24. Effective Strategies for Successful Networking (Except with Beer, and People You Already Love)

Gateway beers, and what about a brew or taproom could get your non-beer friends excited; plus get re-energized with coffee beer.

Peer Pressure? More Like Beer Pressure, Amirite?

Way back in 2015 (which was upsetting to realize), I wrote “Ten Bands to Introduce Your Friend to Extreme Metal With” for Invisible Oranges. This concept, of introducing friends and family to X genre, Y hobby, or Z scene, is evergreen but I tend to think about it more as we’re pulled by the ankles, fingernails clawing tracks into the hardwood floor, into the holiday season. (Unless you’re excited about this time of year, in which case, I love that for you.) I don’t know about you, but this time of year always seems to include an uptick in occasions for sharing special beers with family and going on outings, like brewery visits, with them. So, the question of how to get the non-beer drinkers in our lives excited about beer is one I’d perhaps suggest is worth a ponder about now.

You could argue that there is actually no need to bother with any of this, and you’d absolutely have a valid point. You can drink your beer and they can drink their wine or cocktails or hard seltzers and everybody wins. I would certainly agree that these endeavors always reach a certain point where it’s just obnoxious to keep shoving your own interest down your poor friend or family member’s throat. Negative Nancy that I am, I actually spent many of my teen years on an aggressive campaign to spread dislike for the band Tool, until even my disinterested mom had overheard me being a condescending and overbearing douche canoe to too many of my friends and boyfriends and told me to chill the f out and let people listen to whatever they wanted.

However, the inspiration behind that afore-linked Invisible Oranges story is because I was at a Ghoul show at Saint Vitus here in Brooklyn with a very good sport of a non-metalhead friend—and she was captivated by the end of the set. I realized how while I didn’t need or want to start forcing every obscure metal band I could think of at her, it was just plain fun to be able to share that experience—it almost felt more special than it would have with a devoted metalhead friend because her reaction made me realize what I loved so much about that band, too. And that’s been the experience so far with craft beer. I’ve told you about watching my near-teetotal mom love a Belgian tripel; that’s played out time and time again with different friends and family members.

We don’t want to be teenage me, yanking wine glasses from our loved ones’ hands and replacing them with Willi Bechers like we know best. But short of failing to respect and appreciate the varied interests and opinions of friends and family, there is a happy medium where it’s a little magic to remember what you love about craft beer by watching someone you care about get excited about it for maybe the first time. It’s why I still bother bringing different brews to family gatherings. Once you’ve got the “be nice and take a hint if they hate it” approach down, it’s time to think about the hardest part of this: what beer is the best gateway beer for your friend or family member?

I’ve seen this question lobbed about on Twitter, and obviously, there are varying opinions—and all of them are valid. Gateway beers aren’t about the beers, themselves, but the people we’re introducing them to. You could introduce your friend to the most goddamned beautiful lager, but if it’s not a relatable bridge to beer from their other liquid likes, they might not like it and then your beer-fueled brain will explode. Save yourself that silly, misplaced frustration by thinking about your person’s pre-existing interests.

Lagers are indeed a great path for people who have been drinking macro lagers, of course. They, and styles like West Coast IPAs could work for people who like their tea sans milk and sugar and other bitter, herbaceous things. Sours, and all things wild or mixed-ferm, can resonate with wine drinkers. Hazy, juicy New England IPAs are an easy entry point for cocktail drinkers and people who aren’t yet sure about beer. Stouts and porters can work for coffee drinkers, and I’ve learned via many holidays with my husband’s family that pastry stouts are the key for people who actually believed they hate beer. Thanksgiving is just Zywiec and insert-caramel-pumpkin-doughnut-monstrosity (I say that with love) in that house.

Breweries’ physical spaces, too, can be really effective ways to get the non-beer drinkers in your life Into It. Whenever space allows, brewery taprooms are designed to welcome everybody in, all together. Friends, family—pull up a chair, or more accurately, a spot on a long bench at a communal table. But the bare-bones, no-frills nature of many taprooms, which tend to either fall into the industrial or all-wood-everything categories, don’t always seem appealing to non-beer drinkers. When you’re there for the altbier, you don’t care as much what your surroundings look like. When you’re not, well, you might feel a little underwhelmed.

Taprooms 2.0, however, are flipping that script. I was struck by how many taprooms in Chicago, for example, felt like entirely different animals all together. Hopewell and Pilot Project are chic-chic-chic, but in a come as you are, unpretentious way. Maplewood felt more like a cozy neighborhood bar; Middle Brow a cool, airy, farm-to-table spot. If I’m taking non-beer friends or family to a brewery, I think before I choose a spot with nothing but concrete for days: what’s there for them? But I wouldn’t hesitate to take anyone to any of those Chicago breweries: those spots are an experience, no matter what you’re used to throwing back.

