Full Disclosure

Source

The media landscape is getting incredibly hazy.  The line between sales and content is not only blurred--in many cases, it's completely merged.  You may have noticed that respectable news orgs now regularly have links at the bottom of articles to other "articles you may have missed" from weird websites you've never heard of.  This is one of the more recent techniques.  Another is the concept of "native advertising"--text-based ads that look like actual articles but are written by advertisers--is now so established that even the Gray Lady does it.  The ethics of journalism are being completely overhauled.  Bloggers fall in a different category, but that doesn't mean that you as the reader shouldn't expect a ethics-free landscape of secret promotion and graft.

Just this morning I got an email from Craft Marketing, a company created to promote beer in the digital realm, and they invited me to sign up for a program wherein they'll ship me beer, presumably on the assumption that I'll write about the beer--and implicitly, write favorably about it.  I'm actually going to sign up for the program, and you may like to know why.  What ethics do I hold myself to?

Beer samples.  There are currently nine jillion breweries in the world--thereabouts.  I am a natural bottleneck in the flow of potential stories because I can't drink nine jillion beers.  I have never asked to be put on a brewery's mailing list, but a few have asked to put me on theirs (I get everything from Widmer and Deschutes and occasional disbursements from Portland, BridgePort, Goose Island, Ninkasi, Crux, Double Mountain, Fort George and others).  If I'm at a brewery, someone occasionally puts a pint in front of me gratis or presses a bottle in my hand.  My rule is this: I will drink any beer (or cider) a company sends me, but no promises that I'll discuss or review it, and definitely no promises that I'll discuss it favorably.  It's a relationship I'm comfortable with.  The brewery makes sure to get their beer at the front of the line so that it will pass through my bottleneck--but that's it.  I try to make sure always to reveal whether a beer has been supplied by a brewery so readers can judge.

Oh, I accept books for review, too, with all the same rules.  For what it's worth, getting samples is completely typical in the world of media.  I suppose because samples could be construed as "payment" to unfunded bloggers, the onus to admit you received samples is greater for the blogger than the newspaper.   But you should recognize that newspapers get tons of books and beers, too.

Junkets.  This is the hardest one to know how to handle.  I get incredible access to breweries and cideries, and that definitely influences me.  If a brewer walks me around her joint and indulges my questions for two hours and then we retire to the pub to taste and discuss the beers, that influences me; it just does.  There's really no way around this, and the trade-off might not look so good if you don't understand the alternative.  By being able to see facilities and chat with the people who make the beer and cider, I get a much deeper understanding of their products, and I pass that along to the reader.  On the other hand, if I don't do a tour, you get a completely unbiased opinion--and one with 90% less information.

I try to be as transparent as possible about my experiences.  Sometimes, the junkets come with considerable bennies.  The last two I enjoyed were in Seattle to see Pyramid (free train, lodging, food, and beer) and two weeks ago when BridgePort gave the media a big tour of their ops along with free beer, breakfast, and lunch.  As with the beer samples, though, these arrangements buy my attention, not my love.  Or anyway, I do my very best to keep it that way.  I'm guessing my pieces on Pyramid and BridgePort weren't exactly what those breweries wanted when they drew up the plans.  Again, transparency is critical.

There are junkets I won't take.  When I was in negotiations for my cider book, I had to pay for a European trip.  The publisher suggested that I get a sponsor; recently, another writer had Diageo arrange for a European trip for a different book.  I absolutely refused a set up like that.  Instead, I did a bunch of research and selected the cideries I wanted to go to.  I wanted to write a book about the world's best cideries, not the best cideries that would underwrite my trip.  One of them offered to put me up during my stay, and I agreed--by that time, I'd already decided on the trip.  A different cidery had an onsite guest house and they didn't offer to pick up the tab, and I happily paid full freight and stayed there anyway. 

Ads.  Almost everyone takes ads, and should, too.  There's not a ton of money in it if you do the ethically pure thing--Google ads or other products which are placed on your site by a third party--the angels ride your shoulders.  On the other hand, if you solicit ads, it could potentially create the appearance of influence.  I have an idiosyncratic blog and the content is totally unbalanced.  I mention certain breweries WAY more than others.  I have been accused of being "in the tank" for certain breweries.  All well and good--I am in the tank for certain breweries, but it's because I love their beers.  When I write an effusive comment about a beer I've had at Brewery X, I want you to get excited about it.  I don't want you to look at an ad from that same brewery on my website and wonder if the effusiveness was enhanced by ad dollars. I may someday revisit this decision, but for now it seems to work.

