Good Beer Hunting

After more than a decade of wild growth, Michelob Ultra is now well-established as Anheuser-Busch InBev's king of "better-for-you" beer. As odd as it may sound to beer enthusiasts, the brand has become paradigmatic in its popularity and sales figures. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before other breweries wanted to play catch-up. The Ultraficaton race is now very much on, with entries in the low-calorie, low-carb space multiplying quickly from breweries big and small. Among these is a new release from Boston Beer's Marathon Brewing Company: a similar, sort-of-subsidiary effort not unlike its Alchemy & Science (now A&S Brewing) incubator, which acquires and promotes smaller breweries. Marathon's first nationwide release was ushered to store shelves by brewer Shelley Smith, who joins this Sightlines podcast to talk 26.2 Brew: a beer that had previously only been available around the Boston Marathon. The brand will now see ramped-up production and will, from March, be marketed to beer drinkers who also prioritize their active lifestyles. At 4% ABV, 9 grams of carbohydrates, and 120 calories (stats that all appear in the product's marketing materials), 26.2 Brew is just the latest product aimed at a growing number of shoppers who want to pair their wellness with their beer. Now, let's get an idea of what all of this means for one of the largest beer companies in the U.S. This is Shelley Smith, brewer and manager of research and product innovation with Boston Beer. Listen in.

Welcome to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and journalist and media folks from within the beer industry and beyond on topics of writing, beer, and the stories you read and hear from GBH and others. In this episode, we're going to rekindle an old flame in Peter Frost. He's the writer behind the MilerCoors blog, a publication which has garnered a ton of attention in the beer industry since he took it over. And it's gotten a good amount of praise as well, which is not something that's often granted to organizations like MillerCoors amongst beer drinkers and fellow brewers. You may remember Peter from our interview with him back when he was the business and beer reporter for Crain's in Chicago. That was way back in episode 118. He's the same guy, and has the same charming and clever personality I've grown to love. But this is a vastly different context in which he's operating as a journalist. This is Peter Frost. Listen in.

This week we have a special preview episode for you. Last year, you may recall we led a series of discussions at Foeder for Thought, the festival for wood-aged and sour beers by Green Bench brewing in St Petersburg Florida, as part of the Tampa Bay beer week festivities. Well, it was a blast, and the team at Green Bench has invited us back to the party to do it again this year, and I'm very excited to get down there and see their cellar expansion. They've been busy collaborating with a bunch of folks, and producing some of the best mixed-culture beers in the country. And Foeder for Thought is a celebration of those beers, their friendships, and their professional admiration of others. Also, it's just a killer time. Tickets are on sale for that fest right now, which is March 8. Hit up goodbeerhunting.com/events and you can learn all about it. Today, I had co-founders Kris and Brian in the studio, and their colleague Valerie who runs the festival, to talk about how the festival came to be, what its ambitious are, and what's on deck for the discussions this year: some topics that I'm excited to dig into, some personalities I'm thrilled to see on stage, and some beers I can't wait to drink.

Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America, exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start up a new series called Mother of Invention, where we explore the technical innovations, past and present, that have transformed the beer in your glass in surprising ways. And now we're taking the opportunity to explore the story of Guinness itself in a unique way for GBH. Guinness made it possible for us to visit historic St. James Gate in Dublin, and their new brewery in Baltimore County in the U.S., and gave us free rein to pull at the strings of the stories we've so often heard in the form of legend, but rarely had the first-hand experience to dive in to. We wanted to turn legends into learning. They also gave us free rein of their brewing sites, both in Baltimore, home to their new brewery and taproom, called the Open Gate Brewery, which shares a name with the public-facing innovation brewing taproom located in Dublin, and historic St James Gate—which, to be honest, took some real doing. It's not a place open to tourists, at least beyond the visitor center. And much of the more historical aspects are either in disrepair or preserved, and gaining access to those people and places isn't easy for a film and audio crew. So for all the rigamarole we caused with our persistence, we're thankful and grateful we were able to get past the gates, and into some of the more fascinating aspects of the various Guinness operations. And it was all in pursuit of understanding one thing: What makes Guinness Guinness? And how has that changed over the years?

Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America, exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start up a new series called Mother of Invention, where we explore the technical innovations, past and present, that have transformed the beer in your glass in surprising ways. And now we're taking the opportunity to explore the story of Guinness itself in a unique way for GBH. Guinness made it possible for us to visit historic St. James Gate in Dublin, and their new brewery in Baltimore County in the U.S., and gave us free rein to pull at the strings of the stories we've so often heard in the form of legend, but rarely had the first-hand experience to dive in to. We wanted to turn legends into learning. They also gave us free rein of their brewing sites, both in Baltimore, home to their new brewery and taproom, called the Open Gate Brewery, which shares a name with the public-facing innovation brewing taproom located in Dublin, and historic St James Gate—which, to be honest, took some real doing. It's not a place open to tourists, at least beyond the visitor center. And much of the more historical aspects are either in disrepair or preserved, and gaining access to those people and places isn't easy for a film and audio crew. So for all the rigamarole we caused with our persistence, we're thankful and grateful we were able to get past the gates, and into some of the more fascinating aspects of the various Guinness operations. And it was all in pursuit of understanding one thing: What makes Guinness Guinness? And how has that changed over the years?

Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America, exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start up a new series called Mother of Invention, where we explore the technical innovations, past and present, that have transformed the beer in your glass in surprising ways. And now we're taking the opportunity to explore the story of Guinness itself in a unique way for GBH. Guinness made it possible for us to visit historic St. James Gate in Dublin, and their new brewery in Baltimore County in the U.S., and gave us free rein to pull at the strings of the stories we've so often heard in the form of legend, but rarely had the first-hand experience to dive in to. We wanted to turn legends into learning. They also gave us free rein of their brewing sites, both in Baltimore, home to their new brewery and taproom, called the Open Gate Brewery, which shares a name with the public-facing innovation brewing taproom located in Dublin, and historic St James Gate—which, to be honest, took some real doing. It's not a place open to tourists, at least beyond the visitor center. And much of the more historical aspects are either in disrepair or preserved, and gaining access to those people and places isn't easy for a film and audio crew. So for all the rigamarole we caused with our persistence, we're thankful and grateful we were able to get past the gates, and into some of the more fascinating aspects of the various Guinness operations. And it was all in pursuit of understanding one thing: What makes Guinness Guinness? And how has that changed over the years?

Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America, exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start up a new series called Mother of Invention, where we explore the technical innovations, past and present, that have transformed the beer in your glass in surprising ways. And now we're taking the opportunity to explore the story of Guinness itself in a unique way for GBH. Guinness made it possible for us to visit historic St. James Gate in Dublin, and their new brewery in Baltimore County in the U.S., and gave us free rein to pull at the strings of the stories we've so often heard in the form of legend, but rarely had the first-hand experience to dive in to. We wanted to turn legends into learning. They also gave us free rein of their brewing sites, both in Baltimore, home to their new brewery and taproom, called the Open Gate Brewery, which shares a name with the public-facing innovation brewing taproom located in Dublin, and historic St James Gate—which, to be honest, took some real doing. It's not a place open to tourists, at least beyond the visitor center. And much of the more historical aspects are either in disrepair or preserved, and gaining access to those people and places isn't easy for a film and audio crew. So for all the rigamarole we caused with our persistence, we're thankful and grateful we were able to get past the gates, and into some of the more fascinating aspects of the various Guinness operations. And it was all in pursuit of understanding one thing: What makes Guinness Guinness? And how has that changed over the years?

Welcome to a special edition of the Good Beer Hunting podcast—a series of episodes made in partnership with Guinness devoted to one of the world's most iconic brands from Dublin to the United States, to Nigeria and the Caribbean. Guinness became an underwriter of Good Beer Hunting 18 months ago, helping us bring you a series of stories called Coming to America, exploring the relationship between imports and the U.S. beer drinker in the age of local craft. And more recently, they helped us start up a new series called Mother of Invention, where we explore the technical innovations, past and present, that have transformed the beer in your glass in surprising ways. And now we're taking the opportunity to explore the story of Guinness itself in a unique way for GBH. Guinness made it possible for us to visit historic St. James Gate in Dublin, and their new brewery in Baltimore County in the U.S., and gave us free rein to pull at the strings of the stories we've so often heard in the form of legend, but rarely had the first-hand experience to dive in to. We wanted to turn legends into learning. They also gave us free rein of their brewing sites, both in Baltimore, home to their new brewery and taproom, called the Open Gate Brewery, which shares a name with the public-facing innovation brewing taproom located in Dublin, and historic St James Gate—which, to be honest, took some real doing. It's not a place open to tourists, at least beyond the visitor center. And much of the more historical aspects are either in disrepair or preserved, and gaining access to those people and places isn't easy for a film and audio crew. So for all the rigamarole we caused with our persistence, we're thankful and grateful we were able to get past the gates, and into some of the more fascinating aspects of the various Guinness operations. And it was all in pursuit of understanding one thing: What makes Guinness Guinness? And how has that changed over the years?

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it's my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

"It's just beer" is a mantra screamed into the social void daily. Its believers just want to enjoy a beer in peace, to escape the world for a damn second. The problem is, it isn't just beer. Beer is both an artisanal and commercial product. Craft is a social construct. Small batch brewing is a way of life, its marketing often an act of rebellion. So drinking it is a statement whether you want it to be or not. What we drink, where we drink it, how it gets there, and what we pay are all infused with politics. So what happens when a brand embraces that by stamping its beliefs on its cans, or plastering them on their social media, or making viral campaigns preaching to their customers? Should a company be allowed to do that? And on the flip side, do they have a responsibility to do so? My guests today believe this decision is made for them by the juxtaposition of their beliefs and the way the world is heading. Save for their anti-Trump beer, Ben Duckworth and Steve Grae of South London's Affinity Brew Co don't cram their left-wing ideas down people's throats. But anyone with a passing interest in British politics will note the roses on their cans and Labour Party slogans that make up many of their beer names. In doing so, they hope to encourage friendly debate and keep politics at the forefront of drinkers' minds during one of the greatest political upheavals in British history. Inside their beautiful cans and bubbling through their Belgian-inspired session beers there is even more room critical thought—the responsibilities of a brewer to moderate alcohol levels, regulate serving sizes, and to challenge the government's approach to alcohol licensing. But first lets just talk about beer. This is Ben Duckworth and Steve Grae of Affinity Brew Co. Listen in.

Welcome to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. Today's episode is one of those great conversations you don't want to end, when you're talking with someone talented and uniquely good at what they do. You'll see by the timestamp that there is, in fact, a stop time to my chat with Kate Bernot, but I can only hope you get the same kind of impression. Kate has a long background in journalism, but beer fans may recognize her byline from DRAFT magazine, where she served as associate editor and then beer editor over several years, or her current role as associate editor at The Takeout, a food and beverage site from the A.V. Club. Kate's approach to her writing brings a variety of humor and skilled nuance, depending on what she's writing about that day, from dealing with frozen beers to daily topics impacting the beer industry. It just so happens that we both recently covered the idea of Flagship February, and you'll hear a chunk of this conversation dissecting what that effort means and the story behind her story written for The Takeout asking if beer loyalty is dead. There's plenty more, including her thoughts on drinking beer in her new home state of Montana. This is Kate Bernot, writer, reporter, and advocate for Big Sky Country's flagship brands. Listen in.

On every home game day, tens of thousands of baseball fans filter into the San Francisco Giants' ballpark. Many of them will buy beer, and thanks to Brian Carriveau, their options now include more than the predictable lineup of macro lagers. Last season, after convincing the eco-conscious ballpark managers to allow him to sell aluminum cans, baseball fans found they could buy 16 ounces of locally-made craft beer by nearby breweries — some of which weren't available elsewhere in the city. Carriveau is the Director of Catering at Bon Appétit Management Company, which handles food and drink menus at Oracle Park — formerly known as AT&T Park — as well as the attached Public House restaurant and a posh, members-only bar inside the park called the Gotham Club. After beginning his career in hospitality at the famed Awahnee Hotel in Yosemite, he took to San Francisco. Now with Bon Appetit, he handles concessions for an average of 40 thousand people every home game during the baseball season. It's a busy, exciting job, not just because the Giants have won three World Series titles since he began working at the park, but also because it gives Carriveau a major league platform to share his love of craft beer with a huge audience. That's not without its challenges. Buying alcohol for a bar is one thing; buying beer for a literal stadium full of people is quite another — and it's Carriveau's job to do both. Can a ballpark cater to every kind of drinker? I don't know, but Bon Appetit is sure going to try. This is Brian Carriveau, Director of Catering at Bon Appétit Management Company for the San Francisco Giants' Oracle Park. Listen in.

