Ethan Shapiro is a fourth-year honours sociology student at UBC. His honours research, under the supervision of Professor Amy Hanser, investigates the craft beer sector’s contemporary growth. Looking at the trajectories of recent entrants into the Canadian craft beer industry, he demonstrates the ‘everyday’ microsociological processes behind a niche market development.
We spoke to Shapiro about his Honours research project
Sociology Honours student Ethan Shapiro
Sociology Honours student Ethan Shapiro
What was your project about? What are the main take-aways from your work?
Within the past few decades, craft beer has taken on an unmistakable presence in consumer markets worldwide. My research examined this growth by analyzing the rapidly expanding Canadian craft beer industry. I find that the beer sector operates as a ‘field’ in which actions are shaped by key structural constraints and opportunities. These facets include levels of market concentration, firms’ organizational styles, local and national regulations, technological developments, and career systems. Unlike most research on this topic, I sought to understand the craft beer trend by looking at the everyday processes through which brewers actually enter this emergent market (as opposed to macroeconomic models based on aggregate industry data). Furthermore, through in-depth interviews with urban, suburban, and rural craft brewery founders and owners, I countered the conception of niche cultural producers as ‘elite gentrifiers,’ prevalent in research on creative enterprises in major cities. Instead, I offered a nuanced view of craft brewers as operating within geographically varied institutional and market contexts.
How did you get interested in this topic?
When I first moved to Vancouver, it was unfathomable to me that anyone could genuinely enjoy a pint of overpriced tree-flavoured IPA. Four years later, I am a craft beer-drinking hipster writing a thesis on the growth of the specialty beer sector. This transformation raises two related questions. First, how did I become a craft beer consumer? In what ways might I have been demographically inclined to prefer niche brews, and what cultural, economic, and social resources did I have to access in order to realize this inclination? Behind these questions of social location lay the question of social conditions: what changes in society and economy had to occur for craft beer to exist as a conceivable, viable, and successful product? I realized that the literature had only partially addressed these problems, and after a few beers, I decided to write a thesis.
What was the most difficult part of this learning journey? What was most satisfying?
Writing a thesis while juggling other courses, work, and an (intermittent) social life was not easy. Another major challenge was staying specific about my research gap, especially when unexpected issues arose in the literature review and data analysis. The most satisfying aspect of this process was finding results that contradicted my initial assumptions. Although I began with a suspicion that craft beer represented a cultural hegemony, capable of transforming post-industrial landscapes, my findings led me towards a different view.
“Behind these questions of social location lay the question of social conditions: what changes in society and economy had to occur for craft beer to exist as a conceivable, viable, and successful product? I realized that the literature had only partially addressed these problems, and after a few beers, I decided to write a thesis.”
What skills did you develop or strengthen as a result of this project?
This project was my first experience collecting primary data, so I developed every skill from working with a BREB to drafting an interview guide to building rapport with participants. Losing my first interview recording to ‘technical difficulties’ also prompted me to improve my computer skills.
What was your experience working with Sociology faculty on this project?
I could not have done this research without the support of my supervisor, Dr. Amy Hanser. She has provided crucial guidance at every juncture, from research ethics to writing and publication, and has always encouraged me to think critically. Drs. Oral Robinson and Kerry Greer have also been invaluable throughout this process, whose moral support and unceasing belief in the honours cohort helped me to overcome many obstacles.