Products.  I don't solicit these and will reject them if people offer to send them along.  I just don't do product reviews.

Events. This is going to start sounding repetitive, but giving me free access to an event only means I'll cover it, not that I'll cover it favorably.  I get free mugs and tokens for the Holiday Ale Fest and OBF, but I pay to get into most of the others, like Cheers to Belgian Beers and the Fruit Beer Fest.  If you want to ensure a writer attends an event, comp him.

I think that covers most of the circumstances.  Distilled, the general rule is this: accept invitations and samples, but disclose them.  I like to think I maintain my objectivity reasonably well, but by disclosing these relationships, you the reader get to be the final arbiter.

UPDATE: This post, like so many, had they occasional garbles typical of an unedited post.  I have fixed the ones I noticed.

Note to Andy Crouch

Having just read a very long post titled "Another Lament On The State And Future Of Beer Writing And Blogging…" (ellipses his), a thought comes to mind. Let me draw you through its train.

To this comment (highlighted to draw the reader's eye):

A few months ago I got into a fair amount of trouble for some comments I made on the subject and exercise of blogging about beer. And while I had intended the comments to relate to my own experience in the medium and not so much to that of non-professional writers, it struck a particular nerve with these bloggers. Over the last few months I have attempted to spend more time reviewing the work of citizen beer bloggers. The result, sadly, is not a more profound understanding of the medium but a reinforced confidence and parallel to my views on beer writing as a whole. I’ve simply not come across many unique or distinctive voices in this new online community of writers. It tends to be more of the same sort of repetitive and highly personalized content experienced in the wider market of beer writing available to consumers.

I offer this example (highlighting a certain pronoun):

For BA’s 50th issue anniversary, I had originally intended to write about the state of beer writing in the United States but, as often happens, I became sidetracked into a different but related topic area. As the topic corresponded in part to the state and nature of this blog, I figured this was as good a place as any to offer the thoughts.

I often find myself reading books by wine, spirits, and food writers. I have collected hundreds of them and browse a few every month to see how the other half lives, works, and writes. And in truth, despite receiving subscriptions to many of the beer magazines, I rarely do more than quickly flip through them.... [etc.]

While pondering this advice:

Beer writing is often one long, seemingly endless love song to craft brewers despite some obvious age spots appearing in the mirror.... It’s time for beer writers (both professional and enthusiasts) to take the training wheels off their pens, pencils, and keyboards.

And then conclude with this note for the writer of all the above text: irony. And there we'll leave it.

What Starts Up Must Ultimately Go Down

Beervana is no longer the Number One Beer Blog in America. It's number two. I've fired my PR staff and beaten the copy editor. (Rule of thumb: always beat the copy editor.) We plan to go back to two-a-days, retool the spread offense, and adopt a strict diet regimen. No more screwing around.

Despite my loss, the Pac Ten has moved into near total dominance of the top spots. The new Number One, Jay Brooks, is down in NoCal, and #3 and 5 belong to Brewpublic and the New School. The Washington Beer Blog rounds out the top ten.

In any case, this is all silly, but it seemed appropriate to acknowledge that I've been knocked back a peg--for humility purposes.

Why Beer Styles Matter, and Why They Don't

All this week, there has been a great deal of discussion among the British beer bloggers about beer styles and the extent to which they are a pain in the ass. (It followed a seminar lots of local bloggers attended.) Of course, the conversation migrated to our continent, and Stan has a nice collection of links to the original post. Alan has his own very nice post. As I have talked about beer styles extensively here, I thought I'd take a pass. Yet the damn thing won't die, and so I have to weigh in. However, rather than go on too long about a well-discussed topic, I will pecha kucha things into two easy-reading paragraphs and you can ease into your weekend quickly.


Why Styles Matter
Most people don't know anything about beer. This is especially true in the US, where until the last generation we had rubbed out all memory of 99% of them. Styles matter because they organize beer by type, region, and history, and map out the terrain for folks who wonder why anyone bothers distinguishing between, say, Vienna lager and amber ales. In 1984, Orwell wisely observed that they "who control the past control the future." Beer styles did not emerge from the ether; understanding their history and context is enormously useful in understanding "beer" in the largest sense.


Why Styles Don't Matter
Ultimately, identifying styles just gives us names and a common vocabulary. Styles don't characterize the nature of a beer--they're just shorthand. Styles help collect beers together, but imprecisely--there's always overlap and confusion. Styles identify commercial products, and commerce has no fidelity to tradition. We can complain that the IPA from Brewery X is really just a pale ale, but so what? They can call it a platypus for all beer geeks can do about it. And of course, styles are constantly changing and evolving, so styles, even to the extent they're useful, are provisional.

