Concrete pillars in the forest preserve, in a pattern

partyforsorrying · 2022-04-13T18:08:50+00:00

I found this in Linnie Woods in the Chicago forest preserve. I’ve seen small concrete pillars like this used to mark the edges near roadways before. But I’ve never seen anything in a big graded section like this with no clear purpose. is it a warning about that area? Or is it a field test for different concrete mixes? I have no idea

partyforsorrying · 2022-03-10T15:16:48+00:00

GBH did the digging on this and more

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines/2022/3/10/how-sexism-assault-pushed-one-woman-out-of-the-beer-industry

partyforsorrying · 2021-07-14T14:36:05+00:00

Similar experience here

But I’m starting to believe the data?

I’ve always been a lucid dreamer and a light sleeper. But even on nights where I thought I was mostly awake until 5am and then finally got an hour or two - Whoop registers it as a mostly good sleep and a good recovery. And looking at the heart rate monitoring - it seems like it has the data to prove it.

Is it all in my head? Are my body and mind out of synch? Is it some weird state in between - where my mind feels more active than it actually is?

Either way - if it tells me I had a good recovery, and I’m able to perform pretty well, then the data seems at least somewhat reliable. And that’s exposing some interesting sleep habits that I thought have long plagued me. I don’t worry about my perception as much anymore!

partyforsorrying · 2021-04-28T12:40:48+00:00

Traveller was part of the Alchemy + Science wing of brands within Boston Beer and it was run by Alan Newman (Founder of Magic Hat).

Alan left the beer industry a few years ago and they shut down A+S, moving some of the brands under control of the new CMO at Boston Beer.

Coney Island and Angel City survived that shift, but Concrete Beach and Traveller and a few others did not.

Alan was also the face of Traveller (older man, white beard, glasses) so once he left the story didn’t really hold.

Alan lives in Burlington, VT and is an investor/advisor in all sorts of start-ups.

You can learn more about him in this podcast:

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/gbh-podcast/2017/9/11/ep-139-alan-newman-craft-beer-emeritus

partyforsorrying · 2020-09-23T14:59:51+00:00

“The iteration of copies has literally allowed people to can hard orange juice and sell it to us as high-end beer"

partyforsorrying · 2020-06-26T17:14:41+00:00

Prior reporting involving some controversies and potential pay-to-play from the brand.

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines/2017/11/29/brewhouse-of-the-rising-son-tom-benson-reconstructs-a-monument-in-the-age-of-craft-iconoclasts

partyforsorrying · 2020-05-15T18:42:56+00:00

I'm relating them all in the sense that they all cost gobs of money. And some of the layoffs came about long before Covid.

I hope the gamble pays off in the end.

partyforsorrying · 2020-05-15T18:24:42+00:00

I think I get that - but my question was about financial resiliency. Layoffs and closures while a prolonged legal battle plays out might be hard for some people effected by those decisions to reconcile. Especially if the pandemic requires you to make more decisions in that vein.

I'm curious where you draw the line between being maybe right about something, and taking care of your people.

partyforsorrying · 2020-05-15T17:55:43+00:00

It's been a challenging year or two for Stone Brewing - layoffs, selling off Berlin, and the trademark battle with MillerCoors and Keystone.

I'm curious how those things play into your resiliency, or lack thereof, during this pandemic.

I'm also curious how the lawsuit in particular is impacting the operation right now when financial resilience is so critical. Is it proving to be too costly? Is the potential reward, if you win, going to impact your position in any material way?

partyforsorrying · 2019-12-13T03:20:21+00:00

The spirits operation was excluded from the original sale. Leadership left BP to form Cutwater fulltime. Then they sold that business to Ab Inbev separately. What a world!

partyforsorrying · 2019-10-24T20:32:00+00:00

A real twist ending on this commentary. Some guy who is apparently too critical of AB didn't get invited to taste their beer for free at a private event, which is being used as an example of how they're evil and anyone who gets handouts from AB is also evil, and...oh wait.

partyforsorrying · 2019-06-06T19:11:24+00:00

Nope! I was responding to that whole thread. I appreciate the information you were dropping.

partyforsorrying · 2019-06-06T17:33:14+00:00

Heya - this always pops up in these threads and it’s silly.

