(Brooklyn, NY) — Sixpoint Brewery’s third-annual “Beer Is Culture” event, celebrating creative inspiration, takes off this week. From now until April 30, anyone may submit their original artwork capturing the “Beer Is Culture” theme to be showcased in an online gallery on Sixpoint’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/sixpoint) and website (www.sixpoint.com).
Anyone may also vote for their favorite entry by clicking the entry’s “like” button. On May 1, the top six audience-voted entries will move into a final round of audience voting before a grand prize winner is announced May 7th. All finalists will receive unique prizes from the brewery, as well as annual memberships to art museums of their choices. Due to the highly positive response to the event from fans across the country in the first two years, Beer Is Culture is an enduring part of Sixpoint’s mission to cultivate community, creativity, and fun.
Sixpoint has dubbed this exhibition “Beer is Culture” to highlight the historical fact that earliest civilizations cultivated cereal grains and made crude fermented beverages. It was during this precise moment in human history when occupations became highly specialized, and culture sprang forth. This was the dawn of civilization – the proliferation of architecture, artisans, culinary arts, theater, and countless other extensions of creativity. Hence, “Beer Is Culture” is intended to inspire artists to express both their individual creativity and enthusiasm for the cornerstone beverage of civilization – beer.
“This is one of the most overlooked yet simple narratives of our society,” said Sixpoint Brewery president Shane Welch. “You look around and see all of these everyday yet amazing things such as computers, bicycles, and buildings and wonder, ‘How did we get here?’ Historically, the connection is quite simple. We started making beer.”
Welch alludes to the fact that the regular production of beer directly coincides with the earliest civilizations when societies started to propel forward.
“There is a reason why this elixir is ubiquitous around the world. Beer is at the cultural intersection of agriculture, science, and the humanities.”
Artists and designers of any calling are encouraged to submit their work to “Beer Is Culture.” Submissions may be uploaded directly to the Sixpoint wall, or sent to [email protected] All of the submissions may be viewed and voted for here.
The organizers hope to raise the profile for participating artists not limited to just the winner, and provide a platform and audience for their creativity. In addition to the exhibition on Sixpoint’s Facebook page, the six finalists will each receive care packages of custom prizes from the brewery, a one-year membership to a museum of their choice, and will be featured in interviews on Sixpoint’s blog. The ultimate winner’s artwork will be prominently displayed as Sixpoint’s Facebook profile picture for the next year. The current profile picture for the brewery is 2011 “Beer Is Culture” winner Melissa Schmechel’s humorous graph conveying beer’s omnipresence in all human activity.
About Sixpoint Brewery:
Sixpoint Brewery was born out of an 800 square foot garage in Brooklyn, New York City in 2004 by homebrewer Shane Welch, who had amassed over 1000 individual homebrew recipes. The brewery’s name is derived from the ancient six-pointed brewers’ star, which had symbolically adorned the walls and equipment of ancient breweries since at least the Medieval period. Sixpoint’s motto is “Beer is Culture” to highlight the human trajectory — the earliest human civilizations were founded upon the cultivation of cereal grains for making beer. Sixpoint aims to perpetually inspire the art, creativity, and community generated through beer by acknowledging the history of the craft, while forging ahead to inspire culture in a modern setting.
