Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Paul Schneider of Cinderlands is an optimist and a realist—but first and foremost he’s an analyst, studying the evolution of consumer trends and working tirelessly in the brewhouse to find creative and process solutions. He’s not afraid to use all the tools at his disposal—pulling solutions from food science, where necessary—while testing, honestly evaluating, and ensuring that everything they produce at Cinderlands meets the expectations of their drinkers. The Pittsburgh brewery drastically overhauled its fruit beer program for 2024, moving away from sweeter, thicker fruit beers in favor of flavored light lagers and “beyond beer” beverages, but—as Schneider explains in this episode—that shift required significant research in the food-science space. He’s also been an avid adopter of modern hop products, and here he shares their approach to layering hops in a variety of formats to achieve a variety of goals—from value-engineering IPAs for wider distribution to maximizing intensity in brewery-only releases. Over the course of the episode, Schneider riffs on: designing fruit beers to hit different value tiers without sacrificing flavor altering processes and bitterness in base recipes for balance with specific fruit additions light lager as a base for fruit beer sourcing juice and purée concentrate for more survivable and ranging fruit flavors and aromas using natural flavor top-notes in conjunction with other fruit formats adjusting dosing down in production batches from bench trials using flavor psychology to bolster fruit flavors without sugar value-engineering hop flavors and aromas for production IPAs without sacrificing quality saturating hop notes in the UHD (Ultra Hop Definition) series And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order.

Great Lakes in Cleveland is an American craft beer institution—a brewery that got its start in the late ’80s, when the concept of smaller breweries still seemed foreign to most drinkers. Now, 36 years later, the scale is much larger than it was in those early days on the seven-barrel pub system—yet some of those early brands persevere. While those beers inevitably evolve amid shifts in scale and tastes, the core ideas that inform them haven’t changed. In this episode, longtime brewmaster Mark Hunger and co-CEO Steven Pauwels, the former brewmaster at Kansas City’s Boulevard, talk about that evolution as well as new developments in hop-forward beers. Along the way, they touch on: brewing lager with proprietary yeast for a signature brewery flavor using pressurized fermentation and warmer temperatures for faster lagers using automation while double-checking with human testing adding a touch of dryness and drinkability through sparge pH adjustment using sulfur as a tool for flavor and shelf stability Oregon-grown Mt. Hood hops for American lager character evaluating Munich malt for their annual Oktoberfest beer using public variety hops such as Triumph, but not Centennial, in Midwest-style IPA brewing filtered, clear IPA with London Ale III yeast And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

After an early stint at Cleveland staple Fat Head’s, and a brief foray into brewery operation with the now-defunct Platform, Shaun Yasaki set out in 2016 to create a brewpub that reflected his interests as a brewer—well-made beers that don’t chase trends but earn repeat business for both flavor and drinkability. To achieve that goal, he designed a 10-barrel brewhouse that could brew any style of beer without compromise, thanks to its dedicated cereal cooker and decoction vessel. Now, with Noble Beast, he squeezes more beer from every batch using high-gravity brewing methods, and the results have garnered notice—two GABF medals for Baltic-style porter Murder Ballads, plus a number of high scores from our blind-judging panel at Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®. In this episode, Yasaki discusses: designing a 10-barrel brewhouse with flexibility for cereal mashes, decoction, parti-gyle brewing, and more exploring “weird” mash regimes to optimize flavor and fermentation performance finding space for expression within traditional lager styles maintaining foam-positive proteins through mashing and decoction finding complementary esters in specific lager yeast strains milling and cooking raw rice to create “negative space” in beer for other flavors to fill decocting and cereal mashing IPA using non-diacetyl-producing yeast in IPA fermentation high-gravity brewing on a small pub system And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Over the past 15 years of Fat Head’s existence, they’ve won 27 GABF medals (14 gold) and a dozen World Beer Cup medals (seven gold), but brewmaster Matt Cole takes it all in stride with typically Midwestern humility. They love to win, but they do it for the sake of making great beer. There’s a modern sensibility to their flagship American IPA, Head Hunter—one of our Best 20 Beers in 2023—which feels West Coast–driven but with an almost analog-like warmth that makes it accessible and refined without sacrificing any of its urgency and presence. And their approach to open fermentation of German-style weissbier is a master class in controlling ester and phenol production for flavorful yet balanced beers. Ask Cole, however, and he’ll chalk it up to quality ingredients and sound process. “Good product in, good product out.” In this episode, Cole discusses: soft fining to protect bitterness and aroma brewing American IPA with a strong West Coast vibe evaluating new-crop-year hops in the brewhouse after selection selecting hops at the brewery with input from the entire brewing team tagging hops from different selected lots for different usages in a brew maximizing natural hop flavor and aroma with whole-cone hops in the hopback the stylistic overlap of West Coast and American IPA dialing in packaging for competition fermenting weissbier in an open fermentor using a flotation tank to clean up brews the importance of process over recipe And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Murphy Johnson of BlackStack in St. Paul, Minnesota, is an enthusiastic brewer with a big personality. Despite many brewers’ strong opinions on hazy IPA, he’s not afraid to go against the grain and embrace the murky style in all its fruit-forward hop glory. In this almost entirely haze-focused episode, Johnson discusses how they continue to learn while developing beers—often via collabs with other brewers—as they deploy unusual techniques and focus on ingredients that don’t break the bank. In this episode, Johnson touches on: altering hazy IPA grain bills for aesthetic reasons feeding voracious dry hops with additional fermentables, such as Belgian candi sugar using thiol-boosting products with thiol-optimizing yeast for intensely fruit expressions how Sabro at low percentages helps to bring out beautiful notes from other hops building creaminess and mouthfeel with Cashmere and similar hops achieving modern hop flavors with traditional (and less expensive) American hops utilizing American Noble hop products in the mash to boost thiols temperature control and spunding when fermenting hazy IPAs And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Fair State Brewing Collective head brewer Joe Wells has a deep love of tradition but no fear of the future, and the brewer’s multiple focuses on everything from pale lager and modern IPA to sparking hemp-derived THC beverages is evidence of such. The point is matching flavor and experience to occasion, and Wells thinks about the entirety of that engagement when designing beers and beverages. In this episode, recorded on the eve of the World Brewing Congress in Minneapolis, Wells talks about: brewing classic lager with American grains and ingredients embracing the cereal mash with corn grits and rice flour for lighter beers that don’t sacrifice character lager brewing with American Noble hops using Columbus cryo in lager and IPA dialing in Tetra for foam retention in adjunct lagers using the cheapest ingredients as expensively as possible triple decoction and its place in the certain beers debunking conical versus horizontal lager fermentation dank and sticky West coast IPA layering aromas like perfumers designing and making interesting hemp-derived THC beverages And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is excited to now offer 2-4 week lead times on all in-stock ProFill Rotary Can Filler and Seamers. This special lead time is only while supplies last, so send us an email at [email protected] or call us at 262-278-4945. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Lager yeast and the evolution of expression is the subject of this spotlight podcast, brought to you interruption-free by Fermentis, the experts in fermentation for more than 160 years. Brewers everywhere depend on Fermentis for yeast that’s consistent, controllable, and high quality—whether you’re brewing an ester-forward Belgian-style beer, your favorite IPA, or a clean lager. This episode focuses on an evolving subject—using lager yeast for character beyond “cleanliness,” and joining for the conversation are Urs Wellhoener, technical director and brewing R&D for Boston Beer, Grant Lawrence, former professional brewer, active homebrewer, and Southwestern sales rep for Fermentis, and Bob Kunz, founder of Highland Park Brewing in Los Angeles. Through the podcast, we focus on the why, the what, and the how of using lager yeast to achieve not just neutral, but characterful fermentations, especially as it pertains to hop-forward lager styles. Along the way, the panelists discuss: the interaction of sulfur compounds derived from hops with the sulfur compounds created through lager fermentation lager strains’ beta-lyase activity and biotransformation leaning into hop creep and using it to your advantage reducing acetaldehyde production by changing diacetyl rest timing cone angle’s impact on mercaptan formation testing tried-and-true beers such as Highland Park’s Timbo Pils with alternate yeast strains And more. Fermentis, is a worldwide leader in brewing yeast, and brewers everywhere depend on Fermentis for successful, predictable, and controllable beer fermentation. They’re the obvious choice for beverage fermentation. To learn more about their range of dried brewing yeast and the work they’re doing to help brewers understand how to use them, visit Fermentis.com,