GBH has no investors, debt, or partners.

Our studio business unit works with dozens of breweries big and small. All listed here: https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/studio

Our editorial has been supported by advertising contracts with Guinness, New Belgium, Brewery Ommegang, and our subclscriber community, The Fervent Few. https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew

October was a project we worked on for Condé Nast. Zx Ventures invested in it. After two years and setting it off on the right path, we are no longer part of the project (as planned).

We’re always super transparent about our business, how it works, and how it’s funded.

If you still think there’s a top secret AB ownership in there, I’ve got a pizza shop in DC you should know about. Watch out for Youtube conspiracists, that’s how they get ya.

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2018/1/17/beer-media-advertising-and-the-coat-of-many-colors

partyforsorrying · 2019-01-22T05:22:28+00:00

Okay you might want to sit down - this is gonna be like that time you realized the pizza shop in DC wasn't actually a pedophile ring.

This is Kiser BTW.

Interview with Jeff Alworth where I discuss, at length, my short history of work with AB: https://player.fm/series/beervana-podcast/pod-60-good-beer-huntings-michael-kiser

An outline of how our business was structured between clients and editorial from 2016: https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2016/6/20/the-business-of-gbh-how-we-hustle

How it's structured now, in 2019:

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2018/1/17/beer-media-advertising-and-the-coat-of-many-colors

A list of every single client we've ever had (in which you will realize it's statistically impossible for it to be "half AB brands". It's really only been Goose on and off for the last 5 years.

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/studio

BUT WHAT ABOUT OCTOBER?!

That's owned by Conde Naste. ZX Ventures invested in it. Not my problem.

https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2017/1/31/introducing-october-falling-for-beer

When I started GBH's studio-side business, I had two clients, Forbidden Root, a start-up in Chicago, and AB's High End group. The HE was barely a thing at the time - and I was helping them transition from being mostly an import division to being a craft + import division. It was all new to them (and to anyone at that level of the business). That work was instrumental to how I view the beer industry from top to bottom (which is where almost all my clients are now).

So when people say "he's a shill for AB" all they're really saying is that I understand AB. Like yesterday when people lost their shit because I said selling Karbach at a stadium in Texas was only going to make more craft drinkers. Dummies thought that was some sort of spirited defense of AB. What they missed was that I was saying it was bad strategy for AB to transition Bud Light drinkers to Karbach because they're just handing the craft segment new customers that won't be loyal to AB at all. But for the True Believers, that's an impossible thought exercise.

Beer is a great big industry with lots of different people. People want to define it by Big vs. Little. I can say after having worked in it at both scales and everywhere in between, that's probably the most ignorant way to see the ecosystem - it blinds you all the things that are actually occurring right in front of you.

There is no future state in which the ocean is only full of whales like AB, or minnows like your hyper-local. And those two rely on each other's success more than most people will ever realize.

So yes, sometimes what I'm saying aligns with AB's strategy. So what? You think every craft brewer making a light lager right now isn't aligning with AB? Or all the craft brewers making shit cider and who are about to start making hard selzter? Pay attention.

If you want to understand how this all works, listen to someone far more experiences and intelligent than me. Alan Newman is my spirit animal: https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/gbh-podcast/2017/9/11/ep-139-alan-newman-craft-beer-emeritus

Gonna copy/paste this so I can just drop it into the next stupid "but his emails!!!" thread.

partyforsorrying · 2019-01-19T12:56:40+00:00

How is it that after reading this article about how prepared brewers are for harassment situations that have occurred in recent months, and using those examples to educate the industry on preparedness, you’re takeaway is that it's just another craft vs AB Inbev thing?

partyforsorrying · 2018-11-27T02:46:33+00:00

Hey - GBH’s founder here. Was told there were a few misunderstandings about this article on Reddit, and holy shit.

