We are getting very close to setting the date and venue for the debut of Crafted to Last – Minnesota Beer Blossoms. Looks like mid-July. Minneapolis. The venue can support all of our plans/dreams for this event. Local beer. Local film. Local Music. One event at one location. Its been a long road and we are almost there.

Music is an important part of Crafted to Last at many levels and in many ways. Its all laid out in the Campaign for Music. A critical aspect of the Campaign for Music in particular and of the MN Craft Beer Project in general is the emphasis on local economies and communities. Highlighting the impact of locally brewed beer on associated local businesses is appropriate not because I happen to think that it is cool to have as many locally sourced options as possible, but because it is good for me, my neighborhood and our communities. The ideas are nicely summarized here. The basic idea is that dollars spent at local businesses are more quickly recycled into the immediate economy and the longer the currency circulates in the neighborhood before it leaks out to larger and larger cash streams, the more energy the local economy can glean from the flow of cash through our hands and into our neighbor’s.

The Campaign for Music was designed with this in mind. All of the money we raise in that campaign will be immediately returned to local economies through the community of musicians that participate in our projects. The music made possible by the campaign will enhance the film and video that describes how the community of Minnesota beer brewers responded to the beer distribution laws reformed in 2012. The documentary could not have been made without the participation of many breweries all across the state and the support of the Minnesota beer communities from everywhere we’ve been and a lot of places we have not.

The Campaign for Music and the roll-out of the documentary explicitly connect two important local communities, music and beer, within the state. By positioning our home brewed film at the nexus of the local beer and local music movements we have created a kind of social amplifier, or a cultural force multiplier. One contribution, monetary and otherwise, benefits in at least 3 communities local film, local music and local beer.