Some Rambling Thoughts About Beer Writing & Blogs, etc…


Okay, so I often see that there isn’t the online beer writing that there used to be. And let’s be honest, there isn’t.
About ten or so years ago there was a surge of beer writers following in the wake of the surge of Craft brewers…

But that seems to have gone. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot. About why it went, and if it could ever come back.
So grab a glass and read my ramblings. Or just ignore them, it’s entirely up to you.

I think like the Craft sector, beer writing has grown up. And to do it as a job it needs to pay. Not just some spending cash, but it needs to cover the bills. And that’s something that is very rare indeed.
There are fewer and fewer publications out there that will publish beer content, which is understandable because even though a lot of people drink beer, it’s only a small amount that are interested enough in it to read about it. And the income from that won’t pay the bills for all the writers that want to write about it. Just as the market is no longer there for all the craft breweries that sprang up, the market isn’t there for the advertisers to support beer publication

In short, it’s very difficult to get the money in to pay the writers. So there’s fewer places to publish, making it harder to become a beer writer.
There are publications out there that do a great job (Pellicle springs to mind), but they’re few and far between. And I know that the folks behind it would love to be able to commission more and more pieces, but they’re also admirably determined to make sure that their writers, artists and photographers are properly paid for their work. Which takes cash. Which means that they can only take in the best articles that they are pitched.

Admirably too, they also publish new writers when they could just sit back and stick with the known names with the guaranteed clicks.

I’m not personally sure however that what we have now is sustainable. There’s far more writers out there with great ideas for content than there are places for them to publish. The column space is taken up with stories of the latest trends in multinational lagers. Akin again to the breweries who can’t get their beers onto the bar because the multinationals have tied them up with bland regurgitation.


And I keep thinking about how this can be addressed.

As anyone who knows me knows, I have a lot of random ideas, some good, some totally bonkers. And of course I’ve got an idea for publishing more beer writing. So I’m going to ramble now about that.

This is based on a project I worked on many years ago for publishing articles and travel pieces, so it’s not something out of the blue, but something I’ve adapted.

This idea is based on self-publication. Sounds awful. But think about this seriously. There’s a lot of beer, cider, wine, etc related blogs out there. All ticking away without as much traffic as they deserve.
So how about a site where anyone who registers can publish their articles themselves?
As a writer, you log in, create your piece, and click “post”, and then it’s up and live for everyone to read. This could even be done in a simple system like WordPress.
Writers can then link through to their piece on that site.
The site itself would have some form of advertising set up, most likely Google Ads or something until/if sponsors could be found. Ideally sponsors because Google Ads is awful. I tried it on my blog here and it absolutely spammed it with crap even though I’d set it up not to.
But with analytics it would also be possible for the site to see which pages got which percentage of the overall visits. So income from any advertising/sponsorship could be split among the writers based on their share of visitors.
And a great thing about this is that when someone goes to the site to read an article, they could well read another. I see this happen on mine, people come here to read the latest thing I’ve written, and then have a look at what else is about. So by bringing people to this new site, the writer would get a share of the income, and would help other writers get a share too.
Let’s make sure we have that reality check, this income would not pay any bills. But it is likely to be more than newer writers would make on their own blogs. And it would help raise awareness of a writer.
It could also easily be used by more experienced writers who do normally get paid for their work, but have an idea for an article that they’ve tried pitching and just can’t get anyone to bite for it.

The site itself would promote articles too, using social media to draw people in, and using its front page to highlight articles. Helping to provide wider exposure (argh!!! can’t pay the bills with exposure bucks folks!!!) than a writer might get on their own.

So yes, it is akin to asking people to write for free, but that’s not what it is. It’s providing a publishing outlet for those who are wanting to write for free; like a lot of bloggers do anyway.