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Supporting your neighbors is a mutually beneficial cause.

For every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures, whereas if spent in a national chain, very little. [More from the 3/50 Project.]

According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses of less than 500 employees account for around half the U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) and more than half of the employment in the U.S. More than 75% percent of those small businesses have fewer than 10 employees.

But why stop there? Support your LOCAL BREWERY, be that at the brewery (if it has an open house), or at a brewpub, or at an independently-owned beer shop, or at a locally-owned restaurant or pub that itself supports local beers. According to the Brewers Association, 90% of the more than 1,600 breweries in the U.S. are small and independent. Their retail dollar value in 2010 was an estimated $7.6 billion.

Beer that is local won't have come from hundreds or thousands of miles away. That, indeed, makes a huge difference: carbon-wise, employment-wise, and tax-wise. And, flavor-wise, the beer will be fresh.

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The entrance to Port City Brewing Company
Alexandria, Virginia.
28 January 2012.

Photo by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.
Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Hopslam Imperial IPA, brewed by Bell's of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Marijuana-ey in the nose (not that I would know what that is). Mix in citrus, pine, caramel, peach, and melon. Finishes with alcoholic heat, sticky swetness, and a white pepper spiciness. 10% alcohol-by-volume (abv)

A wonderful beer that I would enjoy ON ITS OWN (and did), without considering the marketing hype, brewery-induced scarcity, and high price.

Purchased at Screwtop
Arlington, Virginia.
25 January 2012.

[Washington City Paper compares Washington, D.C. retail pricing of 2012 Hopslam: here.

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Photo by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.
Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Why must I suffer this indignity?

Helen the Golden Retriever as the stoic reindeer.
Atlanta, Georgia.
December 2011.

Why must I suffer this indignity?

Helen the Golden Retriever as the stoic reindeer.
Atlanta, Georgia.
December 2011.

Sad news:

Corks, Jerry Pellegrino’s long-running Federal Hill restaurant at 1026 S. Charles St., has closed. The closing appears to have been unexpected Jerry Pellegrino opened Corks at 1026 S. Charles St. in 1997. In 2008, the restaurant re-opened, following a two-month closure, as a more casual version of it original self. By the time of its closing on Wednesday, Pellegrino was no longer the majority owner..."
--Baltimore Sun
22 December 2011.

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Webshot 2012.01.21.
www.corksrestaurant.com/