Twitter – Beer Search Party

October 6, 2018September 26, 2018

What’s the Date?

If you are in need of following someone else on Twitter, might I suggest…

We all know that dating beers would help (especially in the case of IPAs) and that it can be done. But for various reasons, it is still not the industry standard.

Whether this social media shaming will help or hinder is up in the air since it just started but maybe some HashTag-tivism will goad a few breweries into doing it.

August 28, 2018August 26, 2018

B Positive

I was spinning through the Twitter-verse when I came upon this….

…and even that simple call to hashtag left me feeling better about our little world of beer on social media.

So I answered right away and will *attempt* to remember to do this at least once a month.

January 20, 2017August 28, 2018

Speaking of Tweets

Since our now, new (unfortunately) Commander in Chief seems to love the Tweets, it seemed appropriate to highlight his beer Twitter….

For those who can’t separate their ACA from Obamacare, this is a parody account. Might be good for a few laughs in between Baldwin impersonations on SNL.

If like me, you wish to live the next four in sweet ignorance of Washington DC, then may I suggest following the this instead….

April 22, 2016August 30, 2018

BSP Advice Column – Sunset Strip Brewery

As far as interwebs hoaxes go, this was well done. But for the sake of future brewers who feel entitled my original (April Fool’d) post still stands. So in honor of a good joke, here is what I would have written if Sunset Strip Brewing were real……

I don’t think I could survive long giving out advice. Oh, I have opinions and ideas and sarcasm but those qualities are not usually top of the list for future Dear Abby’s. But when I saw this pop up on my social media feed….

After thinking to myself, “Who is Sunset Strip Brewery?” and then doing a cursory Google search which turned up more hits for the fantastic Sunset Beer Co. bottle shop, I began to think of scenarios that would lead to this Tweet. (I ran into the same issue when I first heard about them months back.

Drunken? Nope. Posted at 10am with correctly spelled @ call signs with capitalization too.

Frustration? Maybe, but no one reached out to me and I doubt that any or all of the organizations listed would have refused to run something.

Internal Strife? Seemed most likely since the biggest stressor in L.A. is the getting your brewery open process but without information I let the issue drop and planned to wait to try beer if it ever came to be.

Well, first the Tweet was denied and labeled a hack, then this happened….

…and the BSP Advice columnist in me jumped up.

There is so much wrong in that “non”-apology. But let’s first write the correct response:
Hello, my name is Mark and I want to apologize for a member of the Sunset Strip Brewery team who made ill-advised remarks on social media. The remark has been taken down and we are dismayed that it even saw the light of day. It is not how we want to present ourselves to the fans of craft beer in L.A.

We hope, in the coming months, to spread the word about our brewery and our ambitious plans in a positive way and even more we hope to share our beer with the City of Los Angeles sooner rather than later.

If you want to talk to us then please contact us at the e-mail address below.

Literally, except for the first sentence, every other paragraph in “their apology” had something horribly wrong in it. (Not to mention some spelling gaffes). Just as an FYI to future brewers out there, what NOT to do:

paragraph two – “those of you who that said things you regret will take responsibility for it” / An apology does not ask for an apology back.

paragraph three – “We have a combined 50 years plus brewing experience.” / An apology should not be cribbed from your About page of your website.

paragraph four – “We’re currently in talk(s) with producers about television opportunities” / An apology should be brief and not about plans unrelated to the actual beer.

paragraph five – All of it. / An apology does not reinforce whatever was said that made an apology necessary.

paragraph six – “reasonably priced t-shirts” / An apology should have some remorse. Not vague swag promises.

paragraph seven – “abuse and cyber bullying we received” / An apology does not include mitigating factors.

I will try the beer but, frankly, it would have to be really damn good for me to write about it. Right now LA has such good beer flowing that I do not have time to visit the people and places I enjoy, let alone drink beer from people who don’t understand how to communicate a simple apology. And this episode speaks to how disorganized this group is and leads me to think that they probably won’t even make it to the brewing stage at all.

April 4, 2016August 30, 2018

The Session – The Recap

UPDATED

Well, the weekend started late Friday with an April Fool’s prank from Lagunitas which spiralled into less than a stellar response to my Session writing prompt.

Maybe my example of the long form tweet from Ray Daniels wasn’t the best see the Appellation Beer 1st paragraph but I thought it might break people out of the bubble of looking at Twitter. Further on in his contribution he let us in on some “could have been” Michael Jackson tweets that I think would make great beer conversation starters.

Speaking of conversation, Derrick from Ramblings of a Beer Runner brought up part of my issue with Twitter. How it doesn’t really lead to an exchange of ideas. He also doesn’t see the usefulness in comparison to Facebook or Instagram which I also agree with.

