Category Archives: Sense of Place

Adaptive Reuse, Beer Names, Branding, Brewery Names, History, Names, Neolocalism, Sense of Place, Third Places

Beyond Beer: Craft Brewing and the Creation of Place

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Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to give a presentation to faculty members at Mid Sweden University. I was invited to give the presentation by Professor Wilhelm Skoglund, who was leading a research project examining the role of cultural and creative industries in place development, particularly in Europe’s peripheral regions. Wilhelm was familiar with my research on craft breweries and believed that insights from my work could contribute to the project’s efforts to better understand how cultural and creative enterprises can support local and regional development. My presentation was given via Zoom, an ideal format for Mid Sweden University, whose faculty and students are based on two campuses located in Östersund and Sundsvall. In addition to faculty, interested policy makers were also invited to attend my presentation.

My presentation, Craft Brewing and Place Development, focused on how craft breweries do more than make beer. As small, community-oriented businesses, they can revitalize vacant spaces, bring people together, and help communities celebrate and strengthen their unique identities.

I began my presentation by distinguishing between the concepts of space and place. The distinction is straightforward: space is simply a physical location, whereas place is a physical location that has acquired meaning, identity, and emotional significance through human experience. For example, an abandoned warehouse is merely a space. When that same warehouse is transformed into a brewery where people gather, build friendships, celebrate special occasions, and create lasting memories, it becomes a place. The structure itself may remain unchanged, but its meaning and significance to the community are fundamentally transformed. As the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan wrote in 1979, “Space is more abstract than place. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value.”

The process of turning space into place is referred to by geographers as place-making and contributes to what geographers call sense of place. Sense of place refers to the emotional connections and attachments that individuals develop with specific locations and environments. The concept also includes the distinctive qualities, meanings, and characteristics that give a place its unique identity.

Because sense of place is shaped by the meanings and identities associated with particular locations, the adaptive reuse of historic buildings offers a powerful mechanism for transforming space into place. Adaptive reuse is the practice of taking an unused, underutilized, or obsolete building and giving it a new purpose The craft brewing industry offers hundreds of examples of adaptive reuse, with breweries occupying buildings that once served very different functions, including factories, warehouses, churches, schools, fire stations, and other historic structures.

In their paper on the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, Peter A. Bullen and Peter E. D. Love emphasize the important role that historic structures play in fostering community identity and attachment to place. They argue that:

“People feel a stronger sense of connection with their local surroundings through heritage, which is quite different to the mentality associated with new building stock, in that it can be replicated anywhere and therefore lends no specific connection to the local environment. Heritage buildings are cultural icons and their preservation impacts on community wellbeing, sense of place and therefore social sustainability.”

Bullen and Love’s observation highlights the unique contribution of heritage buildings to place identity. Unlike modern structures that can often be replicated across locations, heritage buildings embody the history, culture, and character of a community. As a result, their preservation can strengthen residents’ sense of place, enhance community well-being, and contribute to the long-term social sustainability of local areas.

Brew Church Brewing in New Buffalo, MI has breathed new life into this old church
Buffalo Rock Brewing in Oregon, OH is housed in an old fire stattion

Adaptive reuse is a common practice in the brewing industry. By repurposing abandoned buildings, breweries not only preserve elements of the built environment but also help transform once-forgotten spaces into vibrant community places. Very often, craft breweries become public gathering places, where community members come together to enjoy each other’s company over a locally brewed beer.

Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg described public gathering spaces as “third places”, locations that exist outside the home (the first place) and workplace (the second place). Third places take many forms, including libraries, community gardens, coffee shops, museums, and craft breweries. These spaces play a vital role in contemporary society by fostering social interaction and community engagement. By bringing people together, third places have been shown to combat loneliness and social isolation, improve quality of life, encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and strengthen a community’s sense of place.

Many craft breweries function as third places by providing welcoming spaces where residents gather, socialize, attend events, and celebrate local culture. As I noted in a previous blog entry, beyond beer production, craft breweries have become important community hubs, hosting yoga classes, book clubs, running clubs, and a variety of activities that foster social interaction and local engagement.