With his new brewery, Ism, Ian McCall is back in the brewery and taproom that once housed Beachwood in Long Beach, California—a brewery where he was once lead brewer—although he’s in a different position now as founder and owner. Despite the very young age of this new brewery, McCall and team have already made a big splash, landing three World Beer Cup medals earlier this year, two of them gold, and one in the prized West Coast IPA category for their IPA Western Standard Time. The conversation, of course, turns to West Coast IPA, and stays there, as McCall walks through his award-winning IPA. Along the way, McCall covers: optimizing the beer lineup to eliminate lower performers driving leaner malt in West Coast IPA using group hop selection to his advantage brewing with wheat to boost body without affecting dryness moderating chloride levels in West Coast IPA shaping bitterness to hit strongly and quickly then disappear using active fermentation dry hopping to push fruitier hop notes building complexity with hot side hop additions constantly evolving even award-winning recipes And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Victor Novak has been racking up medals at major competitions for decades now. Through stints at significant Philadelphia and southern California breweries, he’s made his mark on the development of contemporary beer styles while also working with a number of younger brewers who’ve done significant work themselves. Now, as director of innovation for Figueroa Mountain in Westlake Village, California, he’s blending the many beer avenues he loves—lager, fruit, and more—to build a robust program with beers that even non-beer-lovers can enjoy. In this episode, Novak covers: adjusting chloride-to-sulfate ratios in dark lagers building easy-drinking dark beers with pilsner malt, rice, and small amounts of roasted malts limiting Munich malt to avoid astringency single-infusion mashing with modern malts managing sulfur production with Augustiner lager yeast the differentiating factors in award-winning lagers dialing in pH in either pale and dark lagers to optimize hop or malt expression biotransformation with lager yeast in West Coast pils creating a perception of sweetness (without actual sweetness) in tart fruit beers Choosing Lactobacillus strains for the intended level of acidity adding top-notes to fruit flavors for aromatic punch working terpenes into hop-forward and nonalcoholic beers And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

The Williams family has been farming apples and stone fruit on Colorado’s Western slope for over 100 years, and today their Snow Capped Cider is one of the winningest American cideries, notching big honors at GLINTCAP, the world’s premier cider competition, while cleaning up again at the annual Cidercraft awards. The secret, says owner, creative force, and cider maker Kari Williams, is the quality of their fruit. Growing apples for cider on their own estate isn’t novel, but doing so at an elevation over 6000’ certainly is, and the extreme growing conditions produce apples with more vivid contours as well as more sugar, which provides Williams a saturated palette to paint with. In this episode, Williams discusses: the multigenerational family approach to farming and now cider making the benefits and challenges of growing apples at high elevation maintaining tight farming control for perfect apples, while benefitting from the luxury of time an apple-driven creative process inspired by flavors in that year’s crop terroir and flavor expression in apples, and the impact of different farming locations extensive trialing with 200 fermentation tests in any given year building a perception of sweetness in dry ciders aging certain apple varieties before juicing balancing acidity, astringency, and sweetness in fine ciders And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) breeds new hop varieties to help brewers captivate beer lovers. Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September.

Both Yvan De Baets, cofounder of Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, and Eric Toft, brewmaster at Private Landbrauerei Schönram in Schönram, Germany, have appeared on the podcast in the past (episodes 162 and 244). However, for this special panel discussion—recorded live at the Senne brewery—we’ve brought them back to discuss a topic that’s increasingly front-of-mind for brewers around the world: the present and future of European hops. Extreme heat and severe weather events have increased in frequency, often affecting the aroma and alpha-acid content of classic European-grown varieties and making it more difficult to source those of highest quality. Yet both De Baets and Toft have developed and deployed strategies not just to evaluate growers and track the progress of the crop each year, but also to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each new crop while hedging against risks. In this episode, they discuss: shifts in European drinking habits declining contracted hops and hedging with overstock from previous harvest years positive and negative traits when evaluating hops still on the bine building deeper relationships directly with growers avoiding the trap of negotiating on hop price evaluating irrigation methods and field structure harvest timing and its increasing impact on certain Noble varieties testing and sensory for new-harvest hops maintaining the cold chain from baling and storage through pelletizing the biggest challenges and the biggest opportunities for European hops in the near term And more! This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order.

Beers such as Oerbier, Arabier, and Stille Nacht may not be as familiar to today’s avid beer consumer, but for decades these unusual strong ales have been staples on the menus and cellars of more adventurous beer bars around the world. De Dolle Brouwers got its start in 1980, among the vanguard in a new wave of Belgian brewers who rejected the consolidation and cynical corner-cutting that had come to define the industry there. Cofounder Kris Herteleer was committed to a more natural approach to brewing, using real malt, whole hops, healthy yeast, spring water, and the highly manual mechanical tools of the decades-old brewhouse they purchased in the village of Esen, just outside of Diksmuide, in West Flanders. Oerbier was, and still is, hard to classify. It limns the space between an overtly acid-forward oud bruin and a strong Belgian dark ale, borrowing from both where and when it needs to. Yet this ambiguity fits Herteleer’s approach; De Dolle isn’t concerned at all about adherence to styles. Herteleer would much rather get you asking questions than provide you with easy answers. In this episode, recorded at the brewery as we sipped beers from their cellar more than 20 years old, Herteleer discusses: switching from Rodenbach yeast in 2000, and the five-year process of getting Oerbier back to its intended expression the prevalence of coloring and backsweeting in 1970s and ’80s Belgian ale balancing acidity and sweetness in higher-gravity beer using a coolship, Baudelot cooler, open fermentors, a Lactobacillus reactor, and French wine barrels to produce complex, flavorful beer that’s more than just “sour” using relatively high IBUs to limit Lactobacillus and Pediococcus activity in mixed-culture fermentation avoiding the crutch of spices in Belgian ale barrel-aging in wine barrels rather than spirits barrels, to avoid “dead” barrels And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com/podcast): Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian, and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

The Humble Sea origin story told by cofounder and brewmaster Nick Pavlina is a common one: Avid homebrewer turns pro at the urging of family and friends. Yet that early experience with brewing, brewing, and brewing some more—on a one-barrel system—instilled a discipline for testing, evaluating, and adapting that stays with Humble Sea to this day. A 2022 World Beer Cup silver medal for Munich-style helles gave them the validation they sought for the nascent lager program—but rather than anchor them in place, that success put more wind in their experimental sails. They continue to tinker with that beer, testing mash-step times and temperatures as well as fermentation parameters, in an ongoing quest to make it as perfect as possible. Meanwhile, they’ve hitched a ride on the swift current of hazy IPA—or, in their lingo, “foggy IPA”—but they’ve done so in ways inspired by their West Coast locale. The result has been significant growth, and the brewery now has five different ports they call home. In this episode, Pavlina and brewing operations director Nate Chesser discuss: developing a house lager style by assembling pieces of various traditions and the practices of brewer peers changing and adjusting their medal-winning helles despite its success embracing decoction for both its tangible and intangible benefits choosing and sourcing Noble hops for helles and pilsner fermenting lagers with a less common yeast strain building their initial “foggy” IPA out of a Pliny the Elder–inspired recipe leaning into their unique water profile spunding IPA for natural carbonation And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. RSS Maclin (https://rssmaclin.com) offers audits and repairs for can seamers and can integrity training. We provide solutions for can damage, seam training, and help your facility become self-sufficient without relying on OEMs. Questions about your can line? Call us at (330) 299-8210 or email at [email protected] Brewery & Distillery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com): If you’re a brewery or distillery in planning, or interested in adding a brewery or distillery to your existing craft beverage business, visit breweryworkshop.com now and secure your spot in our upcoming Brewery and Distillery Workshop, this September. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com/podcast): Brewers worldwide trust Indie’s unique varieties — Strata, Lórien, Luminosa, Meridian, and Audacia — to modernize, brighten and diversify their beer lineup. Visit indiehops.com/podcast to discover what’s new in hop flavors. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Carrying the weight of history and expectation poses a particular challenge for some European brewers, but nowhere is that more apparent than in the world of Belgian brewing. How, in the face of changing technology and consistently variable ingredients, does a brewer stay true to the ideas behind the classic recipes that underpin the core beers that their brewery produces? Over the past two decades, these are exactly the questions that St. Bernardus brewmaster Wouter Dely and sales and marketing manager Marco Passarella have had to face. In this episode, they discuss: Adjusting classic recipes to today’s modern brewhouse reality Working with barley that varies year-to-year by adjusting step mash times and temperatures Using Belgian candi sugar in brewing abbey-style beers Maintaining healthy fermentations using techniques like drauflassen Fostering ester production by limiting head pressure in cylindroconical tanks Using different temperature glycol in fermenter jackets through the course of the fermentation Time as an ingredient in brewing The mechanics of bottle conditioning And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://hopandbrewschool.com). The 7th Annual Veterans Blend from Yakima Chief Hops will be available for pre-order June 24th! $3 from every pound sold of Veterans Blend will be donated to this year’s non-profit Stop Soldier Suicide. Plan ahead and pre-order on June 24th! Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

