Finding the Story
The meaning of this picture will reveal itself in due course
Rabid fans of any subject always descend into the weeds of small details. In the late 90s, I learned that wearing the Boston “B” on my noggin was both an invitation and a challenge. Like a beacon, it drew Red Sox fans to me, and they don’t screw around. You better know everything about the team, including major prospects, or expect to suffer some scorn for being a fair-weather fan.
Beer is no different, and one of the major shifts in the past—well, since I married into a Red Sox family as a matter of fact—is the number of nerds who know what decoction mashing, cool-pooling, and Krush hops are. That nerd orientation sometimes conceals how potent stories are to subjects, and especially in beer. I’ve been writing about beer for about as long as I’ve been a Sox fan (what happened to my life in the late ‘90s?!), and one of the only iron laws I can draw is the power of story. It is critical to the success of old brands like Guinness and Miller High Life, and it animates new trends. We like beer because it tastes good, but that’s just the ante to join the table: we love beer because of its rich, romantic world. And that’s all about story.
To seed what will be a pretty long discussion, I want to start with my recent conversation with John Holl on the latest episode of One Iconic Beer. We were discussing the qualities that make an iconic beer, and I dismissed a popular brand out of hand. My main complaint, I said, was that it hadn’t had much of a cultural impact; it was one of those disposable products that sells well but contains no innate interest. (Or put another way, it had no story.) John stopped me and immediately refuted my point, sketching the outline of why Michelob Ultra held interest. The quote is edited lightly and wraps around the pFriem banner:
“[Michelob Ultra] has changed the way that people think about beer. By really diving into however many calories, 60 calories, zero carb, whatever, that was a beer that was positioned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, very clearly seeing where the world was going in terms of health consciousness.
In a few days, the North American Guild of Beer Writers will announce the awards to their annual writing contest, and we’ll have a bunch of examples of good storytelling in action. Look for a post next week on where to find them.
“I think a beer like that helped pave the way for hard seltzers, which again focused on no sugars and no carbs, no calories, and fitting into the quote unquote ‘better for you"‘ lifestyle. By putting real numbers behind it, where you have people carrying their phones around and counting every calorie, counting every carb, tracking every step, I think that that beer did help change the way a vast majority of drinkers approach beer.
“I was out in Ohio earlier this year where Great Lakes introduced Dortmunder Light. Dortmunder Gold’s 6%, this one's 2.9% ABV and, you know, lower carbs and calories. And they're they're definitely trying to capture some of that Michelob Ultra lightning in a bottle.”
Given that you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t care about Michelob Ultra. This particular story probably doesn’t interest you. But it was a perfect demonstration of what a story is, and what its bones would look like if you expanded it into a longer biography. If I asked a dozen people to tell me the story of Michelob Ultra, I think they’d all say the same thing I did: there is no story. But there’s almost always a story—if you can find it. John did, and he instantly made me care about Michelob Ultra.
Why Stories Matter
Human brains are predisposed to understand the world through story, even our modern, purportedly sophisticated brains. Stories date back at least 10,000 years (that’s before my Red Sox fandom, young folks), and form potent societal anchors. The Mahabharata, Epic of Gilgamesh, and Odyssey are extant examples, but who knows how many existed in purely oral form. Like the Torah and Bible, they outline and enforce morality and the nature of the sacred. They educate, unite, and delight.
A lot of research has established that are brains are wired to understand the world through stories:
“As a tool, storytelling imprints the neural patterns associated with one person’s experience to another individual, expanding the latter’s experiences beyond their own. ‘Narratives are the typical means by which we can transport experiences from one person to another,’ says Fritz Breithaupt, a cognitive scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.”
Google’s AI summary provides the reliably inaccurate history.
I can tell you a bunch of facts about decoction mashing, and unless you’re a brewer, you will almost instantly forget them. But if I tell you a story about decoction, starting with the fact that brewers invented it before they invented a thermometer, it’s going to be far more memorable.
I am constantly reminded of this when people tell the story of American beer, citing the all-Cascade “IPA” that started it all—Anchor Liberty Ale. It’s such a good story, including an impeccable (and wrong) timeline, a throughline that connects the past to the present, the importance of local agriculture, and more. It sticks in people’s brains because it’s a great story. Never mind that the whole thing is hogwash.
How to Tell a Good Story
Stories are everywhere, and TV showrunners, novelists, and journalists find their way to telling them well. In my decades of writing about beer, telling stories about breweries and people, trying to explain hop-breeding brewing techniques, retelling the odd history and so on, I’ve developed my own map to finding the story. It informs One Iconic Beer, and just about everything I do here. Below are the tactics I deploy—but it is surely just one method. Humans are hardwired to understand the world through stories, which means we’re all born storytellers. So by all means add your wisdom to this discussion in comments.
