blindman brewing – Scott Messenger

The Writer’s Craft

A short story about short stories on beer cans

Here’s a secret: What I really wanted to be in life was a short story writer. I love the form, the way its masters can say so much in so few words. It is a profoundly compact space in the world of fiction, and I would have loved to be among its inhabitants.

But, you know, life. Writing about short stories, though, is all right too — especially when they’re on the sides of cans of awesome craft beer.

Many thanks to Edify magazine for letting me contribute a short article to the March 2022 issue about an amazing partnership between Edmonton writer and editor Jason Lee Norman and Lacombe’s Blindman Brewing that is getting local writing into the community in a unique (and tasty) way.

To explain much more here would run counter to my past ambitions to keep things short but impactful. A guy can still hope, right?

Inside craft beer with AMA Insider

Getting the craft beer story outside the craft beer bubble

I think craft beer is an amazing story in Alberta. I wouldn’t have written a book on the subject if I didn’t.

I has it all: passionate Albertans, entrepreneurship, local ingredients, creativity, growth, risk, national and international acclaim.

This is why I try to get that story into a wide variety of forums, rather than just craft beer media outlets. (I know I’m not the only one doing this; just look at Jason van Rassel’s work in Edify every month.) I really believe that the makings of our craft beer industry show a new way forward in this province. Just sayin’.

I was very pleased, then, to be able to tell that story in the spring 2021 issue of AMA Insider. In addition to editor Craig Moy, I owe thanks to

Jordan Ramey of Olds College’s Brewmaster and Brewery and Operations Management program
Matt Hamill of Red Shed Malting
Natasha Peiskar of Establishment Brewing
Shane Groendahl of Blindman Brewing
Blair Berdusco of Alberta Small Brewers Association
and Zane Christensen and Cameron French of Alley Kat Brewing

for helping to tell the tale and spread the word about one of the most exciting industries to hit Alberta in decades: barley refining.

A short tour of “Albeerta”

Here’s a taste of what the province’s craft beer boom has on tap

Since December 2013, when the provincial government lifted minimum production requirements for Alberta brewers, the local beer industry has been booming.

Join me on a short but sweet (and sometimes a little bitter – you know what hops can be like) tour through a small portion of what’s on tap across what’s becoming affectionately known as “Albeerta.”