Beervana Community 2022 Relaunch
I am delighted to announce that the Beervana Community will relaunch in 2022, and we’ve planned a more robust and engaged program. New collaborator Will Reddy has stepped forward to help shepherd this endeavor (more on him below), and he even has relevant skills and experience in these things! If 2021 was a proof of concept, in 2022 we should really dial things in.
This experiment began as a way of crowdsourcing support for this site, but I’d hoped to make it a more engaged and fun project that would bring members together. This year, we should deliver on that promise. If you’re interested in participating in the community or just want to support the work I do at this site, you can join or donate here. To join, sign up for a recurring donation of $1 or more a month or make a one-time donation of $12 or more and I’ll put you on the list. If this seems tedious and you’d like to donate but skip the events, that’s fine, too. Finally, this is purely an add-on to the blog, and if it doesn’t interest you, no worries—nothing will change here.
Read on for more about the project and our new point person.
Getting together
Beer is fundamentally social, and has been for thousands of years. We come together to share a beer, or we share a beer when we come together—either way, humans have been doing it for at least 10,000 years. Especially as we struggle through the isolation of a pandemic, I thought it would be great to gather with some of the people who visit this site. We clearly share a passion for beer, and I have always enjoyed meeting readers.
This year we’re going to meet more reliably and let the program evolve as members of the community engage and guide it with their preferences. Will Reddy, the new Community Director (Liaison? Guide? Coordinator?—title TBD), works at a Virginia university directing an academic program with its own community component. What good fortune to have his skills guiding us!
An approach he’s found successful is launching something first to create a point of focus, and then inquiring about how it went and what needs tuning up. Our plan is to shoot for an inaugural event in about a month with a cool guest, just to kick things off. Will will be the point person on communication with the group and he’ll be asking for feedback about where you want to go moving forward. The plan is to have events roughly monthly except in the summer, when we may go dormant while people are playing in the sunshine. I’ll be collaborating with Will throughout the year and of course I’ll join the events.
Join Now
If you are a continuing member and are still interested, this year should build on what we started last year. New members can sign up here. There may be some additional fringe benefits for joining. Last year I sent out a new chapter from the Beer Bible before the book came out. I also prepared some info on saison before our guided tasting. There might be more of that this year, though the real pleasure will come in spending time together.
I’ve tried to set the price point as low as possible for participation, but I know even twelve bucks can be too large a hurdle for some folks. (When I was in my 20s, there were times I didn’t have any spare money.) If that’s your situation, ping me. We’ll figure something out.
All right my friends, I look forward to seeing you soon!