Slovene Immigrants & The Rise of San Francisco Beer by Maria Judnick is now live on CraftBeer.com. This is the fourth article as part of the 2025 Diversity in Beer Writing Grant.
Beth Demmon, grant co-coordinator and editor of this piece, shared that, “The NAGBW Diversity in Beer Writing grant program’s goal is to highlight stories that are both uniquely personal while remaining universally compelling, which can be a hard balance to strike. Maria Judnick’s idea to tie her family’s Slovene American history into the rise of San Francisco’s brewing industry at first seemed to be a hard hill to climb, but she managed to do so and achieved the grant’s goal perfectly. Working with her to balance the right tone of personal history and historical facts was a pleasure and resulted in a story that only she could have told.”
Thanks to grant co-coordinators Beth Demmon and Hollie Stephens, past director Kate Bernot, Adam Dulye of Craftbeer.com, and Allagash Brewing for their continued sponsorship of this important program in its eighth year. You can find all previous stories here.