Beer and Pavement

During my recent hiatus/momentary lack of inspiration^[1], I missed some opportunities to participate in sessions of different sorts. I had contributed to several monthly Session posts before running out of ideas a month or two ago. One of those missed sessions happened on Friday. The topic revolved around what drives beer bloggers, something I’ve struggled with in recent weeks. In an effort to keep things fresh around here, I’ll attempt to respond (albeit late) as briefly as I can^[2].

What drives us to blog about beer – or at least what drives me – is the quest to promote beer (especially of the artisinal variety^[3]) to the masses. We do this because we feel a specific perspective has yet to be shared, a perspective that will make it clear to skeptics why craft beer really is as amazing as we all think it is. And if we’re successful at making our case, the craft beer boom will continue, insuring that there is quality craft beer selections in every bar, restaurant, grocery, bus station, and elementary school to quench our undying thirst for the sweet, dank, pucker-inducing, bubbly, good stuff we crave.

Of course, this is what drives most bloggers who write about any product. We want what we love to succeed and feel we can make the case for said success through promotion via social media, in this case, the blog. Maybe it’s more narcissistic than that^[4], but I believe that the motivation behind beer blogging is a good one that goes beyond “look what I got to drink.” The same goes for film, music, about whatever one blogs.

Still, maybe what really drives us to blog about beer is the excuse to drink more beer. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Notes:
1 Call it an existential crisis or whatever. I was beginning to both feel the pressure to post as well as the the fact that not too many people really care about what I think.
2 This is part of my new strategy to keep posting. Maybe if I go back to shorter posts, I’ll get more content out there, stuff I can develop down the line. Plus, I often over-think my posts and that’s not possible if I keep them short.
3 I interchange “artisanal” and “craft” all the time. Let’s not get hung up on the labels. I get that for some, these two terms are not the same. Additionally, “craft” beer has a very different meaning in the UK. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll stick to the American definition, in case that wasn’t clear before.
4 Who am I kidding? Blogging is an exercise in narcissism. It’s better that we acknowledge this and move on.