Why the Smithsonian will pay you to drink beer
A newly created job vacancy asks for applicants to conduct research into America's craft-beer scene
Following Prohibition, many of the USA’s smaller breweries were consolidated into larger concerns, “churning out bland lagers”, as Joshua David Stein puts it in the introduction to our book Food & Beer. In response to those bland lagers, independent-minded beer lovers and amateur brewers began to produce small-batch, artisanal beers – commonly referred to today as Craft Beer.
The Smithsonian, the United States’ National Museum, hopes to recognise and record this cultural movement and has just advertised for an academically minded beer aficionado to join its National Museum of American History in Washington DC.
This professional scholar/historian will “conduct archival and field research for a new initiative on American brewing history, with special emphasis on the craft industry,” the Smithsonian's advert explains. And, while loving beer certainly helps, “the successful candidate will have proven experience in scholarly research, organizing and conducting oral history interviews, writing for both scholarly and general audiences, and knowledge of material culture and archival materials.”
The three-year appointment will form part of the Smithsonian’s Division of Work and Industry, commands a salary of $64,650, plus other, perhaps beer-related benefits. Interested? Then don't sleep, or indeed drink on it. The application deadline is 10 August. Find out more here, and for greater insight into today’s greatest high-end beer scene in the US get Food & Beer.