Beth Demmon

San Diego beer prides itself on its history of breaking boundaries, setting high bars for quality, and cultivating a community unlike any other. But despite these accolades, well-earned as they may be, we as an industry have forgotten, ignored, downplayed, or even defended the problematic history of our region.
Like the entirety of the United States, San Diego occupies land stolen from Indigenous people, including bands from the Mission Indians and Kumeyaay Nation. Southern California’s well-...

Covering the binational brew day between women brewing professionals from the United States and Mexico in January 2018.

November 2019 Prohibitchin' profile of Gina Marsaglia, co-founder of Pizza Port Brewing Co. and Godmother of San Diego beer.

The bells aren’t tolling quite yet to mark the death of beer, but breweries aren’t ignoring the fact that the longtime champion of craft doesn’t quite have the same pull as it used to. Usurpers in the form of hard seltzer, hard cider, and ready-to-drink cocktails are approaching the castle gates and sometimes, coming from within the beer industry itself.
“We saw demand increasing around the summer of last year with a lot of both homebrewers and businesses asking for tips and troubleshooting h...

If there’s still any question as to whether women are finally staking a serious claim in the beer industry, one need only look at the work of Pink Boots Society. Founded in 2007 by Teri Fahrendorf, the organization was created to “to assist, inspire and encourage women beer industry professionals to advance their careers through education.”
To say they’ve broken barriers is an understatement. There are now chapters in Spain, Hong Kong, New Zealand, across the United States and there are no si...

Prohibitchin' profile of Clarissa Patterson, Compliance Specialist at The Lost Abbey for West Coaster Magazine, March 2020 issue.

Considering the most current iteration of San Diego’s craft beer industry dates back to the early 1990s, it’s easy to inadvertently (or purposefully) gloss over those still relatively new to it. Millennials are touted as the biggest group of weekly craft beer drinkers in the United States—an age demographic skewing as young as 23 years old, according to the Pew Research Center.
That means of the approximately 6,500 beer-related jobs in San Diego alone, a decent chunk of them are occupied by e...

October 2019 Prohibitchin' column for West Coaster Magazine