This is What Local is All About

Image via CraftBeer.com

A recurring theme in this blog is the community aspect of craft beer. Sure, a lot of the most well known breweries grow to be regional powerhouses, distributing their products across state borders to drinkers that have never been anywhere near where the beer is made. But in reality, the craft beer movement is all about the camaraderie that's happening in the tasting room, or at the bar or restaurant down the street. On a day to day basis, it's about the brewers, brewery employees, and their loyal customers enjoying a pint and shooting the breeze.


Blogger Bryan Roth gets into the details, explaining that "drinking local" is nothing new:

It’s actually infused in the history of beer, from the inns of Rome to the pubs of Great Britain to the taverns of colonial America. From the get-go, beer and other spirits were made locally and drank locally, even before all the crafty vs. craft silliness. 

Local beer isn’t just a new fad, it’s a fundamental aspect of the history of the drink we love so much. It’s what makes the effort of Matt over at Review Brews to drink only local beer for a calendar year pretty damn cool. 

So while drinkers around the country and world may clamor to local options now, the “drink local” movement is ingrained in the idea of sharing a pint in the first place. This makes our efforts today even more special, taking beer drinkers back to their roots of celebrating with neighbors and community members. These are reasons I’ve really enjoyed the exponential growth of breweries and brewpubs here in North Carolina, where it’s suddenly much easier to find that special, neighborhood pint.

Read the full post on Bryan's blog, which gives a nice shout out to North Carolina's forager friendly Fullsteam Brewery.