In Anzegem, Belgium, about 20 miles southwest of Ghent, Brouwerij ’t Verzet is no cover band. Sure, they could make some local waves by brewing up Citra-Mosaic hazy IPAs, but what would that mean to the strong brewing traditions in their corner of Flanders? Rather than play someone else’s tunes, could they instead take the familiar, culturally significant notes that everyone around them knows, and play them with a swagger and attitude that helps people see them in a new light? Or, as cofounder Alex Lippens muses, could they drink these innovative hazy IPAs from the United States, learn from them, and inject that knowledge back into classic Belgian styles, to help move those traditions forward? Couldn’t they develop their own take on a classic Flemish style such as oud bruin—but instead of making it taste like Rodenbach, make it feel cool and relevant for a younger generation of drinkers? These are among the questions that Lippens asks throughout this episode. While the answers are still in progress—check back with the Verzet team in 40 years, maybe, when their brewing careers are complete—he also touches on: pushing the borders of drinkability and excitement rethinking Michael Jackson’s categorization of oud bruin and Flemish red ale brewing with a heavy caramel-malt load and 20 percent unmalted barley using techniques such as cereal mashes and extremely long boils to build flavor and texture blending parts of seven different barrel-aged base beers into Verzet Oud Bruin maintaining and using a wild-caught mixed culture promoting quicker Lactobacillus action by restricting hops and pitching on fully fermented wort building an impression of fruit flavor without using actual fruit blending to a total acidity goal And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://hopandbrewschool.com). The 7th Annual Veterans Blend from Yakima Chief Hops will be available for pre-order June 24th! $3 from every pound sold of Veterans Blend will be donated to this year’s non-profit Stop Soldier Suicide. Plan ahead and pre-order on June 24th! Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Mythmaking and superstition may play a role in others brewers’ approaches to making lambic, but for Thomas Vandelanotte—brewmaster for Belgian breweries Timmermans, Bourgogne de Flandres, and Waterloo—science is a far better tool for achieving great-tasting beer that people want to drink over and over again. “I think it’s important, first of all, to not talk about lambic as a wonder of nature, but it’s something that can be completely scientifically followed-up,” Vandelanotte says. To that end, he and his team have engaged in deep study of their own brewery environment, the dynamics at play through fermentation and aging, and every barrel or foeder that finds its way into an oude gueuze blend. Their goal is balanced beer—flavorful, citric, not too acidic—and they’re intentional in both adhering to the historical parameters of lambic brewing while also using all the modern abalyticak tools at their disposal. In this episode, Vandelanotte discusses: the 118 different yeasts they’ve found in their environment and fermenting beer growth dynamics over time of different yeasts in lambic the similarity of young fermenting lambic to New England IPA using oxidized hop pellets without destroying what’s good about the hops themselves, because “lambic is not the [trash] bin of the hops industry” avoiding low-oil hop varieties and embracing hops of various origins, including U.S. hops the origin of barnyard character in lambic using a variety of barrel sizes and foeders for different fermentation and wood impacts analysis of foeders and barrels to build statistical basis for a theoretical blend that’s confirmed or adjusted through sensory flavor differences in types of acid that don’t track to titrations open fermentation at Bourgogne de Flandres to drive ester production fermentation dynamics in oud bruin And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Experience distinct transparency and juiciness with Omega Yeast’s DayBreak-V. We've genetically eliminated haze in the popular British-V strain, allowing you to preserve the fruit-boosting prowess while achieving crystal clarity. Learn more at [email protected]. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://hopandbrewschool.com). The 7th Annual Veterans Blend from Yakima Chief Hops will be available for pre-order June 24th! $3 from every pound sold of Veterans Blend will be donated to this year’s non-profit Stop Soldier Suicide. Plan ahead and pre-order on June 24th! Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Superbloom strains make classic hops flavor; Fresh strains keep diacetyl low even with large hop additions; Tropics strains make a tropical bouquet reminiscent of the finest southern hemisphere hops. Mention this podcast for 20% off your first order. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

At last year’s Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers in Chicago, a relative newcomer grabbed both the silver and bronze medals in the Wild Beer Mixed Culture with Fruit category, immediately sending the crowd to flood the pouring table with requests for tastes. The brewery brand—Idyll Forest Artisan Ales—is the wild, mixed-culture passion project of Pryes Brewing cofounder Jeremy Pryes. The small production facility he’s built about 20 minutes from the main brewery is his culture and flavor laboratory. Despite founding the brewery over a decade ago, Pryes still spends time on the production brew deck and then makes time for his acid-forward labors of love, but the long days are worth it for Pryes. There are too many ideas to try, too many experiments to work out, and too much to learn to slow down now. In this episode, Pryes discusses both their classic approach to “Midwest IPA” as well as the wild path he’s forging with Idyll Forest. Along the way, he touches on: their slow and intentional growth from alternating proprietorship to large beer hall the fundamental tenets of classic Midwest IPA challenges in selecting Simcoe with a more classic flavor profile how drinkers’ palates have evolved over the past decade changing yeast strains, making drier beers with no caramel malt, and finding balance through lower bitterness differentiating West Coast–style IPAs from Midwest IPAs through hop choices building common lanes for Idyll Forest’s wild, spontaneous, and mixed-culture beers the narrow IBU window between bacterial party time and lockdown pre-acidifying or not, depending on flavor intentions decisions and process around fruit additions using carbonic maceration of grapes to improve flavor expression articulating beer-blending goals through writing avoiding vanilla in certain fruited mixed-culture beers And more. Note: After we recorded this episode, Pryes went on to win a World Beer Cup bronze for Soirée, which had also won bronze at FOBAB. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://hopandbrewschool.com). Interested in all things hops and beer? Join Yakima Chief Hops on Aug. 28-20th for Hop & Brew School, a one-of-a-kind educational experience in Yakima, Washington, the heart of hop country. Register at hopandbrewschool.com. Use code CBB10 for a 10% discount off your tickets. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Tim Johnson of Barrel Theory in St. Paul, Minnesota, started brewing progressive styles of beer—hazy IPA, fruit beers, barrel-aged stouts, and more—out of necessity. As a beer lover and beer trader, it made sense to try his hand at these things he would trade for, both for the creative thrill of pursuing excellence in these styles, but also for more pragmatic reasons—to have things to trade. Today, Johnson still loves tasting the wide breadth of beer out there, and he remains active in trading beer with brewer friends. Now, however, he’s more focused on his own brewing—mastering hazy IPA, tart fruit beers, and barrel-aged stouts—and he’s not afraid to let you know that he loves those styles. In this episode, he discusses: blending and co-pitching yeast in hazy IPAs designing double and triple hazy IPAs to taste great at a variety of temperatures balancing base malts for flavor and color adjusting water for the perfect hazy IPA profile using advanced hop products alongside T-90 pellets choosing the right time and place for certain hop additions building hazy IPAs that make you want to take another sip taking advantage of the “Infinity Gauntlet” of hops pushing hop saturation while still controlling hop burn using coconut cream to build richness in fruited sours And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://hopandbrewschool.com). Interested in all things hops and beer? Join Yakima Chief Hops on Aug. 28-20th for Hop & Brew School, a one-of-a-kind educational experience in Yakima, Washington, the heart of hop country. Register at hopandbrewschool.com. Use code CBB10 for a 10% discount off your tickets. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

The world may know Austin’s Meanwhile for the GABF and World Beer Cup medals they’ve won, including golds for Helles and Pilsner, and silver for Secret Beach IPA. But the locals know it as a great beer garden with a playground for kids, an outdoor concert stage, a wide array of food trucks, and tasty beer that can be either dissected or just digested. It’s a beautiful place to spend time with friends over beer, with beer that’s worth talking about (if that’s your thing). In this episode, Director of Brewing Operations Robert Fulwiler, himself an alum of Seattle’s Fremont, discusses some of the keys behind Meanwhile’s successful lagers and IPAs, including: Blending pilsner malts for color and character Managing mash thickness with a slightly high-gravity brew Adjusting for the low alpha of the 2022 German hop harvest Building a range of hop flavor with addition timing and a variety of hops and formats Using Augustiner yeast and embracing the best side of sulfur Slow carbonation for more delicate lagers “San Diego-style IPA” and what it means Managing hop creep with ALDC Controlling the expression of funkier hop characteristics through temperature And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). YCH 702 is a flowable extract designed to maximize aroma and increase whirlpool yield. YCH 702 is flowable at room temperature, standardized to 20% total oil, and contains high concentration of survivable hop compounds. Contact your Yakima Chief hops rep for more information! Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

