I along with several fellow NAGBW members heard a lively virtual happy hour led by podcaster and writer Dave Infante with guest, the sociologist and author Dr. Eli Revelle Yano Wilson. Wilson’s latest book is Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer.”
Here are my takeaways from the discussion:
- there are three main pathways for careers in beer, creative, service and hard labor
- the first Wilson describes as having a lumpy / organic feel to it since it does not hew to a traditional career path
- the people on the creative path are the ones that tend to be idealized and they skew white and male
- the service path interestingly is around 50% female
- as breweries open second and third locations, the workers become less craft obsessed
- what is the end point point for each of these three pathways and why is it good and bad
- the last two pathways tend to have employees where the attitude can be, “it’s good for now” while employers tend to look for people they can just plug in rather than grow
- the author was on the initial team of the Wurstkuche in the Arts District here in L.A.
- You can find Wilson’s books HERE