ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 concludes the book and summarizes the arguments therein. It reiterates how important the concepts of authenticity and community are within the craft beer scene and examines how these concepts get challenged as breweries grow larger. It then discusses the importance of innovation in craft beer and how that factored into the generational shifts that have occurred. It goes on to discuss the importance of social media to craft beer marketing and community building. And then it discusses the current tensions in craft beer, these being profit-seeking that violates the community values, as well as forms of racism, sexism, and homophobia. The chapter sees these themes as a dialectical tension in craft beer. Craft beer as an industry offers us a model to think about how an economy could support a different set of values. But on the other side, craft beer is pressured by contemporary social ills as well as by its own economic success. It concludes by thinking through a utopian moment of community in craft beer, and what the traditional capitalist model pushing into the scene has done and will do to it and its values.
