New Belgium’s Kim Jordan Talks Beer & Her Relationship w/Boyfriend Dick Cantwell of Elysian

Some interesting insight into New Belgium founder Kim Jordan…details from the Denver Post:

Q: Did anything in your background inform your approach to running a business?

A: It’s a combination of a few things. For one, I was raised in a liberal family where the profit motive was suspect, and I went to a Quaker high school. So there is that George Fox, "let your light speak" thing. For me, that was profoundly important. This notion that you get this opportunity to choose who you want to be, and that is true of the corporate life, as well. The confluence of those things was pretty important for me in terms of my thinking about New Belgium. And then I started to attract people like me. It’s the virtuous circle, an upward spiral.

Q: It seems like people in the beer business are having a lot of fun. True?

A: There is a high degree of camaraderie. My boyfriend, Dick Cantwell, owns a brewery in Seattle (Elysian Brewing). And I think we like one another, for one reason, because we have this commonality. Not just beer, but a lifestyle commonality. One of the things craft beer drinkers like about us is we are friendly and fun. Nobody wants to be in an industry where people talk smack about each other all day long. Most of us recognize that is a precious and delicate thing and we need to be delicate with it.

Read more: New Belgium brewery’s Kim Jordan talks about beer, business, Quakers – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_22436029#ixzz2Iu2Xd7PT
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