Host Josh Weickert has posted the roundup for the 123rd Session: Cyberbrew.
My own bias plays a role, obviously, but the question that Boak & Bailey bring up keeps bouncing around the corners of my brain: What is the impact on the local when the global shows up in your pocket?
The topic for The Session #123 is Cyberbrew – Is the Internet Helping or Hurting Craft Beer?
That’s a pretty easy question to answer. But I’ll leave it to Steve Hindy in The Craft Beer Revolution.
The internet has arguably been the greatest ally of the craft beer revolution. Daniel Bradford, the former marketing director of the Association of Brewers (AOB), and now publisher of All About Beer magazine, recalls surveying Zymurgy readers in 1986.
“I sent out a survey to try to figure out, other than homebrewing, what books did I have—how could I talk to these people, how can I find more people like them to read Zymurgy,” he said. “And other than [that the overwhelming majority were] white, middle-aged guys, twenty-five to forty-five [the sruvey showed] almost 100 percent had a personal computer. This is in the eighties . . . . The home-brew revolution was simultaneous with the personal computer revolution, and I’m convinced it continues to this day with all these bloggers and social media.”
Host Josh Weikert expects more of an answer (for instance to questions like, “How are beer reviews affecting what gets brewed and drank?”) so head to his blog to read more responses.
Or if you want to take it very seriously read this. You’ll need a beer by the time you finish get halfway through.
The internet doesn’t coddle you in a comforting information bubble. It imprisons you in an information cell and closes the walls in on you by a few microns every day. It works with your friends and the major media on the outside to make a study of your worst suspicions about the world and the society you live in. Then it finds the living embodiments of these fears and turns them into your cell mates. And good heavens it is efficient.
Myself, I’m simply going to provide a year, a “Halt and Catch Fire” moment, and let you fill in the beer blanks. As in, “1982, Bert Grant opened Yakima Brewing and Malting Company.” Now I’m going for a walk. I won’t be checking my phone.
1971 – Email
1977 – PC Modem
1978 – Bulletin Board System
1979 – Usenet
1982 – Commodore computer
1985 – Virtual communities
1991 – First web page created
1993 – Mosaic, 1st graphical browser (the photo at the top was taken in 1993)
2003 – My Space
2004 – Facebook
2006 – Twitter
2010 – Instagram
2011 – Snapchat
Host Christopher Barnes has posted the roundup for The Session #122: Views on imported beer.
Also, a reminder that The Session #123 is Friday. The topic is CyberBrew.
What timing, given that it’s National Beer Day, one of those holidays that certainly snuck up on me but I think is designed to celebrate American brewed beer. Yet the topic for The Session this month is “Views on imported beer” and host Christopher Barnes puts forth this question: “What place do imported beers (traditional European) have in a craft beer market?” (Drop by his blog for other answers.)
Barnes has eliminated the best selling imports by process of parenthesis, which simplifies the question of why consumers might choose traditional Europeans beers. The three best reasons that come to mind are: a) cachet, b) quality, and c) education. They are not exclusive.
Otherwise, I recommend reading a very long feature on Shelton Brothers beer importers in the April issue of Beer Advocate magazine. The beers they’ve brought to the United States certainly tick a, b and c.
*****
Just for fun, a quick quiz. What company first imported Duvel and when?
Jon Abernathy did not mess around getting the roundup for The Session #121 posted.
As he notes, turnout was a little light. That’s too bad — bock is a great topic. Of course, I was one of those who did not manage to post. My excuse is I was in Minnesota to talk to the state’s hop growers. As I wrote in a tweet, with credit toward Lou Grant, they have “spunk.” Unlike Grant, I like spunk.
I wish the timing would have been a little different, because Schell’s hosted its annual Bock Fest on Saturday. I had a great time with the hop growers, but I sure wish I could have made it down to New Ulm. My consolation prize was finding Schell’s Bock on tap at the airport before I flew home.