Beer styles are like grammar. It's good to know the rules just so you know what you're doing when you break them.

The Man Behind Brewpublic

Next week, Brewpublic celebrates its second anniversary. Hard to believe--it's become an institution and feels like it's been around a lot longer. I understood that Brewpublic was a different kind of blog when I found a free bumper sticker for the site at the County Cork. Next week's festivities (which I'll discuss in a separate post) demonstrate the point: events every night featuring rare beers in what Brewpublic dubs Killer Beer Week.

The brainchild behind Brewpublic is Angelo De Ieso (pronunciation below!), but you knew that. Angelo's ubiquitous. I have called him "the beer gypsy" because not an event goes by Angelo-free. But maybe this is a better analogy: Angelo's a modern day Don Younger, and all of Portland's his Horse Brass. He is as much host as blogger.

Probably everyone feels they have a special connection to Angelo. Mine comes from a love of Mainers (like Angelo, my wife's from there) and the Red Sox. But probably nobody knows the whole story, so, to get ready for the big week, I sent a few questions his way. Enjoy--


Where are you from?
I was raised in and around Dover-Foxcroft, Maine in Piscataquis County. It's about halfway between Bangor and Moosehead Lake. I was born near Worcester, Mass but moved to Maine as an infant. My family has a strong connection to this area and my mom still lives there along with most of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

Do you have brothers/sisters? Where's your family now?
I have one awesome brother, Mario. He's two years older. He lives a mile from me with his lovely wife Natalie and my niece Neva.

What brought you to Oregon?
I kind of landed here on a whim. Like the Pilgrims searching for newfound freedom, I left New England after high school and a failed college try. I lived in the Bay Area for a few years in Oakland and San Francisco before heading northbound for Oregon.

How did you become a beer geek?
I give a lot of credit to my friend Shane who is a seasoned pro in the grocery store industry. When I firsted moved to Oregon in 1998, I knew no one here and Shane turned me on to the wonders of craft beers available at the time like Full Sail Amber, Spaten Optimator, BridgePort IPA, and several Deschutes offerings. It also rekindled an interest I had in New England beers like Samuel Adams and Ipswitch Ales as well as California beers like Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada. Shane has remained an avid homebrewer and I am grateful he has instilled an appreciation of some more flavorsome brews than my teenage go-to, Mickey's.

Do you get to have any social life at all that doesn't involve beer?
What is this you speak of? Actually yes. For some time I was deeply entrenched in the local independent music scene here. I still enjoy a smorgasbord of music styles and like going to shows (though I am not nearly as geeked out on it as my friend Carl who owns Belmont Station).

Why did you start Brewpublic?
Well, I began beer scribing after meeting Dave Dronkowski, formerly of Guest of Tap, which ran weekly in the Portland Tribune. Dave gave me a shot at writing to a larger audience. Also, Joy and Chris at Belmont Station encouraged me to contribute to their beer blog. Back then John Foyston of the Oregonian and you were the only beer bloggers I knew of. I'd read Lisa Morrison, Abram Goldman-Armstrong, and Mitch Steele (sic?) of the NW Brewing News and dream of being read like them. I pitched some stuff to publications like Celebrator, NWBN, and Ale Street News, but nothing came to fruition. After a few weak blogspot offerings of my own, my work for Dave really helped me to find a voice and garner some readership. Then in 2008, my best friend from college, Aaron suggested we develop our own site where we could work for ourselves. I've felt encouraged by so many friends and beer geeks to continue and haven't looked back since.

When you started Brewpublic, it was a one-man show. Pretty soon, I started to see Margaret Lut's name under some of the posts.
Margaret has been my right-hand woman and my biggest supporter through every facet of my life (can you hear Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" playing in the background?). She is responsible for many of the photos on the site (most of the better ones) and is a great field reporter. Her day job with the state of Oregon has allowed Brewpublic to travel to all corners of Oregon and even other places nationally. She's my best friend and Brewpublic wouldn't be what it is today without her.

If you could move one brewery from another part of the country to Oregon, which would it be?
I'd move Walking Man into Oregon so they'd be included in the SNOB events more often. Actually, I enjoy the fact that you can travel and discover new beers. It's a part of the adventure and mystique of being a beer hunter. That said, I wouldn't mind having more beer from White Birch brewing in Hooksett, NH. I think they're on to something very special.

