If you’re reading this, you might very well already know what Beer-O-Vision is, or aims to be once we’ve fully developed it. But possibly you’ve stumbled here via some other route, and honestly, you may have even seen one of the first two episodes and thought “Cool, but… what is it?”

I’ve been waiting a bit to write any sort of B-O-V manifesto, only because I knew WNYMedia was about to go through some upgrades and I figured it would be best to get this up at the time the new site goes up. So, here we are…

I’ve been pushing the somewhat awkward term “Internet Video Magazine,” which I think captures the idea effectively, if gracelessly. Certainly, it is not a “vlog,” in that it’s not really meant to be the video equivalent of a blog- it’s not like a journal. Rather, I’m aiming to have a bevy of regular segments, such as interviews, reviews, news, brewery tours, homebrewing events, competitions and well… others I haven’t even conceived of yet, I’m sure. In any month’s episode, you’ll get some subset of the different segments. A good example- the “From The Beer Seller” segment, where we do a little pop-up-video over some old beer ads… We’ll probably forgo that in the upcoming episode, but it’ll be back. We have a lot of those ads, so it’s always there for us. One thing that is going to be at least relatively consistent is the use of the Goodbeer Club as a homebase for between segments- but we’ll be visiting other local tasting events as well. In fact, look for us at Alternative Brews on 21st June for their tasting; that segment will probably go into Episode 4.

And of course, we’re paying a lot of attention to production and quality- ultimately, this may be mostly distributed on the intertubes, but it is also TV-ready. Indeed, we’re aiming to make 24-min episodes to allow time for advertising in the offline world, probably also in the online world. I’m not really Mr. Entrepreneur here, but at the same time, it needs to sustain itself. I hope I can manage that without becoming a tool, we’ll see. But when the when the Blue ads start coming up, I’m just saying… you’ve been warned.

So anyway, that’s the format. What’s the point? Well, more than anything, it’s fun to produce and it will add to the growing buzz surrounding craft beer—the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry lately—and homebrewing. Simply, I am a big ol’ beer & brewing enthusiast with a soapbox, and I wanna use it. As it happens, for me, that enthusiasm is wrapped up in all sorts of other aspects of my life (politics, environmental concerns, education, regionalism, advocacy, economics, history, design… new media, just to name a few!), but at the end of the day, there’s also the idea of joining the beer advocacy bandwagon.

For too long, beer has been denigrated, regarded as capable of only being a simple beverage, mass-produced and mass-consumed, and as such, not worthy of scrutiny, art, intrigue, or innovation. This attitude drove the massive industry-wide consolidation that resulted in such limited choices for style at least until the late 80’s and early 90’s. Of course this scene has really changed, and more and more people are aware of the variety and possibilities of beer- like I said above, it’s a fast growing market segment. But despite that rosy picture, for most people, beer remains almost purely functional. Craft beer market share can grow so massively precisely because it is still a very small part of the market overall. But to me, beer is bested by other choices, like wine, only for lack of a good marketing campaign. In today’s artisinal beer world, you can pay loads of money for aged beers of a complexity and caliber to rival any wine. Enough. If that fancy restaurant is going to have a wine list or a sommelier, they should give beer as mauch attention as well.

So I like the idea of helping to amp up the message on good beer… and that’s the why of Beer-O-Vision. And surely, that’s enough gabbing for the time being.