For Joe Lemnah, going to work at a brewery was no reason to stop homebrewing. The same need to explore and understand that drove him to brew at home every week still informs his process of testing and learning, even a decade after opening Burlington Beer in Burlington, Vermont. In this episode, Lemnah focuses on the evolution and processes behind the style for which they’re best-known—hazy IPA—but their approach differs from other New England stalwarts. From unconventional (yet classic) hop choices such as Simcoe and Chinook, to high-adjunct grists in which each grain serves a specific purpose, the choices that Lemnah and Burlington team make are based on a continuous process of testing, confirmation, revision, and tweaking. During this conversation, he touches on: exploring the impact of different grains in hazy IPA both embracing and avoiding “cheat code” hops pushing high-adjunct loads of 30 to 40 percent to maximize soft texture building middle notes through hop blends and process using less traditional hops for aroma maximizing various ways to achieve interesting hop flavors and aromas learning the mechanics of fermentation and yeast harvesting with London Ale III building character in pub-focused lagers with rye and other grains And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). YCH 702 is a flowable extract designed to maximize aroma and increase whirlpool yield. YCH 702 is flowable at room temperature, standardized to 20% total oil, and contains high concentration of survivable hop compounds. Contact your Yakima Chief hops rep for more information! OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Ryan Miller and Lillian MacNamara—both experienced brewers and cofounders of Freak Folk Bier—are partners in business and life, making the brewery, as Miller says, “a love story interwoven with brewing.” Both share a love of saison, and Freak Folk began with a focus on special-release saisons that has since expanded into a broad selection of styles to fill the tap lines of their Waterbury, Vermont taproom. But even the other styles they brew exhibit the same kind of delicate balance and nuanced structure that they honed in saison experimentation. In this episode, Miller discusses both their approach to saison and hazy IPA, touching on: Building and maintaining mixed cultures Brewing attenuated saison with a single infusion mash and controlled primary and secondary fermentations Controlling acidity in saison through the mash Using unusual ingredients in unusual ways in saison Building a compelling grain bill in hazy IPA Blending base malts for the right balance of flavor and color Copitching yeast strains Adjusting gravity based on ABV Using advanced hop products And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). YCH 702 is a flowable extract designed to maximize aroma and increase whirlpool yield. YCH 702 is flowable at room temperature, standardized to 20% total oil, and contains high concentration of survivable hop compounds. Contact your Yakima Chief hops rep for more information! OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Innovation in beer has been accelerating for the past decade as breweries—excited by new styles and techniques, and feeding a culture of newness incentivized by social apps—churn out a relentless quantity of new beers in new formats with new labels. However, to hear Bill Cherry tell it, the choices he’s made at Switchback over the past two decades have been driven more by slowness than speed. Packaging in 22-ounce bombers so they could dial in packaging before moving to more popular formats, or pursuing innovation in smoked beer because demand (and competition) in that niche are small, have afforded the brewery time and space to figure it out and build demand organically, always focusing first on the beer and its quality. The results have paid off over recent years, with 2022 gold and 2023 bronze medals at the World Beer Cup for Katie’s Love Poem, their grodziskie. But that’s just the kindling, as their broader Flynn on Fire series has seen them tackle and learn from a vast array of different smoked beers. Cherry loves smoked beer because they’re harder to sell to consumers—there isn’t a built-in market for them, so they have to create one, and he loves that challenge as well as the runway for lower-stakes experimentation. In this episode, he talks through that counterintuitive strategy and how it relates to their approach to innovation, including: designing Switchback Ale based on pieces of other inspirational beers growing slowly to make sure beer quality is always top priority packaging draft only for the first 10 years of the brewery until they could afford a quality bottling line homing in on smoked because because “nobody likes smoked beers, but they should” creating the smoke-o-meter scale for conveying smokiness to consumers step-mashing for flavor, not just attenuation maintaining a living yeast pitch that’s going on 2,000-plus generations balancing hop flavor and smoke aroma in smoked IPA And more. “if you can get people to drink something that they don’t know they want, that’s true craft,” says Cherry. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops Varietees (https://varietees.com). VarieTees Supply Co. offers hop apparel inspired by hop varieties, art, and community. Shop designs from various artists inspired by your favorite varieties including Citra, Simcoe, Sabro, and Mosaic! Shop VarieTees and use promo code CBB20 for 20% off at varietees.com. OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

While popular movies tell finite stories, the real lives of the people they feature don’t stop when the final credits roll. So, it was up to the von Trapp family—whose story was told with huge dramatic license in The Sound of Music—to write their own next chapters. They did so by establishing a popular, Austrian-inspired family lodge in northern Vermont—then, about 15 years ago, they opened a brewery just down the hill. They launched with the goal of producing finely crafted European-style lagers, befitting the family’s heritage. Craft lagers weren’t exactly lighting up the sales charts at the time, but it was a long-term bet from a family that thinks in generations rather than quarterly returns. Now, with a beautiful automated Rolec brewhouse and an attached beer hall, they’re producing award-winning lagers at scale—including the Oktoberfest that we named one of our Best 18 Beers in 2018—all while making very intentional decisions about process and ingredients. In this episode, brewing operations director Tom Everett and quality manager Jack Van Pappegem talk through their approach to ingredients and process, including: avoiding decoction of many pale lagers, despite having an automated and dedicated decoction vessel finishing pale lagers dry, but not too dry using small amounts of specialty malts to build character managing the grain crush keeping a tight focus on pH strategies to promote healthy fermentations selecting yeast for the ideal character lagering in cylindroconical unitanks brewing Oktoberfest lager as well as dark lagers And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) By partnering with ProBrew, brewers can fill and seam their canned product at ranges from 100-600 cans per minute. Our unique filling process also ensures low dissolved oxygen pickup and focuses on product quality during the entire process. Visit probrew.com or email us at [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops Varietees (https://varietees.com). VarieTees Supply Co. offers hop apparel inspired by hop varieties, art, and community. Shop designs from various artists inspired by your favorite varieties including Citra, Simcoe, Sabro, and Mosaic! Shop VarieTees and use promo code CBB20 for 20% off at varietees.com. OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Welcome to Las Vegas, craft brewers! In this final of three CBC preview episodes, Crafthaus head brewer Cameron Fisher joins to discuss their approach to making cold IPA (and more) in the desert of Southern Nevada. Whether it’s Czech-style lager served on a Lukr faucet in their Arts District taproom or a throwback hoppy red ale poured with love from their Henderson taproom at the brewery, the beers Crafthaus makes have earned a reputation for quality, breadth, and accessibility. In this episode, Fisher touches on: Connecting beers to audiences through familiarity and experience Using flaked maize and white wheat in cold IPA Pushing big IBUs in the first wort addition then cool pooling Layering hop formats with concentrated pellets and T-90’s Avoiding generic hop flavors by editing down hop blends Dry hop saturation Fermenting with characterful lager yeast that leaves more body Creating coffee beers with different roasters and coffees And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). As a global preferred supplier of NZ Hops, Yakima Chief is the source for the pronounced bright and tropical aromas New Zealand hops are known for, adding a rush of exotic fruits and zesty citrus to your recipes. NZ Cryo is now available, learn more at yakimachief.com OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

This special fresh hop–focused episode of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the the freshness experts at RipeLocker. RipeLocker has patented a radically innovative storage solution to revolutionize the post-harvest industry with technology to extend the shelf-life of perishables such as fresh hops while preserving quality and taste. The company’s low-pressure chambers prolong freshness after harvest by weeks, often months, and for brewers, this opens up new ways to think about fresh- and wet-hop beers. This episode focuses on fresh-hop brewing, from harvest through brewing and then marketing them to end consumers. Joining for the conversation are Brendon Anthony, RipeLocker senior director of fruit science, Tyler Sabin, Oasis Farms hops manager, and Bart Gumpert, Coronado Brewing’s R&D and innovation brewer. There are as many different ways to brew fresh-hop beers as there are brewers doing it, but RipeLocker technology opens up some avenues for thinking about fresh-hop brewing in new and fresh ways. Through this conversation, the panel discusses everything from how the hypobaric chamber works to pick windows for fresh-hop varieties, the variability of rates of aging for different hop varieties, brewers’ favorite fresh-hop varieties and combinations, the hub and spoke distribution strategy, innovative ways brewers are taking advantage of the opportunities that RipeLocker allows, and ways that this technology may impact fresh-hop brewing in the future. Visit https://ripelocker.com for more information, or visit https://oasisfarmsfreshhops.com to explore the ways you can use fresh hops from Oasis Farms preserved in RipeLocker chambers in your fresh-hop beers this upcoming harvest. (Sponsored Content)

Dave Pascual, head brewer for longtime Las Vegas brewery Big Dog’s, takes a methodical approach to running the brewhouse, even if it doesn’t feel out-of-the-ordinary to this longtime brewer. Running a clean and organized brewery is just how it’s done. Despite how obvious some of these little things may appear, it’s the sum of all those professional details that’s helped cement Big Dog’s legacy as a consistent award winner in categories as diverse as English-Style Brown Ale and Belgian-Style Tripel. In this episode, Pascual discusses his approach to creating recipes and brewing award-winning beers, including: brewing light lager with two-row instead of pilsner tasting and comparing, consistently dialing in hops in very light lagers building a full-spectrum malt bill for brown ale achieving pleasant fermentation notes in Belgian-style beers changing medal-winning recipes wood-aging barleywine building a team that consistently focuses on excellence And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). As a global preferred supplier of NZ Hops, Yakima Chief is the source for the pronounced bright and tropical aromas New Zealand hops are known for, adding a rush of exotic fruits and zesty citrus to your recipes. NZ Cryo is now available, learn more at yakimachief.com OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

