Today's episode is our annual Hangover Party podcast, and event we host in the wake of Upper & Downers, our coffee, beer, culinary, and cocktail festival. People come from all over the country to attend this insane mashup of cultures we put together with our friend and Uppers & Downers co-founder Stephen Morrissey, who's a world barista champion and works at the Specialty Coffee Association. And this hangover party, which we stupidly throw the morning after the big event, has become a bi...
Apr 09, 2019•1 hr 19 min
Let's take a trip. Let's get away from our warehouse districts and downtowns where so many of our favorite bars and breweries are found. We're going to the farm. As discussions of place have become more common in beer and brewers and drinkers alike have taken up the effort of using "terroir" as a descriptive term, the place of agriculture has never been more front of mind in the U.S. beer industry. Best of all, you can find those conversations happening all over, including in North Carolina, whe...
Apr 06, 2019•56 min
Look around the beer industry, and you'll see lots of things going on that are decidedly...not beer. With the success of flavored malt beverages, hard seltzer, and even a resurgence of regional cider brands, brewers all over are finding new ways to attract drinkers and boost their bottom line with products outside of their wheelhouse. Not that there's anything wrong with that. These are businesses, after all, and as the market is changing, so many are adapting by creating new kinds of beverages ...
Apr 04, 2019•27 min
Like so many other areas of publishing, things have changed in recent years for beer-focused media. While the stories told from all corners of the world have gotten more in-depth and introduced new people and ideas, the number of platforms where enthusiasts can find this information has been shifting. It wasn't long ago that All About Beer, one of the most prominent beer publications in the country, folded, along with DRAFT magazine. More recently, some newspaper-style "brewsletters" have disapp...
Apr 03, 2019•42 min
There's no getting around the fact that making beer is a science. But it can truly become special when it mixes with creativity and art. In today's episode, we're in Raleigh, North Carolina, where GBH was part of a discussion to determine where those things can overlap. In February, I hosted a panel discussion at Brewery Bhavana's production facility organized by Triangle Wine Company, a local wine and beer retail chain. Along with two brewers from Bhavana, I was also joined by Walt and Sean of ...
Apr 02, 2019•51 min
[Photo by Matthew Curtis] Few breweries can represent the past, present, and future of American craft beer the way Stone Brewing can. And it's co-founder, today's guest, Greg Koch, has been known to speak authoritatively about the entire timeline of craft beer at times. And with good reason—he's seen and participated in most of it himself. For some, though, his voice can sometimes seem anachronistic. It hearkens back to old, perhaps out-of-date realities of the business that can be jarring again...
Mar 30, 2019•1 hr 33 min
As many of you know, we're in the midst of Uppers & Downers week here in Chicago, celebrating more than five years of our coffee and beer culture collaboration between myself, Michael Kiser, and world barista champion Stephen Morrissey. This year's festival promises to be our best yet, with about 25 different coffee beer collaborations, a dozen different roasters pulling their best espresso shots from all over the country, some delicious things to eat from Green City Market, cocktails from P...
Mar 27, 2019•20 min
I'm not sure how to introduce CAMRA. On the one hand, it's the biggest single-issue consumer interest group in the UK, the savior of British brewing that's as responsible for our amazing beer scene as any American influence. On the other hand, it's portrayed as an irrelevant lumbering beast that seems to stagger from controversy to controversy. The Campaign for Real Ale was founded in 1971 in response to a surge in pasteurized, force-carbonated keg beer that was pushing traditional British cask ...
Mar 23, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Whether you read the words or hear the voices of the Good Beer Hunting editorial staff, there's one guy working behind the scenes who doesn't often get the byline, but offers plenty of insight and guidance to get those things from draft to publish-ready. In today's episode of the GBH Collective, we're chatting with the man behind the curtain, Austin L. Ray, editorial director for Good Beer Hunting. We're welcoming him to this special series of interviews where we can dive deeper with GBH contrib...
Mar 20, 2019•34 min
When it comes to running a business, partnerships are key. In the beer industry, that often shows up in leadership where one person may handle the books or operational responsibilities, and another focuses on the liquid itself. In all cases, finding the balance between people and personalities is importance of yin and yang that can make breweries succeed. Lucky for me, I recently had the chance to sit down with some perfect examples of left and right brain come to life. In this pairing, Whit Bak...
Mar 16, 2019•55 min
What the hell is going in Maryland and Texas? You may have caught a bunch of coverage of these two states on GBH over the past year. Their state politicians are creating—depending on who you ask—all sorts of good, bad, and ugly situations for their respective craft beer industries. In Maryland, infighting about how beer is sold and regulated has led to the legislature's attempts to strip oversight from comptroller Peter Franchot, who has led efforts to boost the state's craft-beer economy and ea...
Mar 14, 2019•57 min
In the past year, there's been plenty of talk in the industry about how cannabis is going to impact drinking trends. There's been close attention paid to states in the U.S. where marijuana has become legalized and its potential connection to declining alcohol consumption, which was on the downward slide anyway. But that's not why we're here today. In this episode of the GBH Collective, we are talking THC and CBD, but plenty of beer and food, too. As part of our special series of interviews to di...
