'Bills and Brews' Using Craft Beer to Bridge the Partisan Divide
March 5, 2014 — The first episode of the show featured a co-chair of the House Small Brewers Caucus.
By Nikki Schwab
In the past, in politics, it was a big question: Who would you rather have a beer with? But journalist Matt Laslo doesn’t discriminate.
“We’ll take anyone,” he said.
He’s launched a new online-only political show entitled “Bills and Brews,” which pairs politicians with craft beers for an interview, with the goal of ridding Washington of partisanship “one sip at a time.”
On Wednesday, Laslo released the pilot episode of “Bills and Brews,” an eight-minute-long Q&A with the co-chair of the House Small Brewers Caucus, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. Laslo sat down with DeFazio in D.C. at Bluejacket, a newish craft brewery, where the congressman sipped a bit of several Oregon IPAs.
First off, Laslo wanted to know if the House Small Brewers Caucus was just a ploy to get free beer.
“No,” said a smiling DeFazio. “It does have it’s benefits – not free of course, we have ethics rules.”
(The House Small Brewers Caucus does do work advocating for certain pro-small brewery tax policies.)
During the interview, DeFazio recalled his earliest drinking days, going into a “not great neighborhood” in his hometown of Boston to find someone to buy cheap beer for he and his friends.
“Beer would have been not legally obtained in my teens,” he said, adding that the quality of some of his first brews “was not too good.”
These days, his tastes have improved.
“If I could devote my whole life to craft beer I’d think about retiring, maybe,” he said. “That’s a hint, anybody out there listening.”
Laslo also inquired about DeFazio’s most partisan moment, when the Oregon Democrat yelled “why do you hate this country so much?” at Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., in June of 2012. DeFazio stood by the comments.
“I can work across the aisle, I’ve got respect for the Republicans,” he said, adding a caveat. “When they’re totally out to lunch and saying something crazy, I’m going to tell them they’re saying something crazy and totally out to lunch.”
This interview is to serve as a sample of what could come. Next week Laslo and his team will launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund future episodes of the show, with hopes of taking it on the campaign trail and even branching it out to include interviews with musicians and actors.
“To do one of these episodes – to do it right, which I think we did – it takes money and hopefully our supporters will fund that,” Laslo explained. “Eventually we could see it being a TV show, but initially we want to be independent.”
The initial goal is to raise $36,000, so the team can film six episodes for $6,000 each.
Before releasing episode one on the Internet, Laslo previewed the DeFazio interview Tuesday night at a bar (which, of course, served craft beer) in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood. In the audience, sat another member of the House Small Brewers Caucus, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
Laslo used the moment to get McHenry to commit to being on the show.
“Yes,” McHenry said grinning.
“But I’ll be less lame,” he said, adding that the comment was meant for DeFazio.
So much for beers bringing people together.
This was first published by US News and World Report.