In this first of a three-episode miniseries on Las Vegas brewers, timed to give you more local knowledge as you head to the desert for this year’s Craft Brewer’s Conference, Able Baker Director of Brewing Matt Marino discusses his evolving approach to modern West coast IPA and hazy session IPA. Through the conversation, he touches on: brewing oversized batches at high gravity to maximize output from their 15bbl brewhouse pushing extreme attenuation to hit a 1.4-1.6°P finishing gravity in a 7% ABV IPA making the move from 2 row malt to pilsner malt selecting hops and hop formats for survivability and efficiency fermenting with non-diacetyl-producing yeast recirculating while dry hopping to maximize extraction in West coast IPA the constant evolution of recipes for the brewery’s most popular brands blending to create new beers the best beer-related (and non-beer-related) things to do while visiting Las Vegas And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Yakima Chief Hops (https://yakimachief.com). As a global preferred supplier of NZ Hops, Yakima Chief is the source for the pronounced bright and tropical aromas New Zealand hops are known for, adding a rush of exotic fruits and zesty citrus to your recipes. NZ Cryo is now available, learn more at yakimachief.com OPA Design Studio (https://designopa.com): The architects at OPA Design Studio are your partners in developing the unique design you need. With over a decade of experience designing breweries, the folks at OPA are here to serve as your trusted experts from start to finish. Visit designopa.com to set up your no obligation introductory consultation today. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Notch founder Chris Lohring loves the fact that more craft brewers are embracing lagers—but he has some strong opinions about the best way to brew them. “‘Crispy boys’ don’t exist,” he says. “Lagers aren’t dry. Clean lager yeast is boring to me.” Refinement and distinction are his goals, not minimalism, and he and his team use all the tools in the brewer’s toolbox to achieve them—such as adjusting mash schedules and malt bills to build body in low-ABV beers; moving lager mid-fermentation from quasi-open fermentors to conicals before later moving to horizontal tanks; reducing and timing decoctions to fit the goals of individual beers; and considering the impact of mash rests on fermentability, among many other things. It’s not one thing, after all, that makes a lager distinct—in his words, “there’s no magic bullet.” In this episode, Lohring discusses: why Czech pale lager is a category, not a style how variable processes in the cellar lead to different expressions of diacetyl manipulating a mash schedule to build body and character with more expressive lager yeasts what decoctions do and don’t do for lagers using small percentages of crystal malt in Czech-style pale lagers fermenting with no head pressure, and skimming to optimize flavor and hop character the difference between černé pivo and tmavé pivo using American hops in Czech-style lager And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis. Craft Spirits & Distilling Podcast (https://spiritsanddistilling.com/podcasts/): If you’re a distiller or curious about it, check out the Craft Spirits & Distilling podcast. Click on the link and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Will and Joe Quinlan, brothers and cofounders of The Big Friendly, just make beer. Will loves saison so they make a few saisons every year. Joe loves barrel-aged stout so they make a few of those every year. Their distribution is minuscule so their production is very small, but they do take a meticulous approach to beer making despite their small size. In this episode, the brothers each recount their approach to the beers they make, and in the process they discuss: building mixed fermentation cultures out of separate stock strains resting and conditioning saison using flavor- and aroma-forward New Zealand hops in saison tuning sourdough yeast for beer fermentation barrel-conditioning saison editing malts in barrel-aged stouts And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

Kelly McKnight could have done a lot of other things—she was a sponsored pro skateboarder and snowboarder in her younger years, and she studied pre-med at Harvard—but she found such solace and relief in brewing that she changed paths to brew professionally. Now, she’s lead R&D brewer in one of the beer world’s most successful innovation programs, using all of tools at the their disposal to understand flavor and expression in beer. In this episode, the New Belgium brewer touches on: bench testing new ingredients the process behind reinventing Fat Tire chemical analysis of hops and hop blends using natural flavors in IPA process engineering to move ideas to large-scale production exacting dry-hop automation offbeat fruits that work well in beer And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

There is the East Coast and there is the West Coast, but aficionados of hazy IPA know not to sleep on the Gulf Coast, thanks largely to Parish Brewing in Broussard, Louisiana. Parish’s Ghost in the Machine has become a juggernaut in the world of hazy IPA, earning accolades such as a 2019 Beer of the Year from Craft Beer & Brewing and a mention on critic Alex Kidd’s top ten list in 2020. More recently, Parish won a spot in the top 20 small regional breweries as voted on by the readers of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®. Nor is their success limited to IPA—Parish also picked up a silver medal at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival for its top-selling wheat beer, Canebrake. In this episode, head brewer (and Master Cicerone) Ryan Speyrer joins the podcast to discuss the ways they brew their iconic hazy IPAs, touching on: the evolution of Ghost in the Machine, from West Coast to hazy the roles that wheat and oats do (and don’t) play in hazy IPA balancing specific hop varieties between whirlpool and dry hop to maximize the expression of each using classic hops such as Cascade along with Simcoe in modern, fruit-forward IPA the importance of extended cold-conditioning And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) “ProBrew is changing the game at this year’s CBC in Las Vegas. Visit go.probrew.com/CBC24 or contact us at [email protected] to schedule time with one of our subject matter experts at Booth #1783 at this year’s show.” Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to our lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

This special fermentation-focused episode of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the yeast and fermentation specialists at White Labs. If you brew beer, you’re familiar with White Labs, as they’ve been supplying brewers with the highest quality yeast and fermentation aids for many years, and they now serve brewers around the world from outposts in San Diego and Asheville in the United States, as well as Copenhagen and Hong Kong. Throughout this episode, we focus on the keys to effective fermentations, from yeast health to enzymes and more. Joining for the conversation are Chris White, founder of White Labs; Julian Shrago, co-owner and brewmaster of Beachwood Brewing in Long Beach, Huntington, and Garden Grove, California; and Garrison Fratoni, head brewer for Russian River in Windsor, California. During the podcast, these three discuss the work they’ve been doing in maximizing yeast health while dialing back on the excessive use of yeast nutrients and enzymes. Increased attenuation and efficiency, despite decreased enzyme and nutrient additions? It’s possible, with the techniques and approaches that these brewers discuss. White Labs never settles for “good enough,” and their innovative spirit continues to advance the craft of fermentation, guaranteeing products that defy the status quo. They fuel the brewing community by offering new product innovations, educational resources, and a collaborative atmosphere—empowering brewers to make the best beer possible. To learn more about the range of top-quality yeast, nutrients, and other fermentation solutions that White Labs offers to brewers, visit WhiteLabs.com.

Black Caddis began as one of Preston Theony’s homebrew recipes, but rather than create a take on an existing style, he started with the flavor he wanted to achieve and built a recipe to realize that. Now, after brewing the beer commercially at Wren House for the better part of the past decade, he’s still not done experimenting with changes to not just the recipe, but the core of fermentation itself. More recently, the beer has moved from ale fermentation with a Kölsch strain to lager fermentation with a 34-70 strain, in order to amplify the “clean, cutting characteristic” that Theony sought. It’s dark beer in the 4% ABV range sold in one of the hottest of the United States, and drinkability is paramount. Similarly, Theony has never stopped tinkering with their hazy IPA recipe, despite core beer Spellbinder’s gold medal in the juicy or hazy IPA category at the 2020 GABF. Note that anything he mentions doing or using in this podcast is subject to change, and this is only a snapshot of where they are at this brewing moment. But with that said, through the conversation, he touches on: switching to lager fermentation with a shorter lagering time to give Black Caddis porter more edge layering Carafa, C120, Carafoam, and Chocolate Rye malt for broad flavor in a small beer hyperfocusing on pH throughout the brewing process reducing whirlpool hops and boosting dry hops to improve drinkability using Galaxy as a bridge between Citra and Mosaic dry hopping early and capping the tank their approach to awards season as a time to reflect and improve beers evaluating competition feedback And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

With taprooms in Mesa and Gilbert, Arizona, 12 West may boast one of the coolest “home breweries” in the United States. Its production space is in the 6,000-square-foot luxury garage behind one of the founders’ homes, with roll-up doors that open to a patio with a swimming pool, skate ramps, and a moto track in the distance. Meanwhile, the beer that head brewer and co-owner Justin “Gully” Gullickson and assistant brewer Andrew Cooper are making to feed the two taprooms is as compelling as it is consistent. In this episode, they discuss their West Coast–style pils, Radial Spines—one of our Best 20 Beers in 2023—as well as their high-scoring IPAs. Along the way, they touch on: blending West Coast IPA and pilsner grists for their West Coast pils setting up successful lager fermentations with a single-infusion mash whirlpooling with Cryo hops dry hopping cold for extended periods with Cryo hops staggering hop-blend percentages between the hot and cold sides, based on individual hop characteristics grounding new-school hop flavors with old-school classics brewing IPA with gummi sharks And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

Last year, Arizona Wilderness’ beet-centered saison Jitterbug Perfume scored a perfect 100 with our blind judges, and went on to nab a spot in our Best 20 Beers in 2023. In this episode, head brewer Brad Miles and wood cellar manager Nick Pauley dissect that particular beer, from the blend of wood-aged saisons that form the base, to the way they roasted and processed the beets, and the particular fruit juice and spice additions that rounded it out. They also discuss the Arizona Wilderness approach to spontaneous brewing, using a mobile coolship and wort that they drive out to cooler, higher elevations in the wintertime to capture wild microflora. Along the way, they touch on: building a spontaneous process that works in a dry, desert environment using aged American hops like Crystal, Chinook, and Cascade in spontaneous beer adding funk character to saison with aged hops using regenerative certified organic grains in saison building a base with 5-6 different wood-aged saisons to stand up to strong flavored ingredients balancing acidity in spontaneous and saison beer brewing with Kernza grain partnering with local growers and a local maltster to support a new grain economy And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com US Water Systems (https://uswatersystems.com): Depending upon the city and day, water quality can vary 40% to 50%. The best method is to start with the same water every time and Reverse Osmosis gives you that power. Visit USWaterSystems.com for a free expert analysis.

