2017 was a year of great changes for me. Arguably, the largest of the changes was moving from the Chicago suburbs to Cleveland. In October 2016, I flew to Cleveland to get the lay of the land and figure out where I should be apartment hunting. While here, I stumbled into Canopy, an arts studio space and gallery. They had a charming selection of locally published zines. I picked one up and it practically begged me to buy it.

The zine in question? The Land of 1000 Diners.  It is probably the most charming and informative zine I have ever read, and it gave me a unique tool to help me explore my new home – a place that I barely knew the first  thing about.  After a year of living in Cleveland, Land of 1000 Diners is still a treasured reference both for myself, and for showing out-of-towners what Cleveland is all about.

That brings us here, to Beer Zine.  I’ve been wanting to stretch my artistic endeavors into zines for a while now, and with the plethora of brewery offerings here in the city, I think a guidebook to them is the right route to take.  I’ve been working on this for a few weeks already now – we are halfway through February.  I’ve been going to breweries and sampling their beer, atmosphere, food, and other offerings to see what I think of them. I don’t know that I’ll make 52 breweries in 52 weeks, but it is worth a shot, and regardless of how things shake out, I’ll still have a zine at the end.