Category Archives: Small Towns

Authenticity, Sense of Place, Small Towns

Yuengling, Rolling Rock and Mare of Easttown

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My wife and I recently finished watching a seven-part crime drama called Mare of Easttown. The show is set in the small community of Easttown, PA. The main character is Marianne “Mare” Sheehan, a police detective, who has to solve a missing persons case and the murder of a young single-mother. Sheehan’s character is played by English actress Kate Winslet. It is a well-made crime drama, with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer engaged and entertained.

The Mare of Easttown is a drama which does a great job of creating what Geographers call a ‘sense of place’ with respect to its setting. According to Geographers Ken Foote and Maoz Azaryahu sense of place is “used to describe the distinctiveness or unique character of particular localities and regions,” Easttown is a gritty, working class, Pennsylvania community which has Rust Belt written all over it. Indeed, in discussing the drama, the show’s creator Brad Inglesby refers to Easttown’s “blue-collar vibe” In making the show, Inglelsby strove to capture the “cultural authenticity of eastern Pennsylvania”.

There are a number of ways in which Inglesby conveys Easttown’s sense of place, one of which is having Winslet’s character talking with an authentic Delco accent. The fictional Easttown is located in Delaware County (aka Delco). The Delco accent is “characterized by its rounded vowels and shortened long-e and long-a sounds” so that the word “water” comes out as as “wooder”. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Winslet said that “It is absolutely up there amongst the top two hardest dialects I’ve ever done”.

Promotional poster for Mare of Easttown

In addition to Winslet’s accent, another feature of the show is the fact that the only two beers that the characters seem to drink are Yuengling and Rolling Rock. Both have strong associations with Pennsylvania and both appear frequently throughout the series. Mare’s preference is Rolling Rock. I did find it a little strange that no one in the show drank Budweiser or Coors Light. This surely has to be the result of ‘product placement’, the practice of featuring well-known products in movies and television shows. According to a 2022 article in the New York Times, product placement is a $23 billion industry. It should be noted that in a 2023 survey, a sample of Pennsylvanians identified Yuengling as their favorite beer.

Historically, beers have had a strong connection to place. Numerous examples abound, including Pilsner Urquell (Plzeň, Czech Republic), Newcastle Brown Ale (Newcastle, England) and Guinness (Dublin, Ireland). The surging popularity of craft beer has reignited an interest in sense of place and what it means. Many craft breweries adopt names that they believe connect them with the neighborhood/city/region in which their beer is brewed. Thus, the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland, OH makes an explicit connection to the Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975. The entire crew of 29 men were lost. The use of locally grown hops and other local ingredients are responsible for discussions as to whether beer can have a terroir (a term usually used in reference to wine) which connects it to a specific place. See here and here for contrasting positions on this debate.

Yuengling and Rolling Rock – the only two beers that Easttown’s residents seem to consume

A key concept when connecting a beer with a place (or vice versa) is that of authenticity. Authenticity can be defined as “the quality of being real or true”. Dictionary definitions are useful as they provide formal definitions of terms. Equally important, however, are the terms that the average person uses to express ideas such as authentic/authenticity (and their antonyms inauthentic/inauthenticity). The work of Balázs Kovács and his colleagues, which was published in the journal Organization Science, is useful in this regard. In a study of the restaurant industry, Kovács et al. (2013) asked consumers to identify words that expressed authenticity and inauthenticity. Words that consumers most frequently associate with authenticity include genuine, real, and legitimate, while words they most commonly associate with inauthentic include unreal, deceptive, and phony. So what about Yuengling and Rolling Rock? To what extent are they authentic Pennsylvania beers?

The Yuengling Brewery in the small town of Pottsville, PA (population ~13,000) is the oldest brewery in the United States. Established in 1829 by a German immigrant by the name of David Gottlieb Jüngling (anglicized to Yuengling) the brewery today remains under the ownership of fifth and sixth generation family members. While Yuengling is also brewed in Tampa, FL (in a brewery purchased by the family in 1999) and Fort Worth, TX (under contract with MolsonCoors) it remains loyal to its Pennsylvania roots. It is an authentic Pennsylvania beer.