Josh Trujillo didn’t set out to become a brewer, but after 16 years at Marble—the last eight of which he’s served in the top brewing role—he’s found it to be a perfect vocation given his mix of technical and tasting aptitude. Over the years, Marble has pursued ways other integrating hops into both traditional and modern lagers, and their judiciously dry-hopped Pilsner even won 2014 World Beer Cup gold employing a quarter-pound-per-barrel dry hop at the time. Now, Marble is stretching out in the hoppy lager space with West Coast pils, and mirroring that smaller beer with their approach to cold IPA, while their MavLab R&D brewery continues to rack up medals for both traditional ales and lagers as well as more progressive styles. In this episode, Trujillo shares their approach to brewing lager, including: Brewing rice and corn lagers with two row pale malt and a single infusion mash Managing runoff to avoid astringency Extending boils to manage DMS production Designing subtle yet characterful hop blends for dry-hopped Pilsner Moving hot side hops to the whirpool for more hop expression Marrying the classic with the contemporary in West Coast pils Brewing hoppy beers with new twists on classic hops And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more.

Over the past number of years, Portland, Oregon’s Wayfinder has built a reputation for assertive Pacific Northwest Coast IPAs, balanced and bitter Cold IPAs, and classic renditions of European lagers. Last year, Natalie Rose Baldwin stepped into the Brewmaster position and quickly found herself getting up to speed on their hop-centric beers, but her years of experience at Breakside more than prepared her for the technical and creative challenge. In this episode, Baldwin focuses on IPA and West Coast pils, with a closing contemplation on one of her favorite styles—gose. Along the way, she covers: the weight of expectation on Wayfinder cold IPA developing production yeast strategies around IPA and cold IPA building a fresh hop West Coast keller pils thinking about flavor as color using the Breakside nitrogen-shatter-and-cold-steep fresh hop method tweaking picking windows to maximize fresh hop expression using domestic pils base malt for hop-forward West Coast pils brewing French pils with spelt and Strisselspalt hops managing healthy fermentations in gose And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more.

Ten years into the rise of hazy IPA, the brewing world knows far more about how to make this challenging yet enduringly popular style—yet the deeper we push, the more we realize how much more we have to learn. For this extended episode of the podcast, we got the gang from last year’s West Coast IPA Now! episodes back together to discuss hazy IPA, along with a respected East Coast voice in the hazy IPA conversation. Steve Parker of Fidens joins Evan Price of Green Cheek, Kelsey McNair of North Park, and special guest host Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River as they dissect varying approaches to medal-winning, crowd-pleasing hazy IPA, including: choosing soft water over more chloride-heavy approaches different strategies around pH to balance flavor, function, and food safety selecting malt for color and flavor contributions using adjuncts such as unmalted wheat, chit malt, oats with husks, and more, to build pale color yet stable haze feeding bigger fermentations to offset low efficiency mashes the impact that certain hop varieties have on haze development and stability “coolpooling” with concentrated pellets and knockout hopping with advanced hop products promoting biotransformation during active fermentation without dry hops in the tank double-batching over two days while under-pitching and over-aerating closing the tank several days before terminal, and dry hopping under pressure the impact of pellet density what to look for in certain varieties at hop selection balancing bitterness and final gravity And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more.

This special ingredient-focused edition of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the brewing-ingredient experts at BSG. Today’s beer drinker loves pale beer more than ever, and over the course of the past decade, brewers have been feeding this shift by releasing lighter and lighter colored IPAs that pack a similar flavor punch without the heft that specialty malts can bring. To help brewers achieve that flavor without the color, Gambrinus and BSG recently announced IPA Malt, a new domestic malt designed for IPA brewers who crave that low SRM beer color but still want character in the malt that can stand up to today’s big hop bills. In today’s spotlight episode, Ashton Lewis (Training and Technical Support Manager for BSG), Ken Smith (Director of Operations for Gambrinus Malting), and Blake Masoner (Cofounder and Head Brewer for Craft Coast Beer & Tacos in Oceanside, California), join the podcast to discuss this new malt. Over the course of the conversation, they cover it from initial brief through development and into brewing, exploring how it works, what it’s capable of, and what else may be in store for brewers who try it. Along the way, they cover: the domestic malt’s English-like biscuity character that contrasts with the grassiness of Continental malt agronomic and malthouse details behind the malt understanding how flavors translate from the malt into finished beer using the malt at 100 percent while achieving flavor in a low-FG beer exploring other beer styles IPA Malt may be suited for This special spotlight episode is brought to you by BSG & Gambrinus. As every brewer knows, BSG leads the way in the brewing industry by supplying the finest ingredients and supplies to brewers at competitive prices, and they are trusted by many of the most respected brewers in the craft community. Try the new Gambrinus IPA Malt today, available exclusively through BSG.

Sarasota, Florida’s Calusa has become a fan favorite in the Sunshine State, focusing on compelling hazy IPAs that capture vivid flavors, consistent drinkability, and a bright, sunny color that cofounder and head brewer Jason Thompson describes as “glow.” In this episode, Thompson discusses: managing variable minerality brewing hazy IPA with flavorful malts such as Weyermann Bohemian Pils increasing the wheat component of his recipes to aid haze stability mashing out to improve lautering ultra-low-temp whirlpooling, to allow greater aromatic contribution without added bitterness taking care of yeast so they last for 50-plus generations recirculation and rousing dry hops, to increase contact and extraction post-fermentation developing interesting hop combinations, such as Saphir and Centennial making Sabro work in hazy IPA using barrels for bitterness in barrel-aged stout And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more.

This week’s episode is a panel discussion on lager brewing, recorded in front of a live audience late one night on the patio of Cerveza Fauna after a full day of judging for the Copa Baja beer festival in Mexicali, Mexico, in late 2023. Joining the discussion are three prominent lager brewers—Ashleigh Carter of Denver’s Bierstadt Lagerhaus, Ryan Brooks of San Diego’s SouthNorte, and Jeff Bagby (who, earlier this week announced that he was joining Green Cheek Beer as they acquire Bagby’s brewery in Oceanside, California). The location in Mexico provides the perfect backdrop for diving into Mexican, Mexican-style, and adjunct lagers, and the discussion also focuses on dark lagers. Along the way, they cover creative and technical points such as: the challenge of brewing great lager in smaller batch sizes understanding other brewers’ commercial approaches through lab analysis priorities for gear and process techniques for brewing better lager on systems designed for single-infusion ale understanding the impact of water on lager brewing selecting yeast for Mexican-style lager approaches to natural carbonation brewing with corn via cereal mash versus pre-gelatinized products making specialty beer with popcorn clever approaches to building color without intense dark malt flavor And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard has supplied flavored craft juice concentrate blends to over 46 states for the production of fruit-forward beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, and more. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more. California Craft Beer Summit (https://cacraftbeersummit.com). Everyone’s talking about 2024 California Craft Beer Summit, March 12-14 in Sacramento. Kicking off the Summit as the Keynote speaker is Rob Tod, the pioneer who built Allagash Brewing. Check out the full schedule at the website cacraftbeersummit.com.