Mar 13, 2019•35 min
Pressure Drop may have been founded during the early days of London's brewing renaissance, but its trajectory has been very different to many of its compatriots. While other UK breweries of the same age—the likes of Beavertown, Five Points, and Fourpure—expanded rapidly, putting together sales teams, attending trade shows and contract brewing overseas to hit demand, Pressure Drop's founders have chosen to grow slowly and organically even when the opportunity to explode seemed in reach. Back in 2...
Mar 09, 2019•48 min
What moves you? What is it that motivates your actions, beliefs, hopes, and dreams? There are all sorts of personal and professional ways to answer these questions, and sometimes we're lucky enough to have them intertwined. More than two decades ago, Eric Salazar helped to establish one of the most influential barrel programs in the world at New Belgium in Colorado. Its impact continues to resonate today, but with hope to push himself in new and exciting ways, Eric is starting all over again. Th...
Mar 07, 2019•27 min
What's the right way to have sex with a dolphin? I'm sure you didn't expect that question to be posted on a beer-focused interview show, but here we are. It's a fun benefit—if you dare call it that—of chatting with this episode's guest. Matt Saincome doesn't write about beer. He doesn't actually drink it, either. But as founder and editor-in-chief of the satirical website The Hard Times, he does offer a unique perspective on writing and storytelling. And that's why he's a guest on the GBH Collec...
Mar 06, 2019•54 min
Today's guest are an unlikely due of a documentary film maker and a master cicerone. Doug Tivola is the director of Brewmaster - a documentary that tries to weave together the varied and often dissociated threads in the beer world - like big and small, amateur and pro, nostalgic and new wave —and the results are at times flattering to the beer industry and at time a bit embarrassing to have reflected back. At times both overly simple and complex, naive and incisive. If a documentary serves as a ...
Mar 03, 2019•1 hr 19 min
This episode is a two-parter devoted to the intersection of taprooms and retailers as they increasingly find themselves in competition with each other for the limited number of customers and dollars available in their markets for craft beer. There are a number of factors that have made taprooms a newly competitive aspect of the three-tier system—or what's left of it in some cases. Laws have been changing, the consumer experience is shifting, OG beer bars are feeling the squeeze from every bar an...
Feb 28, 2019•1 hr 24 min
This episode is a two-parter devoted to the intersection of taprooms and retailers as they increasingly find themselves in competition with each other for the limited number of customers and dollars available in their markets for craft beer. There are a number of factors that have made taprooms a newly competitive aspect of the three-tier system—or what's left of it in some cases. Laws have been changing, the consumer experience is shifting, OG beer bars are feeling the squeeze from every bar an...
Feb 28, 2019•1 hr 54 min
Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content ...
Feb 27, 2019•47 min
Moksa Brewing Company in Rocklin, California sold out the slots for their brewery club program in 2017. What's particularly notable about that? They hadn't yet served a single drop of beer. When drinkers discuss breweries like Moksa, there's a label to which fans often turn that fits snugly within the cultural zeitgeist of American craft beer: hype. That dubious h-word is not a term head brewer Derek Gallanosa likes, though Moksa's proliferating fans have nevertheless helped to establish the new...
Feb 23, 2019•55 min
After more than a decade of wild growth, Michelob Ultra is now well-established as Anheuser-Busch InBev's king of "better-for-you" beer. As odd as it may sound to beer enthusiasts, the brand has become paradigmatic in its popularity and sales figures. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before other breweries wanted to play catch-up. The Ultraficaton race is now very much on, with entries in the low-calorie, low-carb space multiplying quickly from breweries big and small. Among these is a ne...
Feb 21, 2019•19 min
Welcome to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and journalist and media folks from within the beer industry and beyond on topics of writing, beer, and the stories you read and hear from GBH and others. In this episode, we're going to rekindle an old flame in Peter Frost. He's the writer behind the MilerCoors blog, a publication which has garnered a ton of attention in the beer industry since he to...
Feb 20, 2019•45 min
This week we have a special preview episode for you. Last year, you may recall we led a series of discussions at Foeder for Thought, the festival for wood-aged and sour beers by Green Bench brewing in St Petersburg Florida, as part of the Tampa Bay beer week festivities. Well, it was a blast, and the team at Green Bench has invited us back to the party to do it again this year, and I'm very excited to get down there and see their cellar expansion. They've been busy collaborating with a bunch of ...
Feb 20, 2019•47 min
Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America , exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start...
Feb 16, 2019•41 min
Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America , exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start...
Feb 16, 2019•21 min
Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America , exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start...
Feb 16, 2019•30 min
Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America , exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start...
Feb 16, 2019•22 min
Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America , exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start...
Feb 16, 2019•20 min
Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content ...
Feb 13, 2019•37 min
"It's just beer" is a mantra screamed into the social void daily. Its believers just want to enjoy a beer in peace, to escape the world for a damn second. The problem is, it isn't just beer. Beer is both an artisanal and commercial product. Craft is a social construct. Small batch brewing is a way of life, its marketing often an act of rebellion. So drinking it is a statement whether you want it to be or not. What we drink, where we drink it, how it gets there, and what we pay are all infused wi...
Feb 09, 2019•53 min
