Community

Our Urban Beer Garden continues to draw a fun, eclectic crowd.* My favorite offering tonight is the Gilded Marmot Belgian Golden Ale, superbly crafted by Matt Lincoln. It’s light (in taste and color, not alcohol) yet complex and refreshingly un-hoppy (but then, I’m one of those IPA-hating philistines). Don’t take my word for it, c’mon down!

Despite the craziness of the campaign trail (Election Day’s Nov. 3 – don’t forget to vote!), I finally managed to add content to the “community” section of our sustainability page and I added another: Community Involvement. It’s important to remind ourselves that one of the things that gives us so much satisfaction is being part of a thriving community, meeting new people, making connections, becoming part of the fabric of the social life of Fremont and beyond. Easy for me to say since I don’t actually make our beer and thus derive satisfaction only from drinking it.

But really, when Matt considered the perils of opening a small business amid a recession, one of the things that drove him into beer-making in Fremont was the desire to contribute something of value to the Greater Good. Whether or not beer, however sustainably-produced, is the right something is admittedly a matter of debate (insert long digression on the dangers of alcohol abuse). But providing a place to get together with friends, meet new people, cruise for dates, or just sit alone in the company of others is important. (Cafes serve this purpose too but -- and maybe I'm just going to the wrong ones -- nowadays it's sort of creepy how everyone's hidden behind their laptops.) Because places where one can re-create oneself and connect with others sustain community and provide refuge from the alienation and anonymity of these hyper-speedy, teched-out, economically-precarious, weird times. End of sermon.

Cheers, Sara

*Last Friday, a local PEPS group rendez-voused here – not to scare the child-averse among you. The typical flow of folks is as follows: 4-5:30, parents returning from picking up their kids from school, thirsty Bikram Yoga studs, and various drinkers convinced it’s beer o’clock somewhere (like Montana maybe). From 5-6:30 it’s the after-work crowd, from Fremont’s many large (i.e. Adobe, Getty Images) and small businesses (i.e. Bjarko/Serra Architects). These folks come to meet up with friends or have a bite before their main gig of the night. Then from 7-8:00ish it’s people like me who consider going out for a beer the big event of the night.