The same, I would argue, cannot be said for Rolling Rock. First produced in 1939, this American Lager was brewed by Latrobe Brewing Company in the small town of Latrobe, PA (population ~8,000 and the birthplace of golfing legend Arnold Palmer and children’s television presenter Fred Rogers). In 1987, the brewery was purchased by Labbat Brewing Company. Further mergers and acquisitions occurred and, by 2004, Labbat (and Rolling Rock) was owned by InBev. In 2006, Anheuser Busch purchased the Rolling Rock brands from InBev for $82 million. Shortly after the purchase, production of Rolling Rock was shifted from Latrobe to Newark, NY where it was brewed in an Anheuser-Busch facility. Rolling Rock had left Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

The brewery in Latrobe where Rolling Rock was brewed before production to Newark
The brewery in Latrobe where Rolling Rock was brewed before production shifted to New Jersey

When it was brewed in Latrobe, part of the branding of Rolling Rock highlighted the fact that the water used to brew it came from nearby mountain springs. Latrobe sits at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains. Writing for The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Nick Stumpo noted that the taste of the beer changed “ever so slightly . . . from year to year due to the sediments that run off the hills into the mountain streams that feed the main brewing reservoir”. This is effectively an argument for terroir. After the transfer of production was announced, one resident asked, “So will Rolling Rock now taste like the swamps of Jersey (with apologies to the Boss) rather than the mountain springs of Old Latrobe?”. Another stated, “If it ain’t from Latrobe, it ain’t Rolling Rock.” When the shift to Newark was announced, Anheuser-Busch brewmaster Doug Muhleman, stated, “we locate our breweries where we know we have an excellent source of fresh water. And, of course, Newark is no different. We are very confident we are going to produce a beer that is indistinguishable from the beer that is produced in Latrobe.”

Rolling Rock beer comes from the mountain springs to you

When news of Rolling Rocks imminent departure became known, there was significant local backlash. Consumers like Michael J. Pleva vowed “never to drink Rolling Rock again”, while local bar owners reported patrons shifting to other brands. In the State’s House of Representatives, House Resolution 798 was introduced. It read:

“A Resolution urging Pennsylvania residents to boycott Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., by discontinuing the purchase of all Anheuser-Busch products if Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., proceeds with its plan to close the Rolling Rock Brewery in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.”

These responses are understandable. Nick Stumpo suggests that Latrobe “owes its identity and national recognition” to Rolling Rock, a beer “embraced by mill and steel workers who shared pints after long days on the job”. Local restaurant owner Joyce Stern referred to Rolling Rock as “an icon. It’s the identity of this town.” Dave Taylor of Taylor Brand Group, described Rolling Rock as beer with a “blue collar following and steeped in the appeal of small town authenticity”. It was an identity that Anheuser-Busch tried to leverage after it moved production to New Jersey. They did so by creating and using the slogan “Born Small Town” to brand the beer.

So, to use a soccer analogy, did the creators of Mare of Easttown score an own goal when using Rolling Rock as a symbol of small-town Pennsylvania? If you wanted to make that case, there is certainly enough supporting evidence. However, I am going to give the creators of the show a pass here. Even though I know that Rolling Rock is no longer brewed in Pennsylvania, my subconscious mind immediately jumps to the the Keystone State (and specifically Latrobe) whenever I hear the beer’s name. It may no longer be brewed in Latrobe or Pennsylvania, but it’s identity is still strongly tied to both the town and the state.

Beer Tourism, Festivals, International, Local Beer, Small Towns

Craft Beer: A Tourism Opportunity for an Italian Inner Area?

