. Nowadays, craft beers are micro, and beer drinking rituals macro.

Mere seconds after gently popping the cap on a prized, hard-to-find Westvleteren 12, Pliny the Elder or rosy periwinkle-infused Malagasy Saison from the hottest new nanobrewery in southwestern Madagascar, a quality photo of the beer, glassware and bottle is ready for staging, a scene captured by the ever-present phone camera, and one quickly reaching a huge potential audience of friends and followers on social media.

Enjoy a sip – and tell everyone about it

Having been properly certified and accredited, the beer is ready for drinking, but the ritual has only just begun. A review must be written at one’s favored on-line beer ratings aggregator, destined to join thousands of others, which collectively form the basis for beer decision-making by countless beer nerds all over the world.

If this tableau plays out at home, the mere possession of prized beers may owe to ubiquitous electronic connectivity. Beer lovers construct vast networks of like-minded acquaintances to track rare and unusual beers, and once they’ve been located, the gray market opens for business, and the haggling begins in earnest.

Thousands of beers are available through normal distribution channels, and may be purchased at package stores for carry-out, or consumed at specialty beer bars and multi-taps. Increasingly, all manner of restaurants stock craft and imported beer: Pizza joints, taquerias, Chinese buffets, gastropubs, weenie wagons, steak houses; you name the concept, and a range of better beer probably is being offered.

Wider beer availability makes it even more complicated for the well-rounded beer geek, because not only must the beer be rated, but the establishment as well.

There is so much to do: Check in with social media, scan voluminous beer lists, critique the omission of crucial stylistic ranges, match available choices with ratings aggregators, ensure the beer isn’t a repetition of a previous choice, determine whether wait staff has a clue, dip a thermometer into the liquid, parse issues of beer freshness, and at some point, at long last, once the housekeeping tasks finally are collated and nearby planets helpfully fall into alignment, there’ll be time to chase a bowl of fiery chili with an honest ale, and maybe – just maybe – have some fun.

Old assumptions, new realities

I may be slightly exaggerating these accounts of modern times. You’ve heard it all before, from every ancient geezer who ever hugged a handy bar stool and spun tales of snow drifts, deprivation and the unreliability of younger generations.

This being a magazine centered on food, I readily concede that you may wish to take my musings with a grain of Himalayan salt.

Still, I’m sticking with my basic hypothesis: The visual-oriented immediacy of instantaneous mobile communications has obliterated the craft beer landscape and swapped old assumptions for a new reality, which continues to mutate and evolve.

In retrospect, there was a steady cadence to the arc of craft beer growth and acceptance from 1976, when New Albion Brewing was founded in California, to the early 1990s, when a great spurt took place. Unfortunately, the exuberance was premature, and in 1997 the bubble burst.

Craft beer growth in 1997 was only 2%, following a 58% surge just two years before. During the period 1997-2003, growth remained in the low single digits. Beginning in 2004, there was a healthy escalation, and double-digit increases have occurred ever since.

By this point, a new generation of craft beer drinkers was coming of age. They were familiar with craft, and had never seen a rotary dial phone.

Ratings sites like Rate Beer and Beer Advocate already existed on-line, and soon adjusted to mobile communications. The advent of mainstream social media brought Untappd, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, among others.

No longer is it necessary to live drinking lives of silent enjoyment. We have become broadcasters, style arbiters and photographers, relying on visual cues whenever the thicket of raw information becomes impenetrable.

The craft beer enthusiast is better off than ever before, with a caveat: Aren’t appearances only skin deep?

Where we are now

From its inception in 2003, this publication has been exemplary in its devotion to twin virtues: Thoughtful, cogent writing and mouth-watering photography.

Moreover, it has deployed these dual strengths to document the Louisville area food and dining scene, which deserves it. My beer column has been but a tiny component in this bill of fare, and yet it bears noting that when the column began, it wasn’t at all common in our part of the country to associate better beer with better food.

Now it is, and the point is constantly reinforced through the very same electronic and communications mediums.

Up the revolution, but let’s not forget that in its most glorious and expressive format, Food and Dining Magazine remains real, tactile and capable of occupying space on a table top, to be discovered by the next reader, or actually arrive in the mail, as did the beer publications we used to pluck from the postbox after navigating pesky snow drifts … and hangovers.

Ironically, now that craft beer verges on mainstream acceptance, thanks in part to communications technology altering the way we think, my own thoughts continue to turn toward grassroots counter-revolution, to beer as a singular joy, embracing tastes and places.

