In April of 2015 I announced that I was going to start a beer blog under the guise of The Beer Professor. For a couple of years I had been posting daily beer facts on my Facebook page and had also published a couple of articles on the American craft beer industry in scholarly journals. The idea of a beer blog was to fill a gap that existed between these two extremes. A blog entry would have much more content than a pithy beer fact but substantially less than a full-blown academic article. And not being an academic article it would have to be subjected to the rigors of a double-blind review; and it could also be much more personal in nature.

My first actual blog entry appeared on April 27 and was titled “Building Community“. It was focused on the Black Cloister Brewery, a new brewery in downtown Toledo, OH. The thrust of the entry was that the Black Cloister had no television sets, thus compelling patrons to actually engage in conversation with each other. Those of you who read my blog regularly will know of my affinity for the Black Cloister; it has provided the backdrop for a disproportionate share of my blog entries.

Since that initial entry it has been a blog-filled year. My goal has been to post four entries per month. I have come pretty close to that. This entry that you are now reading is my 45th. When I started blogging I had, in my head, ideas for probably two or three entries. And this has pretty much been consistent. I have never known, beyond, the next few blogs what I will write about next. Yet, after a year, I have never struggled to come up with things to write about. I have tended to be somewhat opportunistic in identifying topics.  For example, I have a job that allows me to travel quite extensively. These trips provide the opportunity to write about my beer experiences in more distant places. So during the last year I have written blog entries from Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland) Lisbon (Portugal), Ankara (Turkey), and Stockholm (Sweden) as well as places in the United States such as Louisville, KY, Pittsburgh, PA, Portland, OR and the Big Island of Hawaii.

I have also called on some of my beer-loving friends and colleagues to contribute guest entries. So thank-you to Jay Gatrell, Ralph McLaughlin, Tom Steiger, Mark Patterson, Nancy Hoalst-Pullen, Julie Carling, Tom Bell, and Peggy Gripshover who have either penned complete entries of contributed to co-authored entries. Having different people contribute to the blog brings a variety of voices and a diversity of perspectives to the blog.

To some extent my big break as The Beer Professor came when I was introduced to Bob Cunningham by a mutual friend, Larry Meyer.  At that time Bob was a reporter for the Toledo Blade for whom he wrote a column “Raise A Glass” about beer. Bob decided that he wanted to interview The Beer Professor. So over a couple of beers at The Local in Holland, OH last June Bob and I chatted about beer. Bob’s article must have been read by a few folks because it got my name out there and resulted in a number of subsequent opportunities. These included an interview by Rick Armon of The Akron Beacon Journal who in October wanted my take on the then recently announced proposed merger between AB InBev and SABMillerCoors. In November I was interviewed by the University of Toledo’s Vince Diguglielmo for a short video about the American craft beer industry. In February I was invited to lend my expertise to an new initiative being considered by Terra State Community College to launch a new Certificate Program in craft brewing.

One of the characteristics of almost everyone of my blog entries is that they tend to have , embedded within them, a lot of links to other web pages. This, to a large extent, reflects my academic training which requires that I provide supporting evidence for statements that I make. For most blog entries I do a fair amount of background reading looking for information, checking facts, and gleaning new insights. In the process I learn a lot, some of which I am able to use in my academic writing and also in the classroom when I lecture about the beer industry. Word of my alter ego actually reached some of the students in my Industrial Geography course last fall. When one of students turned in his blue examination booklet in the space reserved for the instructor’s name he had written “Dr. Neil Reid (Beer Prof)”.

So what do the next twelve months  hold in store? Lots of more blog entries I hope. As usual, at this moment in time, I have a couple of ideas that will yield two or three more entries. Beyond that I will be my usual opportunistic self. I have some interesting overseas trips planned, including visits to Austria, Australia, and New Zealand, which I suspect will provide blogging opportunities. Domestic trips on the horizon include visits to  Charlotte, NC, Des Moines, IA, Louisville, KY, Marquette, MI, and Minneapolis, MN.

I look forward to another year of blogging about beer. I thank you for reading it. To be honest I have no idea how many people read it on any kind of regular basis. And to be equally honest the number does not matter all that much to me. I get considerable satisfaction from doing this blog. I enjoy the process of writing, of researching, and of adding to my stock of knowledge with respect to the brewing industry. Having said all that I really do appreciate the occasional positive comment that comes my way, usually via Facebook or e-mail. So I raise my beer glass to the next year of blogging and say cheers.