Thursday 10 April 2014

Money

No-one expects a plumber, lawyer or carpenter to work for free.

The beer world is different.

"You're an idiot." Dolores often tells me.

She's not wrong.

7 comments:

The Beer Nut said...

At least you're independently wealthy.

Gary Gillman said...

Actually Ron, lawyers work for free all the time. Some of it is business development, some is promotion. Some is pro bono. It's not that different.

Gary

Chap said...

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money (Dr Samuel Johnson)

Alan said...

We need to be ever mindful how little that good beer supports good beer writers.

Rod said...

*If* nobody actually did make any money out of writing about beer, it wouldn't be so bad IMHO.
What really annoys me is that there are quite a few absolute charlatans writing drivel about beer, and seeming to make good money out of it.......

Rod said...

Gary -
Lawyers don't work for free *all the time* actually. They may choose to do pro bono stuff some of the time, but at the end of the month they get a damn good pay cheque.

That's not the situation that genuine, serious beer writers like Ron are in. Not at all. It's not like he's pulling down good money, and then chooses to do a level of stuff for free. He works like hell and earns Jack.

In Britain, there are so many idiots writing beer-related crap, so many clowns posing as purely self-appointed beer experts and so many glorified home brewers running shitty micro outfits, that the market is totally saturated and the good, genuine people can't make themselves heard for all the noise that the assorted fools are making.

That's before we even start talking about pillocks of the Papzian/Dornbusch order.....


Martyn Cornell said...

Chap - "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money (Dr Samuel Johnson)" - yes, but the bit that everybody always leeaves out is where Boswell commented immediatly afterwards that "Numerous instances to refute this will occur to all who are versed in the history of literature.”

I do it 'cos it's fun. Any money is a bonus. And I do get to go places/taste beers I wouldn't as a 'civilian'.