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I just returned from a six-day trip to Italy. I was at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) in L’Aquila where I participated in a workshop for PhD students and early career researchers in the fields of Economic Geography and Regional Science. This was my fourth visit to L’Aquila since 2017. Located a two-hour bus-ride east of Rome, L’Aquila is a city of just under 72,000 people. It made international news in 2009 when it was hit with a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, whose epicenter was just outside the city; an earthquake that was responsible for 308 deaths.

In addition to the workshop, I was also invited to participate in a local food and beer festival in Lecce nei Marsi. Located just over an hour drive southeast of L’Aquila, Lecce ne Marsi is a small community of just over 1,600 people. Lecce ne Marsi is located in what the Italian Government has designated as an Inner Area. Inner Areas are parts of Italy that, because of their geographic isolation, have limited access to essential public services such as health care, education, and transportation. They are areas that are suffering from the out migration of younger people, resulting in an ageing population. An estimated 22% of the Italian population live in Inner Areas. In response to the challenges facing Inner Areas, the Italian Government, in 2012, developed the National Strategy for Inner Areas (Strategia Nazionale per le Aree Interne). Known by the acronym SNAI, the goal is to “counteract marginalisation and demographic decline” of these areas. One of the ways in which the SNAI tries to do this is through the protection and promotion of the natural and cultural assets of Inner Areas.

Lecce nei MarsI (indicated by the B on the map) is just over an hour drive from L’Aquila (indictaed by the A on the map)
Welcome to Lecce nei Marsi

In an effort to promote its cultural assets, as well as those of twelve surrounding communities, Lecce nei Marsi decided to organize and host a festival promoting local food and local beer. Prior to its start, the Mayor of Lecce nei Marsi, Augusto Barile, held a short two-hour mini conference titled “Typical Products: The Strength of the Internal Area”. As the festival coincided with my visit to L’Aquila, Mayor Barile invited me to give a short presentation on craft beer. The mayor’s interest in craft beer was driven by the fact that a nearby micro-brewery, Beer Park Brewery, produced a beer whose ingredients include locally-harvested faggiola. Translated into English, faggiola are beechnuts (the fruit of the beech tree). The mayor was particularly interested to learn about beer tourism and how it could be used as part of a broader culinary tourism initiative to boost the local economy. Other presenters at the mini conference included Alessandra Faggian, my colleague from GSSI, the President of the national park within which Lecce ne Marsi is located, local elected officials, and even the local priest (who recognized the importance of economic development to the region). The audience were local residents and the mayors of the twelve surrounding communities. It was a standing-room only audience in the town’s small council chambers. The event was promoted as a Alogastronomia Festival. Alogastronomia was a neologism created in 2015 by the organizers of a local food and beer festival in the town of Appechio, Italy, from “merging of two words: ale, a kind of fermented beer, and gastronomy, . . . the art of regulating the stomach.” As such, it indicates a particular relationship between beer and food.

Promotional materials for the local food and beer festival in Lecce ne Marsi
It was a standing-room only crowd in the small council chambers of Lecce nei Marsi
Talking about the Italian craft beer revolution in Lecce ne Marsi (with the assistance of my wonderful translator Concetta)

Beer tourism is an increasingly popular activity. This is particularly the case in the United States, where the craft brewing industry is more developed than most other countries. However, the potential for beer tourism in Europe is, in my opinion, also significant. Indeed, there are already a number of travel companies who offer packaged vacations focused on visiting breweries and tasting beer in a variety of European countries, including Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and yes, Italy. These tours tend to focus on larger cities such as Prague, Brussels, and Rome. This leads to the question – can small, geographically isolated communities, such as Lecce nei Marsi capitalize on the growing interest in traveling to taste beer? I believe that they can. However, it will require significant coordination and collaboration on the part of local communities. Attracting people to visit geographically isolated places such as Lecce ne Marsi will also require that non-beer assets be promoted. This may include local food, sites of historical significance, and events and festivals like the one that I attended.

