You'll sometimes hear people describe craft beer as a sort of zeitgeist all its own, coming out of nowhere to upend a century-old domination of the big corporate brewers, rising like punk rock to legendary status by following its own rules, and changing people's expectations for what beer can be in the process. And a lot of that's true, though it didn't happen in a vacuum. Way back in episode 18 with Gary Fish of Deschutes, you hear a much more contextual perspective. Which is to say: craft beer...
Oct 08, 2017•55 min
Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.
Oct 02, 2017•2 min
As much as we talk about the acquisitions of craft brands, it's not often we get to hear directly from the people involved, and how they think about and manage these acquisitions. How do breweries transition to their new realities? How do they get integrated into a portfolio? How do they enable growth, but also look to safety, quality, and sales with a critical eye? It's a lot to handle, and a lot of big questions remain. For AB InBev's High End, things seem to move really, really fast. For Mill...
Sep 30, 2017•1 hr 9 min
There are so many paths people take to follow their passion, often surrounded by the support of friends and family. No matter what excites us enough to go pro for the thing that we love, there's still a shared experience in the fact that entrepreneurship is intimate. It's not uncommon to find partners in business to also be partners in life. Friends, spouses, parents, and siblings are all taking risks—every day and together—to create something they deeply care about. From a surprisingly early ag...
Sep 22, 2017•1 hr 6 min
Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every two weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. And every week we pick one of these topics and present the community's answers to readers in the form of an article posted to G...
Sep 21, 2017•38 min
Way back in 1994, in Burlington, Vermont, a little brewery named Magic Hat sprung to life making what for many of its customers was the first "craft beer" they'd ever taste. One of its co-founders was Alan Newman, who became not only the entrepreneurial force behind the company, but the whimsical, hippie, bearded face of the brand itself. By the time he'd gotten Magic Hat off the ground, he was already well on his way to being a serial entrepreneur, and after his frustrated departure from the br...
Sep 16, 2017•1 hr 32 min
This weeks guests are from Brussels, Belgium. It's there that they own a very American-inspired brewery called Brussels Beer Project. I first visited their spot a couple years ago when they'd just established themselves after contract brewing. It was a space defined by a new urban aesthetic that you find the world over, with bright colors, cafe-style furniture, and an open floor plan. Not to mention beer styles ranging from hoppy IPAs to big, sweet Stouts, Saison, and everything in between—a bit...
Sep 09, 2017•57 min
GBH founder—and one of the co-hosts of this podcast—Michael Kiser has previously described some episodes of this podcast as being "bucket-list" interviews. Folks like Brooklyn Brewery's Garrett Oliver and Allagash's Rob Todd, for example: folks who've played huge roles in shaping the industry as we know it and still continue to do so. Now, it's my turn. Today, I sit down for a conversation with Yvan de Baets, head brewer and co-founder of Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, Belgium. You're more t...
Sep 01, 2017•1 hr 2 min
Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes. Central State happens to be a client of GBH's studio team. However, Andrew chooses the beers he wants to score of his own volition.
Aug 31, 2017•3 min
So many breweries in start-up mode have a crystal clear vision for their future. But as they mature, and as the market shifts, and as those early days start to feel farther and farther away, we find out what a brewery is really made of. Do they stick with that adolescent firebrand kind of rhetoric? Or do they adopt a more practical outlook on what's possible—and even desirable—for a craft brewery? For most, it's somewhere in between. In today's market, a more diverse set of business models are a...
Aug 26, 2017•1 hr 34 min
Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every two weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. And every week we pick one of these topics and present the community's answers to readers in the form of an article posted to G...
Aug 23, 2017•1 hr 7 min
Whether personal or professional, there are always types of risks when starting a new business. That's often the case in the beer industry, where men and women quit their day jobs on a near daily basis to chase a dream of serving IPAs, Stouts, or Lagers to a thirsty public. These owners and brewers have a lot on the line. It's no different for the people behind Denizens brewing in Silver Springs Maryland, where family support helps to prop up very real risks of the three-year-old business. Deniz...
Aug 19, 2017•1 hr 11 min
"Session" is a new word to many a craft beer drinker's lexicon, but the idea of session beer far predates whatever new lingo is helping sell balanced, lower alcohol brews. You may have also seen the words "light," or "table" used in a similar context. Meaning: easy to drink, balanced, dare I say crushable? Some of you just cringed, I know, but it's been hard going for anyone looking to sell these kinds of beers in our culture of extreme flavor and high alcohol and rarity. That is, until someone ...
Aug 11, 2017•1 hr 10 min
On this week's episode of the Fervent Few podcast, we'll talk with a couple of members of the community about taprooms, social media, what they find exciting about the Fervent Few and whatever else comes up. The Fervent Few is our subscriber community who subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. Every week we pick one of these topics and present the community's answe...
Aug 09, 2017•45 min
The county of Yorkshire has more breweries per capita than anywhere else in the UK. And though it's home to buzzing city hubs such as Leeds and Sheffield, much of the brewing landscape is to be found within the county's rural environment and smaller towns. It's home to traditional breweries such as Theakston's, Timothy Taylor, and Black Sheep as well breweries with a more modern outlook, such as Summer Wine and Rooster's. Richard Burhouse, along with his brother Johnny and head brewer Stuart Ros...
