Craft Breweries Are "Gatekeepers" Bringing Back Detroit

Detroit's craft brewing future (and a little bit of its history) are featured in Joe Baur's piece for CraftBeer.com called "No Sympathy NeedeD", which is a surprisingly nuanced look at the city and it's revival through the lens of craft breweries. Included are Detroit Beer Company, Motor City Brewing Works (and their bike tours), and Atwater Brewery.

He sees breweries as an integral part of a city's rejuvenation:

"Breweries, I would argue, are the gatekeepers of the pragmatic middle. Generally speaking, they have been ahead of the curve when it comes to refilling America's decimated urban cores."

He focuses on craft brewing as a community movement, arguing that working together is not only nice, but imperative:

"Detroit brewers are optimistic enough in the future of the city to purchase property, albeit cheap, in abandoned neighborhoods. But they are realistic enough to understand that one successful brewery or trendy neighborhood is not enough. As long the surrounding blight remains, these small successes won't amount to the comeback narratives that are ironically as frequent as the pronouncements that Motor City is beyond saving. Simply put, Detroiters are beyond the simplicity of both narratives. Perhaps that's because there is absolutely nothing easy about opening and maintaining a successful brewery, least of all in Detroit."

This is just the opening to the rest of his article, (which he actually visited Detroit before writing) but it's an interesting look at how one outsider sees the city and it's potential.
· No Sympathy NeedeD: Breweries Continue to Play Role in Detroit's Story [CraftBeer.com]
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