As a contrarian, I’ve no choice except seeing it differently. Perhaps I’ll start carrying a blindfold with my bottle opener.

Lew Bryson cuts cord, returns to blogging, has an occasional drink.

Man with a plan. And cigar.

He calls it Seen Through A Glass.

Lew Bryson's blog: beer, whiskey, other drinks, travel, eats, whatever strikes my fancy.

I chose to wait a couple of weeks before pointing in the direction of Lew's revived blog. At the beginning of the year, he explained the renaissance.

Hello Again

Beer eventually led me to realize that editing was not what I wanted to spend -- let's be frank -- the remaining years of my career doing. I want to write more, and I want to write about beer, and whiskey, and food, and travel, and even some fiction ideas I have. To do that, I had to cut the cord again...and here I am again. Blogging. Freelance. Writing.

At the merest mention of ideas in the context of beer, I'm giddy. After all, cluelessness often has encroached ...

All Flippers Go To Hell

I'm talking about beer and whiskey flippers. These are the folks who pick up rare or hyped bottles and immediately turn about and sell them at a jacked-up price for substantial profit, legally or illegally (most states don't allow the sale of alcohol beverages, even so much as one bottle, without a license). 

 ... and it's important to remember:

Craft Beer: Big Enough To Fail

Make your choice. Just remember how we got to where we are, and what we had to go through to get there. It's just beer, but...it's beer.

Lew calls it Seen Through A Glass, and you should make it a point to be reading.

_

The whoredom of "craft": Breckenridge's Todd Usry on authenticity, first in February, then in December.

Back on February 15, Todd Usry of Colorado's Breckenridge Brewery boldly drew a line in the sand.

Could a Colorado craft brewery sell out to big beer?, by Eric Gorski (The Denver Post)

... Todd Usry, the brewmaster and general manager of Denver-based Breckenridge Brewery, which fits the production volume and brewpub profile for acquisition, said the company has not been approached to sell out and has no intentions to do so.

“The big thing to me is, the craft beer industry was built on individuals and their stories,” Usry said.

When craft breweries sell out, “I think there is some serious authenticity that is lost, and that the brand loses,” he said. “We’re not corporate. We are entrepreneurial and individual.”

Usry, like others, is concerned about the business ramifications of big-beer buyouts. “It’s going to be harder and harder to get our voices heard at the wholesale level,” he said. “It’s hard enough for craft beer in general to get meetings with big chain buyers. Now, AB can go in and pitch Elysian.”

Ten months later, with Breckenridge Brewery's decapitated head rolling past Usry's formerly principled stance, who better to read the rote statement of capitulation -- of solemn concurrence with the agenda of his brewery's corporate executioners -- than Usry himself?

Today’s announcement of our acquisition by Anheuser-Busch’s craft and import division may come as a surprise to many of you. We want to share with you how we came to this decision, what it means to Breckenridge Brewery and to those who’ve supported us for so long.

We’ve been in this creative and dynamic industry for over 25 years, loving everything about it. That won’t change. The passion for quality and culture that got us where we are today isn’t going anywhere. We’re proud of the fact that you can find our beers in 35 states; we’ve worked hard to get our beers to as many of you as possible throughout the years. The High End, Anheuser-Busch’s craft and import division, shares the same excitement for our category and commitment to quality. We will join a group of established and innovative craft brewers as part of The High End, and we look forward to what opportunities these relationships will bring to us.

Our brewpub in Breckenridge, our Littleton brewery and its Farm House restaurant are all part of this new entity. Other properties under the Breckenridge-Wynkoop umbrella will continue to be owned and operated by B-W and are not part of this arrangement.

Of course, the same great team who helped build Breckenridge Brewery won’t be going anywhere. We are excited about the opportunity this partnership brings to all of us. We’ll continue to own decisions about the beers we create and the ingredients in them. What people relate to in this industry is authenticity. If there were plans to come in and change our employees, our culture, and our recipes, well, that would completely undermine the reason for the partnership at all. What this new partnership does offer us is access to resources that will help us continue to innovate and bring our beer to more people.

We ultimately owe our success to you, our followers and supporters. I hope you will give us the chance to prove to you over time that we will continue to be Breckenridge Brewery.

Sincerely,

J. Todd Usry

President, Breckenridge Brewery

This is AB-InBev's authenticity.

They're the "High End."

You?

