The Garrett Oliver interview, part 2
In which we're talking racism, toxic masculinity, Michael Jackson and how to find new ways to communicate what beer is.
Well, back to the small conference room on the second floor at Brooklyn Brewery and back to where part 1 ended. Haven't read the first part yet? Read it here.
Do you feel that the beer industry is playing more safe now than seven, ten years ago?
– Well, absolutely! People are taking fewer chances. It was more curiosity, and I think that a lot of craft brewers have settled into a place where they're trying to figure out what the answer is, and they've come up with the answer, and the answer to everything is IPA.
Yeah, it’s sad that one particular beer style is by far more popular than the rest, and forcing the breweries to go by that strategy. Do you also think some breweries do it because that’s often a ticket to be part of the ”right festivals”?
– Yeah, this is how you gain admission to the “Cool Kids Club”. You either make what people think is a really great, hazy IPA or you make some kind of super sweet, heavily barrel-aged stout thingy that they only made five cans of and people wait in line for. This is the way you establish your bona fides in social media. It works for some people until it doesn't. There are breweries that are figuring out now that you can't be the new kid forever. It's like you're 25 and you're really good looking, if you're lucky, you'll get old, and you know what, you're not going to look the same. Hopefully you grow old in a good way, but you're not going to look the same. As a brewer my determination for many years has been to get older like a blues musician. I’ve got massive respect for the Rolling Stones. They're super smart people, they're great performers. They've had this band going for like 50 years. It's unbelievable. But basically, they've been doing an oldies act for 40 years, right? That is one way that you can do your artistic work. That's not the way that I want to do my work. I'm not an oldies act. I don't want to do things that I did 10 years ago, that I did 20 years ago. I might reprieve something, the same way that if I'm a musician, I'll play something from an album that I did in 1990. But if you're an artist, the thing that you should be most excited about is your latest work. And develop. And you're proud of your older work. I think that there is an opportunity here for the beer industry to become so much more relevant to people than it currently is. Because if you ask the average person on the street what is beer made from? They don't even know. People will tell us beer is made from hops. Well, it's partially true, but you know, by talking about grain, you actually have an opportunity to talk to people about how their food is grown. What I find is that when talking to younger people, they are completely fascinated by this, because social justice is part of their emotional makeup. They are scared of climate change! And frankly, at my age, I'm not as scared because I'm not going to be here for like 60 more years, right? If you're 20 and you’ve got to live on this planet for another 60 plus years, this is terrifying. The thing that I used to be terrified of when I was 20 was nuclear war. That's what we were afraid of, because it looked like it was going to happen. That's kind of what climate change is for young people now. So when you address this they pay attention and if you have a good beer behind it you can show that you're actually doing the work and you're supporting farmers. The beer actually means something. It's not like, how do you make a hazy double IPA actually have a meaning? I mean, it's cool, but it doesn't have a meaning. To me, this has a meaning.