Today’s episode is a preview of a festival coming up in Pittsburgh on July 30th called Mixed Culture. GBH is intimately involved as partners on the branding and content side of the festival—and that’s in large part because the people behind it are both clients and long-time friends of ours at Cinderlands Beer Co. This festival is a sort of “coming of age” moment for their whole crew. On the back of so many big wins—launching their second and third locations, reinventing the Foederhouse to make exquisite wood aged and mixed culture beers, and taking a medal this year for Gregg, their saison, I couldn’t be more proud of what these folks have accomplished. And their brewer Paul Schneider is a personal friend of mine and we both fell into beer around the same time in Chicago going to bottle shares and tagging along at breweries until we could get our foot in the door. Of all the brewers who we worked with for our Uppers & Downers festival, no one took the assignment more seriously than Paul did when he was brewing at Solemn Oath in Naperville, Illinois. He’s probably made more coffee beers than any other brewer on the planet.
Expertise is an easy thing to pin down … or is it? There’s the oft-cited 10,000 hours that it takes to become an expert. Or there’s a dictionary we could pull from a book shelf or mobile device to look up a definition. Or maybe we just know it when we see it in action. There are all sorts of experts who share all sorts of expertise with the world, and whether they know it, like it, or claim it, it’s inspiring. We could turn to Google any time we want, but there’s something special—and perhaps necessarily human—about not relying on a manual or book and finding expertise from another person. In this conversation, we hear from Sarah Flora, a homebrewer with a large following acrosssocial mediaandYouTube, an award-winningpodcast, and by all means, an expert. She connects people across the globe with tips and insights on the homebrewing process, beer reviews, and light-hearted reflections on what it means to exist in the beer and homebrewing worlds. Throughout this chat, we connect these things to how Sarah approaches educating herself and others, the value of taking risks, and why it’s valuable to have loved ones giving you a little push when you need it. Sarah was part of Good Beer Hunting’s 2021 Signifiers—an annual collection of people GBH celebrates who shape the future of the beer industry. It’s Sarah’s expertise that puts her in that position, and a drive to learn and improve that will help you understand the “how” and “why” she inspires others. The thousands of interactions Sarah gets on Instagram posts or YouTube videos every week are basic measurements of her impact, but as you learn more about her as a person as we talk, you’ll likely find an even greater appreciation for how she uses her skills to make being an expert delightfully human.
Sometimes, we can make the mistake of thinking history only applies to things that happened long ago. But as Wisconsin-based beer historian and writer John Harry reminds us, events that happened in our lifetime can still resonate and help inform our collective understanding of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In his piece titled “Racism in a Can’ — How One Beer Epitomized the Native American Struggle for Treaty Rights,” which was published on April 14, 2022, John describes how one beer, which was inspired as a fundraiser for a white supremacist initiative against Native American rights, changed Wisconsin forever. That beer, known as Treaty Beer, ultimately lost money and steam, but the stain of its racist agenda is still felt in the area today. In fact, in our conversation, John reveals how hard it was to get anyone to speak with him for this story, how he came across Treaty Beer, and why he decided to research its place in regional history. We also talk about how in reality, cancel culture is actually just consequences and accountability, and why education is key to understanding fundamental human issues. John explains that despite a history of repeated oathbreaking by the United States government, especially towards its Indigenous population, any treaty made in good faith between two sovereign nations is just as legitimate as any other. Beer history is never just about the beer, and there’s plenty of work to be done to continue questioning, fighting, and improving.
Welcome to the first episode in our Next Germination series, produced in partnership with Guinness. For those of you that have been reading and listening to Good Beer Hunting for years, you know how important the underwriting we receive is. Alongside hundreds of paying subscribers, whom we call the Fervent Few, our underwriters enable us to pursue big, ambitious projects. And no one has been more supportive and continuously so than Guinness. Years of support has helped us build an unprecedented editorial team in beer. This team has claimed dozens of awards over the years, including the North American Guild of Beer Writers awards, which we won roughly half of all those awards last year. The Society of Professional Journalists award. And this past weekend, a James Beard award. All this momentum and continuity would not be possible—not even close—without the support of the folks at Guinness. And today marks yet another step in that collaborative journey with the Next Germination series. When we were scoping out the themes and ambitions for this two-year stretch of underwriting, nothing was more important to Guinness and our team than extending that long table of beer to include more people who have traditionally been marginalized from the industry and its culture, which is often prone to a monoculture. For a brand that’s known and loved around the world, in countries like Ireland the UK of course, but also Nigeria, the Caribbean, and the U.S. where they built their latest production facility and taproom in Baltimore, Guinness’ future is directly dependent on the growth of beer drinking audiences, and the increasingly diverse and equitable spaces and cultures that surround it. This series—called Next Germination—reflects our editorial team’s desire to continue our own mission of helping beer drinking audiences get smarter, more impassioned, and inspired about the world’s most popular drink. It’s a perfect alignment in both mission and ambition. So what exactly is the Next Germination? Well, we believe the beer world is so much more than its homogenous stereotypes. Today, a new and diverse generation of drinkers, change-makers, and doers is continuing to push for progress in every direction. Their aims are varied, but their shared emphasis on equity, community-building, and access has deep reverberations that go beyond the liquid in your glass. So together with Guinness, The Next Germination is a series of stories and podcasts that celebrates the people making beer brighter and broader—and transforming its future for the better. In this first episode, I’m talking to Beth Demmon, one of our best writers and hosts about her first piece that kicks off the series - called “Keeping Neurodiversity in Mind — How Two Groundbreaking Breweries are Making Beer Spaces More Accessible” We both rely on our limited experience as parents of neurodiverse children as a way in to appreciating and articulating the experience of neurodiverse beer drinkers, and how the industry has an emerging opportunity - especially in its hospitably sector - to broaden its approach to a wide array of audiences with specific needs that could help center them in the future of beer.