Many craft breweries deliberately position themselves as “third places” within their communities, serving as gathering spaces that foster social interaction and civic engagement. For example, Colin Rath, co-owner of Migration Brewing in Portland, Oregon, described his brewery’s role in the following way:

“What we’ve created is what’s known as a third space… [Migration is] a place for the community to come together, that hosts the community, and a place that engages with the community and helps facilitate other people’s dreams and aspirations. It’s a place for people to celebrate, to mourn, to raise money for a cause or whatever their thing may be.”

Importantly, local residents also recognize the role that craft breweries play as community gathering spaces. As one craft beer patron in Oklahoma observed:

“People are there to have conversation, and certainly the beer is a draw, but it isn’t about just getting inebriated or partying per se. It is really more about community conversation. That’s what our taproom culture has become: a low-key, welcoming place where people can enjoy a good beer and connect with others. I rarely visit a taproom without striking up a conversation with someone.”

Craft breweries can also serve as important social spaces where residents and visitors interact. In her study of craft breweries in Montana, Ann M, Fletchall, showed how these encounters provide tourists with opportunities to engage with local people, cultures, and traditions, fostering a deeper appreciation of a community’s character. As a result, many visitors come to view craft breweries as more authentic expressions of place than conventional tourist attractions, offering insights into local identity, values, and everyday life that are often absent from more commercialized tourism experiences.

Finally, craft breweries can enhance a community’s sense of place by promoting and reinforcing local identity. One of the most visible ways they do this is through the names they choose for their breweries, as well as the names, labels, and branding of their beers. By drawing on local history, landmarks, cultural traditions, notable individuals, and regional stories, breweries create products that reflect and celebrate the distinctive character of their communities. In doing so, they help strengthen residents’ connections to place while also communicating a sense of local identity to visitors.

In my presentation at Mid Sweden University, I highlighted the example of Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, OH. Even the brewery’s name underscores its connection to place, referencing Cleveland’s location on the southern shore of Lake Erie, one of North America’s five Great Lakes. In doing so, the brewery draws upon a defining geographic feature of the region and reinforces its identity as a distinctly local institution.

Great Lakes Brewing Company also reinforces its connection to place through the names and stories behind many of its beers. During my presentation, I highlighted four examples that draw directly on the history, culture, and folklore of the Great Lakes region:

  • Edmund Fitzgerald Porter honors the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes freighter that sank during a storm on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, resulting in the loss of all 29 crew members. The tragedy remains one of the most significant maritime disasters in Great Lakes history.
  • Eliot Ness Amber Lager pays tribute to Eliot Ness, the federal Prohibition agent best known for helping bring down Chicago crime boss Al Capone. Ness later served as Cleveland’s Director of Public Safety from 1935 to 1942, giving the beer a strong connection to the brewery’s home city.
  • Commodore Perry IPA commemorates Oliver Hazard Perry, the naval commander whose victory over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813 was a pivotal moment in the War of 1812.
  • Lake Erie Monster Double IPA celebrates the legend of the Lake Erie Monster, a serpent-like creature purportedly measuring 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) in length and first reported in Lake Erie in 1817. The story has become a lasting element of regional folklore.
Commodore Perry IPA from Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, OH commemorates an important piece of Great Lakes’ history

Together, these beers demonstrate how Great Lakes Brewing Company incorporates regional history, notable figures, and local legends into its branding, strengthening its identity as a brewery that is deeply rooted in the culture and heritage of the Great Lakes region.

