Year-End Thanks
At pFriem earlier this year with family.
As we come to the end of the year, I have some thanks to offer. This blog—website if we’re feeling fancy—looks like a one-man job. It’s not; far from it. It’s true that I am the one who writes it, but I couldn’t do that without support, and I wouldn’t do it without the folks who come here to read and engage.
Readers actually support this site. I know, it amazes me, too! Dozens of you chip in hard-earned dollars that you might otherwise put toward tasty lagers and ales. Some of you make one-time donations, while others set up monthly giving. When I go into KoFi, the app that facilitates these transactions, I marvel when I see your names. It is incredibly generous of you and I feel a rush of gratitude every time I think of you. Seriously, it means a lot.
Guinness was the first sponsor of this blog and has been with me since 2016. I know parent company Diageo is a ginormous multinational drinks corporation, but I have known the people who work for the small Guinness part of it for seven years now, and I consider them friends. As you know, they opened a new brewery in Chicago this year, which I was able to go see this fall. It felt like a homecoming. Guinness has a new leader in North America named Rodney Williams. I met him over the summer and interviewed him for a piece that will appear sometime in the new year. Now I feel like he’s a friend, too.
pFriem Family Brewers is one of Oregon’s most celebrated and admired breweries, and it was a thrill to have them join me as a sponsor two years ago. Over the past year, pFriem introduced a new year round Lager, reimagined a West Coast IPA, and collaborated on a Czech-style výčepní—among many other things. pFriem sets the standard for quality in the beer industry, and they have been a major reason lagers are such a big deal in Oregon.
Breakside Brewery joined me this year, and we had a wonderful if shorter-than-expected series of “fireside chats” as a result of our partnership. Like pFriem, Breakside is an enormously influential American brewery, and this year brewmaster Ben Edmunds received the Scherher award, one of the biggest honors a brewer can receive. Much as pFriem has transformed the lager landscape in Oregon, Breakside has been on the forefront of developing new hoppy beers.
You are the awesomest, every one of you. Thanks!