What's the most underrated beer in Oregon?
Underrated by who? The geeks like us or the general consumer base? I think Pyramid/MacTarnahans despite a tragic and perpetual identity crisis gets overlooked by both crowds. They're brews are extremely well-built and utterly delicious. I really wish they were still called Portland Brewing.

What are your goals for Brewpublic--both in the next year and long-term?
That's hard to say. I would like to organize more events and expand to more readers. I am interested in watching Web-based "blogs" develop more journalistic credibility. It's seems obvious to me that print media is a dying entity and that the Internets are the future, especially in our region where sustainability is valued. Further, being online allows for more immediacy and up to date information. I realize it might be nice to hold a staple-bound paper product in your hands. It's frustrating to know that fluffy monthly or quarterly print beer publications can pull from what we beer bloggers put forth on a daily/weekly basis and that many potential advertisers still view mass reproduced physical formats with more weight. Those are nice time-passers, and the more support of craft beer the better, but gravely lack the immediacy that hardworking bloggers offer. I think advertisers will continue to realize the legitamacy of some online beer resources as we advance into the information age where social networking is becoming more prolific. I'd like to collaborate with other area beer writers and bloggers to foster a greater resource for diehard beer geeks and help organize a collective of people who write about and care about craft beer for all the right reasons.

Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
I've seen every episode of Cheers, probably at least thrice.

Who's your favorite Red Sox player, current and historical?
Funny, I am in the middle of reading Bill "Sports Guy" Simmons' "Now I Can Die in Peace." I've got so many favorite Sox so I'll mention just five. Pedro Martinez: his 1999 season and the years he was in his prime go unparalleled. His energy and ability to produce in so many big games makes his an obvious top pick. Ted Williams: I've never seen him play obviously, but to any Sox diehard, the Kid was the epitome of greatness--plus he was the last player in baseball to hit .400. David Ortiz: Big Papi's a man who could never do anything again and all is forgiven. His display in the 2004 ALCS makes his the clutchest Red Sox to ever where the uni. Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd: When I was a young boy I'd emulate his peppery windup and fiery persona. It broke my heart that he never got his due during the '86 Series because he was a true Dirt Dog. He wound up playing low level pro for the Bangor Blue Ox in the 90's. He was super cool. Bill Buckner: So much of Red Sox history circulated around tragedy until they broke the curse in '04. Most people only remember Buckner's big gaff in Game 6 of the '86 Series, but I remember going to see him play and being amazing how he could rake. In '87 I got his autograph at a game at Fenway and always felt sad for him that his life was marked by one error. Besides, it was John McNamera's fault for leaving him in that game when Dave Stapleton was the go-to defensive closer. Okay, so maybe I should start a Red Sox blog....(exhale)

How do you pronounce your last name?
/dee AY so/ (oh yeah, it's a capital "i" not a lower case "L")

Thanks, Angelo, and happy birthday to Brewpublic!

No, Jimmy Carter Did Not Save Beer

A curious meme passed around the blogosphere last week. Not the beer-o-sphere, though, the polit-o-sphere. It went like this:

If you’re a fan of craft beer and microbreweries as opposed to say Bud Light or Coors, you should say a little thank you to Jimmy Carter. Carter could very well be the hero of International Beer Day. To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large beer makers. In 1979, Carter deregulated the beer industry, opening the market back up to craft brewers.

I found this odd. Two of my great passions are politics and beer. I am one of 472 Americans who think Jimmy Carter's presidency wasn't so bad. I'm even a bit of an amateur beer historian. And yet never have I heard of this monumental legislation. Surely someone would have mentioned it before now. Yet late last week, scads of blogs--many from the MSM--picked up the story and ran with it. Carter's a hero! Forget the Camp David Accords, he brought us good beer!

I bookmarked the page, determined to get to the bottom of this. Fortunately, my cause was abetted by Alexander Mitchell, whose mind had been running down the same track. His conclusion? The original blogger, Balloon Juice's ED Kain, conflated Carter's much-praised legalization of home brewing with "deregulated the beer industry." After a lot of digging, Mitchell concludes that it's a classic case of urban myth running wild on the internets:

What I discovered is that, as of this moment, "Jimmy Carter deregulated brewing" is on track to replace "Ben Franklin said 'Beer is proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy'" as THE most popular "urban legend" regarding beer, thanks to people online citing the New Republic piece.....

Kain, for what it's worth, admits that there was no legislation in comments to the post. ("Actually Carter's deregulation of home-brewing was a deregulation of the beer market. I'm still failing to see how that doesn't count. " And that, of course, is the problem.)

