By Beer Edge
4.5
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The podcast currently has 53 episodes available.
Denver holds a special place in my heart. I’ve watched as the local beer scene has grown and then exploded, with dozens and dozens of breweries cropping up in parts of town that didn’t even really exist, such as RiNo. Denver has long had a formidable beer scene but today it is one of the country’s best. And on this second episode of the Beer Travelers podcast, we’re going to talk with two local experts, Tristan Chan of PorchDrinking and Jonathan Shikes of the Denver Post. These two are as knowledgeable as they come and as we’ll hear, they are full of advice for planning your visit to the Mile High City.
Stay tuned at the end of the episode for my personal favorite suggestion for Denver. Hint: it’s the perfect place for a nightcap or to end your trip.
In this episode of Beer Travelers, we discuss all that the city has to offer in this episode so let’s start our trip to Denver, Colorado with Tristan Chan and Jonathan Shikes.
This Episode is Sponsored by:
Pub Culture Beercations
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For original articles or to read the vast archives or to check out All About Beer. follow us on Twitter @allaboutbeer and Instagram @allaboutbeer. Support Journalism by visiting our Patreon Page.
Welcome to the first episode of the new All About Beer podcast. In this premiere episode, co-hosts Em Sauter and Don Tse examine the Cold IPA with Kevin Davey, of Wayfinder Beer, who is credited with creating the style. From the specs and flavor, process and debunking myths, this show will explain and examine every facet of craft beer’s newest style.
Subscribe to the All About Beer Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and please leave us a review. We appreciate your support.
This Episode is Sponsored by:
Athletic Brewing Company
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For original articles or to read the vast archives or to check out All About Beer. follow us on Twitter @allaboutbeer and Instagram @allaboutbeer. Support Journalism by visiting our Patreon Page.
The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-call
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://incompetech.com
We’re back this week with the second part of my interview with beer writer, author, and judge Melissa Cole. Since we last heard from Melissa, I actually had the chance to have beers in person with her in Minneapolis during the Craft Brewers Conference. Along with Melissa, my Beer Edge partner John Holl and a couple of Australian beer writers hit several dive bars in Northeast Minneapolis before singing our hearts out at 1 am karaoke. As I said in the last episode, it’s never a dull day with Melissa Cole.
And the second half of this interview is also unlikely to bore you. In fact, Melissa delivers a devastating indictment of BrewDog amidst all the scandals swirling around the company. These controversies, which seem to multiply week after week, involve a host of issues including allegations of an abusive and harmful corporate culture, poor treatment of workers, surveillance of employees and critics, and mistreatment of females.
It can be difficult to get your arms around the issues facing BrewDog as they seem to pile on more as time goes on.
For this week, we continue our chat with Melissa, who has covered BrewDog for more than a decade. And we start at the beginning, including her first memories of meeting BrewDog's co-founder James Watt and how her impressions of him and the company evolved over time. A word of warning for listeners. We discuss some sensitive issues in this episode, including physical abuse, harassment, and sexism. Listener discretion is advised.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Melissa Cole
Sponsors: Lallemand, All About Beer
It’s never boring with Melissa Cole. The first time we met remains a bit of a fever dream for me. We get into it in the first few minutes of this interview and, in character, Melissa manages to recall micro details of what we ate and drank that night six years ago.
Melissa’s work is similarly colorful and a bit hard to characterize. She appears to have transcended the role of journalist and become somewhat of a presenter, as the Brits might say. She’s an accomplished author of several excellent books, a brewer of many collaboration beers, a widely respected international judge of beers, a frequent television guest offering both piercing and critical social commentary, related to beer, but also an accomplished speaker about food and tasting.
Melissa is also a powerful advocate for classic styles, British beer excellence, but most importantly, for equality and calling out bad behavior by boorish breweries. Recently, she has been in the media quite a bit for her continuing criticism of BrewDog and its corporate culture and its treatment of workers and females. We’ll get into this subject in detail in the second part of our conversation next week.
But for this week, we discuss Melissa’s background, her books, and her secrets to pairing beer and food.
