Tag Archives: hard conversations

The Session 105: The Quick and the Lively

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic.

Has “The Sessions” run it’s course & is beer blogging over? Is it wanky?

I mean, let’s not lie. Beer blogging is often wanky. But it’s often not, and it doesn’t have to be.

As a group, we beer bloggers have a tendency to get fairly deep in our navel-gazing. We talk beer reviews, we talk brewing, and we talk rare beers. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that, until it becomes the only thing we talk about.

But when we step out of our comfort zones of flavor and rarity and “here’s what I made” and into harder topics, it becomes more.… Continue reading →

She wears short skirts. I wear t-shirts.

And I seem to be more welcome because of it.

Welcome to my late entry to The Session. And thanks to that damn catchy Taylor Swift song for the title.

A year or more ago, long before Beer 3Up, I was at some beer event with Karl of Guys Drinking Beer, and he asked me what I thought the ratio was of men to women at the event. The answer, based on looking around was, “pretty even.” But I couldn’t help following up with a comment that though there appeared to be even numbers of (apparent) men and women in the group, almost no one was presenting as particularly feminine.

I think this is common. And I suspect it’s femphobia in the beer community.… Continue reading →

You Poured Me “The Hard Stuff” – The Session 103

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic.

I’ve written for the Session before, but this is my first time hosting. I asked folks to tell me what they believe are issues the beer community finds difficult to discuss, and I must say, it’s fantastic to see what folks have to say. I’ll update this post as more posts come in, and probably do a second round-up next Friday. But, for now, let’s dive into what people have already said.

Interestingly, though I doubt any of these folks know each other, the first five I link to are a fantastic group of posts because one naturally leads to the other.… Continue reading →

Announcing The Session: “The Hard Stuff”

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic.

I’ll be hosting September’s Session with folks’ posts going up on Friday the fourth. For this session, I’m asking my fellow beer bloggers two related qustion questions:

  1. What do you want people in beer culture to be talking about that we’re not?
  2. What do you have to say on the topic(s)?

“Beer” is its own subculture at this point. There’s an expected “look” and expected desires. Beer festivals are everywhere. Beer blogs flourish; indeed at this point there’s reasonable sub categories for them. New breweries are popping up at record pace; the US alone has more than 3,000.… Continue reading →

I Do; Maybe I Should Not

CW: Rape, victim-blaming

A tweet saying, "i never stay at any event where men outnumber women because it isn't safe and if anything happens first question will be: what were you doing there #inourshoes."

I have made a substantial portion of my life in traditionally male-dominated spaces. Currently, it’s the beer industry.

Beer, the beverage, is alcoholic. The beer drinker is predominately male (64% of US men vs 29% of US women consume beer2). The beer blogger is exceptionally male (82%3). The beer festival attendee is usually male (>50%4).

In other words, to do that which I love these means going to a lot of these spaces where I will be outnumbered by men, while most of us have been consuming some or a lot of alcohol. And I think about it every time I attend a beer event.

Alcohol is assumed to be a huge factor in sexual assaults. Sure, the National Institutes of Health subgroup, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that alcohol was consumed “by the perpetrator, the victim, or both” in roughly half of all sexual assault cases.… Continue reading →