BROADCASTS.com

Welcome to Mother of Invention\u2014a special series of the GBH Podcast made in partnership with Guinness devoted to innovation in the brewing world, both historical and contemporary. In this series, we ask the question: if necessity is the mother of invention, what is the necessity that\u2019s driving people to solve a problem, meet a challenge, or explore a new opportunity\u2014and what are they doing about it?

This series started in collaboration with Guinness, an underwriter for GBH for three years running. Guinness has a reputation for being a technical innovator\u2014whether it\u2019s draft technology, the invention of the nitro widget in the can, training the world how to pour a proper pint, or achieving unprecedented consistency in their breweries around the world. But necessity and innovation come in all sorts of forms for breweries big and small, and are reflected in the cultural influences around them.\xa0

So this year we decided to go to Denver during the Great American Beer Festival, when we knew we\u2019d have a critical mass of influential and hard-working people from across the industry in one place. We set up shop and conducted two full days of interviews. And while the resulting conversations vary widely in terms of topics and experiences, some patterns began to emerge.\xa0

This first episode explores the ways in which people are trying to expand beer\u2019s audience. For some, that means inspiring loyalty with traditional experiences, like going to your neighborhood bar in the age of the brewery taproom. For others, it\u2019s about sending very big, explicit signals that groups that have historically been excluded by the beer world\u2014black people, trans people, the elderly, and beyond\u2014belong and are welcomed into what is so often described in an over-simplified way as the \u201cbeer community.\u201d\xa0And for others still, it\u2019s about getting these formerly niche beers into the mainstream world, so that people who might be delighted by them have better access to them\u2014without having to \u201cjoin the club\u201d and travel to breweries in industrial parks in the \u2019burbs, stand in can release lines for hours, or spend a fortune on the latest hyped-up Hazy IPA.\xa0

Each of these scenarios involves paying attention, being empathetic, and taking risks with your product, brand, or personhood. It\u2019s a kind of innovation through vulnerability. Or innovation through humanity. And it\u2019s resulting in people doing a lot of new things, in new ways, that benefit others.\xa0

This is Mother of Invention. Listen in.