Community Interview With an Important Person

Joshua Oakes has been a leading advocate of craft beer in the community for almost 20 years. Now that the community is experiencing a craft beer revolution, many attribute the success of other local businesses like food trucks, to Oakes. In an interview, City Commissioner Tyrell Jones lauded the groundwork Oakes had laid over the course of the last two decades. “His work has been instrumental in improving the local economy,” Jones said, “I don’t even like beer, but I recognize what Oakes has done for our community and I appreciate it a lot.”
Born in Richmond to a working class family, Joshua Oakes has long recognized the value of community service and activism. “When I was young, my mom was always dragging me to bake sales and other community events. I used to hate it when I was young, but as I got older I couldn’t live with myself unless I was out there constantly, doing what I could to help.” Oakes claims that it all started in high school. Like many students, Oakes had a particularly influential teacher who inspired him to become active in his community. Yet it wasn’t until Oakes discovered his love for craft beer that he was able to fuse his knowledge of community activism with the genuine passion that comes from within. To be a true activist, one must not only leverage the social networks and ties one has in the community, but also be dedicated to a cause.
At first, Oakes had no idea that beer would be a community issue. It started as just a hobby, something that took Oakes on numerous journeys to other cities with thriving craft beer cultures. Oakes even traveled abroad for beer, visiting Old World brewing hubs in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Through his travels, Oakes realized that beer has a community function in the Old World, which had been lost throughout the years in the New World. Whereas all beer was once consumed locally, mass production, Fordism, and industrialization led to the evolution of beverage corporations producing what Oakes calls “swill,” or on occasion simply “crap.” For decades, all Americans had access to were these swill beverages.
Oakes cannot take credit for starting the craft beer revolution, but he was one of the first to ride the crest of the wave. By the time craft beer had become a “thing” in North America, Oakes was trying every new beer he could get his hands on. According to Melanie Gross, owner of the popular local brewpub Hello Beer, Josh Oakes was a maverick who really inspired people to think harder about what they were drinking. Through a website he developed, Oakes helped build a powerful online community that circumvented the difficulties he encountered trying to meet other craft beer lovers in person. The online community, BeerLovers, eventually blossomed to the point where each major city had a local chapter. Thus was born the craft beer culture in our community.
At first, it was hard to conceptualize beer as a community activity. Beer was still viewed as being a commodity, and one with a lot of social and cultural baggage. As an alcoholic beverage, it had a sort of taboo quality that made it difficult to appeal to more conservative members of the community, even those who did enjoy the occasional tipple. Based on his knowledge of how beer brings together people from disparate walks of life in the European communities he visited, Oakes came up with a plan. He started to strategize with other beer lovers he met online for how to embed craft beer in the community.
Although Oakes is not a brewer himself, many of his friends were brewing at home already. Oakes applied his background in finance and investment banking towards helping any interested home brewer to become a fledgling commercial brewery. As an angel investor of types, Oakes would provide the startup capital and a well-designed business plan. He attracted funding from the most unlikely and creative of places, understanding that in order to make his vision work, he needed to work with all members of the community including faith-based organizations. Of course, his role as brewery consultant eventually led to his becoming involved in local politics, albeit in a behind-the-scenes way. The reason why Oakes and Jones are so close is that they used to communicate regularly about zoning issues and alcohol licenses. Together, Jones and Oakes helped to liberalize the outdated community bylaws that were impeding local businesses like craft breweries, brewpubs, and beer bars from thriving.
Now, craft beer is integral to the community. Just as in Europe, the breweries are where people come to socialize, even bringing their families. The child-friendly and dog-friendly environment of the breweries has ensured that this business model is here to stay, and is promoting a higher quality of life in the community. This interview with Joshua Oakes shows how individuals with passion for unique and creative ideas work with members of the community to transform local laws and norms. Also, this interview shows how important it is to gather together different people who might otherwise have no shared interests, to reveal their common goals in improving the overall quality of life for everyone. As Jones pointed out, you do not need to even like beer to appreciate what craft beer does for the local economy. Since the proliferation of breweries in the area, tourism revenues have increased by almost thirty percent, according to Jones. Not only that, the presence of the breweries has attracted more and more small businesses like independent restaurants and food trucks. These are businesses that once floundered due to lack of foot traffic. Now that the residents of the community are out and about, they are spending time together in the breweries while they also patronize the local eating establishments. It is a win-win situation. Oakes shows how small efforts can make a tremendous difference in their community.





Works Cited

Gross, Melanie. Personal interview. 21 November 2017.
Jones, Tyrell. Personal interview. 21 November 2017
Oakes, Joshua. Personal interview. 20 November 2017.