Yes, National IPA Day is a Thing, and Here's How It Began

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National IPA Day was actually yesterday (the first Thursday in August), but whether you knew that or not, here’s the origin story.

In the beginning, Ashley Routson had an idea. Well, it was a riff on a friend’s idea. But she was going to steal it because craft beer needed it.

Lost a bit in the ubiquity of social media in today’s world, Routson was the first social media influencer in the beer space. She was an influencer long before that word attracted both cachet and ridicule. Armed with a background and talent for marketing, Routson built her own brand, The Beer Wench, into a powerful and well-placed voice in an industry long dominated by men. She blogged, posted on social media, and wrote a book called The Beer Wench’s Guide to Beer: An Unpretentious Guide to Craft Beer. In addition to gaining followers, the social media maven and author also promoted craft beer as a self-described “evangelist” at every opportunity. And she saw a chance to do just that with a day dedicated to craft beer’s most popular beer style, IPA. But, in this case, promoting beer starts with a little bit of theft.

“I actually stole it from the wine industry,” Routson notes with a laugh about her idea for IPA Day. “The wine industry was inspired by the food industry and there would be like some random days, like Donut Day and Taco Day or Pizza Day, and it became kind of a trendy thing to like have one day to celebrate something.”

The rest of the story 

 

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