In part three of this ongoing series, brewer Allison Higi reflects on her experiences at a ten-year veteran of the brewing industry and offers advice on making things better.
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In part two of this ongoing series, women from all corners of the beer industry--brewing, distribution, retail, administration, and journalism--share their experiences. They are at turns illuminating, painful, and harrowing, and with each story reveal what it's like to be a woman working in the beer industry.
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The recent cases of harassment by powerful men have given people the opportunity to subject the beer industry to a good, hard look. What the #MeToo movement offers is a moment to reflect on that hidden consciousness we've constructed and how it might change if we include the voices and presence of women.
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I visited Sussex's Dark Star Brewing in 2011 and spoke with founder Paul Reed and then-brewer Mark Trantnor. This past week, Fuller's announced it had accquired Dark Star.
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The United States invented modern craft beer. But the model of plucky little brewery set on delivering tasty, handcrafted beer in the face of corporate consolidation is anything but new. A case-in-point is contained in this 29-year-old video, which seems remarkably contemporary.
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"He hung out with them—the guys at Portland Brewing, and the guys at Widmer. I think he thought, ‘These guys seem to be interested in this kind of hop; I’m going to hold on to it.'" The story of how one man saved the second-most-popular hop in America.
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The second-largest jobs website, Glassdoor, allows employees to rate their workplace. I checked in to see how breweries stacked up and some of the results were surprising.
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Why is one of Silicon Valley's largest tech firms encouraging people to steal from me?
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In an interesting development, Stone Brewing Company has decided to sue MillerCoors over its use of the word "Stone" in recent Keystone branding. The news was announced with the typical bombast for which Stone and founder Greg Koch are famous--but that doesn't mean the lawsuit isn't serious.
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The hop reports are coming in, and they give us a snapshot of where the beer industry is headed. In today's post, I summarize the more scintillating tidbits from Germany and the United States.
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Every brewery wants to identify that one beer that will catch fire among consumers. Different breweries approach product development in different ways, and there's no algorithm for success. A recent glance at best-sellers, however, reveals an important trend.
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After spending years in a private legal dispute with the city of Portland, Old Town Brewing finally took their case public. A relatively brief period of activism followed, and a couple of weeks ago, the city agreed to all the brewery's demands. There's a lesson here for future disputes.
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Last week, a large Portland wholesaler, Columbia Distributing, bought General (GDI), a smaller one. I spoke to some breweries in the wake of the news to learn what affect this would have on their business and availability at pubs and stores.
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Every time you pick up a six-pack from the store, it has already been sold twice before. That's because we have a system that includes a mostly-hidden middleman who neither makes nor nor sells the beer to customers. Knowing that middleman is essential to understanding the American beer biz.
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