#55: Shahin Khojastehzad II | Novare Res Bier Cafe

The apology tour continues! This week, it's another conversation
with Shahin Khojastehzad, co-owner of Novare Res Bier Cafe in
Portland, ME. A hell of a lot has changed since our earlier
episode with Shahin from almost exactly a year ago. We get right
into the second-most obvious (behind sound quality) of those
shifts, and get into what life has been like for Novare in the
COVID era. Unlike breweries, bars, especially less food-focused
ones, were left with little in the way of alternative ways of
continuing operation during the shutdown. Shahin attributes good
ol' "Persian Hustle" as the driver behind Novare's quick
adaptation to the pandemic, immediately opening an online store,
selling off their vast cellar inventory, and morphing into
"Novare Bodega", all despite the constant hurdles of break-ins,
fractional revenue, and unsolicited defecations. 
Aside from dealing with COVID over the last few months,
systematic racism has rightfully occupied a large chunk of our
collective headspace, and we dive into Shahin's many, many
experiences with racism, from escaping Iran with his family as a
child, to being profiled by authority his entire life, to
becoming a de facto voice for diversity within Maine's extremely
homogenous beer scene. 
It was a privilege to get to go deep on some of the less
comfortable topics the beer industry and society at large is
dealing with at the moment, and if there's any overarching
takeaway from the episode, it's that good things come from
communication.
................................................................Music:
"Mountain Climb" by Jake Hill