Each year during the third week in May, craft brewers across the country -- and those who support and love craft beer -- celebrate American Craft Beer Week, a product of the Brewers Association. Now in its twelfth year, the 2017 ACBW runs May 15-21. Brewers celebrate the passion and creativity of craft beer by offering special tappings and new releases, collaborations, food and beer pairings, and whatever else they can think of! Many of you will remember last year's nationwide collaboration beer brewed by a number of breweries, the "Biggest Small Beer Ever," an Imperial Porter (by the way, if you tasted the beer that Intuition Ale Works brewed, you know how good it was!). This year, the Brewers Association encourages everyone to "Beer It Forward": to promote "doing good, simply, honestly, without an expectation of reciprocation and with the hope that the act will be passed down the line." Everyone already knows that many craft brewers take part in numerous charitable causes from donating proceeds from beer sales to holding fundraiser events. On the beer geek side, we all like talking about beer: whether it's what we like about a certain style, the unique ingredients that brewers have added to their beer ("I can't believe they put that in there"), or the anticipation of a new bottle or tap release. And, yes, we've all noticed that we tend to see many of the same beer enthusiast types at brewery events.
The "Beer It Forward" concept pretty much is all about sharing our love of beer with others in a face-to-face way, rather than by "phone-to-phone" contact. Will we give up our beer app check-ins? Uh-uh. Our beer photos? No way. But, can we maybe talk to the person who might be a bit overwhelmed at the what-is-this-fuss-all-about-over-this-beer curiosity? Hell, yeah! So, get out there and "beer it forward" this week and do something good over a beer!
And, yes, you can use the hashtag #beeritforward.
There are ACBW events all over the country this week, and you can find a number of 'em here. If you're local to the North Florida area (Jax, Jax Beach, St. Augustine), take a look at the "Tap This" page right here on brewnymph.com, where individual brewery events are listed daily (took the work out of it for you, because who can keep up with all of those Facebook posts).
As of this writing, there are multiple day events at Intuition Ale Works (Jax), Southern Swells Brewing (Jax Beach), Wicked Barley Brewing (Jax), and Old Coast Ales (St. Augustine). As the week progresses, more events are likely to be added each day, so check back often!
Hey, with all of the news, opinions, backlash, and more about the Wicked Weed sale and the postponement of its beer festival plastered all over the internet the past couple of weeks, be sure to support your local craft brewers.
Thanks for reading!
Til next time,
Linda
Linda Johnson, Certified Cicerone®
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