So I have an unexpected admission. Starting in January I will be taking a step back from my beer work for a year or so. I am choosing to take a rare and temporary job opportunity of which one of the consequences is that I have to give up my paid beer gigs, partly because of rules and partly because of available time.

I don’t do this lightly, as I love my beer work and am very sad to lose my various outlets, in particular my CBC gig. I am allowed to continue my posting on onbeer.org, and will, but as a reality I will be doing that less often. But one of the things about having less time means likely my posts will be more significant and meaningful when I do write one – or at least I hope they will.

You are well in your rights to think I am nuts to cede up my space (even if temporarily) in the prairies’ beer world. I have been covering it for longer than anyone and I am aware that I carry a certain degree of cred when I speak of beer in this region.

I am well aware of what I am giving up, at least temporarily. But sometimes in life you have to reach for things even at the cost of other things you care about. I know in 20 years I would regret saying no to this opportunity.

Plus there is a piece of me that thinks that my combination of brewing knowledge, beer judge chops, beer industry insights and general passion for beer is hard to replicate. Which might mean maybe, just maybe, some of the outlets and places will take me back upon my return in a year or so. Obviously no promises on either end. Just a vague hope.

I know that the first thing that is going to happen is that my website hits are going to drop and my Twitter followers may drop away. Let me say, please don’t. I know I won’t be the most exciting online presence in the next little while, but I suggest you will want to know when I return to the scene. And, besides, I still might say a few interesting things from time to time. Seems easy to hang on to me in the meantime. But the social media world will do what the social media world needs to do. I will live with the consequences.

I have enjoyed writing for all of you, interacting with many of you and generally sharing my passion for prairie craft beer in the various places and outlets that have let me take up space and time. I still hope to offer insights and tidbits here on onbeer.org. Plus I hope to use the time to finally arrange to get a make-over done for the site. So you have that to look forward to upon my return, at the very least!

In the meantime I hope you all have a happy, peaceful and satisfying year or so. And keep drinking good beer. I will be really pissed if I learn that in my absence you all went back to drinking Bud!

Cheers, friends!