Barons Craft Beer Dream Jobs: Beer Educator

Chances are if you're a beer geek, you've thought of working in the industry as a brewer, bottle shop owner, rare beer taster, etc. Being that I'm in the market for a new job and am waiting anxiously to hear back about a couple of opportunities, I've spent a lot of time contemplating my future and what my options are. This has led my mind to wander to the "what if" of what my craft beer dream job would be. Over the next few weeks some of the Beer Barons will talk about what they would want to do, if given the opportunity.

Since my dream job doesn't necessarily exist (at least locally), I want to demonstrate its need by providing an analogy.

Imagine that you're a kid again and you've never been to the library (maybe the latter isn't too hard to imagine). Up until now you've only "read" picture books, but one of your friends says there's all these books filled with awesome stories, characters, places, and knowledge; the catch is that you have to go to this library to check them out (literally). So you go to this place and you're immediately overwhelmed by all the books. Being new to this you have no clue what authors or genres you like, so you start picking things off the shelf randomly because the covers and blurb on the back look and sound interesting. You take them home, read them a bit, and discover you don't like them, so you go back. Again you sift through all the books blindly. Luckily this time another patron walks by and notices your perplexed look and offers some reading recommendations. While this is helpful, they can't tell you why they liked those books, they "just do." With no other options you take them home, but again the books aren't doing it for you and you're tempted to go back to picture books. You start to think "wouldn't it be great if the librarian, book publishers, or even the authors were around to help educate me on the different genres, writing styles, and authors I might like?"

To the uninitiated, this is what entering the craft beer world can be like. There's a lot to take in and without guidance it can be too much. If you haven't figured it out yet the library is the bar, bottle shop, etc.; the books are beers; the librarian is your server or clerk; the publisher are your local distributors; and finally the authors are the breweries.

In a lot of craft beer communities the librarians, publishers, and authors are in the "libraries" constantly educating people, but in my opinion this is an area where the Indy craft beer industry needs work. I've felt for awhile that education is one of the keys to growing a healthy craft beer community. Outside of the great events our friends at Girl's Pint Out do and the handful of obscure events that happen locally, I struggle to recall any regularly scheduled "beer education" events. There's a wealth of expertise in this community, but it largely stays locked in those individual's brains or internally with the organization they represent. If you're lucky you'll get to hear some of it during a tour or at a homebrew class. If you look around the country, breweries and bars regularly put on events educating about beer styles, pairing foods with beer, glassware, and a whole host of other topics. People that are educated on something are less likely to be scared of it, more likely to be engaged with the community, and will explore more. My point is that the local industry needs to be more involved with the local community's craft beer education.

I'd love to be that person that helps coordinate, develop, and deliver beer education. Not only is my craft beer dream job something I'd enjoy doing, it's something I'm qualified to do (you listening industry professionals?). I've done science education research and training for the last 8-9 years, so why not switch out the "science" for "beer"? What I would like to do is help find out what the local community knows and doesn't know (research and assessment!), what they want to know (or should know), and figure out the best and most exciting ways to deliver the education. There's a lot that can be done in that space and I think this community really needs it.

So if there's anyone out there that wants to hire me as a "beer education/outreach specialist" I'm your guy!

Live a Rich Life and Breweries Giving Back

I'm always impressed by the heart and soul of the craft beer community. This year we lost a brewer from Stone; Mathew Cartwright was killed by a fork-truck. Stone released a beer celebrating his life called Matt's Burning Rosids. When a friend passes, brewers have the incredible ability to honor their friends by creating something named after them that may stand the test of time.

In 2011 Three Floyds lost a good friend and so they released a beer in tribute to him. The beer is Live a Rich Life, named after Rich Sheppard. Live a Rich Life is a Belgian style IPA from Three Floyds and De Struise. This beer was formerly sold on draft as Shark Pants. When it was released as Live the Rich Life, proceeds from the sale of the beer went to the surviving family of Rich Sheppard.

No matter what the circumstances are it's always amazing to see how the craft beer community supports one of their own. We could all take a hint from these breweries and do more to support each other.

The beer pours out a wonderful, bright copper-orange color. There is an inch of fluffy off-white head sitting on top of the beer that flows into beautiful lacing all along the glass. The aroma is like an all out battle between Belgium and the West Coast. Huge pine and tropical hop notes with a big phenolic kick in the pants from the Belgian style yeast. They marry well together to create a great and unique aroma.

Although this looks like it might be malt heavy from the dark color, the beer is surprisingly light and crisp. The malt provides a nice, clean toffee and biscuit backbone to a huge hopfest. The hops are obviously the star of this beer. They are full of big tropical fruit flavors with some nice citrusy tangerine flavors and a really nice resiny bitter finish. Although not the star of this beer, the Belgian yeast flavor is no backup singer. The yeast character blends so well with the hops. You get a wonderful peppery spice that accentuates and boosts the big hop flavors. There is a little bit of boozy heat at the finish of this one, but that's totally acceptable form an 8.7% ABV beer.

