At the Code4Lib conference in Portland, Oregon this year, there was a Craft Brew Drinkup event, a semi-organized bottle-share, with some effort made to make it more inclusive of non-alcoholic options like soda and tea.  An event like this has been organized at the conference each of the last several years, though historically it’s been focused more exclusively on beer. The event has ranged from ticketed events in a local bar, to tons people crowded into a couple people’s hotel rooms.  The event has been controversial for causing trouble at the conference hotel by being too noisy, or excluding non-drinkers.

I’ve felt conflicted about the event over the years.  On one hand, it’s the best beer tasting I go to all year, and where I really got into craft beer (I still remember tasting my first sours, Cigar City’s Sea Bass and Lost Abbey’s Sinners in a crowded hotel room in Bloomington).  On the other hand, many members of the community were uncomfortable with the event and questioned whether it was compatible with a professional conference.

What Was Good

This year’s event was held at eBay in a large event space that included a lot of the amenities you’d expect from a tech company: a kitchen, ping-pong tables, a pinball machine, a stage with a full rock band setup (real instruments, not the video game), and plenty of space for a crowd.  There was also more organization than some of the past years, including having a few of the organizers being dedicated servers.

The event space was very nice, people had fun playing the games, and there was plenty of space.  In past years, the event has typically been in a hotel suite, and has been very crowded and loud. Having enough space meant that there were different areas with different vibes: a crowd around the entrance and bar, several people clustered around the pinball machine and ping-pong table, a few small groups spread out, etc.  I found it very easy to move through the different spaces, and talk to different people.

There was more effort this year to include non-alcoholic options like sodas and tea.  After some conversation on Twitter, the announcement was revised to be more inclusive.   There were tables for tea and craft sodas, with a variety of non-alcoholic options.

Having designated servers worked very well.  I was a little worried about how this would work, since it was announced the day of the event.  But it worked very well, with each of the three servers handling a different category of beers and each keeping a small inventory of open bottles to choose from.  It made it easy to find the kind of beer you were interested in, and check out the options.  There was never a big line, and I don’t think I missed any of the cool beers I was interested in trying.

As always, it was amazing to see the range of stuff people brought from all over the country, and indeed the world.  I’ve been to beer tastings and festivals with huge taplists, but the Code4Lib bottle share rivals these, and I’m always impressed by the sheer variety of beers, from breweries I often haven’t even heard of.  It’s a powerful reminder of how far-flung the Code4Lib community is, and one of the things I look forward to every year.

What We Can Do Better Next Time

This was the best of these events that I’ve attended, but I think there are some areas we can improve for next year:

There was too much beer.  People were encouraged to bring something, and most of them brought beer.  And lots of it, with many people bringing several large bottles.  Or six-packs or growlers of beers bought in Portland.  There was a ton of beer left over at the end of the event, which was given to people to take away with them.  It’s better to have too much than too little, and it’s probably unavoidable that we’ll have at least a small surplus.  But next year, we should still encourage people to bring their local beer and homebrew, but discourage bringing more than one or two bottles.  We should also make it clear that it’s OK to come without bringing anything, and that there will be no shortages.

The non-alcoholic options were much better than in past years, but not on par with the beer options.  We can do more to listen to advice on how to make events more welcoming for non-drinkers, and improve the non-alcoholic options.  Adding baked goods to the event would probably help here, both by expanding the number of people who bring non-alcoholic items, and by giving people something to eat.