Lean is all the rage in hop-forward West Coast–style beers, from pilsner to IPA, and paring beers back to their bare necessities has been a significant focus for Burgeon’s Anthony Tallman. Yet the quest for crisp-and-drinkable doesn’t mean sacrificing flavor, and recent experimentation has given Tallman a fresh perspective on the ultra-minimal approach. In this episode—which is focused especially on Carlsbad Crush, winner of multuple GABF medials in the International-Style Pale Ale category—Tallman discusses what has and has not worked with their clear hop-forward beers, including: the impacts of various pilsner malts on pale ales, IPAs, and lagers shortening and lengthening boil times for certain beers achieving significant measured IBUs in a beer with no hot-side hops inadvertently making a would-be hazy IPA drop clear via knockout dry hopping watering back to lower whirlpool temperatures varying techniques based on the hops in a recipe focusing on hot-side hops for increased package longevity finding balance in lower-ABV West Coast pils And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): At G&D Chillers they always strive to Build Great Chillers. Partner with them as you Build Great Beer. Choose G&D Chillers on your next Expansion or Brewery start up and receive 1 free year of Remote control and Monitoring of your new G&D Chiller! ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) Turnkey brewery systems. Production line design services. Retro-fitting processing systems. ProBrew™ can do all this and more with any brewery, old or new, small or large. For more information, fill out our contact form on www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): You might have heard of Old Orchard, but have you heard of their newest flavors? Berry Blend, Blood Orange, Lemonade, and Tart Cherry are the latest additions to their lineup of flavored craft juice concentrate blends. To learn more and request your free samples, head over to oldorchard.com/brewer Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Streamline efficiency with Omega Yeast’s Diacetyl Knock Out series. The DKO series is comprised of 8 familiar yeast strains engineered to knock out the formation of diacetyl before it starts. The strains you know, now better. Contact Omega Yeast today at omegayeast.com. ABS Commercial (https://abs-commercial.com). ABS Commercial are proud to offer brewhouses, tanks, keg washers, and preventative maintenance parts to brewers across the country as well as equipment for distilling, cider-making, wine-making, and more! Contact them today at [email protected] to discuss your customized brewery needs. Ss Brewtech (https://SsBrewtech.com). "Ss Brewtech was founded by a group of home and craft beer brewers, dedicated to bringing an engineering-first approach to brewery equipment. Ss brewhouses are used to formulate new beer recipes at some of the world's greatest breweries. To learn more, head over to SsBrewtech.com" Christian Hansen (https://www.chr-hansen.com/en/legal-notice): Christian Hansen are the fermentation experts with over 100 years experience in dairy and wine, and are now bringing that knowledge of microbes to brewers with their SmartBev range of frozen liquid yeast and freeze-dried bacteria.Go to Chr-Hansen.com to learn more. California Craft Beer Summit (https://cacraftbeersummit.com). Everyone’s talking about 2024 California Craft Beer Summit, March 12-14 in Sacramento. Kicking off the Summit as the Keynote speaker is Rob Tod, the pioneer who built Allagash Brewing. Check out the full schedule at the website cacraftbeersummit.com.

The final episode of the year is our chance to look back on the year of brewing conversations and highlight those episodes that struck the biggest chords with you, our listeners. Joining Jamie in the co-host chair is Khris Johnson of Green Bench in St. Petersburg, Florida, and together they count down the ten most-listened-to episodes while sharing excerpts from each. The top ten include: Averie Swanson of Keeping Together on farmhouse ale Mattias Trum of Schlenkerla on the history of rauchbier in Bamberg Joran Van Ginderachter and Shawn Bainbridge of Halfway Crooks on German hops in lager brewing Joe Mohrfeld of Pinthouse, Steve Luke of Cloudburst, and Zach Turner of Single Hill on evolving products for fresh hop brewing Travis Fritts of Old Nation on the similarities and differences in lager and hazy IPA brewing Doug Velicky of Revolution on extending brands in a crowded craft beer marketplace Henry Nguyen of Monkish, J.C. Tetreault of Trillium, and Neil Fisher of Weldwerks on brewing hazy IPA Brian and Mary Rooney of BKS Artisan Ales on softening the edges of hazy IPA Justin Burdt of Ghost Town on selecting hops for pungency and, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River, Evan Price of Green Cheek, and Kelsey McNair of North Park on brewing West Coast IPA Now! This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): Looking for a sustainable way to increase fermenter capacity? Try FermCap™ Eco from Kerry, a plant-based alternative to traditional silicon-based products. FermCap™ Eco increases fermenter capacity by reducing foam height to improve beer foam stability and enhance hop utilization. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. California Craft Beer Summit (https://cacraftbeersummit.com). Everyone’s talking about 2024 California Craft Beer Summit, March 12-14 in Sacramento. Kicking off the Summit as the Keynote speaker is Rob Tod, the pioneer who built Allagash Brewing. Check out the full schedule at the website cacraftbeersummit.com. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod Lotus Beverage Alliance (https://lotusbevalliance.com): Building a brewery requires coordination: equipment, supplies, funding, and more. Lotus Beverage Alliance simplifies the process, offering all the elements for your business in one place. Their team of engineers, brewery consultants, and financial advisors are here to help.

The Kernel founder Evan O’Riordain embodies a few interesting contrasts—he’s an Irishman in London committed to shining a light on the city’s own dark beer past, and he’s a brewer in Britain who caught the craft bug after experiencing hop-forward beers in the United States—but it’s this dynamic range that drives and defines Kernel today. History is important, yet no modern techniques or ingredients are off the table, as the beers they make respect and reference the past without dogmatically recreating them. There’s no such thing as textual accuracy when ingredients have changed so much over the past 100 years. Every act of recreating an old recipe from original text is an act of interpretation, and what matters most now is connecting that past to where drinkers are today. Over the past decade and a half, O’Riordain has focused particular energy on stout and porter, and we focus on that in this episode. Along the way, he covers: embracing hops as a defining creative angle helping rekindle London’s dark beer lineage interpreting historical stout and porter recipes using brown malt as a main signifier of “London flavor” debunking the idea that British beers are less bitter the history of East India porter using whole-leaf hops for texture in dark and pale beers fermenting historical styles with London and California ale yeast strains And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): BSG and HVG bring you Amira, the latest from their hop Breeding Program. With its classic hoppy, slightly herbal, and zesty lemon aromas it’s the ideal hop for those looking to capture the traditional flavor of a classic German lager. Visit BSGCraftbrewing.com to learn more. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod Lotus Beverage Alliance (https://lotusbevalliance.com): Building a brewery requires coordination: equipment, supplies, funding, and more. Lotus Beverage Alliance simplifies the process, offering all the elements for your business in one place. Their team of engineers, brewery consultants, and financial advisors are here to help.

Past isn’t necessarily prologue for today’s lager brewers, but it certainly is at Goldfinger Brewing in Downers Grove, Illinois. A family history of brewing lager and manufacturing equipment for brewers in Poland and Czechia was just the kick that Tom Beckmann needed to pursue his dream of building a small, contemporary, lager-focused brewery. Now, as the brewery undertakes its next expansion, Beckmann is committed to widening the lager discourse, to showcasing the potential of both European and domestic ingredients in lager brewing, and to embracing flavor and character across a range of different lager styles. In this episode, Beckmann discusses: building on his family brewing history in Poland and Czechia designing and constructing a brewhouse for lager brewing step-mashing and decoction strategies for various pale lagers using sterile air rather than pure oxygen to reduce yeast stress cereal cooking vs. gelatinized adjuncts for certain lagers blending domestic and imported pils malt for the best flavor, performance, and price the tactile experience of different malts selecting Tettnanger hops for pils and Hallertauer Mittlefrüh for helles the fundamentals of Polish pils the American Zoigl project in conjunction with Live Oak, Urban Chestnut, and others And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): HS Grove boasts incredible biotransformation qualities, giving you the power to transform your next IPA into a stone fruit powerhouse. Choose HS Grove™ for West Coast IPA, New England IPA, Double IPA, American pale ale, or any beer style where delicious fresh fruit aromatics are desired. Visit BSGCraftbrewing.com to learn more. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod GW Kent (https://gwkent.com): GW Kent are expanding their product range to include many varieties of Ardagh cans, can handles, cleaning chemicals, and quality malts. Now you can shop spare parts for the cellar, ingredients for the brewhouse, and canning supplies for the packaging team all in one convenient location. Start saving today at gwkent.com!

Five years into cold IPA, the arguments still aren’t settled, but one thing is certain—strategic brewers have embraced the style for the unique counterpoint it can provide to more ester-driven IPAs, and the focus on light body has struck a chord with beer drinkers who increasingly want strong hop notes in ever-paler beers. We thought it was time to revisit the subject with three brewers who are no stranger to the podcast, and who each have contributed to the evolution of the style in their own way. Sam Tierney of the Firestone Walker Propagator in Venice, California has helped develop some pioneering cold IPAs for the California brewery, like core brand Hopnosis. Jude La Rose of Chicago’s Hop Butcher brews plenty of hazy IPAs, but continues to explore what hops can also do within the context of clear and light-bodied cold IPA. And Kevin Davey of McMinnville, Oregon’s Heater Allen and Gold Dot created the cold IPA style while at Wayfinder, but today is just starting to brew them again after focusing on lager for most of the past year. In this episode, the three brewers look at where IPA has come since those earliest days and what it looks like now, with topics that include: creating the counter-trend to hazy IPA by pushing bitterness alongside low finishing gravity finding cleaner, more “crystalline” hop expression by fermenting with lager yeast achieving additional package stability in cold IPA through lower FAN varying dry hopping temperatures and techniques managing sulfur production in cold IPA fermentations blending modern, classic, and Southern hemisphere hops in cold IPA pushing the lightest of color through ultra-pale malts and adjuncts controlling oxygenation to avoid overstimulating the lager yeast why they continue to focus on the style now And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): Gambrinus Malting️ combines European-influenced malting practices with the finest barley, wheat, and rye to produce some of the finest Canadian malts available. Visit BSGCraftBrewing.com/Gambrinus to explore their full line of traditionally crafted malts. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. California Craft Beer Summit (https://cacraftbeersummit.com) Don’t miss Keynote Speaker Rob Tod from Allagash Brewing Co. at the 2024 California Craft Beer Summit in Sacramento March 12-14. Buy tickets today and receive the lowest prices. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod Alpha Brewing Operations (https://alphabrewops.com): When you work with Alpha Brewing Operations, you get unwavering commitment to quality, innovation, and service. Now, Alpha Brewing Operations is offering a wider selection of equipment, faster shipping, quality ingredients, and advanced financial tools. Alpha Brewing Operation (https://alphabrewops.com)

