{"id":18730,"date":"2017-01-28T14:30:38","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T01:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=18730"},"modified":"2017-09-01T18:59:37","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T06:59:37","slug":"boycotts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/28\/boycotts\/","title":{"rendered":"Boycotts in Boomtime"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
Author not pictured<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This piece originally appeared in the summer edition of SOBA’s magazine,\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/em>The Pursuit of Hoppiness<\/a><\/span>. A few recent discussions<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> of whether (and how) we should more-openly mix our politics and our pitching or\u00a0purchasing have reminded me to belatedly post it here.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Introducing himself and his mission, Michael Jackson (the drinks writer, not the other one \u2014 as the inevitable caveat goes) often said \u201cI want you to think about every beer you put to your lips\u201d. He definitely didn\u2019t just mean taste; he always talked about history, and context, and companionship. But my suspicion is that he wouldn\u2019t have stopped there, and I submit we should add ethics to the list: sometimes, the behaviour of the people who make or sell a beer is reason enough to avoid it entirely. I\u2019m even fairly agnostic about the details. I just want to see more people drawing a line somewhere<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is boomtime for beer. You have so many choices on your pub taps and your supermarket shelves. You\u2019re going to have winnow them down somehow. So keep some sense of marketplace morality in mind, among all the many other factors you juggle when deciding what to buy. And don\u2019t give me that \u201cit\u2019s only what\u2019s in the glass that counts\u201d line. I doubt anyone really believes that, anyhow \u2014 just to skip straight to the obvious, I think we can agree that if there was a Godwin\u2019s Brewery<\/a> staffed by actual Nazis<\/i>, then we shouldn\u2019t be giving them our money or drinking their beer. That just leaves us with a threshold question, and I\u2019m happy with you drawing yours wherever you like, on whichever factors: takeovers<\/a>, trademark shenanigans, racist\u00a0and\/or sexist marketing<\/a>, dodgy distribution, or the behaviour of their personnel.<\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019ve just got two<\/i> New Zealand companies on my boycott list. Nevermind who, or how they got there; that\u2019s not the point, here and now.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> I\u2019ll happily concede that each makes some great<\/i> beer, including former favourites which I sometmes genuinely miss drinking. But, really, you\u2019ll basically never notice. This is boomtime. You are more in danger of drowning in your available options than of longing for things that have become distasteful by circumstance. I have a handful of breweries who aren\u2019t technically on the boycott list, but who hover close enough to the line that I rarely, if ever, buy their beer in the face of the countless alternatives. That\u2019s how easy the choices get.<\/p>\n

When I see the sheer awesomeness of the scene right now, it has a strange effect: the crap stands out more glaringly. Which sounds pessimistic, but inside every grumpy curmudgeon is a disappointed optimist<\/a>. And it\u2019s a little like that \u201cif you don\u2019t vote, you can\u2019t complain\u201d clich\u00e9, which has a grain of truth despite being mostly nonsense: non-voting might<\/i> best express your position in any given election. In any case, here, you are<\/i> \u201cvoting\u201d \u2014 you\u2019re buying beer, and (barring weird exceptions) almost everyone will buy many more beers than they\u2019ll ever cast ballots. It\u2019s a trite truth that your choice likely won\u2019t change much. But so what? It\u2019s equally true that all big things are made of individually-ineffective little things. Better to be mindful of your principles even when you bend or break them \u2014 when options or information are limited, perhaps \u2014 than to have none at all. Your money means something, and it encourages and enables certain behaviours whether you intend\u00a0for it to or not. Now is an easy time to spend it more discerningly.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This piece originally appeared in the summer edition of SOBA’s magazine,\u00a0The Pursuit of Hoppiness. A few recent discussions of whether (and how) we should more-openly mix our politics and our pitching or\u00a0purchasing have reminded me to belatedly post it here. Introducing himself and his mission, Michael Jackson (the drinks writer, not the other one \u2014 … Continue reading Boycotts in Boomtime<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-18730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blahblah","tag-pursuit-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/12\/05\/emersons-bookbinder-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":18730,"position":0},"title":"Emerson’s ‘Bookbinder’, again","author":"Phil","date":"December 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Emerson's 'Bookbinder'. Again. The previously-promised photo in \"proper\" glassware. Actually, I cheated a bit and upgraded my after-work glass to the ever-so-slightly-bigger version than what I was strictly-speaking supposed to. All in pursuit of a wee bit more Bookbinder, so totally justified. The Booky-book -- or Wookie-book, if you're\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Emerson's 'Bookbinder'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Emersons-Bookbinder-again-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17651,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2015\/11\/13\/the-fun-of-missing-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":18730,"position":1},"title":"The Fun Of Missing Out","author":"Phil","date":"November 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A version of this post originally appeared in the Spring\u00a02015 edition of SOBA\u2019s quarterly magazine Pursuit of Hoppiness. 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For too long, Luke's products were just the perfect embodiment of that trend that bored me so horribly wherein More Hops All Other Considerations Be Damned became such a trendy and habitual thing to do.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Epic 'Portamarillo' tap badge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Epic-Portamarillo-tap-badge-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18730"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19224,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18730\/revisions\/19224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}