One thing that plagues a lot of craft beer enthusiasts around the country and abroad is the limited distribution of craft breweries. Fortunately for me, Philadelphia is a great area that is lucky enough to get distribution from almost all corners of the globe. However, there are still some breweries it’s impossible to get. Enter the wonderful (and addicting) world of “beer trading.”
If a brewery has a good product, distribution, word of mouth, and marketing, eventually (if many other things go right) they will begin expanding and getting larger. Barring a buy out or shutdown of the company they may even reach the size of a Boston Beer Company, or a Sierra Nevada, or Dogfish Head. What is a craft beer enthusiast to do when this happens? How should we react when a provider of our niche product goes mainstream?
It’s obvious that those who like good beer like good food, as I’ve had some of my best meals at places with impressive beer menus. The intersection of these two things is of course cooking good food with good beer. I by no means am educated enough in the culinary world to start throwing out recipe ideas and the technical nuances of cooking with beer, but what I will do is provide some general guidelines and ideas that I have gathered over the years. I’ll also give you some of my favorite recipes from others that I have tried or seen in the past.
There’s an old saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” from Saint Ambrose at around the 4th century. In these words, we find a root lesson for cultural respect and conformity. These words ring true in one aspect of the craft beer and food culture — tipping. More specifically, bartenders across the globe have certain expectations, and you should know what they are.
It’s safe to say that the craft beer industry is not what it was back in 1995. A lot of small, microbreweries started in the mid-to-late 90’s and we’ve seen quite the boom in the last decade. In addition, we’ve seen the industry grow in sales, popularity and even seep into the fabric of contemporary pop culture. And this is only the beginning.