I obviously never knew Rich, but his name lives on in this amazing beer. If you're bored with basic DIPAs then you really need to check this brew out. Its unique flavors will dance across your tongue in their own hop mosh pit. This was an excellent beer, I give it a 4.

Our hearts go out to the friends and family of both Rich Sheppard and Mathew Cartwright.

The Instagram Beer Community

Yesterday, Andrew talked about creating your craft beer network, which is very valuable for a lot of reasons. For example, a good network can you help with:

• Keeping up-to-date with new releases/breweries/events
• Meeting people to hang out with
• Setting up trades
• General knowledge 

One of the "tools" out there for expanding and leveraging your network is social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ all have have significant craft beer communities whether it's breweries disseminating news, individuals discussing topics, or groups setting up events. One that you may not be thinking about or have altogether ignored is Instagram (for those of you that don't know what Instagram is, it's an online social media network that is based off of sharing photos and videos; you can "like" people's photos, make comments, follow people, and so on). I know a lot of people have stayed away from Instagram because you think "it's for hipsters" or full of people taking self-aggrandizing #selfie photos... and well you're right, but there's actually a very vibrant #craftbeer community on there. To be honest I'm not sure how I figured out that there was a huge craft beer community on Instagram... it just kind of happened.

Instagram's visual platform is perfect for a craft beer community since so much about beer is visual: the beer itself, label artwork, glassware, bars, breweries, etc. It let's people share and discuss all these elements easily. Plus you can see what's hitting the market ("oh look 'x' must've been released since my #@$#!! feed is full of 'x' pics) and get informal opinions on beers. 

I think one of the best things about Instagram is that the community is less intimidating than some of the other beer focused ones like beeradvocate.com. In my experiences people are friendlier and fairer when it comes to trades. 

The biggest thing I've gotten from Instagram? My current Indy beer friends. The majority of the people I hang out with I met through Instagram. 

So you want to be an Instagram beer star? Slow down there tiger. With any network it's going to take some time and effort to build; people are not going to just start liking your photos, following you, or conversing with you when you're new. Getting started on Instagram is a lot like getting started on twitter. The best way to get started is by using #hashtags to search the vast cluttered rabbit hole that is Instagram. Doing this will lead you to people you may want to follow. To get you started there are some pretty standard hashtags that the beer community uses:

#craftbeer
#beergeek (and other variations)
#properglassware
#(insert name of brewery/beer)
#craftbeerporn
#alehaul
#beermail

I would recommend looking at the other media on their profile before "committing" to follow someone as you'll find that your feed (the media that the people you follow post) can quickly get cluttered with things you don't care about... you may have seen their one beer picture in a land of poo (literally). I know some people, like Andrew, have a "minimum beer photo percentage" threshold someone must pass before he'll follow, and I generally have some guidelines as well.

Once you follow someone hopefully they'll follow you back (liking and commenting on their pictures usually helps). The other thing you can do is figure out which of your beer buddies are already on Instagram. Chances are they take photos of beer and follow other like-minded folk, so you look at who they follow and do the same; If they're really nice they'll give you a shout out. I picked up over a 100 followers one day because an individual with a ton of followers reposted a picture of mine. Just be patient. It took me a really long time to get people following me.

As with any community there's some bad things. It's pretty common that when posting a rare beer picture you'll get slammed with trade requests. If you're all about trading then it's not an issue, but unsolicited requests can get tiresome. Also, the beer giveaway (aka trying to get followers) meme is driving me nuts at the moment.

Take your time, see what's out there, and figure out what works best for you. As with everything craft beer related, it's about having fun and finding people to share the experience. You can look for us on Instagram while you're there:

Russ- therussb
Andrew- TheEmptyCan
Brie- brie3981
El Duque- lukelofland
Kevin- beerdaddyblog
Owen- theillumin8tor
Steve- profbeer

Creating Your Craft Beer Network

We've all been told that in your professional life networking is everything. As a sales guy, my whole world revolves around knowing the right people and making as many friends as possible. It's obvious in business. Not as obvious when it comes to beer. We all have friends locally that we drink with, and probably have some college or high school friends that we see a couple times a year when we travel, but a lot of new guys to the scene haven't started creating beer contacts.

Particularly when you are getting into craft beer, there is good reason to invest the time into building a craft beer network. Like in business, make sure you're using the right tools to help strengthen your network.

First, talk to people you know. If your best friend from college is in St. Louis, make sure he knows you love beer. If you're interested in breweries in his area tell him. That way if you go out to hang, he will be more understanding when you drag him to Schlafly (or whatever brewery is in the area). Also, if a beer you're interested in drops make sure he knows it's coming. It may shock you but a lot of your friends are willing to pick up a beer and hold on to it for you. Consider it held ransom for fun.

