The hazy IPA gentrification hypothesis

Editor’s note: The column below was originally published way back in July 2020, when Fingers was much (MUCH) smaller. Following the popularity of my recent piece for VinePair about craft breweries getting gentrified out of the neighborhoods they helped to gentrify, I’m republishing my report from half a decade ago, when they were still on the “winning” side of that equation. Sorry for the back-to-back reprints, by the way. Your old pal Dave is swamped reporting on the tariff situation and an exciting new project I’m hoping to be able to tell you about soon. Weekender is back this Sunday!—Dave.

Gentrification. It’s bad, except when maybe/on occasion/if undertaken responsibly it can be good? Seems like a complex issue, and not the sort of thing you’d want to align yourself with and trumpet publicly on social media during a global pandemic that’s likely going to result in an “avalanche” of low-income and non-white folks getting evicted from their homes in neighborhoods that have already been ravaged by the insatiable beast we call capitalism.

And yet. In July 2020, the Florida Brewers Guild did exactly that, circulating an open letter to Governor Ron DeSantis asking him to let them reopen their taprooms, nearly all of which had to shut down because the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been an absolute catastrophe. There was a line in there that turned some heads.

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