The beat goes on . . .
Appropriately datelined Plain City, because it could happen anywhere. The story often begins this way. “People started liking my beer. I started winning awards on my beer,” says Pat Winslow. Then there was a crowdfunding drive. “This is way beyond my wildest dreams at that time. I feel really fortunate and very humble to be part of this organization.” What followed was, and is, a business story not easily understood. But Pat Winslow is not longer making beer at the brewery he started.
A ‘dream come true’ that continues to get bigger and bigger. You’ve definitely heard this one before. “I opened this business to be happy with my life. I was working in corporate America. I was sick of being a number and a pawn.”
“I always wanted to do my own thing. It’s kind of every brewer’s dream.” An easy-drinking beers and game-stocked taproom in Houston. The core beers are an IPA, a pilsner, a helles and a hazy IPA. “I’m not doing anything revolutionary. I try to make beers people can drink six of.”
“Traveled the world, fell in love with beer over in Germany and Europe.” You’ve also heard that more than a few times. What’s different is Robert Young III is Black and has plans to open a brewery in Augusta, Georgia, called Tapped 33 [The original post had 13 – Thanks to Dan for the noticing]. “Augusta is located on the 33rd parallel on earth. Prohibition ended in 1933. And then I wanted to tie it back to Augusta, James Brown was born in 1933 as well.”
His Good Googly Moogly was one of the best beers I drank last October at Blacktoberfest in Stone Mountain, Georgia. (You might pause to consider the cultural significance of such an event miles from a park famous for the world-record-size stone engraving of Confederate leaders.) I had a great, if too short, conversation with Young. We didn’t talk about dreams; instead about the beers he has in his head. I wish the attention showered on AI and particularly ChatGPT focused more on what it means to be creative; in the case of beer to imagine how old and new flavors may work together. That’s why I plan to visit Augusta once Tapped 13 is open.
On (beer) writing
– Last Thursday, Alan McLeod suggested are “a few main themes in pub and beer writing: (i) industry writing, (ii) trade friendly writing, (iii) politico-socio justicio writing and (iv) innovative creative writing.** Is there a fifth category worth mentioning?” The details are in the asterisk (don’t be shy, click and scroll). Don’t know if it is a fifth category, but what I miss is the “Link + quick comment” aspect. And comments, definitely comments.
– Jeff Alworth on AI Nightmare Scenarios.
– Robin LeBlanc and Jordan St. John put themselves out to pasture.
– FiveThirtyEight looks beyond the hype. “What do Americans think AI is good for? Recipes, roadside assistance and coal mining.”
– The best story I’ve read so far about how ChatGPT works and its relationship to the original writing humans sometimes do. “Our first draft isn’t an unoriginal idea expressed clearly; it’s an original idea expressed poorly, and it is accompanied by your amorphous dissatisfaction, your awareness of the distance between what it says and what you want it to say. That’s what directs you during rewriting, and that’s one of the things lacking when you start with text generated by an A.I.”
I was a bit confused until I clicked through to the story. Tapped 33, not 13.
Fixed. Thanks, Dan.