Deer local brewers,
First, let me say thanks. I like beer. You make beer. It’s like a Romeo and Juliet relationship, but without all the killing and family drama. Keep my deep appreciation of your efforts in mind when I say this: you’re dropping the ball. The super hoppy IPA’s are great, the seasonal brews with local fruit are great. I dig the hip brewery tasting rooms with obligatory corn hole in the parking lot just outside the garage doors. It’s all great. But for the love of hops, where are the brewery trucks? I don’t mean delivery trucks. I mean the brewery trucks. Like food trucks, but with beer. Picture this: you’re at your favorite food truck rodeo, and right there in the between the artisan grilled cheese truck and the Korean fries pedicab is a converted U-haul van with taps coming out of the bumper.
Why the hell isn’t this a reality? It seems like a great way for home brewers and nano breweries to dip their toes in the market. Keep the overhead low, brew in small batches and show up on weekends at parks, food truck gatherings, popular trailheads, traffic jams in Atlanta—you know, the places I always wish I could get a beer. Picture a beer truck that runs through your neighborhood, playing a catchy tune like the ice cream trucks we grew up with, selling pints of frosty craft beer to dudes mowing their lawns and tinkering with their bikes and cars on weekends! If that’s not what our Founding Fathers meant when they wrote “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” into the Declaration of Independence, then I don’t know what is.
There are probably some legal logistics to overcome regarding the sale of alcohol out of the back of a van, but if thousands of people willingly sign up for races where they get electrocuted and have to sign a “possibility of death” waiver, I’m sure some smart lawyers can make shilling beer out of a moving vehicle work. I found something close in San Francisco. The BrewTruc, a converted school bus that pours home, micro, and nano brews whipped up in the Bay Area. From what I can tell, they don’t brew their own beer, but their heart is in the right place: mobile beer. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before Southern brewers take a similar giant leap for mankind and mobilize their brewing efforts.
Follow Graham Averill’s adventures in drinking and Dad-hood at daddy-drinks.com