The good news is that there is already an existing organization, the National Association of Beer Cities (Città della Birra Associazione Nazionale), that can perhaps be a source of advice and also used for promotional and branding purposes. Established in 2015, and headquartered in the small town of Appechio (also located in an Italian Inner Area), the goal of the association is to promote beer tourism. As of now, most of the breweries participating in association activities are located in the Marche region of Italy. However, as it is a national association it should be open to assisting breweries in other regions of Italy. Beer and food tourism cannot solve all of the socio-economic challenges facing communities like Lecce nei Marsi. However, they do represent one opportunity that such communities should consider. Indeed, the aforementioned Appechio perhaps offers a model for what is possible for places like Lecce nei Marsi. Appechio has had an annual Alogastrnomia Festival since 2015, whivh has evolved into a three-day event that attracts over 4,000 visitors. Apecchio has also done an excellent job of promoting the region’s other assets such as outdoor activities (biking, hiking, horseback riding etc.). And they have a very impressive website which promotes the region’s assets.

The goal of the National Association of Beer Cities is to promote beer tourism

By the time the mini conference had wrapped up, the food and beer festival was well underway. Each of the thirteen communities had stands offering a food that was typical of their particular place. Baked lamb, frogs’ legs, olive oil, truffles, and ricotta cheese were some of the culinary delights on offer. When it comes to food, I am not particularly adventurous, but I did take the opportunity provided by the festival to taste frogs’ legs for the first time.

Lecce ne Marsi provided a beautiful setting for a local food and beer festival
I had the opportunity to sample local frogs’ legs
My colleague Alessandra sampling some locally produced olive oil
Gioia Dei Marsi was one of thirteen towns participating in the local food and beer festival

While the food was wonderful, I was most interested in sampling the local beer, especially the one made with the local faggiola (beech nuts). Moricento, is an English Brown Ale, and is named after the nearby beech forests from which the beech nuts were harvested. Not only did I get to taste the beer, but I also got to meet both the owner of the brewery, Marco D’Aurelio, and brewer, Luca Fusè. The opportunity to meet both brewery owners and brewers is one aspect of the craft brewing industry that I really enjoy and appreciate. To be able to shake the hand and chat with those responsible for producing the beer that you are drinking is a true privilege.

The ingredients of Moricento beer include beech nuts harvested from local beech trees
With Marco D’Aurelio, owner of Beer Park Brewery
Sampling Moricento beer with brewer Luca Fusè (far right)

This was the first local food and beer festival in Lecce nei Marsi. The plan is to make this an annual event. It will be interesting to see how this event evolves in future years, and what other initiatives Lecce nei Marsi and its neighboring communities develop in their efforts to improve the socio-economic environment of both them and their neighbors.

Further Reading:

Pezzi, Maria Giulia. 2017. From peripheral hamlet to craft beer capital: Apecchio and the ‘Alogastronomia. Italian Journal of Planning and Practice, Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages 154-185.

Craft Breweries, Economic Development, Small Towns

Brewing in Small Town America

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The United States is a very urban society. Approximately 83% of Americans live in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950. More than 300 urban areas in the U.S. have populations greater than 100,000. I live in one of them – the city of Toledo, OH has a population of ~271,000, while the Toledo Metropolitan Area has a population of ~641,000. The largest city in the country is New York City, with a population of ~8.4 million.

Not surprisingly, most of America’s craft breweries are to be found in urban areas. Some calculations that I did for a 2018 paper that I wrote estimated that 72% of America’s craft breweries are located in metropolitan areas with populations of at least 250,000, while 16.2% of America’s craft breweries are located in just ten metropolitan areas. Brewing beer, it appears, is a big city business.

