Up in the middle of the night with little kids, something I seem to have been experiencing for about two decades now, is a thing rife with dangers. What ought to be the time of nightmares and things that go bump becomes the moment when you think you have crystallized an idea which, in the light of day, comes off as but a gurgle. So it was that I posted a comment at Stan's place at some ungodly hour. Yet, there may be something to it so I repeat it here.
I think it is important to think about what we bring to any question, whether beery or not, whether history or ethics. Maureen brings the interest in entrepreneurial achievement to her analysis – defining it as success – and sees the world through that lens. I am not entirely convinced by it but it is a good perspective if only because it is not the same perspective. I am also not convinced, Stan, that people actually gravitate to better tasting and local but I know you see it as a driver. It is also a good one.
For me, asking how much more pop culture can the Great American Beer Festival handle is an oxymoron as the GABF is pop culture and in the consumer society pop culture is a huge force in creating identity in the consumer. Some and likely most will always want the homogeneity that connects them to others, helps them avoid standing out, being regular – succesful in the eyes of the neighbours. Success in the market will always feed upon that need. Others seek easily attained distinction that buying (and gathering knowledge and experience about) a low cost niche product offers. Hardscrabble lies that way but there is a living to be made. But few are actually seeking the path of enlightenment that is based on authenticity of the thing itself – beery or not.
Craft beer is revolutionary but only in that it is part of a larger movement. The US craft beer movement coincides with the arc of trends in music like punk rock, in politics like the breakdown of party affiliation, in deeper shifts like the move away from traditional denominations or any religious affiliation. Like buying better baked goods or not settling for acrid industrial residues label “coffee”. People will still buy white bread and white bread bakers will be well off. But it’s not a very interesting element of the culture or indicative of where the culture is going. It’s just where it’s been.
To one degree or another, while have shaken off our “betters” and homogenized models of success, we have not necessarily replaced them with an improvement. For example, I see (from my high chair at the children’s table) the move in recent years to “pairing” craft beer and holding expensive dinners (in addition to celebrity brewers) as just another in a line of attempts to find that sort of improvement, to stake a claim for craft beer to greater cultural validity beyond its place in (and defined by) the market. But it seems overly self-conscious and, also, unnecessary. Frankly, given the slight tinge of neediness, I am surprised a Canadian didn’t come up with the idea.
No, we don’t find a revolution when we go looking because we are in the midst of evolution. A slower process but also more steadfast. Until it is replaced by the next thing – as is always the case with pop culture.
What I think is in there is the idea that no matter how we push or pull the craft beer movement (whatever that is) it will find its own angle of repose. If it peaks at a 7 to 10% market share, why isn't that good enough? Bagpipes and bluegrass are quite fine things but will never be generally embraced. If craft beer is pop culture, it is punk or it is bluegrass. It is not the top 20 and likely never will be.