What does it take to open a brewery these days? And what happens after you do? These questions are at the center of two conversations we have in this Sightlines addition of the podcast. First, we hear from Scott Janish and Michael Tonsmeire, co-owners of Maryland's Sapwood Cellars. I sat down with the pair for episode #144 from October 2017, and have been tracking their progress since. Back then, they were working on recipes and trying to perfect an approach to New England IPA, all while finding the physical space for their business. They opened a year later, and when I caught up with them in January, we took some time to reflect on their first three months in operation. You'll hear about challenges and triumphs and the changes that have occurred at the brewery and in their lives. After that, we check in with Scott Wood, who opened New Orleans' Courtyard Brewery a little over four years ago, and also happened to be featured on Good Beer Hunting in the fall of 2017, just weeks before the guys from Sapwood. Scott just announced a second, larger production space for his brewery that aims to open in 2020, and even though he's been in business for years, this is a big step for his business. It's one that he admits in our conversation took a long time to get ready for personally and professionally. Here we have two breweries, years apart in experience, but still learning and changing. What does it take to operate a brewery in 2019? Let's get an idea. This is Scott Janish and Michael Tonsmeire of Sapwood Cellars, then Scott Wood of Courtyard Brewery. Listen in.

Today's guests represent a kind of brewery that lives, sometimes tenuously, in the spaces in between traditional brewery models in American craft brewing. They's very small. They have an alternating proprietorship arrangement with another local brewery, which means they use another brewery's system to brew their beer. But on that particular brew day, they technically own the license. They brew, package, and sell that beer via self-distribution. And their portfolio, for reasons both of constraint, personal interest, and identity, is hyper-focused on Hazy IPA, Double IPA, and adjunct Stouts. While the growth in craft brewing slows, and 2019 looks to be a topsy-turvy year for many folks, a brewery like this could either be seen as exceptionally vulnerable, or crazy like a fox. They have low overhead, even if expenses are relatively high due to small volumes. They have a strong alt-prop relationship with a good local brewer, but that means they're dependent on someone else's business stability. And they have a great brand and profile in Chicago, but there's always somebody new coming for their share of the pie. So, how do they balance all that uncertainty, while also finding the mental energy to be creative, connect with their fans, and explore the nerdier side of hoppy beers that seem to consistently delight those drinkers? Good question! This is Jude and Jeremiah from Hop Butcher for the World, a Beer Company. Listen in.

Welcome to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and journalist and media folks from within the beer industry on topics of writing, beer, and the stories you read and hear from GBH and others. In this episode, we're going to catch up with Bryan Roth, our Sightlines editor. He's in charge of the research and analysis GBH conducts into trends and business dealings in the beer industry, but also dives headlong into a variety of meaty topics in his feature stories. He's been even more prolific than usual of late, covering everything from the death of Stouts (or lack thereof, as you'll hear) to an investigation into breweries' handlings of workplace issues like sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and other forms of exclusion. But first, we're going to jump back to the just before the holiday when he wrote about the 30-year history of one of beer's most iconic advertisements. This is Bryan Roth. Listen in.

[photo by Jim Henkens] How do you become one of the largest breweries in one of the most beer-loving states in the country these days, and not sell a single drop to drink in your taproom? The incredible growth of Seattle's Georgetown Brewing Company, and the way they've done it, could leave a lot of beer lovers and business owners scratching their heads. And yet, Manny Chao and Roger Bialous have successfully zigged when everyone else has intentionally zagged. Bodhizafa IPA won gold at the Great American Beer Festival in the most-entered category, yet remains relatively unknown outside the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't even until 2017 that Georgetown beers were sold in anything other than kegs. At a time when beer enthusiasts decry the death of flagship beers, Manny's Pale Ale remains more than two-thirds of production for the 17-year old brewery. All this might seem odd, but there's more. Situated among other warehouses in an industrial section of Seattle, the taproom was still consistently busy when I visited this past fall. People waited to buy cans and growlers to go and as I sat down with Roger to talk about the brewery, I admittedly did not know the extent to how much what he'd say would surprise me. It's easy to get locked in on what's common and successful in today's beer industry, not so much to recognize just how special some histories and business plans can be. This is Roger Bialous, co-founder and owner of Georgetown Brewing. Listen in.

Welcome to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. In this episode, we're leaving the confines of the U.S. to visit with Luke Robertson, a GBH contributor living in Melbourne, Australia. Originally from New Zealand, Luke built up his reputation and writing chops in his adopted home country through the Ale of a Time blog and podcast. He started writing for Good Beer Hunting in 2017, and has taken readers behind the scenes of Melbourne's GABS Beer, Cider and Food Festival, and into the hearts and minds of peers and industry pros addressing mental health. If you live in America, you know the bounty of options available to you when it comes to beer. But it's always exciting to turn our gaze elsewhere in the world to get a sense of what's driving beer culture around the globe and how all that ingenuity we find at home resonates elsewhere. In this conversation, Luke talks about the parallel tracks of Australian beer drinkers, from Lager lovers to Haze Bois, and we go back to his important piece on mental health to dissect what it took to pull that kind of story together. This is Luke Robertson: podcaster, writer, and our mate from Down Under. Listen in.

San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood looked a bit different in 2013, when Cellarmaker Brewing Company opened here, on Howard Street. Tech companies were moving in, and the city's new young and affluent workers moved into a part of San Francisco plagued by homelessness and drug use. It might have seemed difficult place to open a brewery, let alone any public-facing business, but Cellarmaker broke out, quickly gaining recognition as one of the city's best breweries. In their five years in business, they made fast friends out of breweries like the Rare Barrel, Tired Hands, and Green Cheek, and boosted the city's reputation as a world-class brewing destination. These days, its small taproom is bustling seemingly every night of the week, attracting IPA fanatics, devotees of their ever-rotating tap list lineup, and those who just appreciate the bartenders' affinity for music by Dolly Parton and Carly Rae Jepsen. Now, with a barrel program in full force, they're expanding their menu even wider. Fans irked by crowds at their taproom had long hoped that Cellarmaker would expand with a second location and in 2018, that wish came true. In the late summer, co-founder Connor Casey finally announced that the brewery had found an additional home in Bernal Heights, complete with an oven ready to pump out fluffy Detroit-style pizzas to complement their beers. It's here in that space that I met Casey, co-founding brewer Tim Sciascia and Cellarmaker's House of Pizza brew system manager Aaron Wittman as they taste tested some new pizza recipes being considered for the brewpub's new menu. The new spot's opening is just around the corner, and they clearly couldn't be more excited. This is Connor Casey, Tim Sciascia, and Aaron Wittman of Cellarmaker Brewing Company. Listen in.

Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.

Welcome to the very first Sightlines episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast. These episodes are where we dig in to a timely topic with experts from around the country, working to make you and us smarter about what's going on in the beer industry right now. This week, brewers around the country are dealing with the ramifications of the government shutdown, which means that key agencies like the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau—often referred to as the TTB—are entirely unresponsive, and that means that almost nothing new can legally come to market until those agencies are re-opened and the backlog is cleared. The TTB is critical for brewers who need label and formation approvals for their beers in order to package and sell them. So what's going to happen in an industry that survives almost exclusively off new releases? To catch us up to speed, we're going to talk to Jared Treanor, Brand Manager of Brewery Ommegang in New York, and Ashley Brandt, a Chicago attorney who works with breweries of all sizes. (He's also, incidentally, GBH's attorney.) Thanks for listening. Sightlines is the news and analysis section of Good Beer Hunting, and it's focused the evolution of the beer industry. We're excited to turn it into an ongoing podcast series! Good Beer Hunting is supported in part by our underwriters, New Belgium Brewing Co. out of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Guinness, which is based in Dublin, and newly in Baltimore County, Maryland. And as always, we're supported by the Fervent few, a community of subscribers. You can support GBH by joining.

It seems like beer enthusiasts, myself included, are always looking forward. When we're not trying to figure out what the next IPA is going to be, it's easy to prognosticate about upcoming business plans, releases, and who needs to learn more about whoever the next, hot brewery may be. But as we've heard so many times before, you don't know where you're going, unless you know where you've been. Liz Garibay is the person you may want to call when it's time to bridge these things as both historian and beer lover. For years, she's led a project known as History on Tap, which traces history through alcohol, and for herself and others, created inspiration to better understand how beer and its unique community factor into larger cultural stories. As founder and director of the Chicago Brewseum, she's also had an analytical view toward the history of drinking in one of America's most iconic cities. I ran into Liz this summer at the annual Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference, where she told me about a new exhibition she was a part of and as our conversation drifted over all sorts of beer topics, I wanted to take the chance to sit down with Liz for the podcast as a way to better capture some of the ideas of how Drinking Past has an ability to shape our Drinking Future. No need to break out your Encyclopedia Britannica for this one, but I hope you'll enjoy some extra context all us beer lovers might miss when we're keeping our heads on a swivel, just trying to keep up with everything that's certain to be next. This is historian Liz Garibay. Listen in.

Welcome back to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. In this episode, we're joined by a name you may be familiar with if you're a beer fan, especially if you're on Twitter, and very much so if you live in New England. For years, Carla Jean Lauter has shared stories from Maine on her blog, beerbabe.com, and more recently through the weekly Tap Lines column in Maine Today. She's been an outspoken voice on a variety of issues in beer, from pushing breweries to simply publish their hours of operation on their website, to discussions of inclusion and diversity. Carla and I have known each other for some time, and in addition to interactions on social media, shared emails, acting as a voice in stories, and even acting as a tour guide to proper drinking in Portland, Maine, I got to see her again this summer when we were both in Virginia as part of the annual Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference. Amongst presentations, we sat down for a bit to talk about what it means to cover beer, and more specifically, what it's like to do so in her home state. Portland, let alone Maine, already has a great reputation among beer enthusiasts, but I hope that hearing Carla talk about it all gives you new or renewed interest in exploring what the state says in its slogan is "the way life should be" … just with a little more beer along the way.

Today's episode is one of those where just a couple weeks difference in when we actually sat down with each other would have dramatically transformed the focus of the conversation. For anyone who's been paying attention to Avery, you certainly know it's been a couple years of transformation for the brewery, as they took on a minority investment of Mahou San Miguel, completely reconfigured their portfolio to better align with market trends, and launched a visual re-brand. Of course, all these changes involved some personel movement, as their COO left in May and a half dozen folks were laid off. Before that, the prior COO had left to join Ska brewing. So it's safe to say that since the Mahou San Miguel deal, there's been a lot going on at Avery. And my guests today, Andy Parker, their CHIEF BARREL HERDER, and Colin Quinn, their special projects brewers are in a unique position to talk about how that effected the most important part of Avery's operation - the brewing. Which beers should Avery be making, for which markets? in what formats? how simple can a portfolio in 2018 be? how critical is newness? and what are they gonna do with all that capacity after a major expansion? Well, what we didn't know at the time of this interview was that Founders Brewing based in Grand Rapids Michigan, would need some help brewing All Day IPA, a brand that continues to set the pace for growth in craft. Like Avery, Founders is partially owned by Mahou San Miguel, so what could have been a major albatross for Avery, all that extra capacity, debt, and a slow transformation back to growth became a chance to support the larger system of brands under the family banner, and both benefit from the opportunity. It's bizarre for Avery fans to consider, but Mahou San Miguel and brewing All Day IPA might just be the difference between having or not having an Avery Brewing Company at all. So what will they do with that bonus time afforded by those relationships? Time will tell. But in this interview, you'll hear about the shift in the brewing side, how the team is regrouping and what they're excited about in Avery's brewing future.

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it's my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

A decade in beer can feel like a lifetime. As Tottenham's Redemption Brewing Company approach their 10th birthday, looking back is kinda dizzying. Redemption was one London's first craft brewers, but is now just one of more than 100. Founder Andy Moffatt has grown his business slowly and organically with a focus on sessionable cask ale, despite a consumer shift to the hop-focused, high-ABV American styles brewed by those who came in his wake. In barely a year, Redemption went from sign of the future to link to the past. Meanwhile, cask ale went into volume decline, and keg-focused neighbors like Beavertown and Camden grew to five or six times Redemption's size, then sold to international conglomerates. Most companies would have ripped up their business plans, but Redemption has responded to it all with quiet dignity and belief that cask ale is unique and worth pursuing. When you try a fresh Trinity or Hopspur, you see where that confidence comes from, but even so, the brewery is changing. Moffat followed up a recent expansion with a £300,000 ($379,000) crowdfunding campaign to finance further development and forays into keg—even cans. We sit down in the half-finished taproom to reminisce about London before the beer revolution, the challenges of brewing session beer, and how cask is perhaps the only constant in this new, ever-changing world. This is Andy Moffat, founder of Redemption Brewing Co. Listen in.

