Category: News from Other Beer Writers

Suggested websites to visit to further your beer education.

Posted on

NAGBW Day – Writing Awards

This year, I had the great privilege of judging for the North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW).  I was in the Travel Writing category and I am not going to bury the lede, here are the full winners:

Best Beer and Travel Writing

Honorable Mention

Em Sauter: “Share What You Have — A Visit to John Stoner’s Richmond, Virginia,” Good Beer Hunting

Third Place

Megan Eaves: “Life Stays Close to the River — Solar Beer and Wildebeest in the Serengeti,” Good Beer Hunting

Second Place

Ryan Pachmeyer: “Where Kölsch Night is Every Night,” Craft Beer & Brewing

First Place

Sorrel Moseley-Williams: “Interpreting the Andes — Carlos Barroso in Pachar, Peru,” Good Beer Hunting

For me, Em Sauter’s piece would have ranked higher but the three winners were super interesting glimpses outside the U.S. brewing world.

Here are the other 1st place winners:

Best Commentary or Criticism

Dave Infante: “Hop Take – The Cowardly King of Beers Bends the Knee to Bigots,” VinePair

Best Short Form Writing

Ashley Joanna: “The Conservator,” Belgian Smaak

Best Beer and Food Writing

Lana Svitankova: “Sour, Salty, Umami — The Ukrainian Brewers Transforming Pickling Traditions Into Beer,” Good Beer Hunting

Best Beer Review

David Nilsen: “In the Understory: Primitive Beer’s Frosted in Moss,” Final Gravity Zine

Best Historical Writing

Kevin Kain: “Mexican Lager: History and Appropriation,” Casket Beer

Best Beer Blog or Newsletter

Beth Demmon: Prohibitchin’

Best Technical Beer Writing

Jeff Alworth: “Cold IPA is a Technique, Not a Style,” Beervana

Best Brewery Profile

Anaïs LeCoq: “The Art of Vinifying Grains — Brasserie Ammonite in Burgundy, France,” Good Beer Hunting

Best Business Writing

Aaron Goldfarb: “The Most Important Company in Craft Beer Makes Marshmallow Extract,” VinePair

Best Local Reporting

Jerard Fagerberg: “Oops, Minnesota Accidentally Legalized THC-Spiked Seltzer,” Vice

Best National or International Beer Reporting

Mark LaFaro: “Tapped Out — The Problematic Culture of Overdrinking When You Work in Alcohol,” Good Beer Hunting

Best Beer Book

Clint Lanier: “Ted Mack and America’s First Black-Owned Brewery: The Rise and Fall of People’s Beer”

Posted on

NAGBW Day – Beer Writing to Look For

The North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW) Members, have announced the recipients of this year’s Diversity in Beer Writing Grant.  Per the Guild, “Now in its sixth year, the grant supports stories that showcase diversity and inclusion—in all its forms and challenges—within beer.”

Here is the rest of the press release with my added notes of the articles that I am looking forward to:

“The Grant receives support from Crafted For All, a professional development platform that fosters inclusive, equitable, and just spaces and experiences in the craft beverage sector; Craft x EDU, which champions inclusion, equity, and justice in the craft brewing community through education and professional development; CraftBeer.com, a website published by the Brewers Association; and Allagash Brewing Company. These partnerships have allowed the NAGBW to commission its greatest-ever number of stories through the Diversity in Beer Writing Grant.

After receiving a strong collection of applications, the grant will fund the work of the following journalists. These pieces will be published at craftbeer.com, Crafted for All, or CRAFT x EDU. Please join me in congratulating the recipients:”

Meghna Jaradi

Offering a glass of water is a sign of hospitality, but in brewery taprooms, it’s not just a simple pint of tap water. This piece explores the work and the environmental and social considerations that go into breweries’ non-alcoholic water offerings.

Elizabeth Bera 

This story will focus on how breweries welcome guests from various ethnic communities through game nights, such as hosting loteria, mahjong, dominos, etc. Games become a conduit for cultural exchange among players.

Ian Donley

This is first-person piece from the perspective of a person with autism, mixed with reporting from experts in neurodiversity, that explores how breweries can be a space for testing and practicing social interaction. What makes these brewery spaces unique as “playgrounds” for socializing? (this sounds like an intriguing piece, 1st on my list)

Anaïs Lecoq

This piece explores how women and non-binary people in France are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to festival safety. This piece briefly touches on the problems, but focuses on solutions that are coming from women and non-binary members of the French beer world. 

Jose Abonce

Despite its ownership by a Korean-Polish-American family and the diversity of its neighborhood, inclusion among Marz Brewing staffing and customer base was not always the case and had to be cultivated. This story will examine how giving an employee ownership over her role allowed her to leverage her language skills and cultural understanding in service of engaging the Latinx community.

Supon Peter Dulin

This piece will unpack the economic and business development hurdles Vine Street overcame on its way to becoming Kansas City’s first Black-owned brewery, with a particular focus on economic development and financing hurdles. (financial inclusion is a big deal, this could be a very educational piece)

Amanda Thomas 

This case study examines how the Mosaic State Brewers Collective inspires and empowers underrepresented people to build careers in the beer industry, asking whether this three-phase model could serve as a template for other such mentorship programs.

Posted on

B to the E, really?

I don’t know why beverage companies continue to force guarana and gentian and caffeine into drinks.  That combo is uniformly awful.  If you need more caffeine than coffee is giving you, then more ain’t the answer.  Visiting your doctor is.  But never tell that to SABInBev, they will follow any trend until it loses money like this failed drink from the past that I read about HERE.

Posted on

On Fridays

Now that Twitter or X or whatever Ol’ Muskie is calling it this week has jumped the relevancy shark, we beer fans need to find the educational content elsewhere.

One stop should be Instagram and the Beery Godmother aka Beer education consultant LaTreace Harris.

She has a fun Friday ritual on Reels, Beer Fact Fridays. Quick lessons on beer. It is on my calendar now to check in and learn and refresh my beer knowledge.

Posted on

Dark-tober

This post isn’t sponsored by the Pumpkin Beer Alliance, but beer is pulled into history at many points, some of them not good.

The below video is labeled as the Dark History of Oktoberfest but I would say it is more bad shit that happened in history in Munich whilst Oktoberfest was happening.

Posted on

Beers Remembered

So, yes, I did buy a beer ‘zine and wasn’t super stoked by the topics covered or the writing. And yes, I did just buy another beer ‘zine from the same person.

But Beer Remembered is a different format. It is about “memorable beers and beer moments from the past few years. These aren’t beer reviews, but vignettes of moments captured…”

Posted on

WW

I have given shout outs to San Diego Beer News and Brandon Hernandez a few times on this blog and have used his brewery travel guides to help when visiting a beer inundated part of the country and now he has a new guide up appropriate for hop season, Walla Walla.

One of my beer bucket list items, climate change permitting, is to visit that major hop growing area during harvest, and I will book mark the Walla Walla via San Diego page for sure.

Posted on

Why Anchovy?

Hop producer, Segal Ranch has announced some expanded acreage for the poorly named Anchovy Hop (read Anchovy for more info) The main flavors are watermelon and cedar.  

This falls in the middle of their new hops which includes Zumo which is out in at least one beer from Russian River and maybe more since it too is getting more land as well as a third varietal with the exotic name of Tangier due to a lead aroma of tangerine peel.

Posted on

Forbes Beer Art

If you are not acquainted yet with the art and beer education of Em Sauter well there is another outlet where you can see her beer work, Forbes.com.  You can check it out HERE.