Considering the audience
No communication—written, visual, or audio—exists without a receiver. No communication will succeed if the maker doesn’t know who the audience is. (Think of the differences among an email to your boss, a political ad, or a scholarly article.) Indeed, a communication is a collaboration, and the creator’s job is offering something of interest to the audience. In the case of the beer stories I write, I consider whether it’s for a general or specialized audience. As readers here know, one of my favorite topics is fresh hop beers. These beers don’t make the subject of a great story, they make many. I’ve written about them at Travel Oregon, Craft Beer & Brewing, and Beervana. One is more evocative, as I attempt to charm potential tourists, while another is technical, to guide brewers, while a third is chatty and immediate, for an audience used to ongoing commentary.
Answering the question: why should the reader care?
For me, this is the most important question, and as my career gets longer, the one that interests me the most. Over the summer, Portland’s Horse Brass Pub turned 50. It generated a number of articles that, in their own way, answered the question. I was so late to the article that I haven’t published it yet, and I’m still noodling on this question. Reaching an anniversary is a fact, a headline. The interest lies somewhere else. As I have been reporting out that piece, I interviewed the newish owners, and have been researching old articles to get a historical sense. One thing that emerged immediately is that the headline fact is itself wrong: the Horse Brass is a lot older than fifty. That’s just the year Don Younger drunkenly purchased it. Interesting! Is it that Rosetta Stone than unlocks the narrative? Not quite, but it’s a part of it. I’ll keep noodling.
A good story needs to have something of interest to offer a reader so they continue past the subheading. Finding that component creates the bones for a story that will engage a reader and last in their memory.
Identifying the hook (if there is one)
A good story doesn’t require a hook, and a hook can be so obvious of cliched it ruins a good story, but they can be quite helpful. In the Horse Brass example, the detail about it being older than fifty years could be a good hook. As I think of that reader (first point), I wonder how to keep them reading (an element of the second point).
A hook plants a question or offers a contradiction the writer promises to resolve. So the bit about the Horse Brass could be useful in putting the bar in a larger context. The old founder, Don Younger, tends to dominate stories about the Brass. But Don has been dead for fifteen years, and we need a reason to continue caring about the bar. Is its continuity, extending back to before Don’s time, a possible mechanism? Definitely. And it’s a great hook.
Finding the right quotes
First Witch: “Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.”
Second Witch: “Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.”
Third Witch: “Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.”
All: “Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
Good stories are often brought to life by characters. In a beer story, they’re essential. As beautifully as I might believe I write, I learned long ago that nothing sparks reader passion like a brewer saying something folksy and direct. In prepping for the Horse Brass piece, I sat down with current owner Jerry Fechter and Younger-era co-owner Joellen Piluso. Fechter is a worthy heir to Don Younger—one of the most characterful bar guys left in Portland now that Don is gone. Joellen is his equal, however. Whatever story does emerge will be punctuated by their words and impressions. Quotes give a story life and anchor it to the real world the journalist is describing. It’s a bit of a cheat on the one hand, as the writer borrows the charisma of their source, but also a credibility-builder, someone to vouch for the story you’re telling. Bringing people into the story to speak for themselves actually introduce co-storytellers to the piece.
Working with themes
Themes are subtle elements that inflect a story, and good writers include them instinctively. I have to think about them and be more intentional in how I use them, but I try to include them when I can. Themes are unspoken, underlying message or insight the writer is trying to underscore with the structure of the story. They’re not appropriate for every story, but when they are, they help the narrative stick.
A big reason I’m stuck on the Horse Brass piece has to do with themes. The foundational story, which has for so long been Don Younger’s story, is festooned with theme: Don’s irreverence, as indicated by his ever-present cigarette and growly aphorisms; the coziness of the perfect bar, also a reflection of Don’s magpie personality, which is why the Brass has lasted 50 years; the Portlandness of the place, with local beer, the location, and the personalities all playing a role.
Themes are sometimes so obvious you can’t help but include them. Sometimes they’re far more challenging, and in updating the Horse Brass story, I need to decide if Don’s themes are still the Brass’s. Themes help the reader grasp a story’s point in three dimensions, and as such they must be congruent with the story; they must be authentic themes. If the writer invents them or inserts something for a poetic rather than narrative purpose, it can undermine the story.
Finally, avoiding cliche, overwriting, and peacocking
This doesn’t require a lot of elaboration, because readers know it when they see it. The rules here go back to the first point. Good writing serves the reader, not the writer. The tricks of the writer—simile, metaphor, prosody, irony, allusion, symbolism—can be powerful when used sparingly and in the right moment. But no one wants to wade through the sludgy prose of a writer who’s trying to show off. The opposite mistake, writing dull, hackneyed prose full of cliche, is also not great. These are the subjects of writing seminars, but in short, tell the story as simply as you can, trying to make it come alive for the reader, and keep their experience top of mind.
To bring this back to John Holl’s quote way back at the top, I’ll conclude this long post by saying that I hope you’re finding this blog and the new podcast fun and interesting. With all the challenges of social media, the collapse of reading, and AI, good storytelling suffers from both a supply and demand problem. I have written so much in my career that dreck may well be the norm—but I hope you keep reading for those moments when I do actually find the story.