I'll add one more piece. If you go to the original souce, you see a graph charting the growth of craft brewing in America; follow the link and it takes you here, to a March blog post about craft brewing (lesson: follow your links!). It's a long article making some point about " distributed biological production." But the key point, and the ur mistake that led to a thousand mis-appropriations, is this passage:

In 1979, Jimmy Carter signed legislation reopening the market to small brewers. This is an interesting and crucial point, because as far as I can tell nothing else substantive changed about the market. Deregulation reopened the market to craft brewers and the industry blossomed through organic growth and the preferences of consumers.

Very small brewers, as it happens. The author apparently didn't realize the law legalized home-brewing. (Amusingly, it did lead to a heated debate between libertarians and liberals about the advantages of deregulation on the one hand and Jimmy Carter on the other.)

Of course, laws did have to be changed: state laws. Bert Grant lobbied the Washington legislature to make brewpubs legal, as did the McMenamins in Oregon. States have tinkered more, liberalizing distribution laws to allow small breweries to get their product to market. But these had nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. He was cool, he just wasn't that cool.

Good Blogs

Back in the olden days of blogging, we had ugly, junky blogs. We larded the side-columns with text no one ever read, including a thing called a "blogroll." These were links to blogs we bloggers read and each was a little shout-out, a recommendation to the wee trickle of readers who inadvertently wandered onto our sites. Modern blogs are streamlined and pretty and foresake this old grassroots tradition. But I, a dinosaur, maintain my old jalopy of a site, and I keep to the old ways.

I've just finished updating the blogroll, and on the off-chance you are not a dinosaur and haven't seen the changes, let me be more direct about drawing your attention to some of the new ones (handily designated with an asterisk (*) for your convenience):

• Lisa Morrison, the Beer Goddess. Google the words "Beer Goddess" and you find a lot of other citations. But those of us in Portland recognize only one goddess, and her name is Lisa Morrison. All others are false goddesses meant to confuse and mislead. Lisa's the one.
• Billy Brew. Especially good on homebrewing. Today, for instance, you will find a post on yeast-washing. Cool.
• Beer Wench. Apparently the beer blogosphere is the Beer Wench's and we just inhabit it. Easily the hardest tweeting blogger in the beer-o-sphere.
• Lost in the Beer Aisle, Beer Babe, and Seacoast Beverage Lab. New England for some reason gets less national attention that its beers deserve. This trio of blogs may help spread the word.
• Mutineer Mag Blog. Magazines rarely take their blogging seriously. Mutineer does. (Though it's a drinks mag, not just beer.)
• Hoperatives. This looks like the Cincinnati Beervana. Not to give offense, or anything. If you happen to be from the lower Midwest, check it out.

There are others, and keep in mind that every link in the blog roll is a recommendation, so you should check them all out--at least once. As always, send me a link if you have a blog you'd like to be added. (Though a word to the wise: your traffic volume will move almost unappreciably.)


Update. Okay, a few more added: Beer Cave, A Pint for Dionysus, Brewlimination, Girl's Guide to Beer (London writer Melissa Cole's excellent blog). Oh, and I added back one zombie blog that seems to have awakened from the dead.

Bloggers Doing Big Things

Some bloggers are merely word jockeys. Some, it appears, have bigger aspirations. Dave Selden, who is a renaissance man and who (too) infrequently blogs at Champagne of Blogs, has recently launched an impressive venture called 33 Beers, which is a very groovy beer journal. Given my own attempts at designing things like the Honest Pint logo, I know that amateurs don't just throw things together that look professional. Dave's book looks professional.

It's a groovy, printed-on-recycled paper affair that is designed for field research. It's big enough to hold, but small enough to fit in a pocket, stiff enough to write on while holding in your hand, and contains enough prompts so that even late in the fest, you'll still gather the salient info. It also includes a "flavor wheel," that is way easier to wrap your brain around than this one, and also visual. Perhaps if we adjust our brains to the way diagrams work here, we could begin to understand beers by rohrshach. They're four bucks each (or three four ten bucks) and would make ideal stocking stuffers. [Full disclosure: Dave gave me two samples, but he's a cool guy and a Red Sox fan and even if they were lame and he hadn't given me any, I would have spoken kindly of them out of blogger brotherhood. But don't let that dissuade you; they're cool.]

Also busting a move are Angelo and Margaret at Brewpublic. I recognized this fact when I was in the County Cork earlier in the year and saw their bumper stickers on the tchotchke table near the door. "Bumper stickers," said I to Sally, "well this just makes me look bad."