One brewery I think just nails both the gateway beer thing and the gateway space thing is Brooklyn’s TALEA Beer Co. Co-founders Tara Hankinson and LeAnn Darland set out to—successfully—do something that might sound easy but is actually quite rare: Bring more people into the beer fold, while still delighting longtime beer aficionados. Their IPAs, sours, sour IPAs, more recently stouts—these beers are studies in balance, showcasing vibrant fruit flavors that play against bitterness and demonstrate restraint. Beer lovers are wowed, but perhaps even more interestingly, non-beer lovers are wooed. These beers pick up on the things people look for and love in wine, cocktails, even tea.

It helps that TALEA’s beers and presentation are just lovely. We eat and drink with our eyes, after all. Let’s be honest. If you’re a beer geek, sure, you can wax poetic about the perfect head on your lager. But you can see how beer might leave something to be desired for those used to the brilliant colors of wine and cocktails. Many of TALEA’s brews achieve just that, never demonstrated better than in their Instagram-friendly flights.

These flights are enough to convince formerly sworn wine-only drinkers that beer is indeed special enough for special occasions, gatherings, and meals. It all feeds into the big, underlined point that TALEA’s taproom makes, which is that craft beer in no uncertain terms does not have to mean a spartan industrial space filled only by flannel-clad dudes. Instead, the taproom says what you know this newsletter is obsessed with shouting, which is that craft beer is for everyone; everyone is welcome; and craft beer can play any role you want in your life. With cafe-like hours—and of course coffee, too—beautiful cheese plates, a welcome mat for moms and families and remote workers, yoga classes, food and shopping pop-ups, and a just plain aesthetically pleasing, modern yet accessible interior, it’s hard to think of anyone TALEA’s space wouldn’t warm up to beer. It’s in fact where I take all of my non-beer friends (in addition to beer buds, too, naturally).

In other words, if you’re local, take your friends and family to TALEA; either way, bring them TALEA beer. Alas, this is not actually an ad for TALEA, believe it or not, but I think it helps to think about finding those elements in breweries by you if you do indeed decide to try and shepherd someone into craft beer this holiday season, or ever. And think, too, about how fun it is to talk about gateway beers. I find that conversation never gets old. It’s a great ice-breaker, and I’ve loved getting to know beer folx via that question. What’s interesting is that often, you can get a feel for where and when someone got into craft beer just by learning their gateway brews. Just think, you could be a part of someone’s future gateway beer origin story.

Beer Tarot!

I pulled the Eight of Wands.

Via Wikipedia

Wands speak to intuition, communication, and travel. The Eight of Wands, in particular, speaks to fast movement and change, and also—to get very specific—air travel.

The Seven of Wands deals with certain struggles in your life so the Eight of Wands is a sign that some of these struggles are starting to clear, meaning you’re finding a bit more freedom to move around in your life or ahead with different plans or goals. This card has a lot of energy to it. And it’s telling you to let go and move with it. If you’ve got a plan, an ambition, an adventure, etc. in mind, now is not the time to stop and second guess. That will only water down your momentum and potential. Take advantage of this energy and make some moves. The best thing you can do if you’re feeling nervous is make sure you’re free of distractions, then forge on. Oh, and, as mentioned above, this card could also or alternatively simply mean you’re about to fly somewhere, probably for a whirlwind trip of some kind. Tarot is fickle—if this speaks to you, well, safe travels!

Thinking about all this energy and beer brought me to coffee beers, but coffee beers that feel fresh and exciting, like non-stouts that manage to incorporate coffee well. I love Java Jus, a hazy IPA from Chicago’s Alarmist Brewing, which is made with coffee from another Windy City purveyor I had the pleasure of getting to know on a recent trip, Big Shoulders.

This Week’s Boozy Reading Rec

We love a theme! Hot on the heels of me telling you to drink Alarmist’s coffee IPA, which I personally think is fantastic, I stumbled upon this very smart and very fun look at coffee beers on Burum Collective. Ashley Rodriguez’s Coffee Beers and the People Who Hate Them discusses the history of coffee beers, coffee as a marketing tactic versus ingredient, and why these beers just don’t do it for many coffee or beer people.

Until next week, here is a little Darb with some such hazy IPA at our beloved Owl Farm Bar.