Research Portfolio
Crafting Resilience
Craft production, and especially craft brewing and distilling, is a booming industry. Producer ambitions to create new products and brands, the increasing availability of affordable specialty equipment, and increasing consumer desires for authentic, local, bespoke products and tastes has fueled this growth. North Carolina expanded from around 30 craft breweries in the early 2000’s to over 300 breweries as of 2021. And while the craft revolution has translated into thousands of new jobs, revitalized communities, and great beer, this rapid expansion is attended by its fair share of precariousness. The problem, as many of my interlocutors realized, is that there’s no manual for how to succeed, or even keep the doors open, in such a new industry. This lack of guidance has become even more poignant in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
My project, started in 2013 and continuing to present day, aims to capture the everyday vignettes of craftspeople and craft business owners toward developing a constantly evolving manual on craft resilience. Working with brewers, managers, and entrepreneurs in North Carolina and Chicago, Tokyo and Okinawa, I collect, catalog, and analyze the practices, philosophies, and stories that animate their practice. This has involved four years of participant observation as a brewer, hundreds of hours of formal and semi-structured interviews, and numerous surveys in the U.S. and Japan. There are examples of triumph and skill, being “on fire” (a phrase used among both American and Japanese brewers). There are also many examples of frustration and failure. The contours of these anecdotes, testimonies, and observations trace a framework of practices and philosophies that allow artisans to navigate and often thrive in a world always partially outside their control.
In doing this project, I’ve had the opportunity to use my research to design interventions addressing some of the challenges my collaborators faced. Check out some examples below!
Campus Session Series
A brewery bordering a college campus, while busy on the weekend, struggled to fill tables during the weekdays. Observation and informal interviews of clientele over a typical three-week period showed parents and alumni, but very few college professionals.
Interviews with faculty, graduate students, and office staff of three departments revealed a desire to unwind after the workday. However, high-ABV beers (6%+) overrepresented at local bars didn’t appeal to professionals who would have to attend to additional work or family responsibilities once home.
We used this data to develop a series of low-ABV (4-5%), high-flavor, seasonal beers called the “Campus Session Series.” These beers were well received, and the brewery enjoyed increased revenue year-round, as well as local acclaim when one of the beers won a gold medal in a state beer competition.
What’s in a name?
A brewery in small-town North Carolina wasn’t connecting with its community. The owners, both veterans, had attempted to build a space that would be inviting to locals as well as veterans from nearby Ft. Bragg. However, low sales and overrepresentation of military folk in the brewery throughout the week suggested that the brewery was classed by locals as a military bar.
Interviews and online surveys confirmed this hypothesis. Responses indicated a surprising culprit for this off-putting vibe: beer names. While the brewery’s design was fairly neutral, the beer names were decidedly military in tone. Respondents found the names aggressive, esoteric (e.g., military jargon), and otherwise not fun. When brought the data, the owners understood the issue, but were also hesitant to abandon their military identity.
We struck a compromise, adopting a more playful naming convention that made use of widely-recognizable military allusions as puns. Initial feedback from local guests has been promising.
Grad Student Lounge
A college-based brewpub’s Thursday nights were dead. Undergraduates regularly engaged in “Thirsty Thursdays,” but weren’t drinking at the brewpub. Data suggested that undergraduates appreciated the high-energy nightclub vibe of neighboring bars. Observation also raised an important question: where were all the grad students?
Interviews and focus groups with graduate students across multiple departments revealed that while grad students wanted to go out at the end of the week, they experienced two issues: 1) they wanted a quiet, relaxing atmosphere where they could chat, and 2) they couldn’t afford local places with their stipends (average $18k annually). Our solution: create a space with the grad student’s aesthetic and budget in mind.
We began offering a “grad student lounge” night every Thursday with beer and food specials for students with grad IDs. It was a success! Word of mouth spread across campus. Grad students increasingly held department events and club meetings at the brewpub. After two months, Thursdays became the brewpub’s most profitable weekday night.