But that was just a preview of coming attractions. Now they have branched out into video and events. For example, on Monday, December 21st, they are cohosting Gosefest 2009 at the Victory Bar. ("Gosefest" was my contribution--I thought "gose tasting" could use a little punching up.) This is a harmonic convergence of reasons why Portland is Beervana: 1) blogger-hosted beer tastings; 2) cool beer bars hosting beer tastings, 3) gose tastings. I tasted my first gose back in March (long write-up and treatment of the style here), and now there are enough breweries making them locally to support a gose tasting. Extremely cool. Good job, Brewpublic.

Gose Tasting (aka Gosefest 2009)
Victory Bar, 3652 SE Division St.
Monday, December 21, 6-9pm
Three goses from Cascade and one from Upright

Bloggers of the world, unite!

Upright Brewing's New Blog

The track record for brewery blogs is mixed. If you look to my left-hand column, you'll see a drop-down menu for seven--now eight--blogging breweries. When a post goes up on one of these blogs, it's generally fascinating. Brewers are interesting, and what they brew and how they decided to brew it make for good reading. Trouble is, brewing is itself a full-time job and so blogging is intermittent at best. Now Alex Ganum from Upright Brewing has joined the club--and as you would expect, his recent posts are interesting. It doesn't hurt that Alex is a pretty good writer:

Flora Rustica is a Northwest-style saison inspired by the small and adventurous brewers of Belgium like Brasserie à Vapeur. The name comes from the Roman goddess of flowers and also the fact that this beer has roots in the past. It uses yarrow, calendula and hops which all play into the profile differently. The yarrow shows bright lime and herbaceous notes in the aroma while the hops provide a spicy and grassy character. As it warms the calendula comes through more strongly as a tea-like flavor while the beer finishes appetizingly dry, bitter and invigorating.

I'll add Upright to the blogroll. In the meantime, I thought a full post here welcoming Alex would encourage him to believe that we will read along if he keeps the blog current. On the other hand, don't kill yourself, Alex--do get some sleep from time to time.

Thoughts on the Doc Wort Experiment

Gadfly (n) - 1) Any of various flies (as a horsefly, botfly, or warble fly) that bite or annoy livestock. 2) A person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism.

Over the weekend, Doc Wort's blog ceased to be. Portland, Oregon is so blessed with things beery that we not only have the most breweries--and probably beer festivals, pubs, and new-beer releases--but the most beer bloggers of any city in the world. You'd think that the 29th-largest city in the US wouldn't field interest in even one blog devoted to local beer. Yet we have a half-dozen or more healthy examples, established enough that we are regarded as regular media by the beer industry. Each of us has a certain orientation, a half-step different than the others, and together we cover a vast scope of topics that individually we could never do. The 29th largest city, sure, but in terms of beer geekery, we're Tokyo.

Doc Wort was the creation of a guy named Mike. His niche in the ecosystem was to be the broker of truth, the devil's advocate, the last honest man in Portland. Doc Wort was to be Portland's gadfly. Mike thought that there was too much groupspeak, too much self-aggrandizement, too much uncritical local boosterism. The pseudonymous Doc Wort, freed from the constraints of social pressures, could combat this tendency.

I think Mike had identified a real problem. In our small city, we do tend toward uncritical boosterism. In terms of our beer industry, this is heightened; the belief that we are one of the world's great beer cities (true) runs up against the reality that the rest of the world often takes little notice of our backwoods village, Beervana or no. We tend toward hyperbole to attract attention. A bit of bubble-bursting from time to time isn't a bad thing.

But somewhere along the line, the Doc Wort experiment ran off the rails. The currency of the gadfly is truth--uncomfortable or not. To the extent that gadflies are useful, it's when they have the credibility to stand apart from the fray and point out where the truth gets bent. Journalistic gadflies love to take on the powerful and show what secret agendas they hide. Mike wanted to show how spin and marketing covered up the sins of bad beer. He wanted to dull the winds of uncritical cheerleading for bad beers. Unfortunately, he decided to create Doc Wort as the instrument of his criticism.

Anonymous blogging has undeniable virtues. When I started political blogging in early 2003, I did so anonymously. It felt safer to criticize the powerful when I could do so from behind a veil. Unfortunately, as it evolved, the Doc Wort character started to become more extreme and more personal. The Portland beer scene is totally transparent. All the bloggers are known, the brewers make regular public appearances, and the breweries are forthcoming about their products. For the Doc Wort character to do his honest truth-telling, he needed to be even more above-board than the known bloggers. If he wanted to expose personal agendas, he needed to harbor none of his own--that's the virtue of the gadfly. Truth-telling, yes--name-calling, no. Toward the end, the Doc Wort experiment seemed one long, personal attack against enemies real and perceived.

