Finally: a purpose. In discussion with friends and advisors, I've determined a useful and valuable role for this blog, a purpose which it had previously lacked. I'm going to publish my nastygrams here, in addition to other exploits for consumer protection.

Now, this cute little nickname ("nastygram") may make it sound worse than it is: these letters, print and e-mail, range from minor prods to get something done, to shrill screeds demanding action immediately. My friends know I'm famous for these. Here's the first installment, written to the local food co-op, regarding their recent, successful application to sell organic wine and beer.

August 21, 2003

Dear People’s:

We just picked up the August News, and both as beer aficionados and social justice advocates, we were extremely disappointed to read the general manager’s message, specifically the proud, almost righteous statement: “…and we have willingly agreed not to chill the beer and not to sell single cans.”

Objectively, good beer hates several things: light, heat, and fluctuating temperatures. Ultraviolet light, direct or indirect, leads to protein breakdown and ruins beer over time, rendering it what brewers call “lightstruck,” and what is more commonly referred to as “skunked.” Warm temperatures speed up oxidization (making beer taste stale or old), encourage yeast autolysis (decayed yeast, resulting in smells variously described as sulfur-like, burned rubber, soy sauce, Vegemite, etc.), and promote growth of microbiological contaminants (which can radically alter beer flavor, in bad, bad ways.) Additionally, fluctuating temperatures are terrible for beer storage, which is going to be a particular problem in a building which presumably isn’t temperature controlled overnight. These issues are especially true for craft beer and bottle-conditioned beer, sometimes called “live ale” or “real ale,” i.e., just the type we’d think People’s will be looking for. Most beer is best stored at “cellar temperatures,” or between 50 and 60 degrees, and refrigeration is hugely preferable to beer sitting on a shelf. Try this: call any brewer (organic, local, or other) and tell them you plan to store their product warm, on a shelf, exposed to light, and listen to them shudder. Happily agreeing to not chill beer is essentially agreeing to intentionally ruin a product.

All beer snobbery aside, however, what is vastly more disturbing is People’s participation in the penalization of poverty and homelessness. If we’re mistaken, please correct us, but let’s just put a fine point on it: refusing to refrigerate beer and sell single cans is directly designed to keep homeless and transient people from buying and consuming it, right? Let’s put aside, for the moment, the fact that not selling single cans is a meaningless gesture to placate and please state authorities, since it will be almost impossible to find organic beers in cans. It’s simpler than that: would you discourage a homeless person from coming in to the Co-op to buy an apple? Tofutti? A refrigerated fruit smoothie drink? It IS the same thing: you provide these for members and the general public to buy, and to righteously decline to do the same for beer for a particular marginalized population is reprehensible, and facilitates disgusting stereotypes of who is a valid customer, and who is not; and, by extension, who is a valid person, and who is not.

Please feel free to publish this letter in the News, to contact us directly to discuss it further, or both. Again, if we are mistaken about the reasons for willingly refusing to refrigerate beer or sell single cans, please correct us. As it stands, however, we are appalled by this decision, which we, as Co-op Members, are a part of.

[our names, signatures, e-mail, and phone here]