The Beer Nut took the tack of relaying the story of how Twitter piqued his interest in a beer from the British brewery Cloudwater. But he also worries that it is the same five or six breweries that seem to be getting all of the Twitter love.

Reuben Gray from The Tale of the Ale folded in the the foolish holiday and Twitter to show an example of using the day and social media together. More importantly he talked about the Daniels tweets in relation to Ireland craft beer.

Jon Abernathy who covers the Bend, Oregon beer beat under the Brewsite Blog threw a curve ball and used photos to talk up a brewery hundreds of miles away on the beach of Pacific City at the lovely Pelican Pub. It shows the power of photography and his skills at shooting glasses of beer.

Jack Perdue over at Deep Beer (which has a great logo) gave some insight into the world of beer in Baltimore in both the past and present. Having lived there for a few months a long, long time ago, his tweets made me nostalgic. Not for the beer scene then, but for what I missed and wish I could do over. Certainly there is Brewmore going on there.

Sadly that was the lot. I was hoping to hear a bit of vitriol maybe a bit of Twitter love but obviously my topic did not resonate. I was a bit put out that Jay Brooks, one of the Session founders couldn’t add something to the mix. I would have loved to read his thoughts.

Keep blogging’ about beer and have a great April!

April 1, 2016August 30, 2018

The Session # 110 – Twitter Beer

It is easy to hate social media. It is cluttered, loud and repetitive. Then there is the privacy angle to untangle or the trollery from really hateful people. The sheer number of posts and photos and links is enough to make me turn off my iPad and head to the ‘fridge for a beer.

So, why then did I choose Twitter as a topic for beer bloggers? There were external factors such as the 10th anniversary of the first Tweet that happened in March as well as the possibility of Twitter expanding to more than 140 characters but really, I wanted to show that it is woven into the fabric of craft beer. With six tweets, I can show a concise little history of Los Angeles beer evolution. (Thanks in part to the First Tweet website)

Starting with me and my blatantly stolen quote from Fred Eckhardt. That I joined Twitter a full two years+ after I started beer blogging lands me directly into the late adopter crowd. Unlike the brewery that is the base for L.A. brewing, Eagle Rock Brewery. They jumped right onto the bandwagon and said hello.

At around the same time as Eagle Rock both Strand Brewing and Ladyface Ale Companie opened up shop and L.A. beer drinkers could entertain joining the ranks of cities that celebrate their local beer with a Beer Week all of our own. And later in 2009, LA Beer Week tweeted out the ticket information for the first fest that was held at Descanso Gardens.

After that, more breweries started opening around Los Angeles. One that has gone on to great Great American Beer Festival acclaim is Beachwood Brewing based in Long Beach. Back in 2011 they were just getting ready to open. Little did they know that the block they live on would soon house two restaurants with craft beer an integral part of the menu but also their own Belgium-styled Blendery as well.

Not all the news was rosy though. Just as it seemed LA was hitting its beer mile stride, Golden Road sold itself to SABInBevMiller (or whatever mashed-up name it is AKA now). I could find many an expletive filled tweet to illustrate this point but instead, chose another craft beer industry tweet to show that beer can be promoted on Twitter and then talked about over a pint while the video streams across the world.

But that is so last year, it would take a lot of scrolling to find that vitriol now especially when at about the same time, another brewery on the same road that was golden opened up. Brewyard has taken the mantle of the small and local brewery and will hopefully be Tweeting for years to come.

March 30, 2016August 30, 2018

Session # 110 – Reminder

Here is my pitch for the April Fool’s Edition of The Session:

With the possible lifting of word sanctions on Twitter, the Dickensian multi-part tweets from the likes of Patton Oswalt may become a quaint relic of the past.

But in February, Ray Daniels, the man behind the Cicerone program used the platform for a thirteen Tweet theory about how many breweries, are too many and if craft beer could become like wine with consumers buying based on varietal and not producer. You can read his tweets HERE or if you have great eyesight check out the image below.

So, before the 140 letter limit is lost, how about us in the beer blogging realm take one last crack at “original” Twitter.

Some possible routes to take:
-write your own beer theory in multi-parts. Be it 1/15 or 1/20
-use Twitter for your own craft beer April Fool’s Day prank
-channel your inner web troll and go all negative on a topic
-debate or applaud the points made by Daniels in under 140 characters
-talk about brevity and how it affects writing about beer

You can do it on Twitter or on your own blog or both. Just no Instagram.

March 10, 2016August 30, 2018

Session # 110 – Announcement

Here is my pitch for the April Fool’s Edition of The Session:

With the possible lifting of word sanctions on Twitter, the Dickensian multi-part tweets from the likes of Patton Oswalt may become a quaint relic of the past.

You can do it on Twitter or on your own blog or both. Just no Instagram.