But what about brewing in small-town and rural America? I recently started thinking about that question after a Zoom conversation I had with Nicki Werner, Co-Founder and Brewer at Jefferson Beer Supply, in Jefferson, SD. Jefferson Beer Supply is a brewery in planning; it is not open and operational yet; but should be by the summer of 2021. Nicki was preparing a presentation to be made to the city council and loan approval board. She had been following my blog for some months and was reaching out to see if I could help her craft some arguments about the beneficial impact of craft breweries on small towns. Jefferson does not have a craft brewery – hardly surprising given that it has a population of 622. However, the addition of a craft brewery to the Jefferson landscape will mirror what is happening in other small towns and rural communities across America. Between 2013 and 2018 the number of breweries located in places with a population under 2,500 grew by 129%.

Nicki Werner, co-founder of Jefferson Beer Supply in Jefferson, SD

Just as craft breweries can breathe new life into urban neighborhoods, they can do the same for smaller communities. In Valentine, NE (population 2,706) Bolo Beer Co. is contributing to a renewed sense of economic vitality. Other examples of craft breweries playing a similar role in their communities are Hand of Fate Brewing in Petersburg, IL (population 2,214) and Driftless Brewing Company in Soldier Grove, WI (population 541).

Rural communities face a number of socio-economic challenges. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, rural communities, compared to their urban counterparts, “have less internet access, fewer educational institutions, see more hospitals close and experience less economic growth.” In the past, many rural communities could depend on agriculture for their economic well-being. That is no longer the case, however. And it has been that way for some time. A 1999 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis noted that, “agriculture is no longer the anchor of the rural economy”. In many rural economies manufacturing is the dominant income generator . . . if policymakers want to help shape the economic future of all of rural America, they must engage a much broader range of issues and economic engines.”

Now I am not naive enough to think that craft breweries are the answer to the socio-economic challenges facing rural and small-town America. But having a successful craft brewery in town can surely do no harm. In the aforementioned Valentine, NE the Bolo Brewing Company has become a place for the community to gather – or what the urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg called a Third Place. Third Places play a critical role in human societies. There is research that suggests that Third Places can combat loneliness while also strengthening community cohesion. In research conducted with colleagues, the highly regarded British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar provides evidence which suggests that enjoying a beer with friends provides us with “the single most important buffer against mental and physical illness”.

While many craft breweries function as Third Places in America’s large urban areas, Jeff Alworth believes that their importance as community gathering places “may even be stronger in smaller communities. Little towns are often underserved with regard to cool places to hang out. When they open up shop, they provide much-needed social hubs . . . They’re not only a nice place to spend an evening, but serve as venues for events like meetings, weddings, and even children’s birthday parties.” Nicki Werner of Jefferson Beer Supply shared her brewery’s business plan with me. One of Nicki’s goals for her brewery is to create “a tasting room and experience that offers a family oriented gathering space for our community.” As the business plan notes, “there are no family oriented spaces in Jefferson and very little in the surrounding areas, which offer primarily dive bars with casino machines, no children’s menus, and focus primarily on one demographic.” A family-oriented craft brewery would be a tremendous asset to Jefferson, SD. In Valentine, NE local resident Whitney Mayhew describes the taproom of the Bolo Beer Company as a “community gathering place”.

Craft breweries can also attract tourists to a small town. Beer Tourism is “a thing” and is becoming more popular every year. According to the Brewers Association, in the United States, 1.6 percent of craft-beer drinkers take 10-plus trips annually to visit breweries more than two hours from their home. Attracting tourists is critical to the success of small-town breweries as it lessens their dependence upon local residents. I recently co-edited a book with two Italian colleagues that explored how craft beer tourism, wine tourism, and agritourism can make a positive contribution to the economies of geographically peripheral areas. Last year (about 6 weeks before Covid-19 resulted in lockdowns) I gave the keynote presentation at the Beer Marketing and Tourism Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. One of the things I highlighted in my presentation is that craft beer tourists have above average incomes and, as a result, have a fair amount of disposable income to spend. A challenge facing craft breweries in small towns is that they often exist in geographic isolation – in other words, they are the only brewery in town. This contrasts with larger cities where we see the emergence of brewery districts, providing beer tourists with the opportunity to visit three of four breweries, often on foot, within the space of an afternoon or evening. Craft breweries in small towns can utilize a number of strategies to overcome their geographic isolation. For example, they can collaborate with other breweries as part of an Ale Trail. This literally puts them on the map and they become one of the suggested stops for Ale Trail participants. An excellent example of an Ale Trail in is the Finger Lakes Beer Trail in New York State. The trail, which includes both larger cities and smaller towns, comprises over 75 craft breweries, tap houses and brewing-affiliated businesses across an area spanning over 200 miles.