We conducted this interview via Zoom and I spent most of the session with a huge smile on my face or laughing. Next week’s episode concluding our interview with Melissa will be a bit more serious. But for this week, let’s get to the first half of my conversation with the indefatigable Melissa Cole.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Melissa Cole
Sponsors: Lallemand
Parenting isn’t easy. And trying to manage young kids, especially during a pandemic, is incredibly hard. I don’t talk about my personal life much on these podcasts, in my work, or on social media. I prefer to keep the separation. But I also know there is value in letting others who may be similarly situated know that things are rarely the well constructed perfection reflected in smiling family Instagram photos. And that’s how I first noticed today’s guest, beer writer Eoghan Walsh.
A native of Ireland, Eoghan now lives with his family in Brussels, working as a freelance writer, author, and podcaster. He is the founder of Brussels Beer City—a blog about the Belgian capital city’s beers, bars, and brewing traditions. He’s also the host of the Brussels Beer City Podcast. And he’s racked up a number of impressive awards with his work, including being named the British Guild of Beer Writers Young Beer Writer of 2018.
But it is his occasional social media posts talking about the challenges of parenting his two young kids that made me feel more seen. He’s as happy to discuss the struggles as a father as he is to celebrate the successes, however big or small. And I definitely connect with that. As the father of two young kids, I’m very familiar with the ups and downs, the good and the bad, and how you can feel pulled in a million different directions, torn between the personal and the professional, all while feeling like you’re not doing well at either.
Especially during times when we’ve been forced inside or away from others for so long, Eoghan’s Twitter posts about his adventures in parenting help me appreciate that others are trying to navigate the same issues and finding it exhausting all the while.
So earlier this week, Eoghan put his kids to bed, climbed into this chilly attic, and joined me on an international Zoom call to chat. We talk a lot about parenting, the challenges you face as a freelancer with kids, and how easy it is to lose your identity after becoming a parent.
A natural raconteur, affable and self-effacing, Eoghan also discusses his beer writing career, how he came to live in Brussels, whether Belgium’s grand beer traditions can survive hazy IPAs and the march of modernity, and whether Yvan de Baets is the most important person in the Belgian beer scene.
Eoghan also uses the show to announce some news, but I’d let him talk about that. Here is my conversation with beer writer, author, and podcaster Eoghan Walsh.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Eoghan Walsh
Sponsors: Lallemand
This week we continue our conversation with beer writer Matthew Curtis. If you missed part 1 of our discussion, I recommend you go back and give it a listen. In that episode, Matt and I discussed his work with Pellicle, his online beer, wine, and cider magazine, how he developed his voice as a writer and podcaster, and about his profile of St. Mars of the Dessert in Sheffield, England. We also discussed important and sensitive subjects such as balancing work while maintaining your mental health.
In this episode, we compare the US and UK beer scenes, discuss Matt’s excellent new book, Modern British Beer, and discuss how joy is the central message and lens through which he translates the world of beer to his audiences. We also discuss how Pete Brown robbed him, his words, at the recent British Guild of Beer Writers awards and how he feels about awards generally in light of his recent experiences. We also discuss his plans for the future of Pellicle and as a writer.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Matthew Curtis
Sponsors: Arryved
One of the best parts of covering the craft beer industry for a while is experiencing new voices. Perspectives tend to harden over time and without the addition of new blood, they can calcify and begin to become immovable. And the industry so often feels like a singular experience, one that speaks with a too uniform voice that serves as so much retread.
Matthew Curtis stands in the middle of all of this. He started writing about beer long enough ago that he has seen a few things. But he’s also not so deep in the game that he can’t see the value of supporting new voices. He started as a blogger, working on his voice and technique. He eventually parlayed that into some freelance work, including at Good Beer Hunting, where I first recall encountering his writing. He added photography to his portfolio of talents and adorned his well crafted pieces with striking photos of their subjects. His photos imbue substantial character into the tiniest of subjects, a clamp or hose in a brewery cellar, the way light lands on a dusty barrel filled with wild ale.
After deciding to turn his freelance hobby into a full time gig, Matt did what I wish so many others would do. He picked his head up, looked around, and plotted an intentional path forward. He wasn’t happy writing the same old pieces for the same old publications. He wanted to express himself in new ways, new formats, and to give others the opportunity to discover and amplify their own voices.