You're bought, paid, humiliated, and your own authenticity sucked from your veins and spat on the floor while you watch. Even if your life's work stands to be unaltered in any way, it remains that it now will be deployed by de facto terrorists as a marketplace weapon aimed at the heads of all those authentic folks of whom you were one, for so very long ...until you weren't any longer.

AB-InBev? It won't hesitate to pull the trigger, will it? Todd Usry and his partners aren't the first, and they won't be the last, but let's be honest.

Craft is dead and buried, not so much because AB-InBev is buying, but because craft is selling ... out.

Bourbon County Yawn: There is nothing so desirable that you willingly pay your mortal enemy to have it.

Meme courtesy of Dustin Dilbeck.

BREAKING: Worldwide shareholders of AB-InBev sincerely thank Americans for their devotion to Goose Island products.

According to a resident of an Asian tax haven, "With the Bourbon County Stout profits alone, we can keep craft beer off store shelves in a dozen states."

Added a Brazilian gazillionaire, "Let's hope they never learn."

Celebrate Food & Dining: The magazine's 50th issue is on the street, and my column is inside it.

It's here: The Louisville edition of Food & Dining's 50th issue. It's the Winter 2015 issue (Vol. 59; November/December/January), available at hundreds of locations throughout metropolitan Louisville. You also can read right now at issuu: Winter 2015 (Vol. 50).

Food & Dining is a Louisville-based lifestyle publication focused on food & cooking, the enjoyment of wine & spirits, and the experience of dining out in one of the nation’s top restaurant cities.

We have all the sensibilities of a local magazine, but with the designer and photography of a national magazine.

We pack the magazine and with gorgeous photography, engaging feature stories, entertaining articles, unique recipes and a restaurant guide that details over 1,000 restaurants.

The quarterly magazine began in 2003, and I started writing beer columns for John Carlos White a few issues into his run. The mag's his baby, and I'm delighted for him. Lots of other folks have played a part in launching and maintaining the publication, so thanks to all of them, too. May there be many more to come.

For the current edition, my "Hip Hops" column is intended as the answer to a question asked me by John: What's changed about beer since Food & Dining debuted in 2003?

No longer is it necessary to live drinking lives of silent enjoyment. We have become broadcasters, style arbiters and photographers, relying on visual cues whenever the thicket of raw information becomes impenetrable.

The craft beer enthusiast is better off than ever before, with a caveat: Aren’t appearances only skin deep?

You can read it here: Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?

May, 2015

I profile the Crescent Hill Craft House in the new issue of Food & Dining Magazine.

August, 2015

My column in the latest Food & Dining Magazine is about Gordon Biersch.

In a new quotation mark war, British "craft" brewers to take stab at "craft" definition.

The great questions of our age.

Is there free will?

Do supernatural beings exist?

What is meant by "craft"?

I still use the word if it suits me, primarily when it's easier to facilitate communication without delving into what might as well be theology.

However, at the current time it matters little to me. My basic tool for making determinations in "craft" as in other decisions about where my money goes remains this working definition of independent business, as offered by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA):

• (I) Private, worker, community or cooperative ownership. 
• (II) At least 50% locally-owned. 
• (III) Decision-making authority is vested in the local owners and not subject to conditions dictated remotely. 
• (IV) The business has a limited number of outlets, which are limited to a 150 mile radius.

It isn't perfect, and at times I ignore it, because the point always has been shift. I try to patronize as few chains as possible, and while this isn't easy when it comes to buying groceries, it's not so hard to decide when looking for beer, and where to drink it.

Can craft beer really be defined? We're about to find out, by Tony Naylor (The Guardian)

Next month, possibly in a secret underground bunker, but more likely in a pub, the leading lights of new wave British brewing will meet to do something that, so far, beer geeks have found impossible. They will define what craft beer is in the UK.

This attempt by the new United Craft Brewers (UCB) to codify craft is essential in their mission to, “promote and protect the interests of British craft brewers, their beers and beer enthusiasts.” UCB has been established by the scene’s big guns – Brewdog, Beavertown, Magic Rock and Camden Town Brewery are among its founders ...

