Reflective Report

MICHAEL FITZPATRICK
Introduction

Reflection is not really in my nature. That is not to say I don‟t learn from my experiences, but
I‟m usually more focused on applying that learning to the next task or problem. Given the
choice between reflecting on how something went, or concentrating on making the next effort
better, I tend towards the latter.

That said there is no getting around this reflective report, and as a wise man once said „Once
you‟ve got a task to do, it‟s better to do it than live with the fear of it‟.

This report conveys my own personal musings on the thesis project it accompanies, and as
such I have come to regard it as a pressure release valve of sorts. Anyone who has completed
a major piece of academic work (as I‟m sure the only people who will ever read these words
have) must be able to relate to mixed feelings of elation and worry. It‟s finally over! What if
it‟s not good enough? There is also that sense of fatalism. Whatever happens next, the task is
complete. A spouse may not be able to relate to that, nor a parent or a friend, unless they have
undertaken a similar task. In the event that no sympathetic ear is available, I imagine a
reflective report must stand in.

Personal Goals

If anyone had asked me this time last year if I had any further academic ambitions in mind, I
would probably have brushed off the question. “Sure, maybe, someday…” Since leaving
Letterkenny I.T. over 10 years ago, I had always entertained the idea that I might take up
studies again. However as time passed, and I became more concerned with clients, home life,
and the busy-work that life finds for all of us, the likelihood of these aspirations finding any
outlet diminished. Like learning to ride a motorbike, or finally knuckling down and getting to
grips with some coding, returning to higher education became one of those things that would
have to wait for another lifetime.

Obviously something happened.

That something was a casual conversation with a good friend, who alerted me to the
opportunity that this course presented: An honest to goodness Masters qualification in one
year. I said I was interested. I said Yes.

I hadn‟t thought that the ambition for this sort of intellectual betterment still held a place on
my list of priorities, so it was something of a surprise to me when I started saying „Yes‟ to the
prospect, and simply didn‟t stop. Application, interview, anticipation, and there I was, sitting
in a classroom, eager to begin.

Even today, sitting at the other end of the journey, it‟s hard to fathom exactly what was
driving me. I can only characterise it as a „Want‟. The opportunity finally presented itself in a
way I could realistically take advantage of, and the rest was almost automatic. I saw it, I
wanted it, and I went for it. I imagine dogs chasing cars operate under similar impulses.
Research Topic

Why chose beer? Honest answer – I didn‟t think I‟d get away with a thesis about board
games.

Not true, I could have done a thesis on the subject of design constraints and innovations in
multi-player strategic miniatures games; I just didn‟t think anyone would read it or care. Beer
is common. Everyone understands beer. Beer is wallpaper; it‟s everywhere and nobody really
pays much attention to why it looks the way it does, why it is the way it is. It just is. But I
knew that was changing and I knew I could write about why.

Craft brewing is something I have been interested in since I tried my hand at home brewing a
few years ago. Exposure to the UK and Belgian drinking culture during trips abroad had
opened my eyes to how deeply weird Irish pubs actually are. I‟m referring to the sameness of
what is on the taps. Guinness, Guinness, Budweiser, Heineken, Bulmer‟s. You want some
regional variation? Okay, we have Murphy‟s instead of the second Guinness tap. That‟s just
odd. If you walk into bars almost anywhere else in Europe and ask for a pint of the local, you
are effectively rolling the dice. You will most likely get something regional, maybe even
something unique to the town or even the bar you‟re standing in. Try that anywhere in Ireland
and you‟ll get a blank look, or a Guinness, depending on the mood of the barman.

So I started drinking beers from abroad. I started to discover that not all American beer was
watery rubbish, not all British beer was warm ale, and not all Australian beer was Fosters. All
Irish beer was still Guinness. This annoyed me to no end.

But that‟s not entirely true anymore. There is now a critical mass of small brewers producing
beers that defy conventions in Ireland. This year will end with a brewery in every county in
Ireland. That hasn‟t been true since before the First World War. That‟s interesting. I like new
things. I love novelty. I bore easily. Irish beer was boring, until it wasn‟t. I decided I‟d write
about that.

Research Process

Armed with a general sense of the shifting nature of the Irish craft beer market, I started to do
the research. It very quickly became apparent I didn‟t know much more than what was
contained in their marketing messages, and that the really interesting aspects of the micro-
brewing industry were not being highlighted. Having started with a very broad set of aims
and objectives it I realised that the focus of the research would need to be refined if there was
to be any hope of building a coherent body of work and making an argument.

The nature of the thesis placed an emphasis on collecting information from current sources.
How and why Irish craft brewing is growing now is a live issue, and almost every month
brings some new development. The retail venues are changing, the packaging is changing,
there is a new brewery being founded every other week. This meant deriving a great deal of
research from leads and links on online forums, trade coverage, and word of mouth.
Formalising this into a list of sources suitable for inclusion in a thesis meant discarding some
of the more nebulous contacts and finding ways to cite what was commonly known, but
sometimes not covered in a verifiable way.

Because of restraints arising from work and home life, it became next to impossible to travel
to the breweries themselves. While this did not have a significant impact on the material
gathered for research purposes, it would have been informative to see how these craft brewers
ran their operations and contrast this with the carefully constructed narratives of craftsmen
steeped in tradition, mastering the alchemy of brewing. I can gather from reports of site visits
that the reality is paperwork, stainless steel equipment that resembles nothing so much as an
industrial laundry, and lots of cleaning. I some ways, I think there is an even more interesting
story to be told through those images than the mish-mash of artisan and rebel that pervades
the current craft beer narrative.