In concluding my presentation, I emphasized that craft breweries should be viewed as more than producers of beer. Through the adaptive reuse of historic buildings, the creation of welcoming third places, and the celebration of local history, culture, and identity, craft breweries can make meaningful contributions to place development. They help transform underutilized spaces into valued places, strengthen social connections among residents, and reinforce the distinctive characteristics that make communities unique. As regions around the world search for new pathways to economic and community development, particularly in smaller cities and peripheral areas, craft breweries offer an interesting example of how locally rooted cultural and creative enterprises can contribute to both economic vitality and a stronger sense of place. My discussion with colleagues and policymakers at Mid-Sweden University reinforced the value of looking beyond traditional measures of development and considering how businesses that foster identity, belonging, and community engagement can play an important role in shaping the places where people live, work, and visit.

Authenticity, Sense of Place, Small Towns

Yuengling, Rolling Rock and Mare of Easttown

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My wife and I recently finished watching a seven-part crime drama called Mare of Easttown. The show is set in the small community of Easttown, PA. The main character is Marianne “Mare” Sheehan, a police detective, who has to solve a missing persons case and the murder of a young single-mother. Sheehan’s character is played by English actress Kate Winslet. It is a well-made crime drama, with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer engaged and entertained.

The Mare of Easttown is a drama which does a great job of creating what Geographers call a ‘sense of place’ with respect to its setting. According to Geographers Ken Foote and Maoz Azaryahu sense of place is “used to describe the distinctiveness or unique character of particular localities and regions,” Easttown is a gritty, working class, Pennsylvania community which has Rust Belt written all over it. Indeed, in discussing the drama, the show’s creator Brad Inglesby refers to Easttown’s “blue-collar vibe” In making the show, Inglelsby strove to capture the “cultural authenticity of eastern Pennsylvania”.

There are a number of ways in which Inglesby conveys Easttown’s sense of place, one of which is having Winslet’s character talking with an authentic Delco accent. The fictional Easttown is located in Delaware County (aka Delco). The Delco accent is “characterized by its rounded vowels and shortened long-e and long-a sounds” so that the word “water” comes out as as “wooder”. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Winslet said that “It is absolutely up there amongst the top two hardest dialects I’ve ever done”.

Promotional poster for Mare of Easttown

In addition to Winslet’s accent, another feature of the show is the fact that the only two beers that the characters seem to drink are Yuengling and Rolling Rock. Both have strong associations with Pennsylvania and both appear frequently throughout the series. Mare’s preference is Rolling Rock. I did find it a little strange that no one in the show drank Budweiser or Coors Light. This surely has to be the result of ‘product placement’, the practice of featuring well-known products in movies and television shows. According to a 2022 article in the New York Times, product placement is a $23 billion industry. It should be noted that in a 2023 survey, a sample of Pennsylvanians identified Yuengling as their favorite beer.

Historically, beers have had a strong connection to place. Numerous examples abound, including Pilsner Urquell (Plzeň, Czech Republic), Newcastle Brown Ale (Newcastle, England) and Guinness (Dublin, Ireland). The surging popularity of craft beer has reignited an interest in sense of place and what it means. Many craft breweries adopt names that they believe connect them with the neighborhood/city/region in which their beer is brewed. Thus, the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland, OH makes an explicit connection to the Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975. The entire crew of 29 men were lost. The use of locally grown hops and other local ingredients are responsible for discussions as to whether beer can have a terroir (a term usually used in reference to wine) which connects it to a specific place. See here and here for contrasting positions on this debate.

Yuengling and Rolling Rock – the only two beers that Easttown’s residents seem to consume

A key concept when connecting a beer with a place (or vice versa) is that of authenticity. Authenticity can be defined as “the quality of being real or true”. Dictionary definitions are useful as they provide formal definitions of terms. Equally important, however, are the terms that the average person uses to express ideas such as authentic/authenticity (and their antonyms inauthentic/inauthenticity). The work of Balázs Kovács and his colleagues, which was published in the journal Organization Science, is useful in this regard. In a study of the restaurant industry, Kovács et al. (2013) asked consumers to identify words that expressed authenticity and inauthenticity. Words that consumers most frequently associate with authenticity include genuine, real, and legitimate, while words they most commonly associate with inauthentic include unreal, deceptive, and phony. So what about Yuengling and Rolling Rock? To what extent are they authentic Pennsylvania beers?

