Beer Week Overload

The concept of a beer week is simple: Celebrate, and hopefully bring awareness to, a city or state’s beer scene. In the US alone, we estimate that there’s well over 100 beer weeks, and that figure is rising. That’s a lot of beer weeks. Some might view this as a positive thing, but that’s not always the case.

• Bar specials, random tappings and tap takeovers do not a beer week make. You’ve got the consumer’s attention. How about educating them about the city’s beer scene?
• There’s often not enough focus on local beer. Instead, events get basically hijacked by imports both foreign and domestic, and subsequently become a celebration of all beer available within the market.
• More beer weeks create more demand on brewers to participate. Some brewers we’ve talked to are beginning to feel the pressure and have opted to pick just a handful of beer weeks to participate in for the year, in order to save their resources—keep in mind that they’re being tapped for other events year-round, like beer fests and dinners.
• Many beer weeks are owned and operated by those who are looking to profit from the trend, and they have arguably given nothing back to the local beer scene. Even worse, some are pay to play, and are overrun by sponsors.

Despite our smack talk, it’s all not doom and gloom. There are plenty of honest beer weeks out there doing a solid for their scenes, and they should be fully supported. We raise our beers in their general direction.

“Hold on. Don’t you guys run Boston Beer Week?” Yes, however, we’re currently in the process of transferring ownership of both the Boston and Massachusetts beer weeks to the state brewers guild. Why? We want to better support local brewers by allowing them to apply their own vision.

Respect Beer. ■