Another casualty of the phasing out of print has hit the beer world. The Celebrator Beer News is now moving online only. The paper nudged over the 30-year line but that was the end of the run.
A combination of advertising deficits and the shift to reading from tablets and phones did the brewspaper in. This development has probably pushed publisher Tom Dalldorf to do what perhaps should have been done years ago, positioning the website as the main portal and adding more timely stories while keeping brewery information more up to date. A mobile app has been floated as a possibility as well, which I am all for as well.
Back in the “olden” days. The Celebrator was my window to the beer scene of the nation. Each of the correspondents had a distinct writing style and it was fun to read the stories of beer dinners and festivals in other states and around the world. It was also a bit maddening that it was always behind a couple of months. Now that the focus is on the site, I will be certainly reading it more frequently for beer updates. And I think it will free up the correspondents to write more pro-active pieces.
As I said in a Facebook comment, I hope this is just the closing of a chapter and not the book.
