2beerguys beer blog

What’s $1 worth these days?

I seriously wavered back and forth about writing on this topic, but I have finally decided to take the plunge and ask the question that some of you might already be thinking.

Is Beer Advocate experiencing financial difficulty?

I ask this question respectively and out of curiosity. I understand their niche and the desire to be an online beer community, event organizer and magazine publisher. I would be fibbing if I didn’t desire to do something similar. With my current living styles and the current market conditions, it is not realistic to take 2Beerguys.com to that level. This is partially why Ian and I are taking our Craft Beer Education Series at a moderate pace. There’s the threat of getting too big for our britches vs. going too slow and becoming stale/bored.

My question is based on the following email, which was sent to the Beer Advocate subscription list:

Greetings from the halls of beerdom!

This week is American Craft Beer Week, let’s celebrate by giving “A
Buck for BeerAdvocacy!”

What’s a buck ($1)? Seemingly not much these days. However, if you
were to combine many and form a message to promote craft beer you’d
have the potential for some serious BeerAdvocacy to reach a
wider-audience … and that’s what we hope to create.

To learn more about this project and how you can help today:

http://beeradvocate.com/donate

To learn more about our take on craft beer:

http://beeradvocate.com/101/craft_beer

Cheers for the support!

Respect Beer.

Jason & Todd (Alström Bros)
Founders, http://beeradvocate.com

I understand that posting this question will invoke may different opinions within the beer community. I am only curious where the money would be going. I believe that they are a “for profit” business, so “donate” just sounds weird. Will this money be used to help smaller breweries stay afloat during the troubled times? Is this donation to help pad BA’s bottom line? I am not against donating… Actually, I frequently donate to may organizations, which also include participating in the Walk for Hunger, walked/run a Marathon for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and every year 18 hour Walk for the Cure of Cancer.

I tried to research more about this cause by searching for “donate” within the Beer Advocate website to see if there were any discussions on this topic. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any discussion. I was hoping that there was an open discussion to learn more about this quest.

Ian and I respect and appreciate what Beer Advocate is doing for the craft beer community. We might not be aligned on all thoughts and opinions, but we agree with the top level philosophy about making the choice. I feel a little strange “donating” a dollar, but Ian and I will be discussing purchasing some advertising at their hosted events and maybe the magazine.

In addition, you can help out by signing up for their upcoming events:

American Craft Beer Festival
Belgian Beer Fest

We hope to see you there.

Sean
2Beerguys.com

Drink Craft Beer, You’ve Earned It!!!!

(If this has inspired any thoughts/opinions/non-complaints, please add a comment to this blog.)