Hop Talk

Jasmine

What is your name?
Jasmine Smith

What is your location?
San Francisco, California. I’ve been here for about a year and a half, and it’s nearly impossible not to get excited about craft brewing here. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, though, and spent several years in New York City.

What is your blog?
http://www.beeratjoes.com/
At Beer at Joe’s, we like to make a lot of beer videos as well as writing about it. It’s a fun way to be able to see the color of the beer we’re drinking or the atmosphere of the event we’re attending. It also helps us to give our readers (or viewers) information without resorting to standard lists of alcohol content and ingredients. You can get that information anywhere.

Do you have a favorite style of beer? What is it?
I consider myself fairly new to the world of craft beer, and that means that my favorites are changing constantly. It used to be wheat beer, which I still love. Now I’ve discovered that my favorite “everyday” kind of drinking beer is usually an amber or brown ale. Recently I tried a few kinds of Scottish ale and loved them, but it’s not a style I’m familiar with so I’m going to have to try a few more before I declare it a favorite!

How did you come to write a blog about beer?
Here in the Bay Area, there are all kinds of microbreweries doing really neat things. The tipping point, though, was when Joe and I attended one of Chef Bruce Patton’s (known as the “Beer Chef”) beer dinners. We had so much fun, took so many pictures, and learned so many things in just that first night that we wanted to be able to share it with other people. We also realized that night how many really passionate and interesting people are involved in the beer world. Our blog is a great way to connect with them.

What prejudices have you had to overcome?
I’m not sure I’ve encountered a lot of prejudice, at least not openly. Sometimes I think being very young is a more difficult obstacle to overcome than being a woman. I’ve been to more than one beer event where I am the youngest (or close to it) person in the room. You tend to not be taken seriously when talking about beer or your blog when that happens. The toughest part for me about being a female beer drinker is the size of the glasses. When I find a place that will serve their beer in half-pints or as a bunch of 3 or 4 ounce samplers, that place automatically gets on my “favorite places to drink” list. I think this is one of the biggest barriers to bringing a lot of women over to the beer side. One pint and I’m full, so it’s tough to learn about a lot of different kinds of beer when it’s hard to taste a lot of different ones.

Any other passions?
Writing in general. It was easy step for me to write about beer, since I tend to want to write about everything. I write fiction and also run a blog about short stories (with a focus on women, go figure).

Any parting thoughts?
Recently, the world of wine has been trying to make good wine accessible to everyday drinkers, and I’ve found that a lot of the advice coming out of that movement applies perfectly in the movement towards good craft beer. Drink widely to develop your taste buds. Drink what you like, not what the so-called experts tell you to like. It’s okay to sometimes drink a large amount of cheap, watery beer (or boxed wine) just because you feel like it. Don’t feel like you have to be able to discuss the beer at hand, just drink it.

Jasmine is half of the writing team at Beer at Joe’s (RSS feed)

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