It's another episode of the GBH Collective, an ongoing series of interviews where we dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. In this episode we're checking back in with another member of the GBH team, Alyssa Pereira. You're likely to have come across her words in recent months, as she's profiled Russian River, told the story of Firestone Walker's unexpected flagship 805 Blonde Ale, and given an in-person recap of one of the country's most beloved beer fests, the Firestone Walker Invitational. Most recently however, she's also become a voice here on Good Beer Hunting's podcasts, bringing a new collection of interviews from her home state of California, which isn't just the most populous state, but one of the most prolific when it comes to beer and all the stories that can be told around it. In our own conversation, you'll learn what it's like for Alyssa to add the title of podcast host to her repertoire, as well as the background of what took her from covering the music industry to her day job at the San Francisco Chronicle and now acting as a journalist also covering the U.S. beer industry. She's been a welcome and important addition to GBH's editorial team, and I hope this chat gives you some insight to appreciate her work even more. This is Alyssa Pereira, reporter, podcast host, and Golden State treasure. Listen in.

I met Shannon Vinson not at a beer festival, or a beer bar, or at Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, Georgia, where she works, but in New York City seven years ago. We were both getting our masters degrees at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Beer being a relatively far cry from the art world, probably neither of us had any foresight we'd ever end up here in this community, but we stayed in touch through social media, watching each other progress in this industry. Eventually, on a trip to Georgia a few years ago, I also met Blake Tyers, Creature Comforts' Cellar Manager, a GBH contributor, and, as it turns out, Shannon's boyfriend. It's only been a few years since Creature Comforts opened here in this college town, but it quickly outgrew its first brewhouse. To keep up with demand as much as possible, the brewery opened a second production brewery in town. But despite the massive increase in output (they'll land somewhere between 35,000-40,000 barrels in 2018), it's still tough for the fast-growing brewery to send much beer too far outside Atlanta. I don't want to give you the impression that Shannon's work doing marketing for the brewery is anywhere near easy. It's an increasingly competitive Georgia beer market and it seems they're making a big push for name recognition outside the state. But with national accolades and appearances at prominent festivals like the Firestone Invitational, things seem to be clicking into place for them. On a recent trip to the South, I visited Blake and Shannon and they were gracious enough to host me in Athens. While here, I couldn't pass up the chance to sit down with them and talk about their unique backgrounds, beer off-flavors, Creature Comforts' barrel program, and the pros and cons of running a brewery in Georgia. This is Blake Tyers and Shannon Crawford of Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, Georgia. Listen in.

This week's episode is a fun one for me, largely because I'm not on it. About a year ago, we started a subscriber community called The Fervent Few . And since then, hundreds of people from all walks of life, all kind of professions, and all over the world have joined to support GBH financially—and to commune with each other over beer. Some of them are experts and producers, others are distributors, retailers, sales reps, and the like. Plenty of them are homebrewers and people trying to break into the industry. That seems to make up about half of the group, which I'm judging purely anecdotally based on who tends to take part in the community aspect of it all. Then there's the other half, made up of people who love beer and love talking about it purely from an entertainment or educational perspective. This part of the community is a blast. They're a big part of the reason that The Fervent Few has remained so fun and funny for me personally. Getting everyone in the same room creates what I find to be one of the most edifying communities in beer. Today's podcast is a perfect metaphor for all that. Jim Plachy, who was one of our first members, quickly became an indispensable voice in the community. So we went ahead and put him in charge of it. And his guests today hail from a Texas beer maker called Collective Brewing. One of them, Dave Riddile, has gone on to become a GBH contributor and now works for GBH in a marketing role. The reason this is so fascinating and enjoyable for me is that, over the course of the last 12 years or so that GBH has been alive, it's evolved from a solo effort—literally just myself writing my way through the beer industry—to a team of journalists and photographers, to a studio side with artists and designers building brands, partners helping create events like Uppers & Downers, and now a community-driven component that has sort of pieced together that last few rungs on a ladder whereby people are able to ascend within GBH according to their own interests and means. And so now I, the guy who started it all, gets to watch it all expand well beyond my wildest imagination. That's how today's podcast came about. So this is Jim Plachy, GBH's Fervent Few community manager, and Dave and Ryan from Collective Brewing in Texas. Listen in.

We've all heard the adage of "location, location, location." The idea that when it comes to real estate, it's about where you are—something that can be doubly important for a business. When Marie and Jamie Fox set out to find the spot for their brewery, it was not easy. The effort, which became a journey, took them all over Boulder, Colorado to look at practically any space that may have been usable for brewing. It eventually led them to sign a lease in 2016 on a 20,000 square foot facility in the city's Gunbarrel neighborhood, giving way to Gunbarrel Brewing. I know, you probably didn't expect the start of this podcast to talk about beer industry house hunting, but when I first met the Foxes this fall, it was hard to not be amazed at the size and scope of the the home they had found. And, at a time when success in beer can feel in flux all the time, the methodical planning they displayed feels like the kind of necessary steps companies need for current and future planning. When you open a brewery in Colorado, surrounded by some of the fiercest competition and discernable drinkers in the country, you have to be picky and smart about what you do. So while you'll hear about the Gunbarrel lineup and how canning has changed things for the brewery, there's also talk about what it takes and what it means when you really do find out there's no place like home. It's a side of the beer business that isn't sexy, but massively important. This is Marie and Jamie Fox of Gunbarrel Brewing. Listen in.

Welcome back to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors, and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. We're stepping outside our normal lineup of GBH writers this week to visit with someone you may not be familiar with, but will likely want to know more by the end of our conversation. Kyle Clark does not work in beer. He doesn't write about beer. He has a lot of beer at home and has made his own in the past, but unless you live in the Denver metro area, his name won't be as synonymous with a love for the industry and commenting about it as Coloradans have come to know. Kyle is the host of Next on 9News in Denver, the highest-rated newscast in the market in any time period. He's a smart guy with a deep love for beer, and this is the kind of perspective that's fun to drop into these podcasts every now and then to better understand a point of view that isn't industry-specific. Aside from intimately knowing the Denver beer scene, you'll hear in this conversation how Kyle and his team have worked to shine a light on local laws that impact beer and dog lovers and gain an appreciation for some Colorado spots you may have never heard of before. I sat down with Kyle while visiting Denver for the Great American Beer Festival this fall, and as we talk about beer and journalism, I hope his name is one you'll remember. For reference, he's also a high quality follow on Twitter. This is Kyle Clark: news man, TV anchor, and a voice gifted for your ears. Listen in.