Does the world really need another craft brewery? Honestly, no—but Daniel Muñoz and Jeremy Grinkey think the world just might needtheirbrewery, which is coming very soon to the city of Orange in Orange County, California. It’s called Everywhere Beer, but they’re not just stopping at beer. The two co-founders, along with their partners Stefan Weber and Keith Pumilia, hope to create a space that’s comfortable, welcoming, and approachable for everyone in their community, something that unfortunately still remains a relative rarity across the craft beer industry. In today’s conversation, Jeremy, Daniel, and I discuss the future of Everywhere, but also their pasts. Listeners might know of Jeremy as the long-haired and long-bearded director of production at The Bruery, or as @Sour_Jesus on Instagram. Both of them are veterans of the wine industry as well as The Bruery, where their partners also worked before banding together to form Everywhere. What led four guys to leave The Bruery to start their own? As it turns out, lots of things, including a shared need to write their own legacies instead of perpetuating someone else’s; the search to find their own voices as artisans; a pandemic-inspired realization that our time on Earth is finite (so get busy living); and finally, a desire to expand representation in a mostly white culture. How do four dudes in Orange County plan to accomplish that? You’ll just have to keep listening. You’ll also hear about the ups and downs of finding their space, which beer styles and breweries inspire them, what consumers they hope to attract, which types of beers to expect (as well as beverages outside of beer, like wine, hard seltzer, and maybe even craft soda), and why they feel philanthropy is a crucial element to supporting their local community. The sky’s the limit: Or at least, their 20-tap system is. Everywhere Beer is tentatively slated to open in August 2022. Let’s hear about how they’re going to make that happen and where it will go from there.
Some people call it boring brown beer, but others think of it as liquid from heaven. In a love letter to what’s arguably the most British of beer styles, writer Anthony Gladman covers the history, meaning, and future of Best Bitter in his piece titled “Don’t Call It a Comeback — Taking Stock of Best Bitter’s Moment in the Spotlight,” which was published on April 6, 2022. In today’s conversation, Anthony and I talk about the early, uncertain days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which spurred a collective return to familiar flavors, with beer being no exception. He found that comfort in a can of Best Bitter, brewed collaboratively between Boxcar Brewery and Mills Brewing. Unbeknownst to him at the time, that beer ultimately led him down this path of exploration into what the Best Bitter actually is, where it comes from, and how it shapes the identities of brewers over generations, even in the face of inevitable evolution. The style is currently at a crossroads, one where allegiance to history and tradition is butting up against changing demographics and contemporary craft beer culture. But despite those changes, it’s still a beer style that means something to many, if not most, British drinkers. Today, you’ll hear about that shared experience, what makes a Best Bitter a Best Bitter, what Anthony loves about the easy-drinking style, and his musing on where tradition may be headed. Don’t let the name fool you—there’s a loving sweetness in the soul of every cask pour of Bitter.
Breweries love to talk about what they bring into the world. In other words, their beer. Breweries tend to talk less about what they leave behind. Their focus is on the next batch of beer, not the last one. In a lot of ways that makes perfect sense...but if you want to keep track of your business, your favorite brands, or the industry as a whole, a forward focus can also leave a blindspot. Breweries imprint upon the world with more than just their beer. They forge facilities with both equipment and character. They create all sorts of physical objects like tap handles, labels, cans and bottles, coasters, merch, and so on.They create terabytes of information: websites, graphics, brew logs, TikTok videos, and recipes to name a few. Even more gets created in their name by other entities, from government to Google. Most romantic of all these are the memories, relationships, ideas, and inspirations that breweries create. They both affect us individually and ripple out into communities. On and on it goes. A brewery's imprint today is expansive, it's redundant...and it's fleeting.Of all the stuff I just mentioned, very little of it is built to last.Beer gets consumed. Virtually all brewing facilities eventually close, even the wildly successful ones. Websites get taken down. Merch wears out or gets thrown out. Computer files get lost or deleted. And unless we record our memories somehow, they'll inevitably fade with us. All this to say: as time passes for a brewery–or anything else in this world–what's known becomes limited to what's left. Imagine what gets lost in a year. Imagine what gets lost in a hundred.