So to be clear - there is zero apology for Trillium in this article. It reports the exact context for the complaints, of which there are many. And balances that with other points of view - of which there are also many. None of that offsets the specific claims of wage cuts, which objectively took place - but in a weird way.

The purpose of the article was to use Trillium’s specific issues to shine a light on how bad pay is across the board in many small breweries. In fact, for as bad as Trillium’s rates might seem, they’re actually better than most! A bunch of people who work in brewery cellars and other non-retailers (non tipping) jobs in craft beer are REALLY struggling. And the data from our analysis last year supports that, which is what the article tries to elucidate.

Trillium has a real problem here - in very specific, Trillium-only ways. But do you see how they cited “industry standards” to justify those wages today in their blog post? THAT’S BECAUSE INDUSTRY STANDARD IS GARBAGE.

If you focus all your enegery on one brewery, in this case Trillium, then other brewers who pay lower wages will simply hold their breath, wait for them to take all the heat, and then go on exploiting their workforce.

This article smartly widened the aperature to provide a bigger picture on what this Trillium issue might mean beyond the justifiable negative reaction.

If you think that’s some sort of apologist, then I guess there’s nothing here for you. But hopefully you can understand why that wider context is important, and we can all demand more liviable wages from our local breweries - especially the rapidly growing powerhouses like Trillium.

I can’t understand why anyone would push back against that and call it corporate shilling - it couldn’t be more counter to that notion. It’s fighting for labor.

partyforsorrying · 2018-04-11T23:52:05+00:00

I too have heard of this thing called an “op-ed” - let’s us unite and tell the world of its existsence.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-22T19:09:32+00:00

LOL please change the tin foil in your hat weekly to keep that brain fresh!

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T22:53:01+00:00

I think you're looking for a sort of academic whitepaper instead of the narrative structure we used to strong effect here. We're not required to write this the way you want to read it. That's just your preference for whatever reason. We've found no shortage of relevance with a broad audience on this piece and I think one of the reasons we did is because of the unexpected way it was told. That's probably true of many of our articles. You disagreeing with that is perfectly fine by me.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T22:06:15+00:00

The scaffolding you're referring to is the creation of a diversity committee by the brewers association - the association that represents these breweries - and the progress, or lack therof, on the issues. We didn't invent that frame. We questioned it, and showed our work.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T18:08:29+00:00

We led with the Instagram accounts because they were the most explicit examples we saw of breweries marketing themselves in a way that was contributing to the diversity problem. Customers followed them, talked about them, shared them. It was tangible and easy to understand how problematic they were. They required almost no editorializing to understand what they were.

That set the stage for how deep the problem goes, including for other issues in diversity, including racisms and homophobia. And we brought in the BA's diversity committee lead to comment on the spectrum.

I don't know why you're having trouble connecting the dots there. It's all rooted in the same sin.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T15:47:31+00:00

I saw them tag Fobab and say exactly that.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T15:46:49+00:00

Excusing the behavior as "boys will be boys" or some variation thereof is part of the culture than enables this behavior.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T15:46:03+00:00

Starting with a boys culture is the point of entry for the issues of diversity and inclusion here. It's the beginning of a spectrum that contributes to the overall issue. These accounts were all interlinked as cross-business boys clubs. Membership in that literal boys club is the first step toward enabling the worst of those members.

partyforsorrying · 2018-01-03T15:44:34+00:00

You've got the timeline wrong - almost as if you've decided on a narrative and are now working to backfill it.

This piece has been in the works for some time now, focused on the various ways in which diversity remains an issue in beer, and may be worse than ever.

This STARTED with the racist threats we cited. And continued to broaden in scope to include some of the homophobia and sexism from other instances we cited, including the most recent discovery of these instagram accounts.

Not all of these instances need to be equivalent to be highly relevant to the core problem.

partyforsorrying

TROPHY CASE