On Saturday, November 10, I attended the Barrel Aged Invitational at Brother Barrel. It was awesome seeing the event come together. I helped with marketing for the event across all socials, was there for set up, and took photos of the event during. I also wrapped everything up with posts and photos the following day! I had a great time tasting barrel aged and sour beers from Elliott Bay and from favorite local breweries chosen to be in attendance by the brewers themselves.
Breakside Brews #MoreFriends #MoreMemories (made with 1 lb of fresh raspberries per gallon) was my favorite taste of the day. The highlight of the event, however, was the people I met. One man in particular, David, who goes by the name drosspoet as a writer, stands out. We chatted for quite a while about journaling, poetry, publishing, future goals, and I’m currently halfway through his first book of poems, which I purchased the day following the event. Some may find it surprising due to my outgoing and strong personality, but networking (talking to new people in general) is something that has always frightened me. I am coming to learn that in order to network with the right people, I should just be myself.
It was also fantastic to talk to Sarah outside of Evergreen and do a site visit. Thank you Sarah for coming to visit! I hope you enjoyed yourself.
As for the rest of the week, I spent quite a bit of time outside of the pubs, doing administrative work in preparation for the end of the internship and the holidays. I am a huge planner, and I want to make sure that I have enough content to post every day over break. I also went to both West Seattle and Lake City pubs to take food photos.
The biggest thing I accomplished in terms of administrative work was typing out the rest of the interviews for employee spotlights. The process of creating employee spotlights has been much more drawn out than I had originally anticipated. I spent a week or 2 traveling back and forth between the 3 locations, interviewing staff based on their varying availabilities. I recorded the interviews instead of taking handwritten notes, because I wanted to make sure I could give my full attention and not miss any of the details. I then had to listen back to the recordings and type out their responses word for word, which was very time consuming, before going back in and editing their responses to be more concise. The hardest part of editing was that I wanted to make sure that every employee’s voice could still be heard. I didn’t want to change the wording, but I also had to shorten some of the answers greatly, or take out sections that may not have been appropriate to share online. Once edited, I send the draft to the employee, have them look over it, and make any changes they advise. Some respond right away saying it looks great, others make a few edits and send it back, and some want to meet in person to read it together and make edits that way. It’s been fun, but I am happy to bring the project to a bit of a close!
In week 9, I hope to reach out to any employees I may still want to interview before the end of the internship. I would also like to take plenty more photos of classic menu items.