Aug 05, 2017•1 hr 3 min
On a recent trip to Boston and the surrounding area I was keen to hit up some of the more sought-after breweries like Trillium and Lamplighter, but also a few places that were fundamental to the still-underdeveloped scene in the area, like Cambridge Brewing and the business of today's guest, Suzanne Schalow of Craft Beer Cellar. Suzanne was the voice in the desert for awhile in Belmont, a short drive from the city, in a commuter town that has a lot of questions about craft beer when she and her ...
Jul 29, 2017•1 hr 21 min
On this week's Fervent Few bonus episode, we're going to get to know some more of our subscribers, a community we started called Fervent Few. These folks subscribe to GBH like a magazine, supporting us financially each month, and as part of there subscriber benefits, they join the GBH team in a community forum where we discuss a wide range of topics, often including professional retailers, brewers, distributors and sales people with expert perspectives. But in the Fervent Few community, everyone...
Jul 26, 2017•1 hr 3 min
We're a little over two months since Wicked Weed, one of the nation's most popular and ambitious sour beer producers, was acquired by AB InBev in a sale that set the beer world on edge. Indeed, it seemed to push many people over the edge, galvanizing craft beer's hardcore base against AB while others started reconsidering the future of craft beer, from its definitions and divisions to even the future of their own breweries and customers. Since then, AB InBev itself has seemed to get a bit on edg...
Jul 21, 2017•1 hr 37 min
Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.
Jul 21, 2017•2 min
London's beer scene is made up of a complex tapestry of interesting folks. Like with any beer community, its people are what really makes it, and here in London, one of those people is journalist Will Hawkes. Hawkes has written about beer since 2010 for mainstream publications such as The Independent, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times as well as specialist beer mags like BeerAdvocate and All About Beer. He's authored two books including the city beer guide Craft Beer London along with...
Jul 14, 2017•59 min
On this week's bonus episode, we're going to get to know some of our subscribers, a community we started called the Fervent Few. These folks subscribe to GBH like a magazine, supporting us financially each month. As part of their subscriber benefits, they join the GBH team in a community forum where we discuss a wide range of topics—a forum that includes professional retailers, brewers, distributors, and sales people with expert perspectives. But in the Fervent Few community, everyone has an equ...
Jul 08, 2017•1 hr 6 min
Chicago's beer story is an historical one, full of the bawdiness that to this day continues the association of beer with the rougher parts of our civility. It's political - in the burbs is where the temperance movement spawned, we've had workers riots and rallies, and our alderman would use their saloons to sway the vote. As American craft brewing brings beer back to the local, and hyperlocal level, some of these histories don't seem so remote. Tied houses, saloon culture, and good old-fashioned...
Jul 01, 2017•1 hr 27 min
We've got what I consider a bucket-list interview today. In the past, I've been thrilled to sit down with people like Sam Calagione, Lauren Limbach (formerly Salazar), Jim Koch, Garrett Oliver, Bill Covaleski, and others who were so fundamental to the world of beer that we enjoy now with all its diversity, innovation, and re-invention of the model. These are people who made it all happen by practically rubbing two sticks together. And because of that, almost anyone willing to put in the work has...
Jun 24, 2017•1 hr 42 min
Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes. This episode is devoted to Trophy Brewing Co's Trophy Wife Session IPA
Jun 22, 2017•2 min
At this point of the American brewing industry, it's safe to say beer is many things to many different people. It can be nothing more than a drink or maybe something to be discussed, but at an increasing rate, it's also become the core of serious study. J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham is many things. She's a teacher, writer, homebrewer, community activist, and more. In many ways, beer finds itself at the center of her wide-ranging universe. As Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Randolph Co...
Jun 17, 2017•1 hr 9 min
Ask a beer lover, and there are plenty of cities whose names can be synonymous with the drink they love. San Diego, Grand Rapids, Portland, Fort Collins ... Portland again. In North Carolina, Asheville has long held that designation, gaining local and national attention, but part of the fun of watching beer's growth can be the creation and explosion of cultures in new places. In recent years, that's been the case in Charlotte, North Carolina, about two hours away from Asheville and now home to a...
Jun 03, 2017•53 min
In the age of hyper-local craft, we have a competing—or perhaps complementary?—narrative in the U.S., and that's heritage brands. You may have heard my counterpart, Matthew Curtis (who's based in London), mention the UK's traditional breweries more than once. It's an interesting dynamic having young, upstart craft brands entering the market alongside these elder statesmen who are sometimes hundreds of years old, and both sets of companies are trying to reach drinkers with a message about quality...
May 27, 2017•56 min
Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes. This episode is devoted to Foley Brothers Maple Brown.
May 23, 2017•3 min
For anyone who's gone brewery hopping in Denver, CO, you know how lively and enjoyable that experience can be in one of the country's pre-eminent beer towns. With generations of brewers all working alongside each other, Denver has a brewing history and status unlike any other. But if you're like me, you've also noticed some common—maybe too common—themes in Denver breweries. Lots of IPAs, outdoorsiness, and that sort of early 2000s don't-try-too-hard aesthetic in the form of picnic tables and ra...
May 20, 2017•56 min
This week we've got Austin Ray, our Editorial Director talking about our Wicked Weed coverage pretty much as we were writing it, and his interview with Mitch Steel about his new atlanta brewpub concept. We'll also check in with Bill Holland, one of our newest recruits who' been contributing to our b-Roll section in between his hours selling beer for MillerCoors, which lends a unique perspective to our team. As usual, a diverse range of topics from some great storytellers.
May 16, 2017•40 min