... Defining what is and isn’t craft beer is notoriously difficult. You cannot restrict it to a list of ingredients, like the historic German purity laws, because modern brewers want to use everything from coffee grounds to chillies in their beers. You cannot define craft beer in terms of how it is packaged, as Camra did with real ale, because it already comes in cask, keg, can, bottle and – who knows? – probably Tetrapak cartons and PET bottles soon, too. Nor is an ambitious company such as Brewdog (it is poised to hugely increase its brewing capacity and already owns 35 bars) likely to signup to something that restricts craft breweries to a certain size, be that in terms of volume production – as craft breweries are primarily regulated in the US – financial turnover or diversification of the company’s interests.

Louisville's Mayor Fischer and "Lou's Brew": Some good, some bad, and some corporate.

Louisville's mayor is Greg Fischer, and following some wobbling and waffling early on, I'm the first to admit that he's taken positive steps with respect to the city being aware of the brewing industry, and promoting it.

Mayor Fischer, CVB introduce “Lou’s Brew” — a guide highlighting local breweries

Mayor Greg Fischer and the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau today introduced “Lou’s Brew” — a guide that highlights local breweries for locals and tourists.

The idea for “Lou’s Brew” resulted from the Beer Work Group created by Fischer in 2014 to grow the brewing industry — and create more jobs as part of the city’s effort to become a global food and spirits capital.

See the on-line guide here.

Following is a sampling of posts, the gist of which is to explain how Fischer's bourbon-centric misstep led to a good recovery, and the formation of a beer and brewing study group on which I served.

Oct. 13, 2014: THE PC: I'd like my world of beer to be special every day.

Oct.12, 2014: "Mayor Fischer to announce initiative to promote Louisville beer at press conference Monday."

Sept. 8, 2014: The PC: The steamy sweetness of watery boats.

Dec. 10, 2013: The PC: Bourbon, bone marrow, Greg Fischer … and Stella Artois?

But ... (there's always a "but," isn't there?)

While Mayor Fischer has done these nice things with beer, for which I'm appreciative, it is my view that he's been on the wrong side of numerous other issues pertaining to economic development, historical preservation and Louisville's social milieu. In short, he's the new model of Democrat, beholden just as solidly to corporate welfare and "trickle down"economics as Reaganites, and consequently, it just isn't possible for me to give him a free pass.

Greg Fischer announces major brewery deal for Louisville and is praised as visionary by Jeff Gahan.

Satire, yes ... but not far-fetched.

It's the "S" word again as Julia Herz weighs in on women in beer.

You might think I've been on a tangent this year.

You would be right. Here's a six-pack of my annoyance with sexism in beer.

• July 15, 2015: Yes, "Craft Brewing Has a Sexism Problem."
• May 17, 2015: Leg Spreader's notoriety spreads all the way to Great Britain.
• May 10, 2015: Sexism and beer and money all around. And more money.
• March 24, 2015: "Does craft beer have a sexism problem?"
• January 27, 2015: Brewers of Indiana Guild: "We obviously don’t condone sexism or racism."
• January 19, 2015: The PC: Ripped straight from the pages of an Onion satire: “13 white males not really so eager to discuss issues like racism and sexism.”

Julia Herz has written a timely piece on the topic, one I suggest all brewing industry peeps read.

Julia Herz is the Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association and co-author of the CraftBeer.com Beer & Food Course. Julia is a life-long homebrewer, BJCP beer judge and Certified Cicerone®. Despite her extensive experience, she will always consider herself a beer beginner on an unending journey to learn more about craft beer.

I especially like her conclusion.

Let’s challenge today’s generation of brewers and those to come: May we all be a part of setting new standards of marketing that broadens beer’s customer base.

As I've tried to mount an independent campaign for mayor of New Albany, it has become obvious that the notion of "challenging" anyone to learn or adapt is becoming increasingly archaic. In broad terms, America is far more about pandering than challenging. Improvement takes thought and hard work. Many breweries are putting in the legwork, but others aren't.

We can be better, people.

Weighing in on Women and Beer, by Julia Herz (Craft Beer Dot Com)

Craft Beer Doesn't Need Sexism--It Needs Women

It’s time to share some personal thoughts on a theme I seem to speak to on a weekly basis: women and beer. In light of the recent Bud Light #UpForWhatever campaign, which included the tagline, “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night,” the topic has surfaced once again—and the conversation is spilling over into the craft beer world.

Beyond the general topic of women and beer, the specific topic of sexism is a subject both in beer and beyond. As Bay Area writer and bartender Jen Muehlbauer told Slate.com recently, “I can cite examples of sexism both extreme and subtle in the beer industry, but so can any woman in any industry. I don’t think beer in particular has a woman problem so much as Planet Earth does.”