This week's episode is a unique one for us. It brings together a bunch of voices who were in Nashville for the 2018 Craft Brewers Conference. In order to capture the feelings of that particular moment in the beer industry, we invited people into a private room at the Flying Saucer, set them up with one of our hosts (myself, Bryan Roth, and Matthew Curtis), and conducted a sort of beer version of speed dating. Each guest flipped over a card to see the topic, and then they talked to us about what was on their mind. Some cards were drawn often and some seldom, so it's a little uneven. But in the end, we liked that so many people took part and so many perspectives were shared on topics for which those who work in, around, or just enjoy beer tend to develop very strong feelings. Thanks to Flying Saucer for generously providing both their space and their hospitality during an insanely busy week. We couldn't have done this without them. And special thanks to the Flying Saucer's Andrews Cope for being our point of contact, collaborator, and co-host for all that. We're going to kick things off by getting to know Andrews a little bit, and talking about why the Flying Saucer was psyched to work with us to do this thing—of which I hope there are many more.

Welcome back to the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. It's been exciting to bring you the voices of those behind our stories, and if you haven't had the chance to better know Good Beer Hunting's Claire Bullen and Kyle Kastranec, those episodes are waiting in our podcast archives. In the meantime, we're switching it up just a little this week as we shift from our group of writers to a friend of the program in Upstate New York. Will Cleveland is a reporter for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where along with coverage of breaking news, he's the newspaper's Man About Town when it comes to beer. He's a native to the area and in all the time I've traveled back home to the Finger Lakes excited to learn more about how the beer scene has changed, Will has consistently been a great source of info from his regular coverage of New York's rapidly evolving beer industry. When we sat down in September to chat we touched on a collection of latest news and how Upstate New York beer is changing, including what it means when the world-famous Other Half comes to town. You'll also hear about process, storytelling, and what it means to be a reporter covering beer in an ever-expanding market.

Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.

This week's guest comes at the beer world through a unique angle—the legal lens. He's a lawyer based in New York State whose firm works with small brewers on a variety of business issues, but his personal focus at the firm is in trademark and IP. You've probably come across his thoughts on Twitter, where he shares updates on major trademark disputes like the Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada battle over the term IPA and Stone's fight with MillerCoors over the Keystone brand. Brendan's commentary—which is shared on his blog, but mostly on Twitter—has become something of a 101 guide for brewers and beer fans on how to talk about these things. If you've seen these debates, you know the beer world could really use a primer. While it's true that most beer fans don't like to see lawsuits between brands they're fans of, the business reality is that, sometimes, these things need to be handled by professionals. And that often serves to highlight how delicate some of the bonds can be among breweries who otherwise subscribe to a cooperative ideal. The reality is that there are 7,000 breweries out there, and you owe it to your employees and shareholders to protect what's their's, regardless of the optics. On today's episode, we dig into Brendan's career and his perspective on the state of craft brewing from a legal perspective. After that, he elaborates on some of the cases that have made him Twitter famous.

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it's my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

The more of the beer world I've seen during my travels, the more dots I've been able to connect between certain kinds of breweries. Not just with the kinds of beers they make, like a Hazy IPA brewery, or a sour brewery, but broader than that—something that sort of gets to that phrase you hear so often amongst brewers" "like mindedness." Sometimes this phrase makes me queasy, as it sounds a bit familiar in the larger context of the monoculture that plagues craft beer. But when it's used with intent to describe a deeper set of ideas and principles, it can do a good job of describing why some brewers find a near-instant connection with each other. Sometimes it's the branding, or the tone. Sometimes is the design of the taproom or the part of town they're in, even in separate cities. Every small business makes thousands of different decisions on their way to becoming a brewery, and some of those decisions are more self-aware than others. But in the end, you get a sort of gestalt—a combination of factors that add up to a vibe, or a presence. Brewers can recognize each other in a second. It's a sort of love at first sight. More often than not, this is at the root of brewing collaborations. A consummation of sorts that helps prove that initial inkling. So it is with Solemn Oath Brewery in Naperville, Illinois—longtime friends of GBH—and Holy Mountain Brewing in Seattle. There's plenty of commonality between these two beer makers on the surface. Anyone who's been to both taprooms will see the connection. If you've seen the branding, you can get that attraction, too. And so it is that these two became fast friends. The team from Holy Mountain was in Chicago, making a collaboration beer with Solemn Oath, so we got them all together, along with Solemn Oath co-founder John Barley, and dug into what these two see in each other.

At GABF in Denver this year, we teamed up with the folks at New Belgium to host a conversation called Within Reach to talk about exploring new markets and winning new fans for craft beer. Hosted at the Source Hotel, where New Belgium has a new, small brewery, a diverse panel of industry professionals gathered to talk about diversity and inclusion, which are central to this effort. With an industry that's largely still white and male, it's become increasingly clear there's a need to invite more people to participate. We wanted to look at this effort, which is both old and new, from a variety of perspectives. We sat down with Kim Jordan, co-founder of New Belgium Brewing, which was founded in 1991 when most marketing in beer was from macro brewers, and most of it was marketed to men using women as props. Over more than 25 years, Kim has been a seminal voice in an industry that's starving for women in leadership positions. Her experience in the beer industry sets the foundation for how far we've come, and how far we still have to go. Alongside her is Kimberly Clements, whose career led her into a leadership position with her family-owned Budweiser distributor in Arizona. She now runs a consulting firm called Pints that works with distributors and brewers of all sizes as they look to grow audiences and reach. Her perspective on how these companies are thinking about the diversity of markets, or not, is a compelling peek behind the scenes on the narrow way craft beer is still defining a customer base with implicit and sometimes explicit bias. Vansana Nolintha is the co-founder of Brewery Bhavana in Raleigh, North Carolina, an immigrant restauranteur alongside his sister Vanvisa and his friend Patrick Woodson, who uses hospitably to create a dialog about inclusion and belonging. How this plays out in the craft beer niche in North Carolina is fascinating: it involves hiring, training, and vision-setting for a staff that's doing more than serving pints in a taproom, but using exceptional beer as a catalyst for change. And Dominic Cook, founder of Beer Kulture, which looks at the world of beer through the lens of a community that's been neglected - and in some ways explicitly alienated - from the promise of craft beer. He has worked as a wholesaler rep, but also as a social influencer to bring beers to occasions and communities that either believe they don't like beer, or for whom access to craft beer is limited. In doing so, he's instigated a stark dialog around exclusion in craft beer, and how ignoring the problem will be at the industry's peril. He also has some advice for craft brewers that cuts through the noise and posturing that's so common on the topic, and which usually results in brewers explaining why they can't really do anything about the issue. Together, this group did a phenomenal job of covering a lot of ground. And the way in which they built on each other's experiences made this one of the most rewarding conversations we've been lucky enough to lead. Thanks to New Belgium for helping shape the conversation, and bringing us all together. Thanks to the Source hotel for hosting. And thanks to the audience, which engaged in a genuine, thoughtful exchange of ideas on a topic that's in everyone's best interest. A more inclusive craft beer industry is a better industry across the board.

