Well Howdy Doo Buckaroos

  I Am The Beer Whisperer @ 53!

Beervangelist, Prolific Beer Drinker

Purveyor of Wisdom

And … All Around Good Guy!

  A Pirate Looks At … 

I turned 53 on May 24th and as I write this, the Jimmy Buffet classic, “A Pirate Looks At 40” is running through my mind.

“Yes I Am A Pirate, About 200 Years Too Late

The Cannons Don’t Thunder, There’s Nothing To Plunder

I’m An Over 40 Victim Of Fate

Arriving Too Late …”

I don’t feel like a victim, but that line does resonate strongly with me.

As my siblings and friends seem to know their course, I just drifted on the high seas for most of my 53 years.

I had ideas of what I wanted to be along the way, but those ideas changed over the years.

It’s going to sound sappy, but my saving grace is my wife of almost 24 years. There’s no telling what direction I would have headed without her.

Now, I did manage to stay employed and help support our family and even managed to work myself up to middle management with a well known retail chain. However, I did it because I was good at it, more so than loving what I did.

     Where There’s A Beer, There’s A Way

I’ve always been a beer guy. In my younger drinking days, it was more about the buzz, but even then, I knew enough to recognize quality.

I remember my first Anchor Steam and thought “WOW!” Now, for a little perspective, this was ’86. In ’87 I moved to Washington and had a Redhook ESB and thought,”Can Be!”.

So yes, hipsters hate when old guys like myself bring this up, but yes, I was drinking craft beer even before the moniker “craft beer”. However, it really was only about 10 years ago that I thought about writing and doing videos centering around craft beer.

 

    Enter The Beer Whisperer

I don’t remember now exactly how it happened, but about 8 years ago I was tagged with the nickname “Beer Whisperer”, it seemed fortuitous, so I ran with it.

I had been doing short “reviews” on social media before “The Beer Whisperer” was born, but adding the name added another layer to what I was doing.

I liken it to what “The Unknown Comic” did for Murray Langston, the alter-ego allowed me to take it just a little farther. And I did … and do and constantly test the boundaries and yes, occasionally maybe go just a wee bit too far, but it has allowed me to express myself in ways that I couldn’t before.

      For The Love Of Beer

A little over 2 years ago I was lucky enough to land a job in sales at a craft brewery and it was the most fun I ever had at work. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were still bad days like any other job, but talking about and selling something that you love and believe in was the most rewarding job that I ever had.

I recently left that job for family and personal reasons, but I loved the company and the job.

A while back I ran into someone that I hadn’t seen in a while, when I told them about what I was doing they said,”Be careful to not let your job ruin(or take the fun out of) your hobby”.

I’ve thought about that often, especially when I made the hard decision to leave the job, but here’s my wisdom:

Always, I mean always do what you love. Not everyone is lucky enough, or quite frankly talented enough to do what you love for a living, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. And sometimes making a living at doing what you love does take some of the fun out of it, find a balance.

So… I don’t know if I’ll ever find a way for The Beer Whisperer to pay the bills, but having the outlet, the ability to write and speak publicly and do videos as The Beer Whisperer (who is just a slightly more exaggerated version of myself) has kept me from going completely bananas. It has helped me deal with some difficult curve balls life has thrown at me. Through the writing, videos of course, but also through the people that I have met along the way all because of this “hobby”.

Thank you all and I look forward to 54!