The Yuengling Brewery in the small town of Pottsville, PA (population ~13,000) is the oldest brewery in the United States. Established in 1829 by a German immigrant by the name of David Gottlieb Jüngling (anglicized to Yuengling) the brewery today remains under the ownership of fifth and sixth generation family members. While Yuengling is also brewed in Tampa, FL (in a brewery purchased by the family in 1999) and Fort Worth, TX (under contract with MolsonCoors) it remains loyal to its Pennsylvania roots. It is an authentic Pennsylvania beer.

The same, I would argue, cannot be said for Rolling Rock. First produced in 1939, this American Lager was brewed by Latrobe Brewing Company in the small town of Latrobe, PA (population ~8,000 and the birthplace of golfing legend Arnold Palmer and children’s television presenter Fred Rogers). In 1987, the brewery was purchased by Labbat Brewing Company. Further mergers and acquisitions occurred and, by 2004, Labbat (and Rolling Rock) was owned by InBev. In 2006, Anheuser Busch purchased the Rolling Rock brands from InBev for $82 million. Shortly after the purchase, production of Rolling Rock was shifted from Latrobe to Newark, NY where it was brewed in an Anheuser-Busch facility. Rolling Rock had left Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

The brewery in Latrobe where Rolling Rock was brewed before production to Newark
The brewery in Latrobe where Rolling Rock was brewed before production shifted to New Jersey

When it was brewed in Latrobe, part of the branding of Rolling Rock highlighted the fact that the water used to brew it came from nearby mountain springs. Latrobe sits at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains. Writing for The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Nick Stumpo noted that the taste of the beer changed “ever so slightly . . . from year to year due to the sediments that run off the hills into the mountain streams that feed the main brewing reservoir”. This is effectively an argument for terroir. After the transfer of production was announced, one resident asked, “So will Rolling Rock now taste like the swamps of Jersey (with apologies to the Boss) rather than the mountain springs of Old Latrobe?”. Another stated, “If it ain’t from Latrobe, it ain’t Rolling Rock.” When the shift to Newark was announced, Anheuser-Busch brewmaster Doug Muhleman, stated, “we locate our breweries where we know we have an excellent source of fresh water. And, of course, Newark is no different. We are very confident we are going to produce a beer that is indistinguishable from the beer that is produced in Latrobe.”

Rolling Rock beer comes from the mountain springs to you

When news of Rolling Rocks imminent departure became known, there was significant local backlash. Consumers like Michael J. Pleva vowed “never to drink Rolling Rock again”, while local bar owners reported patrons shifting to other brands. In the State’s House of Representatives, House Resolution 798 was introduced. It read:

“A Resolution urging Pennsylvania residents to boycott Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., by discontinuing the purchase of all Anheuser-Busch products if Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., proceeds with its plan to close the Rolling Rock Brewery in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.”

These responses are understandable. Nick Stumpo suggests that Latrobe “owes its identity and national recognition” to Rolling Rock, a beer “embraced by mill and steel workers who shared pints after long days on the job”. Local restaurant owner Joyce Stern referred to Rolling Rock as “an icon. It’s the identity of this town.” Dave Taylor of Taylor Brand Group, described Rolling Rock as beer with a “blue collar following and steeped in the appeal of small town authenticity”. It was an identity that Anheuser-Busch tried to leverage after it moved production to New Jersey. They did so by creating and using the slogan “Born Small Town” to brand the beer.

So, to use a soccer analogy, did the creators of Mare of Easttown score an own goal when using Rolling Rock as a symbol of small-town Pennsylvania? If you wanted to make that case, there is certainly enough supporting evidence. However, I am going to give the creators of the show a pass here. Even though I know that Rolling Rock is no longer brewed in Pennsylvania, my subconscious mind immediately jumps to the the Keystone State (and specifically Latrobe) whenever I hear the beer’s name. It may no longer be brewed in Latrobe or Pennsylvania, but it’s identity is still strongly tied to both the town and the state.