The last time I spoke to the storyteller, it was before he became part of the story.
It was March 2013, during the Craft Brewers Conference in Washington, D.C. We were at a screening of Beer Hunter: The Movie, about Michael Jackson, the pioneering beer writer. Back then, DeBenedetti was a beer writer, too. As beer writing goes, his career was successful: He published articles in the New York Times and Food & Wine, among many others. He also wrote the book The Great American Ale Trail—a savvy cross-country guidebook that not nearly enough people bought before another 6,300 breweries appeared.
But he was frustrated. Freelance beer writing is... not highly lucrative. The number of outlets who paid decently was dwindling. He was ready to move on, he told me.