Ink and keystrokes will be spilled to honor the one and only Fred Eckhardt who passed onto another beer-y realm yesterday.
Others who knew him well will be able to express profound thoughts on his legacy and life with better words than I but I can’t let this moment pass without saying what his beer life meant to me.
He was able to straddle worlds in a way that will probably always perplex me. Some people just seem to be able to communicate with practically anyone. At the Beer Bloggers Conference in Portland a few years back, he had the room of social media obsessed bloggers listening for once and not staring at screens. I have read many of his pieces for magazines and found them to reflect what I was feeling about beer at the particular moment. And it didn’t matter if I was 30, 35 or 40 at the time. I wish I could be like that.
I honestly can’t imagine what is must have been like for someone who watched the craft beer revolution from basically start to finish while also being a major contributor to it. I consider myself part of the 3rd wave. I owe a debt to the people before me. There were the pioneers like Fred. Without him. Without Michael Jackson there wouldn’t be much afterwords. I honestly do not think I would be blogging about beer without Fred in the chain of history.
Instead of waxing on, how about everyone just raise a glass and listen to the beer. And really do it this time.
