Filmmaking, Writing, Beer, Insularity, History, and Other Topics More-Or-Less Related to “Beer Wars,” Part 10

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Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 6 --- Part 7 Part 8 --- Part 9 --- Part 10 --- Part 11 --- Part 12 --- Part 13

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

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Yes, I’m almost at the end. This is part ten of thirteen. And no, I never intended to string this out so long, which has resulted, I’m afraid in a more disjointed rumination than I originally intended. (Nor did I realize Life was gonna get in my face the way it has the past week.)

During the panel discussion, Anat showed a clip of Todd criticizing Rhonda for not making “real” beer. The general drift was that she doesn’t make “real” beer, so she’s not a “real” beer person or a “real” entrepreneur. She’s not “authentic.”

The exchange floored me. If the craft people want to exclude someone like Rhonda from, say, their trade organization, fine. But it strikes me as disingenuous to believe that they, and they alone, have the power to decide what is “real” beer and what is not.

And that gets at the heart of the matter (or one of the hearts, for this is a creature of many hearts): If the craft people want real beer, great. But their passion and desire for real beer does not grant them the power to deny other kinds of beer to other people.

Why? Because this is, after all, the United States, where we all believe in the “religion” of choice. It’s a big world out there. I’m willing to allow the craft brewers their corner of the world, but they in turn ought, I think, be generous enough to accept and acknowledge that not everyone agrees with them and their view of beer, real or otherwise. Nor should they render moral judgment upon those who prefer one kind of beer over another.

This is the essence of why battling over religion itself is pointless: If five people believe in five different gods, it’s clear that the “ real god” is whatever one each believes in. If so, then by definition, there can’t be “one” god. So why insist that your view of god is the correct one?

(And of course if I had the answer to that question, I would in one swoop solve most of the world’s problems.)

But the subtext of that discussion was, of course, the Big Brewers. No one came right out and said it, but in effect, they’re regard Rhonda as a patsy for Big Brewers, and, like them, foisting “non-real beer” off on consumers.

I have another view: I think Rhonda, and the Big Brewers are simply giving Americans what they want, and to understand why, we need to turn to the other villain in this piece: the 3-tier system.

 

Boston Globe to Stop Revolving?

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This via the Washington Post: The Boston Globe will likely cease to exist --- and sooner rather than later. Which reminds me of my ruminations/fretting a few weeks back about what would happen to a newspaper's electronic site, and especially its digital archive. (I've relied extensively on the Globe's digital archive in my research for my new book about meat.) (Gustavus Swift started his career as a cattle trader in Massachusetts and he launched his "dressed beef" empire in New England.)

Tip o' the e-mug to Rebecca Skloot at Twitter (@rebeccaskloot). (Notice how my Twitter reference rolls right out of my keyboard. Ah, how quickly things change . . . .)

The Race for a Viable E-Reader Heats Up

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More news today worth reading on the race to create a viable e-reader. This from the New York Times. Today's Wall Street Journal also contains an interesting report on the subject.

As always, there's no way to tell if this is one of the WSJ's freebies or not, although you can always try googling to see if it's beyond the barricades elsewhere. The title is "Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle," written by Shira Ovide and Geoffrey A. Fowler. One quote:

Gannett Co.'s USA Today and Pearson PLC's Financial Times are among newspapers that have signed up with Plastic Logic Ltd., a startup that is readying a reading tablet, the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper, that can displays books, periodicals and work documents. The device, which uses digital ink technology from E Ink Corp., the same firm behind the Kindle, is slated to be rolled out by early next year, and will offer publishers the chance to include ads.

Finally, this cautionary tale worth reading about the way in which Amazon uses its clout with authors.

Filmmaking, Writing, Beer, Insularity, History, and Other Topics More-Or-Less Related to “Beer Wars,” Part 9

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Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 6 --- Part 7 Part 8 --- Part 9 --- Part 10 --- Part 11 --- Part 12 --- Part 13

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

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Then there’s this notion that somehow Americans have only recently “discovered” the virtues of individualism and of supporting entrepreneurs.

Sorry to disappoint, but individualism and entrepreneurship are not particularly new, nor have Americans only recently learned to value them. Indeed, they are two of our most overt expressions of “freedom” and are two of the factors that make Americans and the U.S. unique. If that were not the case, millions of people would not have emigrated here. In the 19th century, for example, German emigres came here and opened breweries because entrepreneurship was valued in American society in a way that it was not in northern Europe.

Greg, Sam, Todd, Rhonda? They’re following in a fine American tradition: using the relatively unconstrained American legal and financial system — both of which are reflection of our American obsession with nurturing opportunity and individual liberty — to build businesses.

(I know that it seems like our governmental and legal systems are burdened with too many laws and regulations, but compared to other nations in the world, we live in a near-nirvana of tax-and-legal freedom.)

It’s also worth noting that during the panel discussion, someone noted that 120 years ago, the U.S. boasted about 2,000 brewers, individual entrepreneurs brewing beer for local markets. Just like, ya know, the much-touted 1,500 or so “local” brewers today.

Put another way: there’s not much new under the sun. I love what the craft brewers do. I admire and respect their passion and dedication. But they’re not unique. They’re not inventing the wheel. Which is why I said to Sam and Greg, check back with me in ten years: Because I doubt that they are so unique that they will buck the norms of human, and American, behavior. (*1)

Indeed, they might want to check with their colleagues the Widmer brothers. Back in the 1980s, Kurt Widmer and his brother, passionate brewers both, founded a microbrewery so they could make “real” beer. At the time, they criticized Jim Koch (maker of Sam Adams beer) for not being a “real” brewer and for daring to sell his beer on contract. (Contract brewers hire vat space from another brewery.)

Guess which beermaker, a few years later, shifted to contract brewing and then sold a significiant chunk of his business to a Big Brewer?

That’s not a criticism of the Widmer brothers, by the way. It’s an illustration of ways in which success, hardship, ambition, and so forth change the way people define their lives and their idea of what’s “good.”

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*1: But again, as I’ve asked before: Are we living in a new age? Perhaps there is something new under the sun? I dunno. Check back with me in, oh, fifty, sixty years. (Oh. Wait. It’s unlikely I’ll be alive then, sad to say.) (Unless of course this is a truly new age and we conquer the process of aging.)

Secretary Vilsack's First Hundred Days (Since, Ya Know, We're Counting)

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Back in December, I commented on President Obama's choice of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture, a job that, we all realize, has become an excruciatingly important. My immediate, knee-jerk reaction at the time was "Huh?" And then I expressed a different (and I hope more thoughtful) response.

That's all by way of saying that there was a good piece in today's Des Moines Register about Vilsack's first hundred days (since, ya know, we're all hell-bent now on critiquing and assessing leaders before they've even had time to figure out where their parking spaces and the nearest bathroom are . . . ) Worth reading.