Welcome to the basement, here’s your shovel
I’m Robert Alan Wendeborn and I’m a poet and professional brewer, distiller, and occasional winemaker…
This newsletter is mostly about my experience working in the craft beverage industry. I know it’s a divided space; race and gender play a huge role in where and what we drink and who makes those drinks. Though as a cis white male I haven’t experienced those injustices, but I have seen how class plays a role in the liquids in our life, and that’s what this newsletter will focus on. I believe that the way to equity in the space isn’t for everyone to break the glass ceiling one person at a time, but to dig out the floor, creating room for us all in the basement.
Much like listening to an eye-opening record for a musician, or eating a great meal for a chef, drinking the right liquid at the right time can be life changing, and the process of making that liquid is an art that you can spend your entire life perfecting.
There will be free essays twice a month that are personal reflections on my time in the industry and short reviews of jobs on public job boards. Paid pieces will include recipes, pairings, and interviews1 with industry professionals2 centered on how they got into the industry and advice for those who are seeking the same.
This is a part time gig for me, so until this takes up all my time and energy, all of the proceeds from the paid subscriptions will go to these two organizations3:
The Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling, a scholarship fund for Black and Indigenous People of Color.
Partners for Rural Transformation, finances individual and community solutions to poverty.
if you would like to be interviewed, or know someone who should be interviewed, please reach out to me!
I’m also open to interviewing businesses that are hiring and we’ll talk about their hiring process and what sets them apart from the rest of the industry, so if you’re in HRM or management, hit me up!
These are just a few that I came to without a lot of research, so if you know of other, more appropriate places to send the money, please let me know.