I am glad the Doc Wort experiment is done. Portland could use a real gadfly, but Doc Wort long ago ceased to be one. Still, I know I will soon miss the niche Doc Wort occupied and I hope that Mike, refreshed from a break, will come back to blogging--adversarial, opinionated, cranky, and out in the open. We need no more Doc Worts, but a Mike or two would do Beervana good.

[Note: text edited slightly for clarity after initial posting.]

Is (Beer) Blogging Killing (Beer) Writing?

Over the weekend, Stan Hieronymus meditated on the state of writing in the era of blogs, inspired by the demise of yet another print publication, Britain's Beers of the World. I know most readers care about beer, not beer writing, but perhaps you'll indulge me and allow this one meta-post. (And indulge me further by reading it.)

The issue has been around for decades, as the audiences for print newspapers and magazines steadily shrink. Reasons abound, and only lately have blogs been added to the mix (inconveniently, the decline started long before blogging). As this is an issue dear to the heart of every editor, it has been one of the most well-documented phenomena in American media.

Stan locates a typical blog-bashing quote from wine writer Alice Feiring, the kind bloggers find irresistible:

Oh, to once again be paid to fret and angst over the specific word and nuance. To work with an editor, to banter back and forth and develop and like a dancer stretch for that point on the stage with utter conviction.

I long for the days when there was craft, there was grammar and there was poetry...

And so bloggers who have jobs that pay the bills other than writing, please take no offense. No offense is meant. But this is a lament, from those of us who have bet our lives on the written word, for those of us who have no fall back plan (actually, journalism is my fall back for fiction) whether the subject is art, music, politics, literature or wine, our lives are changing. No one goes into writing to make pots of dough.

For bittersweet irony, follow the link: it comes from Feiring's blog.

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This narrative is almost always told from the publisher's viewpoint. Nothing wrong with that; if your business is slowly dying, using the bully pulpit your magazine offers is obvious recourse. But for the writer, the lament's tune is different. When I started getting paid to write, the money involved was so low--ten cents a word was standard--that I joked it barely paid for the beer. That lovely writer-editor relationship Feiring describes is not offered to freelancers. If you're lucky, a copy editor will call you back to clarify the changes she's making. If you're unlucky (which is to say, if things are humming along normally), the piece is treated like a rough draft and what emerges afterward ay not be recognizeable.

Writing for Willamette Week was useful for a green writer--it taught me how to do actual reportage, keep my facts straight, spell people's names correctly (rule #1). But I braced every time I opened the paper. It would have been retrofitted into that WW "voice" (the one mocked by the Mercury), subjected to other nips and tucks and verbal photoshopping. In one memorable instance, an editor changed a quote from Art larrance, subverting the meaning, and justifiably enraging Art. I sent him my original copy, apologized, and WW ran a correction, but it was still terrible for my credibility.

(Tom Dalldorf, the editor and publisher of Celebrator Beer News never changed a word when I wrote "Oregon Trail" for him, bless his heart.)

The upshot is this: however bad publishers have it, writers have it worse. Newspapers still make a healthy profit. That profits are down reflects only the obscene profitability of earlier decades. Yet beat reporters get the ax, along with benefits and job security. Freelancers, paid a pittance, increasingly take up more and more of the writing responsibility. Pick up an Oregonian sometime and look at the bylines. If you see this tag underneath the byline: "Special to the Oregonian" you know the writer was a freelancer. She may have developed an article over days or weeks, done lots of legwork and put in hours and hours of time, but she was only paid for the final copy, by the word.

In the period I've been writing, the main payment has been seeing my name on the page. Editors and publishers know writers are hungry and will do nearly anything to find an outlet for their work. Throw a few shekels our way and call it good. After three or four years writing about beer for the print pubs, the effort didn't seem quite commensurate with this lavish compensation, though, and that's why I bagged it.

The reason writers blog isn't because we love not getting paid. It's because we like to write and, thanks to the dismal state of our opportunities, the deal isn't comparatively bad. We sacrifice our few shekels and a lot of readers (say what you like about Willamette Week--vastly more people read it than will ever read this blog). In exchange we get a chance to write what we wish. Fringe benefits include sharing discussions--and sometimes even a beer--with our readers.

I don't know why the print publishers are dying off, and I don't like it any better than they do. But the wreckage of this collapse tends to fall more heavily on writers, forcing them ever more quickly into blogging--which I guess is what fuels speculation that the blogs are killing magazines. But eventually we'll hit an equalibrium where the number of print publications matches the number of readers that can support them. Magazines and papers won't go away; there will just be fewer of them and they'll have smaller readerships.