While beer is in the name of this podcast, we explore all kinds of beverage alcohol with our guests. In recent episodes, we’ve talked about alcohol-infused coffee, agriculture, filmmaking, and more. If you follow alcohol industry news—or just stroll through your local grocery or liquor store—you know hard seltzer and canned cocktails increasingly take up space on shelves and in conversations. All of which is to say, the entirety of alcohol matters more every day as people explore new options, flavors, and expand their own understanding and expectation of how they enjoy and connect to whatever is in their bottle, can, or glass. These themes are what led me to Paula de Pano, an advanced sommelier, wine educator, and entrepreneur behind Rocks + Acid Wine Shop, a new bar and store in North Carolina. Paula is a longtime industry vet with an education in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America—that’s the “CIA” you’ll hear mentioned in this interview—and she is opening this new venture with a focus on ways to court all kinds of drinkers. Wine can kind of feel stodgy at times given its history and pop culture status as a drink of choice for older, more affluent people, but Paula is making distinct choices about how to stock wines and interact with customers that seem necessary to reach a wider audience. She’s taking a unique stance on who she buys wine from and why, and even the physical layout of Rocks + Acid is meant to provide an atmosphere where education feels welcomed, not forced. The past 20 years has offered narratives of beer’s decline, spirits’ rise, and wine’s … consistency. It hasn’t really lost volume or sales, but it has faded a bit in terms of attention, especially for younger drinkers. So, while we talk about and see the evolution of alcohol into all sorts of flavored concoctions that line store shelves, Paula is looking to make wine more familiar, welcoming, and exciting for all.
What were you drinking in the early 2000s? When we look back on trends and data, there’s a good chance it was a flavored malt beverage along the lines of Zima, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, or the star of today’s story: Twisted Tea from Boston Beer Company. In her exuberant and extremely thorough piece titled “Spill It — Twisted Tea’s Unpredictable, Unparalleled 21-Year Success Story” journalist Kate Bernot unpacks everything there is to know about the cult favorite: its experimental origins, its shockingly consistent sales numbers, and the brand’s plans for future expansion in order to bring the gospel of boozy tea nationwide. Not that it needs to sell itself too hard—Kate describes Twisted Tea’s unusually fervent consumers, who’ve remained loyal for two decades and are showing no signs of straying. In today’s conversation, we share stories about our own experiences with the brand and how craft beer’s tunnel vision can sometimes make us unaware of successes outside our own spheres. She also shares some of her insight into the when, where, why, and how of Twisted Tea’s origin—and wonders why it’s so hard to get the full story from its creators. If there’s one thing to take away from our discussion, it’s to have an open mind when it comes to what you drink. You may be surprised at what you’re missing.
Today’s guest has been a bit of a ghost int he GBH machine for more than a decade - since our founding really - and he’s someone I think about every time someone asks me how GBH got started - and as you’ll discover shortly, he had no idea. Greg Browne was the brewer at a brewpub in Chicago’s NW suburbs - a place called Mickey Finn’s. He was known for brewing a hefeweizen - a recipe he inherited from his predecessor when he took over as head brewer. More importantly, for me, he was the host of a weekly Beer School at The Map Room in Chicago - a midday gathering on Saturday’s where guests would enjoy some bread and cheese and learn about beers in a thematic way - and the themes were whatever happened to be on Greg’s mind that week. It’s an incredible memory for me - from a time when I’d only had a smattering of craft beer experiences to rely on - and I hardly considered myself a fan of beer in any particular way. It was just causal and sometimes interesting fun. Most of my bar experiencers a the time involved $1 off specials of Blue Moon and some Golden Tee. Not exactly sophisticated stuff - but it was kind of the Chicago way. Map Room - and Greg Browne’s beer school painted an entirely different picture however. And I’m forever indebted to that moment when he served me my first Saison Dupont. That’s the beer that inspired GBH - and Greg is the one who created that moment, unbeknownst to him. But that’s not the real reason we’re talking today - that’s a story we could have shared at any point in in past decade really. Today I’m talking to Greg because for the first time in a long time, I saw his name pop up as part of a new brewing project called Art History, and it recently started supplying two fantastic beers to Chicago’s Hopleaf Bar. As far as I know the sis the first time Hopleaf has ever had a house beer. The venerated tap list there is a target for anyone trying to make a name for themselves in Chicago’s beer scene. Brewers host parties just to celebrate getting on tao there for the first time if they’re lucky enough to make the list at all. So for Greg to have a new gig - and so quickly become a mainstay on that list as a pair of house beers - is an unprecedented achievement. And for this episode, I reached out to Michael Roper of Hopleaf for his perspective on all that. It was a sign for me that it was finally time to get Greg on the podcast, share this story with him, and hear so much more about his own. It takes us deep into Chicago’s craft brewing past - and paints pa picture of the future that I’m very excited about.