First Posted: 3/11/2015
Beer editor.
It sounds like the kind of job to which a lot of young journalists might aspire, as in “Today I’m joining the campus newspaper staff and some day I’m going to become a BEER editor.”
That wasn’t exactly Ken Weaver’s dream when he graduated from Lake-Lehman High School and began studying physics at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, but the Northeastern Pennsylvania native recently was delighted to accept the position of beer editor at All About Beer magazine.
“It’s a firmer version of what I’ve been doing for the past few years,” Weaver said. “I’ve been writing and editing free-lance.”
As beer editor, Weaver will help put together a bi-monthly magazine that gives its readers information on the “eight best cities for pizza and beer,” the changing world of craft beers, and how climate change might affect beer. Those stories appear in the March 2015 issue.
All About Beer president & publisher Chris Rice said “Ken has his finger on the pulse of today’s beer releases,” and Weaver admits he’s tasted many versions of the sudsy beverage.
“The beers that I like best are the ones that are ultimately something new for me, that go in another direction,” he said in a telephone interview. “I like them to have some degree of balance or focus. I don’t want something too sweet or something so hoppy that you can’t enjoy it because it’s so bitter.”
Citing beers that were made with lobster shells and “all kinds of weird flowers and roots,” Weaver said he’s glad beer drinkers have so many options today.
“It’s changing the way people consume beer,” he said. “We’ve gone from a situation where people have one beer they connect to and look for and reliably find on tap or in a bottle wherever they go, to a situation where people explore beer in the same way they look for a new CD to listen to or a new book to read.”
Before he earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland, Weaver earned an undergraduate degree in physics from Carnegie-Mellon and then a master’s in physics from Cornell University.
“I use it a little bit here and there,” he said of all the science he studied. “And I’ve spent enough time in that field to gain a certain respect for what it takes to be an expert.”
Weaver lives in Petaluma, California, with his wife, Anneliese Schmidt. His mother, Evelyn Horutz, lives in Shavertown and his father, Ken Weaver Sr., lives in Mountain Top.
