Bitter Wit is a collection of my short (and often not so short) musings on the craft beer industry, the beverage industry, the hospitality industry, and beyond.
You can expect me to be overly critical of stereotypical white-guy breweries (I’m a white guy) and wax-poetic about the superiority of light lagers over hazy IPAs.
I’ll also be posting personal essays which outline my history in the craft brewing industry, from an over-confident New York homebrewer, to co-owner of a brewery in Santa Cruz county.
For my paid subscribers, I’ll be publishing rough sections of a memoir and family history. Here, I’ll be detailing how my parents found themselves involved in a doomsday cult in Arizona, and how I wound up on the cult’s doorstep looking for closure almost 30 years later.
About Ben Ward
I’m a brewer, former brewery owner, and aspiring beer writer. I’ve brewed for 8 breweries professionally, and collaborated with several others through my personal project Effigy Brewing. Recently, I was the owner and Head Brewer of The Slough Brewing Collective in Watsonville, CA. My partners and I tried to create a safe space for members of our community who didn’t typically feel welcome in a craft brewery.
We met with some success but ultimately called it quits after three tumultuous years (2020-2023 to be precise) and I’ve been trying to find a new path forward through the craft beer industry ever since.
I’m originally from the Ithaca region of Upstate New York, and I’ve spent time as a barista, a Quality Assurance Director, a copywriter, and a mental health counselor. I once walked the 500-mile stretch of coastline between Santa Cruz and Los Angeles in 19 days and traveled to Tucson, Arizona to confront a doomsday cult leader who harassed my family.
I’ve lived in Ithaca, Brooklyn, and Santa Cruz. I’ve traveled the United States extensively, but I’ve never been outside of the country. I currently reside in sunny Sacramento, CA with my lovely fiancée and scruffy dog Jerry.
Why Bitter Wit?
Shortly after taking over the brewery that would become The Slough Brewing Collective, we upgraded the small brewhouse to a much bigger one. Our first batch was a basic Belgian Witbier that we hoped would help us fine-tune our equipment. After a minor miscalculation, we ended up extracting more bitterness from the hops than we had intended. The beer was undrinkable. Ever optimistic, we left the kegs of beer in the cooler to age gracefully—hopefully decreasing the bitterness over time. How did we label the kegs? Bitter Wit.
The moniker made it onto my shortlist of names for various personal beer projects. I found it to be particularly illustrative of my unique blend of well-intentioned snark and jaded bitterness that I honed over my decade-long stint in the brewing industry.
As a bonus, when abbreviated to just its initials it shares the same monogram as my name, Ben Ward.
Why subscribe?
A free subscription ensures that you don’t miss any of my beer-related articles and commentary on social issues. You’ll get updates sent right to your inbox.
Paid subscribers get full access to my more personal stories where I’ll be writing about my family joining a doomsday cult, the cult’s belief in a global conspiracy, the events that lead my family to Tucson, my father’s tragic death, my own cross-country travels, and a 19-day walk along the California coastline—all leading up to a final confrontation in 2012.
A paid subscription also gets you access to the chat where I’ll be posting supplemental material, extra photos, videos, and outlining major edits as they happen.
Founding members get more VIP treatment, with the ability to collaborate on writing topics, suggest interviews, reviews, or pose a question for me to answer in long form.
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