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It\\u2019s hard to tell a story about yourself. And yet, I find I\'m most moved by personal narratives\\u2014articles that provide a sneak peek into the life of the author. That\\u2019s one of the things I loved about Samer Khudairi\\u2019s first long-form piece for Good Beer Hunting. It\\u2019s called, \\u201c(Un)Holy Water \\u2014 The Middle Eastern Voices Shaping the Global Beer Narrative,\\u201d and was published on November 12, 2020.

I saw an early draft of this piece, weeks ago, when Samer had just turned it in. It was distinctly different from the published version. Mostly that\'s because Samer wasn\\u2019t in that first draft at all. And that was on purpose.In this episode, I talk to Samer about what it means to tell a story that\\u2019s so connected to your sense of being, and what it means to put yourself on the line. A lot of the evolution of this piece happened behind the scenes\\u2014in conversations between Samer and other GBH writers, and in moments of reflection about the emotional weight this story carried.

Samer\\u2019s narrative starts with a question: He visits his grandfather, who talks about his great uncle\\u2019s work as a brewer, and asks why he doesn\\u2019t know more about his family\'s history in beer. He uses that lens to ask bigger questions, like: Why aren\\u2019t the stories of Middle Eastern brewers being told as widely as others? It\\u2019s challenging to be vulnerable, to pull your own stories out of your familial history and display them for others to see\\u2014but it was by getting close and putting everything out there that Samer was able to tell a story that connected to such a wide audience.

Here\\u2019s Samer. Listen in.