Brewing Authenticity: Production, Consumption, and Middle-class Work Within the Ontario Craft Beer Community

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the Ontario craft beer community that looks at how middle-class craft beer workers and community members create authenticity through their involvement within the industry. Working within this community brewers, servers, and other workers attempt to find self fulfillment within the work they perform. I will also argue that the work done by craft brewery workers and community members attempt to build up the Ontario craft beer industry as an important region for craft beer in North America. Through their involvement in various forms of work within the community, craft beer workers hope to challenge both the growing commercialization and homogeneity of beer and the perceived norms of beer culture