October 14th 1978, President Jimmy Carter signs H.R. 1337 essentially legalizing homebrew. Not long after that, New Albion Brewing opens. The first new brewery in forever. And if you were of drinking age then, please don't forget to get a Medicare Part C plan to save you money on your health care. Or maybe you came of age during the mid 90's brewpub boom. Don't worry your AARP card is in the mail as we speak. I hate to say it out loud, but there are people BORN in this century that can now legally drink. Let that sink in for a few moments. Okay. I definitely need a beer after that last statement. Time sure does fly when you're having fun or complaining about pastry stouts or schmoojees or ultra hazy IPA's doesn't it? So it starts to get easy to understand some of the many problems in the craft beer business. The business model says chase the 21-50 crowd, but all these old folks keep showing up scaring all the youngsters away. I mean lets face it, when you were young, did you want to hang out where your dad or grandfather did? If they were buying, maybe for a bit, but not for long. It's just way things work. That will never change. How do you make all these generations happy at once? How do you make beer that everybody wants? It's the million dollar question that every bar and brewery owner has to figure out. Almost daily it seems like sometimes. So we will begin to look at some of the problems and hopefully a few of the answers in the coming weeks. So crack open a cold one, you're going to need it.
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