The Past ... is Not Even Past
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
In February, this website will turn 15. Over those long years, that amounts to around 4,000 posts and some uncountable number of words (over a million for sure). Since moving to this new url in 2017, I’ve had an “archive” feature on the blog—but it’s just a list of months, which of course no one would ever wade through. So, as a part of the site’s new re-fresh, I have been slowly going through those archives myself. I’ve made a master list and am now arranging them by topic so you can actually find the worthwhile material. Go have a look.
Time isn’t kind to most blog content, which so often has only momentary value. Amid the churn of disposable chatter, however, are some quite valuable posts that chart the development of craft beer over the last 38% of its life. For example, through 2011 (the most recent year I’ve searched), I have linked to eighteen full reviews of debut breweries, and five are now defunct. They may not live on in corporeal form, but their memory lives here. Beer reviews, to point to a different example, were a big deal early on. (inIluding my first post, where I reviewed BridgePort Supris—which surely you remember.) It’s amusing to see some of my reactions—as when I called Deschutes’ new Abyss “average.”
Over those years, we have lost important, irreplaceable figures like Fred Eckhardt, Don Younger, and Michael Jackson. Other passages, like the sale of Anheuser-Busch and the closure of BridgePort, also happened on my watch. Fifteen years is a long time, and people and breweries come and go. I captured most of them.
Of course, the vast majority of posts were happy, celebratory affairs. Most years I managed to award a Satori for the best debut beer in Oregon. Reading through the styles of the different beers I cited charts the course of craft brewing: hoppy red (2007) → fresh hop (2008) → sour ale (2008) → kellerbier (2012) → Brett IPA (2013) → mixed fermentation saison (2017). In 2007 I launched the Honest Pint Project to bring transparency to glassware. I don’t know that it did more than ride the coattails of history, but it received a ton of national press, compelled dozens of breweries and pubs to change their glassware, and even irritated a few people along the way. (And in the end, the dreaded shaker pint—the villain in the story—has mostly been abandoned. Huzzah!)
Along the life of this blog, I witnessed many wondrous and varied spectacles, and observed trends and shifts along the way. For example:
Remember the time Sam Adams the brewery sent Sam Adams our mayoral candidate a cease and desist letter? I do!
Or how about the rise of fresh hops as a regional phenomenon? From the first post through a 60-beer odyssey in 2020, I’ve been covering the early days, maturation, and cultural movement they have become.
I had the great fortune to visit Allagash shortly after they built their coolship.
It’s sort of hard now to imagine that bars used to be difficult to see across because of the blue haze of cigarette smoke. But when Oregon’s smoking ban arrived in 2008, it was hard to imagine a world without the haze.
Breakside is a juggernaut now, but remember when they were just a nanobrewery no one noticed?
Over time, as my writing developed along with my relationship with all of you, I started writing more personal, reflective posts as well. They’re all there, too, charting the course of the blogger along with the beer.
Not every good post is identified yet on the archive, but it’s coming along. Beervana, a “garbage scow” of random beer content when it started, has become, when pruned of the detritus, a possibly-important repository of information about a time. Also look for more archival links appearing on Twitter, both timely as events warrant, or just because I’m in the mood. Some of this stuff is all right, and I’d like people to be able to find it.
So, if that kind of thing interests you, go have a look. It should become more complete in coming weeks, so follow along as I add new material.