For the love of beer

Why do we do what we do? For the love of beer, of course.

And according to a recent survey put out by the Beer Bloggers Conference (which is happening right now, incidentally) that's pretty much par for the course. A wide percentage of us (over 50% in most categories) run our beer blogs for the sake of personal satisfaction while simultaneously parenting, working full-time jobs, and earning zero dollars for our blogging efforts.

In a nutshell? Yep.


It's been a whole six months since I asked the interwebs if "ladies love beer" and after eighteen interviews later, I'm satisfied to learn that I am not a lone lady ranger in a vast expanse of burly menfolk (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Some other unsurprising facts:

1. Ladies do indeed love beer. 
2. In a world of confusing things, beer is one thing we are sure about.
3. The ladies who love beer also love: beards, beer-related crafts, other beer people, running (toward beer), and food (consumed with beer)... oh and animals (with beer-related monikers, of course). Obviously this isn't an all-inclusive list.

Along the way, there have been some other exciting developments like oh, say... designing artwork for a beer label (yeah, I'm gonna brag a little), getting hired to photograph some growler loveliness (and other lovely bits), and gaining a little local press (yeah, I'm kind of a big deal now). 

click to enlarge

Seriously though, it's got me thinking maybe I should take all of this a little more, uh, seriously. Or less seriously. Or something. So while I figure that out, and pursue some "real jobs" in earnest, there's going to be a little change-up action going on over here in this corner of the blogosphere. Things will keep spinning, just in different flavors.

Okay I'm mixing metaphors now. Cue exit. (Maybe it was all that awesome beer ice cream I had last night. The nut brown ale with chocolate chips? Winning. For real. I was too busy eating it to get a picture. See image at left.) 

So, should we continue with our coverage of women and beer? Um, obviously--yes. But a little thing called "real life" sort of gets in the way of keeping up with weekly features of all you amazing ladies, so for the time being (and since all the work we do here is purely for the love of beer--and not for pay) we're going to scale back to a monthly feature. I'm also thinking that a change in format might be in order. Just a thought.

It will also hopefully free up the focus of our content a bit to talk about other things, like oh, say, my visit to Cherry Street Brewing about a month back (still sitting on pictures and a draft of that very welcoming, very tasty exchange). Not to mention the informative, entertaining, and delicious Frozen Pints Beer & Ice Cream Social that occurred just yesterday at Cypress Street Pint & Plate with some of the local ATL ladies (who love beer). You have permission to be jealous, right now.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the ladies who've enthusiastically raised their voices in a collective "hells yes!" to the original query. Since it's important to have goals in life, it is now on my bucket list to meet each one of you in person (over a brew, of course). Some road trips are in order.

Also, this...

Speaking of "we," have you met Valerie and Heather? They'll be transitioning into contributing roles here on the blog, and are already doing a kickass job of dipping their toes in the twitterverse and "The Facebook." OK, so in truth Valerie explained twitter (finally) to me and I think I get it now (now if I could only figure out Reddit). And Heather has been hard at work enjoying her 67 Days of Summer (cause she's a teacher, dontcha know). You can read more about Heather's adventures on her blog, and if you want to keep up with Valerie's hijinks, you can tweet like a little birdy the live-long-day (or at least during off hours).

As always, I am faithfully yours in the way of beer. 

Cheers!

hb @HBJess

P.S. Heather is en route to the Beer Bloggers Conference right at this very moment and plans to give us a full report. She has promised to both "take copious notes and drink copious beers and come up with something cool to write about."

P.P.S. Got something you want passed along or other fun things to talk about? You know how to get a hold of me.