Photo by Clara Rice When Dave McLean moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood after college, he was chasing one particular thing: the Grateful Dead. McLean was a small part of a wave of hippies, idealists, and rock mega fans who came to the city at the same time for a similar reason, but unlike many of the others, Dave actually stuck around. And then he built a business here: the Magnolia Brewing Company. With the nearly 20 years Dave was at the helm of Magnolia, he became part of the fabric of the modern Haight District. For a neighborhood that is synonymous with counterculture and the "summer of love," turned out Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin, that's something. Magnolia was, and is, a stalwart brewpub in a historic neighborhood of a rapidly changing city. But no one is immune from the effects of a changing economy. An investment in a difficult property in another evolving neighborhood proved too far ahead of its time, and Magnolia faltered financially. As a last resort, Dave called Kim Jordan and sold the business to New Belgium, Dick Cantwell, formerly of Elysian, and Oud Beersel of Belgium. It was a deal that was deeply personal for Dave. Ultimately, on as good as terms as possible, he left Magnolia, but not before setting out on a new venture: Admiral Maltings. The founder of another longtime brewery in San Francisco, Ron Silberstein of ThirstyBear Organic, knew Dave's affinity for quality malts, and tapped him to help him establish a new craft malt house in Alameda —- the first of its kind in California. Brewers flocked to it because the offer was notable: local farm grown barley, sent to a local malting facility, sold to local brewery to be purchased by a local drinker. I'm not sure Dave would regard it as a renaissance for himself, but all things considered, it's an incredible next step. And don't count him out for any new breweries down the line. The Bay is, after all, the home to progress and reinvention.

Welcome back to another episode of the GBH Collective, a special series of interviews where we have the chance to dive a little deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. This week's conversation is with a fan favorite: Kyle Kastranec. As one of the longest-tenured writers for Good Beer Hunting, you may have become familiar with his work through a variety of feature stories he's written over the years. But more recently, Kyle has become a star for GBH through his Banquet and Chill blog, which includes some of the most fun, original, and thoughtful personal essays on beer I find strewn across the internet. In recent months, you may have shared fond memories of open containers, airline drinks, dive bars, or your personal Mount Crushmore—all topics that went from Kyle's brain to his blog, and quickly became a fun game for lots of people to play through social media. In a way, Kyle is GBH's leader when it comes to viral content—however you want to classify it—and he continues to delight and surprise with peeks into mind and the way he views beer. And as you'll find, it's all very deliberate and thought out, too. This is Kyle Kastranec, contributor, Renaissance Man, and King of Viral Media for Good Beer Hunting. Listen in...

Everyone wants to talk about innovation in beer these days, which could mean anything from playing with a new ingredient, or piece of equipment, or working to create a whole new style of beer. With a new record number for breweries in the U.S. being achieved daily, there are conscious and constant decisions breweries make as a way to differentiate themselves. And while all brewers certainly have a hand in innovating for their respective companies, there aren't a ton who have a job to specifically do just that. Nick Crandall is the head brewer and innovation brewer at Redhook Brewery's Brewlab, a brewpub located in downtown Seattle where the once-national company has wildly condensed its focus with Nick amongst its epicenter. From a small brewhouse in the brewpub, he's working to consider and concoct new recipes that are tested feet from where it's made, providing instant feedback and hopeful gratification for a Redhook team tasked with arguably the best part of the brewing process: playing. Through trial and error, Crandall is working to see what might just come next. When I sat down with him in September, he had recently tapped a Brut IPA and the business had also been working through trials with New England IPAs. Through altering batches and finding new ways to use and approach ingredients, Crandall is hopeful that maybe, just maybe, he'll find a hit that can go from his bar to a production brewery and into the hands of many. For a brewery like Redhook that has had a storied history in the Pacific Northwest, it's a repurposing of talent and resources that offers a new kind of excitement for what might happen next.

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director Michael Kiser catch up and talk about the topics ad discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world, sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum. If you value the content and experiences that Good Beer Hunting produces, you should join. Your's monthly subscriptions gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. And it's my favorite place on the beer internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew - and strike a conversation in beer.

Something that's been on my mind a great deal of late, is where beer intersects with other cultures, particularly those also within food and beverage. You may commonly hear me bring up topics like natural wine, low-intervention cider, speciality coffee and more when talking about craft beer. And this is with good reason. For me, the most exciting things happening within beer are often happening at the points where these industries converge. Take our Uppers & Downers festival, for example. When I see a coffee enthusiast's eyes light up because they've just tried a 3% Kvass that expresses flavours in beer they previously thought mightn't have been possible, that gets me excited about the potential that lies within beer's future. At the moment I am particularly interested in the point at which beer meets food and restaurant culture. This is partly due to my own increased interest in food and wine of late, and finding myself in a good restaurant more often than previously. Naturally, being a beer writer, while in these spaces my mind turns to beer when I occupy them. Why isn't beer treated the same way on a wine list as the wine itself? How do we help this industry gain a greater understanding of how beer has evolved over the past decade and in turn, implement this evolution into this space? When it comes to talking about beer in restaurants, let's just say there's plenty to munch on. And this all brings me to today's guest—Chef Tim Anderson—proprietor of a Japanese-inspired restaurant in Brixton, South London called Nanban. Anderson originally hails from Wisconsin and lived in both California and Japan before eventually settling down here in the U.K. He was a originally a home cook, but in 2011 he won that years Masterchef—a prime time cookery competition and TV show—which propelled him into the limelight. What's particularly interesting about Anderson however, is that before he was a chef, he was and still is a passionate beer fan. Even while filming Masterchef he was making ends meet pulling pints in London craft beer spot, The Euston Tap. After winning he went on to brew collabs with Pressure Drop, The Wild Beer Co and BrewDog—he even designed a menu at one of the latters bars for a time, as we'll learn in this episode. This all came to a head when Anderson eventually opened a restaurant of his own, called Nanban, here in London. At Nanban, Anderson specializes in what he calls "Japanese Soul Food." You can expect steaming bowls of ramen, crunchy karaage fried chicken and even a burger which, somehow, fuses the Japanese-influenced house style with his Wisconsinite roots. What's not so normal for a British restaurant though, is the beer selection. Here, along with an impressive list of Sake and Shochu, beer takes center stage—and in doing so, successfully demonstrates how beer can comfortably take its place at the dinner table—where other establishments have either not made a similar effort, or are simply unaware of how food-friendly beer has grown to become. A quick note about this episode. We recorded in between lunch and dinner service at Nanban itself, so you can expect a little background noise. I'm also joined by GBH's Claire Bullen—who in addition to being one of the authors of our NAGBW award-winning food column, Provisions, is also a prolific cook herself, and has her first cookbook launching next spring. Keep a look out for that.

