Introduction

 

 

 

Crafting may be my first love, but beer and I have a long and passionate history. Thank goodness, appreciating them both doesn’t have to be a rivalry for affections and I can enjoy them simultaneously, sometimes even in public.

I’m amazingly fortunate to be living in Portland, Oregon, which has the largest number of breweries per capita in the United States, and the beers here are pretty darn good—right up there with the awesome brews coming from my hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado. But I’m guessing you’ve got some kick-ass beers in your town, too. It’s a plague of awesomeness.

We’ve seen a revolution in crafting and knitting. Folks are learning to make things for themselves again, and luckily for us they’ve rediscovered beer. Home brewers who have been experimenting with hundred-year-old German recipes are opening brewpubs, and outstanding craft breweries are popping up all over the country—really, all over the world.

Innovative graphic design has accompanied the boom in the beer industry, with stunning packaging acting as a visual signature from the breweries. My appreciation for these cool cans and subsequent collection of them had turned into a bit of a problem. These things take up space, and a couple of years ago it seemed time to move on from my decorating style of “dorm room chic” to something more befitting a foxy middle-aged mom.

The answer to the question, “What do you do with the ninety-nine beers on the wall?” came from an unlikely source, my eight-year-old daughter. She had become obsessed with making jewelry out of my discarded bottle caps, and one morning, I found a note on my desk that said, “My crafting involves you to open a beer.” Suddenly I had an epiphany: “ALL crafting should involve my opening a beer.” The basic source materials for dozens of craft projects are right in my house, no farther than the fridge or recycle bin.

Take cans, for example: The perfect delivery system for getting the fresh, tasty goodness from the brewery to my mouth is still a perfect, usable thing once you’ve drained the contents, and chances are it’s pretty, and like so many of us, it has potential!

With this in mind, I raised my daughter’s allowance and set down to writing this book. But first, I opened a beer. As a tribute to the beer books I love to read, I’ve divided projects and chapters up by the style of beer that inspired them, working as you might do at a tasting, moving from lightest beer to darkest.

So, grab a bowl of pretzels, invite your friends over, and remember: You’ll be working with sharp pointy things here, and hot glue, so please drink and craft responsibly.