From the “Dear Zymurgy” page of the Spring 1989 issue of Zymurgy magazine.

Dear Zymurgy,

I am writing to express my deep disappointment over your recent Special Issue of Zymurgy, specifically with the exploitation of an individual’s physical attractiveness on your cover. I speak, of course, about the cover of the Beer Lover’s Store catalog and your shameless use of Fred Eckhardt as a sex object to boost sales.

Yes, everyone who has seen Fred, and especially those who have met him, agree that he is endowed with an outsized measure of roguish good looks, magnetic charm and male vitality. But does that mean we should shamelessly use him as bait for those who might find this catalog lying around the house and order books and t-shirts while under Fred’s spell?

And what about Fred? He’s more than just a hunk you know. Fred is deeply sensitive, a complete person with feelings and accomplishments, and here you are, treating him like a piece of meat on display in the marketplace. Sure, Fred might enjoy it at first; the recognition, the adulation, but sooner or later the morning will come when he sits on the edge of the bed and says, “I feel so cheap…How could I have let them use me this way?”

I, for one, hope you will never again use a human being in your publication, but stick to yeast cells, carboys and lauter tubs. In protest, I am limiting my purchases to $60 and waiting a full day to send in my order.

But this is not the only reason I am writing. I recently read Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and there is a quote I want to share with you.

“It was now the beginning of August, and the Plague grew very violent and terrible in the Place where I liv’d, and Dr. Heath coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so often out in the Streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock my self up and my Family, and not to suffer any one of us to go out of Doors. As I had not laid in a Store of Provision for such a retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within Doors entirely; however, I attempted, tho’ it was so very late, to do something towards it; and first, as I had Convenience both for Brewing and Baking, I went and bought two Sacks of Meal, and for several Weeks, having an Oven, we baked all our own Bread; also I bought Malt, and brew’d as much Beer as all the Casks I had would hold, and which seem’d enough to serve my House for five or six Weeks.”

I’ll continue to keep you posted on such discoveries.

Flagons aloft,

Kihm Winship