Name: Scott and Melissa (who is my wife and is ghostwritten as the Haybag because she thinks blogging is a waste of time).
Blog: Beerbecue
Established: Technically, September 23, 2011. Metaphysically, it has always existed.Why do you do it?
Beer blogging with a comedic bent is a good foil to my day job’s technical writing. That, and after seven years of marriage I had already used all my material on the Haybag. So, I had to either come up with more stuff or find a new audience. The latter seemed easier.

What else have you got going on in your life?
I am a tax attorney by day (and sometimes night)…sort of. I draft tax legislation for the US House of Representatives. They come up with the policies (of varying merit), and I write it. I’m married to the Haybag. And we have two daughters. 1.0 is six years-old, and 2.0 is 19 months. Also, I’m a lifelong Notre Dame football (the pointy, oblong one) fan and a blindly allegiant alum.

What makes you keep writing if you’re not getting paid for it?
I’m afraid that if I stop, my website will fall out of the #4 google search ranking for “loch ness monster’s g spot”. That, and I’m kind of an attention whore.

What’s one of your blog posts that you like the most?
I think my videos are pretty entertaining, but I guess that’s vlogging. When 2.0’s daycare was closed, I had a lot of fun with the Beerbecue Daycare series. I may revive that. Unfortunately, most of my funniest reviews are full of American history and pop culture references. But maybe my favorite is my post on craft beer’s impending succession planning problem.  I put my law degree to work, and I think made it about as funny as the topic could possibly be.

One tip about beer blogging that you’d like to share?
People are busy, and the online attention span is short. Make your blog easy to read. This can mean such things as keep it pithy, lead with your best material, pitch from the stretch (no big wind-up), keep a regular schedule, keep posts well-organized, develop a predictable format, and stay on topic. I regularly violate each of these rules.

The phrase ‘‘craft beer’’ – love it or hate it?
I hate it, but I do use it as loose shorthand for not-macro. What does it actually mean or should it mean? Fuck if I know.

One thing that still surprises you about the beer scene?
The persistence of hype. It boggles my mind, and it’s been going on for awhile now. Some beers will be gone five minutes after they show up at the beer store. Don’t these people have jobs? Did they lowjack the distributor’s truck and ambush the driver on arrival? In the case of some rare beers where stores limit the number of bottles one can purchase, I have heard of people trailing the distributor truck and buying the limit at each stop. That’s nuts.

And one thing you hate about it?
In addition to the hand-wringing over the definition of craft, I also hate the term “session beer” and the debate about what constitutes a session beer. It’s useless. It’s like debating how many drop bears will fit in a Holden Spark. What’s the point?