Perhaps with the idea that no horse is too dead to beat (an unfortunate reverse of the idiom to be sure), an upcoming event (and another debate over at Appellation Beer) has me thinking about the ethics of beer writing. Beyond mere samples and the occasional free meal, the food/beverage/tourism writer’s bread and butter is free travel. Trips paid for by an interested business, be it a brewery, importer, hotelier, or restaurateur, are an effective way of securing coverage of an event or a location. Writers, who otherwise might not be able to afford to visit the location or attend the event, of course welcome the opportunity to attend these events, where they enjoy free airfare, transportation, hotel rooms, and are plied with free drinks and meals. The free trip has long been a part of the marketing arsenal for larger companies seeking to secure coverage. Travel writing has an especially long and seedy history with paid trips, as does the wine writing trade.
In a little over two weeks, America’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch, will again engage in this time honored marketing tactic by ‘inviting’ a dozen or more beer media members from around the country to attend the second annual St. Louis Brewers Heritage Festival in Anheuser-Busch’s hometown. Sponsored in part by Anheuser-Busch’s public relations offshoot, Here’s To Beer, this is the second year the brewery has paid for the presence of beer writers. Held May 8-10 at Lindell Pavilion in Forest Park, the event brings together “big and small brewers from the St. Louis area” including Schlafly Beer, Allandale Brewery, Augusta Brewery, Square One Brewery, Anheuser-Busch, O’Fallon Brewery, and Morgan Street Brewery. This year’s VIP media attendees will include magazine publishers and writers, podcasters, website publishers, and a host of freelance writers.
While I applaud with a light golf clap Anheuser-Busch’s efforts with Here’s To Beer and with trying to promote better beer in its hometown (louder applause is reserved for how this signals the continued strength of craft beer), I’m troubled by the free trips the brewery sponsors, the range of which have been written about elsewhere. As part of a continuing series, I’d be interested in soliciting the thoughts of others on the appropriateness of paid travel in beer writing and whether disclosure (or sunshine as it is sometimes called), is enough to overcome the appearance of bias. I have to admit being particularly taken by Ray Daniels’ surprisingly honest preface to this All About Beer Magazine article from maybe a decade ago.
Advanced Warning: While researching this article, the author received from Anheuser-Busch complimentary travel, accommodations, food, drink and general camaraderie with his fellow beer writers. If you think this compromises objectivity, you may be right. If you think that beer writing pays enough for anyone to bring you this kind of information without brewer support then your perception of the beer world is twisted like some M.C. Escher block print. Either that or Mad Cow disease has finally become manifest in America. In either case, you need to have a beer, read the piece and then decide for yourself what you actually think. Jumps to conclusion, knee jerk reactions and other un-pondered perspectives need not apply.
If sunshine is enough to clear the ethical clouds, Ray’s is pretty bright. But is disclosure enough? When a writer acknowledges that a trip is paid, and then says the following, how is a consumer/reader supposed to respond?
Did I just say that Anheuser-Busch is “a stench in the nostrils of the Beer Gods”? I know I did. I went and looked, and sure enough, I actually said it.
I take it all back. Last week, A-B’s beer makers flew me and a dozen other beer writers to their Elk Mountain hop farm in northern Idaho for the hop harvest. (Those are hop flowers in the photo right here. They sure are purty, aren’t they? Like little pine cones filled with beer flavor and aroma.)
I spent two days in the company of the brewers and their beers, where they hit me upside the head with a 20-pound sledgehammer called the Cold, Hard Beer Facts.
I now regret having said such viciously foolish things. These guys are keeping the flame in St. Louis, no matter what the marketing department makes them do with fruit and sugar and horny goat weed. (Just kidding; there is no horny goat weed in Anheuser-Busch products that I know of…I just like saying it.) They trotted out some new specialty beers that are simply fantastic, and they were proud of them.
So were the beers actually that good or were the big portions of the salmon lunch, cooked three ways, that made the writer, Lew Bryson, “moan” the clincher? In this case, it’s assuredly the former in my opinion, but the appearance of bias is clearly a problem (even with proper disclosure).
So in the wake of Anheuser-Busch’s upcoming Heritage Festival, expect to see a lot of coverage in the beer press, on blogs, and over the airwaves about how the brewery is up to great things. Keep an eye and an ear out for whether the writer or speaker discloses that he or she received a slew of free stuff before sharing their thoughts with you. The disclosure should be right upfront. And if it’s there, when you’re done reading or listening, ask yourself this question, “Are you absolutely convinced the person wasn’t influenced by the free plane ride, shuttles, hotel room, day trips, beer, meals, and other activities?” If the answer is yes, then worry no more. If the answer is no, we all have some worrying to do. All, that is, except Anheuser-Busch…
Editor’s Note: Lew’s name was added at his request. The article in question appears on former beer writer Kerry Byrne’s football website, Cold Hard Football Facts
