GBH has been on a wild ride these past few years, and things are about to get very, very interesting for us.
This morning, we helped launch a major new web property in beer storytelling that's complimentary to GBH, aimed at a broad audience that wants to satisfy their curiosity in beer, but also have a broader conversation about the place beer has in our lives past and present. It’s called October. And you can now take a gander at what we’ve been hard at work on.
October is a massive collaboration for our studio team, bringing together friends at Condé Nast, Pitchfork, Beer Graphs, and Stink Studios. One of its initial investors is ZX Ventures (AB's new ventures team). ZX (you may know them from Norther Brewer and Pico Brewer investments) is tasked with starting new lines of business that create value in and of themselves rather than support existing AB businesses. So our end-goal here is to build an exciting platform for beer stories independent from the financial support in the hopes that October can find its own way and create real value for everyone involved.
For our part, GBH is Executive Producer for October working with Pitchfork and Condé, and the ambitions are big. It’ll have a far greater reach than GBH, and a much broader audience in certain ways. Eno Sarris from Beer Graphs is our day to day editor, and any writers are welcome to pitch any and all ideas directly to him and GBH. No one else reviews or approves any content but us.
Which of course begs the question, how is October different than GBH? To us, it’s pretty clear, and will only get more clear over time.
We think of GBH as sort of the Grantland to October’s ESPN. Long reads, expert narratives from within the industry, strategic and sometimes business-focused criticism, spending an inordinate amount of time developing perspective and insight, and always supported stunning visuals. The development of GBH’s curated team has been deeply personal and focused on continuity.
By comparison, October is meant to help the growing audience for craft beer, and beer in general, navigate the constantly shifting trends, styles, people and places that make being a drinker so damn exciting (and sometimes confusing, honestly). It’ll be educational, it’ll cut through the noise (and maybe add a little of it's own for good measure!), and it’ll be fun. Even on day one, October is covering the spread between clever beer reviews and the nostalgia of Coors and Smokey and the Bandit.
If GBH is helping waves swell with it’s forward-looking insight, October is the surfboard kicking off the crest and having fun with the crowd.
So you’re going to witness an entirely new tact on beer writing with October. And that gives GBH the freedom to keep going deep into the weird niche territory that satisfies our collective of personalities here. GBH’s writers have been at this for a long time now — and the more we experience and write, the more we uncover at the edges of the unfolding beer story. We’re going to keep digging with an even more confident focus — but when we come up for air, we’ll be partying over at October with a bunch of other writers we find inspiring and entertaining.
Follow @readoctober everywhere.
Words, Michael Kiser
