Spotlight: #PubJanuary
It is January 2nd, and you have shaken off that New Year’s Eve hangover and find yourself surveying a gray winter landscape (under a permanent drizzle here in Oregon). Night falls at 4:30 pm, but now there are no more holidays to anticipate, just two more months of yuck.
This is the moment to get down to your local Oregon brewery.
The winter blues are real, and after the holidays we’re more likely to find ourselves isolated. In recent decades, research has linked loneliness and social isolation to a host of negative health outcomes. As a scientific review published last year by the NIH characterized it: “Robust evidence documents social connection factors as independent predictors of mental and physical health, with some of the strongest evidence on mortality.” Pubs, and especially brewery taprooms, have become very important gathering spaces for communities. If you haven’t noticed, your local taproom hosts scores of events across the year, all open to the public and nearly all free.
You are surely aware that breweries are struggling right now, and January and February are their worst months. Your dollars always support a brewery, but your January dollars are especially helpful in those lean winter months. And there is no easier or more pleasant way to help out.
Of course, you don’t have to drink. This is a month when people try to balance their relationship with alcohol, but practicing a dry January doesn’t mean you can’t have a non-alcoholic beer and a meal down at the pub. Breweries have been big supporters of non-drinkers, and many make their own NA beer, special dry-January mocktails, or hop water—and they all offer non-alcoholic choices of some kind.
Last year, as we promoted #PubJanuary at Celebrate Oregon Beer, we discovered just how central breweries were to their local communities. This is just a sampling of the kinds of events you will find happening around the state over the next month: chess nights, comedy shows, community fly tying, painting, sculpture, and macrame workshops, magic shows, speed painting, yoga (with beer and without), drag shows, gaming nights of all kinds, records and comic swaps—all of this (which barely scratches the surface) in addition to the usual live music, trivia nights, and beer-related events. It's an amazing cornucopia of fun stuff.
What You Can Do
Go to your local brewery! The best way to find out about special events is visiting their social media accounts, and Instagram seems to be their favorite (most breweries don't update their websites reliably). Next,
tag your experience on social media with the #PubJanuary hashtag.
That will show you having a good time and remind others to get out and have some pubby fun. If you’d like us to repost your adventure to our stories feed,
tag our account on Instagram as well.
Let’s be healthy and happy this January, and support our local breweries!
