“It’s hard to look back at those two years and figure out what I’ve learned because I’ve learned everything,” Chris Tkach of Idle Hands said to me when I asked him what he’s learned in two years of running a brewery.
As I file my last Honest Pint column after writing it for the last two and a half years, I can’t help but feel the same.
I fell into beer writing as a Dig intern—then-managing editor Courtney Cox assigned me a few stories—and while I was very much a beer novice, I felt like I stumbled onto the beat I was always meant to cover.
The timing was right, too. I still have a Post-It Note with the names of seven then-breweries-in-planning that I stuck on my pink plastic desk in my Allston summer sublet in 2011. Six of them are now open (the last was a homebrew operation), thriving, growing, and have, along with so many other breweries, bars, stores, and supporters, cultured a beer scene here.
It has been a privilege to watch them prosper and to share their stories, although I know there are still so, so many more to be told—and rest assured, our next Honest Pint will do so.
I sincerely want to thank everyone in the Boston beer community—all of the brewers who called to talk while driving around doing deliveries or between tastings; all of the beer lovers I met through Twitter and at events, many of whom have become very good friends, and especially the readers—for without your thirst for local beer and stories of the people who make it, none of this would be possible.
Thank you for reading, one last time, and cheers.
