Tony Magee kegstand (photo credit: Redtail Media, Jeffrey Neal)
(Petaluma, CA) – Lagunitas Brewing Founder and Owner, Tony Magee, released a bevy of tweets over the past week or so regarding a new book he has been working on, So, you want to start a brewery?, and more generally, his take on the state of the craft beer segment.
here's a weird thing I've been picking at for the last year; joinin the 'book club' w/ the Lag story in book form. 64,420 words of mumbling.
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 4, 2012
Began writing it on Amtrak's CaliZephyr in 2010. It's the thousand stories Ron & I have told a thousand times all written down…Fun, it is.
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 4, 2012
It's funny how things that were scary, uncertain, & brutal in real life seem quirky, offbeat, & interesting when written down….
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 4, 2012
…'course, it's hard to remember what really, really happened.Seems memory is just a story you tell yourself…but then, I like kool-aid…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 4, 2012
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 4, 2012
I messing with designs/names for the book cover… here's this morning's idea….
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 6, 2012
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 6, 2012
The publisher's final edit is done now. I still have 'final cut' , so that's my weekend's work: reading/writing. Read any good beer lately?
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 9, 2012
It has the basic history, but moreso the back room sagas. Lots of blood and guts, osteotomes and bone saws… the invisible stuff…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 9, 2012
The book is also a bread crumb dropped so that the path from start to the present is told. S'not a declaration of success, but a bookmark…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
A book I've been working on will be on Amazon and iBooks in the next month. S'not a book bout how special we are… just how we got here…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) July 25, 2012
s'Called 'So,YouWantToStartABrewery?'The cover art's 2 brave souls puttin H2O on 100' flames @ the Paki/Afgan border. Was like that @ times!
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) July 25, 2012
Lag's comin up on 20 freakin years next year… That's as hard to believe as it is to swallow…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) July 25, 2012
More on the craft beer segment as a whole…
Time is good cuz Craft Beer is at a BC/AD point right now. The biggest brewers r all in transition now. Lot's of the founders are gone…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
If ya think bout it…RedHook, PrtLndBrew, MagicHat, Mendcino, Anchor, Goose, Kona, Pyramid, how many others? This is in many ways…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
…the beginning of the end of the beginning. And in many of the ones where the founders r still there, transitions r already in process…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
…and the transi-tors r not in it 4 the same reasons as the founders were. Founders r about the beer; transi-tors are in it for the volume.
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
But it's all still good because there are 1,000 new founders in the pipeline right now! Viva Maynard Keynes!
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
At the risk of overstating it; The brands that founded the first 30 years of craft makin it totally legit built brands that will be here…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
…for a hundred years. It'd be like being around while the Founding Fathers of the US were still publishing in the local newspapers…
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
…Founders today! Down the road? John Edwards, J. Edgar, Nixon, Joe McCarthy, Ollie North… they are the distant future of craft beer!
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012
So…this is a special time now for the future landscape of beer around the world, but, we're all only passing through history… Don't sip!
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) June 10, 2012