Craft beer tourism can benefit geographically peripheral areas
Larger cities, such as Bakersfield, CA, often have brewery districts
The Finger Lakes Beer Trail in New York spans over 200 miles

Another strategy is to collaborate with other attractions in their region. Marketing a larger geographic region and its multiple attractions is a smart approach for smaller communities. Greenbriar Valley in West Virginia is an excellent example of a rural area that does an excellent job of promoting the area’s 80+ attractions, including Greenbriar Valley Brewing Company in the town of Lewisburg (population 3,897). If a small town is located in an agricultural region, it may be possible to develop a tourism industry around agritourism. The National Law Agricultural Center sees agritourism as the “crossroads of tourism and agriculture” and defines it as “a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism in order to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors and generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner.“ Example of agritourism include pumpkin picking patches, U-Pick operations, demonstration farms, cut-your-own Christmas tree farms, and petting and feeding zoos. As craft breweries are utilizing agricultural crops (hops and barley primarily) it is hardly a stretch to include them within a region’s agritourism attractions. A brewery in a small town where opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking, and camping exist may want to utilize these assets in attracting beer tourists.

The arrival of a craft brewery in a small town can also be the catalyst for additional development. The opening of Hand of Fate Brewing in Petersburg, IL (population, 2,226) in May 2017 had a beneficial impact on the small community. According to one observer:

“After just a year, the small brewery has brought good fortune to the town. After taking over an old Dollar General discount store in the sparsely occupied town square, the brewery-and-taproom has become a community hub and a catalyst keeping businesses open later. It’s encouraged others—including two new boutiques—to open shop, and drawn visitors from across the region. “

Neil Gurnsey, Assistant Vice President of the National Bank of Petersburg, noted that after the brewery opened, “life was just injected into the square”.

Finally, because a brewery is in a small town does not mean that it has an inexperienced brewer and does not produce great beer. Nicki Werner, the Brewers at Jefferson Beer Supply, has a wealth of brewing experience. Prior to relocating to a Jefferson Nicki worked in the brewing industry for six years at three different breweries in three different states.  She learned to brew at Brenner Brewing, a midsized production brewery in Milwaukee, WI. After Brenner, she took a job brewing for Left Hand Brewing company in Longmont, CO. In 2019 she moved to South Dakota to be near family and worked as a brewer at Fernson Brewing Company (the state’s largest brewery) in Sioux Falls, SD. Nicki also received a scholarship from the Pink Boots Society and spent time in Bavaria, Germany visiting breweries and learning about brewing methods. Chris Hernstrom, brewer at the aforementioned Bolo Beer Co. in Valentine, NE, cut his teeth as a brewer in the craft beer mecca of Bend, OR, before moving to Nebraska. Yes, many small town brewers come with an impressive pedigree.

Further Reading:

Dunbar, Robin I. M., Jacques Launay, Rafael Wlodarski, Cole Robertson, Eiluned Pearce, James Carney, and Pádraig MacCarron. 2017. Functional Benefits of (Modest) Alcohol Consumption. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 3:118–133.

Pezzi, Maria Giulia, Alessandra Faggian, and Neil Reid (eds.). 2021. Agritourism, Wine Tourism, and Craft Beer Tourism: Local Responses to Peripherality Through Tourism Niches. New York: Routledge, 264pp.