When publishers look at this future, they get depressed because they imagine the people will be cheated out of the rich writing and reportage they provide. Yet this is why the publishers' lament sounds off-key to my ear: it's not true. The content will still be there, provided by the remaining print publications and augmented by a host of niche blogs. (Does anyone really feel less informed about the beer scene in Oregon in 2009 than they did in 1999?) The golden age of newspapers isn't gone, but the golden age in which a substantial corps of writers earned living wages is. We know what the future looks like-writing for free-- because we've been living in it for years.

And that's my lament.

Stealing Versus Using

Last week, Matt at Portlandbeer.org posted what became a rather provocative article on the ethics of appropriating photography. It generated dozens of comments and a hundred emails--so much so that he has since removed the post. The gist was this: without asking, crediting, or paying for them, Alameda appropriated Matt's photos for their commercial website. Many (all?) remain. It's not surprising that they would do this; Matt's an amazing photographer who is preparing a book of his work.

We live in a world where you can easily snatch a pic or bloc of text and post it on your own site. In some cases we regard this as appropriate, and some cases theft.

This is an example of theft.

I'm not a lawyer and I make an ethical point. My guess is that the law is also on Matt's side on this one (if not the lawyers), but let's not go down that road. We don't need to make a legal case here, just a clear ethical one. Here's how I would characterize it. As a society, we want to strike a balance between encouraging creative innovation and the exchange of information and discouraging the practice of profiting off someone else's work. Bloggers steal profligately from other sites, quoting and using pictures. I regard this as a fair use under certain circumstances: attribution and (where possible) links must be provided when appropriating someone's work. And the use must be non-commercial; that is, you shouldn't be using it to turn a buck. From time to time, I want to grab a picture off a site like Flickr, and when I do, I cite the photographer and link back to the picture I used. Although it's never happened, I'd pull the picture anyone requested that.

But a business is a whole different ballgame. Alameda wanted to use Matt's photography to sell their product. Matt will receive no payment for these profits. Even more egregiously, Alameda didn't cite Matt as the photographer. This falls squarely in the category of exploitation. The ethics are made no worse by virtue of Matt's intention to use his photography in a book, but it's worth noting that it does downgrade his own product. Ethically speaking, stealing is stealing, and stealing from a point-and-shooter like me is just as bad, even though I suffer no additional harm by the degredation of my product. But it does doubly screw Matt.

Alameda should rectify this immediately. Having already used the photography, they owe Matt money along with an apology; simply removing the photos isn't adequate compensation. If they want to keep using the photos, they need to strike a deal with the photographer.

For reasons I don't understand, Matt has removed his original post, which is of course his prerogative. But let's not forget the issue or overlook bad behavior. Alameda needs to make things right. And for other breweries who might wish to scoop up pictures or text from bloggers, a handy tip: just email us and find out whether it's okay. It's not rocket science, just good manners.

[Update. Looks like Matt and Alameda have come to (are in the process of coming to, something) a meeting of the minds, so the above case should probably just be regarded as an example. And boycotts, blood vendettas, and so on can be revoked.]

A Comment on Transparency

Folks, things have been getting a little heated on the comment threads the last few days. A blogger named Doc. Wort has been a mostly-supportive critic of mine for a couple years, but he has a sharp tongue. On the Dissident thread, he called me out for being ignorant of beer styles, and this created some blowback from readers. On his own site, he wrote a post castigating "hack bloggers," and although he doesn't name names, it seems pretty clear where his ire is directed.

I don't actually mind Doc Wort's provocations. He's a regular commenter and regular reader, and since I have so few, I feel thankful to all of you. Even more importantly, he's a good-beer lover, and any good-beer lover is a friend of mine. I blog because I love Oregon's beer and because this interactive medium creates something of a community. If you have an authentic community, disagreement is the price of admission. But at the end of the day (last call?), we are all brothers and sisters before the cask.

So cut Doc Wort a break.

As for some of the charges he makes in that post, I would like to add that all opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone. I receive no payment for these opinions, no ad money from breweries (or anywhere else), and no free beer. I do sometimes get in on a junket to a brewery or fest wherein I get a free taster here or there. (I'll be on one tomorrow when I go to a media event at Cascade Brewing/Rac Lodge.) But these are standard for the industry and I think reasonable people can see they hardly constitute enough of an incentive for lily-gilding. The biases expressed herein are not purchased, they're all mine.

Let's all relax and have a craft brew, whatsay?