Via BeerAdvocate‘s wicked active forum, we’ve got an update on the snippy non-fight that the New Yorker has conjured up between Sam Calagione and Garrett Oliver.
The beautiful thing about the internets is that, when you’re a wicked big public figure and you get burned in print, you can fire up the keyboard and set things right.
And thus: Garrett Oliver takes umbrage with his appearance in the magazine – which, he says, makes him sound “snide” and “like a bit of a prick.”
And there’s more! Like, massive block-quotes full of more!
Oliver writes,
But the context makes it sound as if this was perhaps a comment made about some specific brewery. It wasn’t. And I was told that the article was going to be about American craft brewing in a worldwide context. I put the reporter in touch with Chris at Achouffe and Jean-Marie Rock at Orval, etc. And he spent a good part of the day here and tasted a wide range of our beers. But none of this ended up in the article. Bits were taken from an hours-long conversation and used to “spice up” the article. Writers do this sort of thing all the time, but rarely to this extent… I now regret talking to the guy. …
When they asked to interview me for the article, I expressed my trepidation that any comments I made about extreme brewing would be taken out of context. The author promised me otherwise, and I believed him. I’m rarely tricked, but this time I feel that I was. He – or his editor – appears to have cherry-picked an afternoon’s worth of conversations to create an imaginary conflict for the article… As I travel to other countries and see craft brewers worldwide emulating the creativity of the American brewing scene, I’m really proud of what we’ve all brought to the world of beer. Sam and Dogfish have been leaders when it comes to that creativity, and it’s something I really admire. …
For example, you have me saying “The whole idea of extreme beer is bad for craft brewing,” you make it sound as if I’m talking about the beers themselves rather than the term. You know that was not what I meant; I feel certain that I made that clear. And the difference matters. A lot. Look, as I said, it was a good article and well-written. A story requires conflict, and nuances and shades of grey are not easy to play out in an entertaining fashion. So they end up morphing into black and white. I thought The New Yorker’s long form would save me from that. It didn’t. I’m a big boy and will take my lumps. But it would be a shame if we had to edit ourselves severely to feel sure that our words would not be shaded in the wrong direction.
Strong stuff. Though, given the nature of the (perceived) offense, not necessarily unexpected.