Steampunk workshop
This Modern Life is full of efficiencies: high-fructose corn syrup, the bubbly shape of modern cars, 2 GB RAM. In general, efficient markets and efficient products make the world a better place.
Efficiencies can also make life very bland.
Steampunk paradoxically celebrates both technology and inefficiency. Using steam, steel, gears, a DIY ethic and a Victorian-era aesthetic, steampunk is a jolt of creative energy in our modern world of rubber and rapid prototyping; of sameness and ubiquity.
It’s not a movement for Luddites; on the contrary, steampunk embraces technology. It just looks at it through the lens of the 1890s, when technology was about optimism. What could be. What if.
As brewers, we’re inspired by modern steampunk’s re-examination of technology. But for us, beer is the backdrop. We, too, will use steam, steel, gears, and our own DIY ethic. Our “what if?” wonders what beer would be like if the South was America’s heartland for beer. What if Prohibition never happened? If beer was as respected as wine?
Through agriculture, art, science, and physical labor, we will craft a revolution against the industrial sameness that permeates society. A slice of red against cubicle beige.
I think the discussion on this kind of topic is always interesting. Which modern technologies are worth pursuing and which older ones are worth reviving. In the beer context, I would be really interested to know what beer was like 200 years ago and I think that brewing a beer using old techniques and technology would be really interesting, but I would probably use modern sanitization methods.
We live in a house that was built in the 40′s and I would much rather be here than in a new construction. I like that we still have the original hardwood floors and some of the older windows. However, I am glad that I have a relatively new heating/AC system.
Trying to find the balance between preserving what was really great about the past and what is useful from the present is always interesting.
At least to me.