Literature Review

This may be the weakest point in the thesis for a couple of reasons. After spending time
reading up on the seminal works about brewing and beer I discovered that there was almost
nothing of merit or substance that covered my chosen topic. Craft brewing in Ireland is still
too new to have cast any sort of shadow over the sphere of written works on beer. Almost
anything that could be considered a work of academic note was written before the current
boom in Irish craft brewing, or at such a broad level that it would explain that Guinness was
the national beverage, and nothing else of note had happened in Irish brewing since before
1950. This left newspaper coverage, enthusiast magazines, and online trade news sites.
Somewhat thin pickings when considered as sources for a thesis.

The other reason is that I hated writing it.

With these two points in mind, I considered what I had to work with and decided to reshape
the lens through which I would examine the evidence. Instead of trying to review literature
that did not exist, I decided to use the literature review as a means of exploring the
circumstances that had created the current craft beer movement.

„Movement‟ is the operative word here. The very real driver behind a lot of this passionate
activity is a sense that change is afoot. Craft brewers see themselves as a vanguard for
revolution. These guys aren‟t getting into the brewing game to target a market segment, or
capitalise on a consumer trend. These guys are on a mission to change the world, or at least
the part of it that is Irish and drinks beer. Some of them are militant, some just want to return
to a simpler way of doing things, but all of them are committed to change. Change is a
reaction to the status quo, so I decided to focus the literature review on figuring out what it
was craft beer sought to change.

This approach bore more fruit.

The potted version of Irish brewing history runs to this one truism: Guinness got so big
everything else died in its shadow. The End. Looking at what had actually brought about the
virtual extinction of small brewers in this country proved to be a much more nuanced task.
Guinness does bear some of the blame, to the extent that it is possible, or defensible, to blame
a company for succeeding, and then capitalising on that success. However the evidence in the
literature points to much larger economic pressures than just one aggressive company laying
waste to every competitor. Picking out the threads of this decline made for a stronger review,
and allowed the thesis to naturally flow in the direction of the current revival.

Supervision and Time Management

I‟ve collapse these two subjects into one for the sole reason that my reflection on both
amounts to the same thing: I employed very little of either at the start of the project.

When the first thesis topic submission was completed, this final day seemed a long way off.
There were more pressing concerns. A house move, a big client, a pregnancy. Any number of
worthy interruptions and distractions. An endless supply of excuses to put off the book work
and the note taking.

Of course that changed as the Summer months were spent out, one sunny day at a time. Time
was passing and life kept happening, allowing no break for study, no natural ending after
which the real work could begin.

In response I started to prioritise. In a previous assignment for this course I wrote that I
thrived in crisis. I began to see the passing days as the crisis they truly were, and took action.
I became jealous of the time I had with my books and notes. I shut down many of my social
outlets, and started to refuse work I judged not worth the time I could instead spend writing
and researching. I stripped away the unnecessary and turned the calendar into a survival kit.
Each day and week now had a purpose. All very decisive. Very Man of Action.

By July I had a heavily pregnant wife on my hands. By mid-August we had a new-born. He

didn‟t give a fiddlers spare string what I was up to, or how little time was left. His needs were
Law. His schedule was Gospel. What do you do when faced with that?

You do what you can and hope the rest sorts itself out. Little Malcolm and mum are doing
fine.

Supervision and oversight came late to this project, but like monsoon rain, it fell in one
surging deluge and kick-started the last leg of this thesis. The advice and insight I received
was vital in that it showed me a path out of some of the briar patches I had written my way
into. My advisor‟s shared interest and enthusiasm for the topic enervated me and played a
huge role in bolstering my confidence in the work. If only I had availed of it sooner.
Conclusion

The task of compiling this thesis has taught me a few lessons I will do my best to reflect on
before attempting to apply them to the next challenge or opportunity. Intellectually I have
learned a great deal about the world of craft beer, how it works, why it exists in the first
place. I‟ve learned that the simple and obvious narratives can be compelling but the truth
behind them makes for a much more interesting story. I will remember to dig deeper when
conducting research, and not to form a position of my own before understanding what lies at
the heart of a given matter.

Academically I have a new found respect for the effort that goes into the codifying and
marshalling of useful, meaningful knowledge. At heart I am not an academic, and if I qualify
with this Masters, it will be because I have had access to the work of people who have
demonstrated a far greater academic rigor than I could ever hope to command. I can only
hope that some opportunity will arise in the future where my own work might inform
another‟s and that it will not be found totally wanting.

I have also learned about what has not changed in me. I remain impulsive. I will continue to
say „Yes‟ before fully considering the perils. Given the journey that impulsiveness launched
me on and where it has taken me, I‟m not sure that is such a bad trait.

I do not manage my time well enough, but I am improving. Or rather, it is truer to say that I
now have someone who manages it for me. His demands grow ever more complicated by the
day, and careful planning is the only way to prosper under his tyranny. His arrival has driven
home that truth about fearing the thought of doing something more than the task itself.

He has no fear yet, and he won‟t tolerate it in me. I‟ve adapted by simply doing that which
needs doing and letting the rest take care of itself.

Thank you for your time.

Michael Fitzpatrick

Nov. 20th 2014