Audience Q&A with Eric Holt-Giménez, Carol Whiteside and Greg Koch

Greg Koch

Greg Koch is Chairman and CEO of Stone Brewing Company, founded in 1996 and now one of the fastest growing beer brewing companies in the United States, winner of several international prizes.  His experience in the arts and business of brewing and his perspectives on the effects of biofuels on brewing relate directly to the push of feeding cars from the soil – which is making the beer brewing more difficult as barley prices rise rapidly in competition with road fuel production. Interestingly, Greg is also a music lover and founder and owner of Downtown Rehearsal, a 167 unit music rehearsal studio complex in downtown Los Angeles.

Stone Brewing Company: www.stonebrew.com

Bottled water -- a gripe of mine at home for years.  My husband and I go at it on this topic.  To me, it has been the cultural icon of America's rash consumerism for years now.   But Hubby swears that it tastes better, especially Ozarka brand.  I say it's in his head.  Ozarka is bottled from the same water supply we have at home.

Remember this post earlier this year when I began ranting about bottled water and said, "I WILL follow soon with a diatribe on people who pay $1-plus per fancy bottle of manufactured (?) water that can just as easily be drawn from a tap.  That’s a REAL bone with me!"

Well, it appears that I don't have to rant because the bottled water fad is dying out since environmentalists are raising the red flag on the waste of bottling, as well as the redundancy of paying for something that you can indeed just run at home. 

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/24/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther_water.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007042507

So do what our family does and just save your family's previously used bottles, fill them halfway, and freeze them with the lid only half screwed on.  When it comes time for an ice-cold water, just open one and fill it the other halfway with tap water.  No one even has to know the difference...and soccer moms don't care anyway.  ;)

It's about time someone called this bottled water habit crazy.  It's been driving me nuts to watch this waste for years, and by smart and otherwise thrifty people.  It's like carrying around proof that you make too much money or something, so it's been part of a successful image.  I understand that appeal in our very vain culture. 

But it has also been evidence of our laziness in opting to simply buy water when we're out -- and in a pretty packaging, too -- instead of exercising discipline to refill it ourselves at home.  Kind of works that way with Starbucks, too, but don't get me started. 

Hey, maybe it's the image consciousness, maybe it's been our laziness.  Whatever...I'm just glad that this fad has about run its course.  Enough already!