Second, use technology. I recently got back from a really cool symposium about craft beer writing in Lexington, Kentucky. Since I knew I was heading that way, I went out to twitter and instagram to ask for hot spots to check out. This is a tactic I take almost every time I travel. No one knows the best spots better than locals, and as you develop a social network you will be surprised at how many people have already traveled wherever you're going, and most craft beer geeks are willing to tell you where to go and some may even meet you there for a pint. I learned about some good breweries to check out, great bars to hit up, ands a few totally unique liquor stores that helped make my trip awesome. Beer Advocate and Rate Beer also have forums that do a great job of connecting people. Another resource is seekabrew.com, where you can research distribution footprints to find what breweries are available in the state you are visiting that you might not have access to in your state.

Third, check out local blogs. Not to toot my own horn but blogs can be a solid resource for what's going on in an area. We keep local events and beer releases up on our Facebook page and have regular posts about them. A quick Google search for "Craft beer (insert state)" or "(insert state) beer blog" will give you a ton of results. If you can't find what you need on their page, send the bloggers an email. There's nothing we like better than trying to help people navigate the Indiana craft beer scene.

People regularly talk about craft beer as a community, and that's because traditionally we want to help other craft beer lovers. We're all on the same team trying to push good beer forward whenever we can. Use your network, use the community, and go out and try some new beers!

Pilgramage: Rhinegeist Brewing Co.

After Winterfest, I had basically fallen in love with Truth, an IPA by Rhinegeist, so on our way back from Lexington, the Little Lady and I decided to make a stop in Cincinnati, OH to check out the brewery in person.

The brewery is located in an area that used to be called "Over the Rhine" which was host to much of Cincinnati's German immigrant population, at one point getting over 43,000 people strong. People spoke German, ate German and most importantly drank German. Rhinegeist is a nod to the German heritage of the area. The name translates Ghost of the Rhine, remembering the people that came before and really helped bring that rich brewing tradition to the Midwest.

Rhinegeist pulls from the area's incredible German heritage and is obviously one of many businesses that seem to be helping to gentrify the beautiful old buildings in this part of Cincinnati. So often, when you go to a brewery downtown you're stuck with street parking, but Rhinegeist hooks it up with a lot across the street from their building.

Rhinegeist is housed in a beautiful old brick building that housed a bottling facility at the end of the 1800's. When we went through the door, I was surprised to see a set of stairs in front of me. There wasn't a lot of indication that the brewery was upstairs, but there really weren't any other options, so I started walking up. When I got to the next floor, I was surprised to see that there was no door on this floor, but there were more stairs. Up I went for three floors before finally finding the brewery, but when I did I was in awe of how amazing the space was.

The brewery occupies the top floor of this beautiful old building. The room is an easy thirty feet tall with huge windows all around and skylights that let tons of natural light into the room. There are hand made picnic tables made out of pipes and reclaimed wood. This created a bright contrast to all the old brick and concrete that form the rest of the building. Tanks and brewing equipment were right there in the middle of the open tap house space. The tables were all huge, which encouraged you to sit with someone you may not know and have a chat. This really is one of the biggest things that I think we're missing in Indy. All of our breweries that do pint sales have intimate drinking spaces. There are small tables that don't encourage any interaction. This place looked a lot like an old school German beer hall.

The bar had a great industrial vibe to it and about ten beers on tap. They had their three staple beers and some outstanding seasonals on the chalk board menu. Beers were being served in tasters, pint glasses and snifters, giving Rhinegeist options for any beer that they're bringing to the table.

I was pretty disappointed that they didn't have any cans available. There weren't even coolers that would say that cans would be there in soon. Since they just started canning a few weeks ago, I will give them the pass for now.

I got their Gramps, American Barleywine. It came in at 8.8 ABV and had a wonderful bitter American hop profile. It poured out a red orange color with a thin layer of off white head on top. There was a big hop aroma right up front, and the hops continued nicely into the flavor. The beer had a huge sweet candy malt flavor but was cut nicely with the strong citrus flavor of the American hops. This brew was missing some of the big dark fruits and sherry notes that I look for in a barleywine, but that could be because it was fresh. I prefer most of my barelywines aged at least a year or so. All this flavor did an awesome job hiding the taste from the big alcohol. This was a wonderfully balanced brew and if it wasn't so boozy and it hadn't been noon I probably would have had a few more.

It's exciting stuff because these guys have just started selling cans at the end of January to their local market. They started with two styles: Cougar Golden Ale an easy drinking, very accessible beer and Truth IPA. Truth IPA is a big, flavorful, hopped beer that I fell in love with at the first sip.

I'm really impressed because these guys just came to the market in June of 2013. That means in just about eight months they've gone from not existing to canning beers and the cans look awesome. If they keep up the quality, these guys are going to be a driving force here in the Midwest. I can't wait for them to add Indiana to their distribution foot print. 

If you have time to make the drive this Friday, Rhinegeist is releasing their Saber Tooth Tiger Double IPA. It should be a great beer and a great party! Cheers.