Ah, how dreadfully polite it’s all become. Once upon a whiskey-slicked fever dream, journalistic debauch was considered noble, even essential. You drank to write, wrote to drink, chased enlightenment through smoke rings and barleywine, and nobody batted an eye—least of all the editors, who were too busy laundering rum stains from their cravats. But now? Order a mid-strength saison at lunch and Susan from HR clutches her ergonomic pearls, as if you’d just licked the copier.

We have, it seems, bartered away our Dionysian inheritance for ergonomic desk chairs and “hydration reminders.” The great American hangover—once worn like a badge, a spiritual cleansing, a head-throbbing baptism—has been swapped for a wearable fitness tracker and kombucha on tap in the break room. And while the world now bows to “boundaries” and “sleep hygiene,” I prefer mine tangled, frayed, and slightly damp with porter.

So when the Brewers Association bestowed upon me the sacred lanyard to the 2015 Craft Brewers Conference in Portland—a city where beer is religion and flannel the priestly robe—I knew what had to be done. This was not mere industry networking. This was pilgrimage. A ceremonial return to the craft: not just of brewing, but of drinking artfully, excessively, with intention and bad judgment. I dove headfirst into the foamy abyss, armed only with a notebook, a dangerously generous press badge, and the reckless ambition to turn IPA tastings into gospel.

What follows is not a timeline, nor an itinerary. It is a love letter to fermented enlightenment. A series of foggy vignettes, half-notes, and yeasty revelations—a sacred log of one journalist’s quest to blur the line between keynote and keg stand, to remember just enough to make the retelling sound vaguely holy.