Who should lead the Smithsonian’s Craft Beer History Department? Most of the buzzfeedy posts about this job are of the “bro, you should apply to this job to drink beer variety”. Easy to dismiss sorta-humor. But the real question is who?
And can the job become something more than just a historian and become a non-partial craft beer ambassador/arbitrator?
And a follow up to the follow up: Will the Smithsonian be creating a beer cellar?
OK, that last question is a bit much. Though a mega-bottle share at the Museum would be cool. But to answer my second question, I hope the position does evolve into something more. This is the point where I throw out names like possible vice-presidential picks.
Be it someone more in the mold of Ron Pattinson with a focus on the brewing history and recipes and pushing the lies away to show the actual history underneath.
Maybe an author like Tom Acitelli, who has already got book research and contacts under his belt from which to build upon to create, basically, an evolving book about craft beer.
The Cicerone group might also be a place to turn for encyclopedic beer knowledge with an emphasis on the actual practice of serving and tasting beer.
Whoever does ascend to the top job will need to be supremely organized and will need to balance craft beer to home brewers to business people and be able to create relationships so that future papers and documents and brewery history can be sent to the Smithsonian. Creating a future stream of historical papers (and e-mails, Instagrams and Twitter feeds) that will become a timeline of the industry.
But I do hope whoever the person is, can be out and about and interviewing and tasting beer and become that person that any craft beer convention needs to have as a guest speaker.
Which leads me to someone who I think might fit the bill, Julia Herz from the Brewer’s Association.