We're going to do something a little different today. Over the past year or so, you've heard a small sub-series of interviews we've dubbed the GBH Collective episodes. These conversations with GBH colleagues have been meant to dive into their writing, background and interests and have been a bit free-flowing. They've been a great addition to the award-winning audio content we produce at Good Beer Hunting, and I'm excited to take the lead to bring you more of it. This episode is going to be something of a GBH Collective 2.0 as we work to make these talks a more common part of the podcast. These may be shorter than our weekly longform interviews, and will include voices of GBH contributors as well as other journalists and members of the media who think about beer. In this episode, I'm joined by Claire Bullen. She's been on a GBH Collective episode before, but not under the circumstances of which we spoke recently. Claire has recently been recognized multiple times by the North American Guild of Beer Writers for her work at this year's Guild awards. Full disclosure: I lead that group, but didn't have any role in judging her work, so I do feel comfortable saying that her writing, and her unique voice, is something that excites me most about coverage of today's beer industry. In this chat, we'll talk a little about what it means to be a big deal — those are my words, not her modesty — and how writing about food impacts writing. I'm really excited to start bringing you more of these conversations so you can better know the great people behind the byline. Claire is a perfect place to start.

When the brut IPA, taglined as San Francisco's newest beer style, began to hit internet headlines last spring, the reaction was polarizing. This new type of IPA, defined by its fruity hop aroma, effervescence, and dryness — provided by the addition of a type of amylase enzyme — was a respite from the yeasty hazebombs proliferating on beer lists around town. Immediately, some leery brewers publicly challenged its authenticity as a substyle. Others, interest piqued, sought to attempt their own versions after reaching out to its creator, Social Kitchen and Brewery's Kim Sturdavant, for his methodology. And Kim was there to field those calls, emails and sometimes, Facebook messages, as they poured in. First, inquiries came from brewers just around the greater Bay Area. Then, brewers were contacting him from Southern California, and then the East Coast, and eventually Europe and South America. But Kim was known around the Bay Area long before the brut. A GABF winner drawn to easy-to-drink German- and English-style beers, he helped make Social Brewing not just a great neighborhood hangout, but a beer destination in the competitive Bay Area market. Social's brewery arm is run by just a couple people. Kim, who heads it up, handles the paperwork and planning and oversees the brewing on the second story of the brewpub-restaurant in the Inner Sunset District of San Francisco, by Golden Gate Park. It's here at Social where I meet Kim one afternoon in the late summer. It's before the restaurant opens, so it's much quieter than it usually is, as the restaurant staff prepare for their shifts.

I Can See Clearly Now — Chasing Beer Trends as a Means to an End Host: Jonny Garrett Panelists: Andy Parker (Elusive), Matt Brynildson (Firestone Walker), Alexandra Nowell (Three Weavers) At last years Extravaganza brewers clashed during the discussion of where the Hazy IPA fits within modern beer culture. In the year that's passed, the style has gradually become a popular, almost common fixture within craft beer—even one of the panelists who denounced the style last year has been turned on to its charms. In addition to this, new IPA styles—such as Brut IPA—are beginning to turn heads. Should brewers continue to chase new trends in an effort to maintain relevance in the market? Or should they be seeking balance, and stability, as competition and other market pressures continue to increase apace.

Let's Stick Together — The Value of Collaboration and Fostering Positive Relationships in Beer's Modern Era Host: Matthew Curtis Guest Speakers: Dave Stone (Wylam), Steve Grae (Affinity), Brian Dickson (Northern Monk) What role do collaboration beers play in the modern beer market, and how does that differ—if at all—from what they meant before? We've come a long way since Brooklyn first collaborated with Schneider Weisse, which was the start of one of craft brewing biggest trends. But what are breweries now trying to accomplish through collaboration, how has that changed over time, and when does competition start to disrupt the convivial world of the collab?

Food for Thought — Where Does Beer & Restaurant Culture Intersect? Host: Claire Bullen Panelists: Jonny Hamilton (Beavertown), Travis Hixon (Blackberry Farm), Dan Nathan (Beef & Brew) Why have restaurants been so slow to recognize modern beer's place at the table, and why do their beer menus lag so far behind wine menus? Who are the folks that are doing interesting things with beer in a hospitality context and how are breweries working alongside restaurants—from house beers to education/staff training and beyond? And what will restaurants beer offerings look like in five years' time?

Go Your Own Way — The Value of Independence vs. Investment Host: Michael Kiser Panelists: Logan Plant (Beavertown), Giovanni Campari (Birrificio del Ducato), Justin Hutton (Two Tribes) It's been a turbulent month for the UK scene, as expanding breweries look for investment so as to further not only their own growth—but that of the industry itself. There are plenty of options available for breweries too, be that borrowing from banks, crowdfunding, private equity or taking investment from within the beer industry itself. The amount of investment coming into the craft beer market will only increase. In a market that values "independence" as a selling point, how do we balance this against that rising tide of investment?

The GBH Collective — How to Advance the Narrative Within Beer Writing Michael Kiser, Matthew Curtis, Claire Bullen & Jonny Garrett (Good Beer Hunting)

Quality Fermentation — Exploring Beer's Place in the Realm of Wine & Cider Host: Michael Kiser Panelists: Lauren Limbach (New Belgium), James Rylance (Harbour), Jos Ruffell (Garage Project) At last years Symposium we discussed both sour beer as its own genre, and where terroir fits in within the world of beer. To take that discussion to its next logical step we need to examine sour, wild, mixed, spontaneously fermented or whatever-you-want-to-call-it beer, and its place alongside wine and cider. How do beverages at the pinnacle of modern fermentation stand together—and yet find ways of differentiating themselves from one another?