There was a lot of technical talk at the Beer Bloggers conference. About 1/2 of it was over my head. I know my widgets from my meta tags and/or trackbacks. But that is the smaller mechanical issue. I was searching for something else.
I wanted to know if I was on the right track with this blog. And I think, I am. Am I there yet? No, and I have no timetable either.
I post what excites me about the craft beer world. Is it groundbreaking journalism? No. Is it a regurgitation of already posted news? Sometimes. But that is acceptable to me. Why?
I want this blog to show my passion for beer, breweries, events and the industry. Like a squirrel before a bottle of BrewDog’s End of the World gets shoved up it’s…(sorry), I enjoy searching for and bringing back beer nugggets.
There was alot of good advice about how long it takes to monetize your blog and the ways to do it. People carefully explained how to adjust posts to your readers desires.
To me that is not as important as bringing the world of craft beer to my reader(s) in a short but fun way. And when I highlight a brewery in Louisiana or Alaska, it may be a list of a couple beers pulled from the brewery website but I want to push this information in front of casual but curious craft beer drinkers and travelers. I started the 50 Beers from 50 States quest to learn more about our country’s beers but I also hoped to intrigue all of you enough to try something new or at least learn something new.
A question was posed (rather too critically and rather grumpily, to my ear), why blog about beer and why go to a conference about it? Apart from the obvious reason of meeting people with the same passion, I wanted to learn from other bloggers on how to best accomplish my goal. I could not ask readers to go on this search without doing some searching myself. (And I implore that everyone keep on learning).
What I am trying to say is that I want to challenge you, the reader, to drink better and more varied beer. And this blog will evolve to do that better.
That is what I learned.