This special business-focused edition of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the transformational beverage-industry technologists at Encompass. As we head into 2024, the brewing industry is facing serious headwinds that have limited growth for many breweries and accelerated the closure of others. Consumer patterns are changing, product preferences continue to evolve, drinking occasions shift as our rhythms of work and life find different beats, and the playbook on which many businesses relied on no longer produces the same results. However, necessity has always been the mother of invention for craft brewers, and today’s challenges feel a bit familiar to those who experienced a similar contraction in the late ’90s or massive price increases due to the hop shortage of the late ’00s. To explore how brewers are facing these challenges head-on today—and working to “future-proof” their breweries—we tapped three industry pros to share their viewpoints—Patrick Tickle, CEO of Encompass, Cole Hackbarth, VP of brewing operations for Cincinnati’s Rhinegeist, and Dave Thibodeau, president and cofounder of Ska Brewing in Durango, Colorado. Through the conversation, they discuss: major challenges for breweries today, such as increasing COGS, lower consumer-pricing thresholds, and the diminishing returns from innovation strategizing around today’s generational shift in drinkers developing organic and authentic innovation within the beer space differences between craft beer and flavored malt beverage (FMB) consumers focusing innovation around brand strengths rather than untested categories supporting innovation while maintaining profitability through blended margins the increasing impact of cash flow on business decision making changing hospitality habits developed by customers during the pandemic managing labor costs through cross-training and active owner-operators And more. This special industry spotlight episode is brought to you by Encompass The Encompass digital platform is designed to connect everyone across the supply chain, from producers to distributors and retailers, so that you have clear real-time visibility into your brewing business with powerful analytics to support your decision making. Collaborate to maximize sales, minimize empty shelves, and eliminate product waste. Visit Encompasstech.com to learn more about how they can help future-proof your business with modern technology.

Chicago’s Dovetail has earned a reputation for its refined yet flavorful lagers, but the team’s dogged approach to traditional methods is less about religion and more about expression—these techniques and processes allow them to imbue their beers with attributes they want while minimizing those they want to avoid or keep in the background. Each beer they make is like a musical score—a recipe designed to hit the right notes with the orchestra of instruments they’ve assembled. Whether that’s multiple decoctions, dropping temperatures in the coolship before adding whole-cone hops to a hop-forward lager, or how often they skim the open fermentors, they’ve considered the cumulative impact of each of the intermediate notes. In this episode, cofounder Hagen Dost, production manager Brittany Gedwill, and sales director Dan Modica outline their reverent and rigorous approach to making helles, pilsner, and Kölsch-style ale. Along the way, they also touch on: creating slushies with aged spontaneous beer defining parameters around “traditional methods” for lager brewing the benefits of direct-fire decoction coolshipping lagers with whole-cone hops for “harmony and cohesion” the varying impacts of step mashing, single decoction, and triple decoction with thick and thin mashes the necessity of sulfur and malt character in helles walking the fine line in timing of Kölsch fermentation brewing rauchbier with 95 percent smoked malt And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): For over 140 years Weyermann® Specialty Malts has been helping brewers around the world bring authentic German flavor to their brewhouses. Bring a taste of Bavaria to your brewhouse and explore Weyermann’s complete portfolio at BSGCraftBrewing.com/Weyermann Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod Lotus Beverage Alliance (https://lotusbevalliance.com): Need an ally for your brewing venture? Lotus Beverage Alliance simplifies the process. Their team of engineers, brewery consultants, and financial advisors are here to help. Lotus Beverage Alliance.

Jacob Sembrano loves ingredients, and his background as a chef instilled in him a deep love of connecting ingredients and their stories with the dishes he presented to customers. Now, at the helm of the brewhouse at Chicago’s Cruz Blanca, he’s forged a similar identity for his beers—connecting through ingredients with stories, and making beers with unusual methods. Their customers may not realize the technical prowess it takes to brew a 100 percent malted-corn grisette with French saison yeast, Brettanomyces, and a Lactobacillus strain cultured from the corn itself ... but they don’t have to—Cruz Blanca’s reverence for corn as an ingredient is apparent and welcome. In this episode, Sembrano discusses how they brew a range of beers. Along the way, he covers: making your own luck in the food and brewing worlds applying a minimal-intervention yet highly technical approach to making a 100 percent corn grisette pushing fermentation temperatures to reduce esters brewing a red corn lager with 70 percent corn malt using significant amounts of black and heavily roasted malts in barrel-aged stouts building body without excessive sweetness working with partner breweries to grow the brand matching brewing profiles between locations across states And more. “I want my stout to fight me back a bit,” Sembrano says. “I want to feel it when I drink it.” This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): Want a natural and economical clarification aid? Then you need Kerry Biofine™ Eco—a plant-based fining agent that improves beer clarification by instant flocculation of yeast and trub. Available exclusively from BSG, visit BSGCraftbrewing.com to learn more. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard supplies flavored craft juice concentrate blends to beverage brands for the production of beer, cider, seltzer, wine, spirits, kombucha, and more. Flavor your lineup and streamline your sourcing by heading to oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. The American Homebrewers Association (https://HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod): Join the American Homebrewers Association to unlock the 2023 National Homebrew Competition medal-winning recipes! Learn more at HomebrewersAssociation.org/cbbpod Lotus Beverage Alliance (https://lotusbevalliance.com): Need an ally for your brewing venture? Lotus Beverage Alliance simplifies the process. Their team of engineers, brewery consultants, and financial advisors are here to help. Lotus Beverage Alliance.

As always, our annual Best in Beer issue includes different perspectives. Our subscribers and listeners—that’s you!—have spoken, and we’ve compiled your votes for the Reader’s Choice lists, including your Top 25 Beers. Plus, our Craft Beer & Brewing Best 20 Beers in 2023 are the culmination of a year of blind tasting by our review panel and then by our editors, achieving an internal consensus on beers of the greatest character and technical excellence. However, this issue also is a chance for some of our writers and editors to sound off a bit, as we share our favorite beers and highlights of the past year. No blind tasting here—for these hedonistic picks, we fully embrace the contexts in which we enjoyed these beers. That’s the idea behind our Best in Beer Critic’s Lists, and those are what we explore in this special, once-per-year episode. Featuring thoughtful (and at times heartfelt) takes from Alex Kidd, Kate Bernot, Stan Hieronymus, Courtney Iseman, and Joe Stange—for Jamie’s, be sure to read the print edition—these lists give us the chance to spotlight many more of the most enjoyable beers and drinking experiences of 2023, as well as some thoughts on the state of the brewing industry and beer culture today. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across the country along the way. Reach out for a quote today at gdchillers.com or call to discuss your next project. BSG Craft Brewing (https://Bsgcraftbrewing.com/): BSG and HVG bring you Amira. With its classic hoppy, slightly herbal, and zesty lemon aromas it’s the ideal hop for those looking to capture the traditional flavor of a classic German lager. Visit BSGCraftbrewing.com to learn more. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Old Orchard's new brewing customers often mention discovering Old Orchard through the word-of-mouth recommendation of another brewer. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer ProBrew (https://www.probrew.com) The ProFill series of rotary can fillers from ProBrew are accelerating plant production everywhere. For more information, visit www.probrew.com or email [email protected]. Omega Yeast (https://omegayeast.com): Thiolized yeast are a new tool for brewers to bring intense guava and passionfruit aromas out of your malt and hops. And wait, there’s more! Omega Yeast makes yeast-to-order with a consistent one week lead time ensuring peak freshness and reliability. Colorado Craft Beer Summit (https://cacraftbeersummit.com). Join the craft beer community in Sacramento March 12-14 for the California Craft Beer Summit. Bring your entire team from production to marketing to hospitality–there’s something for everyone. Early bird registration on sale now through Dec 22 at cacraftbeersummit.com The Perfect Purée (https://perfectpuree.com/beer): The Perfect Purée is offering a free sample box of their frozen fruit purees, concentrates and blends to professional brewers. Choose from 40 plus flavors and build a free sample box at perfectpuree.com/beer. Complimentary to professionals only. Yakima Chief Hops (https://www.yakimachief.com/pink-boots-blend): The 7th Annual Pink Boots Blend is now available for pre-order! $3 of every pound of the Pink Boots Blend purchased will be donated to the Pink Boots Society, a nonprofit organization that support women and non-binary individuals in the fermented and alcoholic industry through education. Learn more at www.yakimachief.com/pink-boots-blend