So in 2019, Matt founded the online drinks, food, and travel site Pellicle with co-founder and brewer Jonny Hamilton. Based in the UK, Matt and Johnny had a clear vision of what they wanted to capture in the worlds of beer, cider, wine, and food among other subjects. The central directional principle behind Pellicle is one that is often absent from so much similarly focused writing: finding joy with the cultures they cover. Over time, Pellicle has evolved into a website delivering weekly in-depth dives into people, places, and drinks, an occasional podcast of the same name, one that delightfully meanders between interviews and long monologues of Matt’s own thinking, and occasional events. All told, they aim to capture the “joie de vivre we so often find within our favourite cultures. This might be at a favourite bar or restaurant, adjacent to a steaming brewhouse, or within an orchard or vineyard. At Pellicle, we hope to take you there with us.”
As you’ll hear me say during the interview, which we’ll present to you in two parts, I have been a Patreon subscriber of Pellicle for some time and I’d encourage others to do so as well. I support beer media and believe there should be dozens more publications bringing great beer content to a thirsty world.
Pellicle remains a shining example of what can happen when two people get together with a vision and help enlist and raise up others in support of their collective mission.
In our discussion, which we conducted over a long Zoom call, Matt and I discuss his back story, how he developed a love of beer while visiting his ex-pat father who now lives in the United States, and we delve further into the work at Pellicle. We also discuss one of my favorite recent pieces of beer writing, his long and lovely profile of Dann Paquette and Martha Holley, once of Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project here in Boston and now of St. Mars of the Desert in Sheffield, England.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Matthew Curtis
Sponsors: Arryved - Lallemand
26 years is a long time to run a business, let alone one with your spouse.
When my guest today first met her future husband, they were 16 years old and attending the same high school in Massachusetts. He would soon be booted out of that school but their relationship remained strong. When years later he floated the idea of opening a brewery, the two would help build the brewery together.
The story of Dogfish Head is one we’ve heard many times before, often told by its very familiar co-founder and front man, Sam Calagione. But it is his partner, the less public face of the business, Mariah Calagione, who deserves a lot of credit for Dogfish Head’s success. As she writes in the brewery’s new book, “Sam often calls himself Dogfish Head’s analog storyteller and often refers to me as our digital storyteller. He’s the extroverted storyteller in front of the audience or at the event. I’ve been the introverted storyteller, behind the screen and the camera lens.” As Mariah goes on to note, the dynamic works and helped shape Dogfish into the powerhouse it is today.
After high school, Mariah went on to Brown University where she studied public policy with a focus on its interplay with the media. After school, Mariah went to work for a local television station, working on the assignment desk and doing a variety of tasks. For her, it was taking up the family business as her father Tom owned a TV station and some radio stations in Delaware.
For his part, Sam was trying to become a writer or a teacher. But by the end of college, his passion for beer and brewing took over. After some back and forth, the couple eventually settled on opening up shop in Mariah’s home state of Delaware, specifically Rehoboth Beach.
And when Mariah joined Dogfish full time in 1997, she thought her marketing background would come in handy. Instead, she should’ve taken business administration classes. She took care of the accounting and payroll, none of which she had experience in.
But that’s how it is for small family run businesses. You end up doing everything. And one of the things it turns out she excels at is crafting a message for Dogfish Head’s social media channels. She’ll tell us about the early days of her online experiences at Dogfish, why fans of the brand kept setting up and giving them Dogfish Head accounts, and how to deal with the ups and downs that come with the job. We also talk about her new role as Social Impact Leader at Boston Beer, how the new Dogfish Head Book, 26 Years of Off-centered Adventures came to be, and what the future holds for both her and Sam.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Mariah Calagione
Sponsors: Arryved - Lallemand
In our most recent episode, I hosted a longtime friend and fellow beer writer, Joe Stange, who told us about moving his family to Thailand in the middle of a pandemic, the importance of traditional styles, and the future of the American beer bar. In this episode, we continue our discussion, moving on to his somewhat unexpected defense of hazy IPAs, his thoughts on why Stone’s Berlin project failed, and whether lager will finally have its day.
It’s hard to capture the essence of a writer in a spoken word podcast but I’ve done my best in these two interviews, hoping to do justice to Joe and his work. If you’ve enjoyed listening to Joe and his thoughts about beer, I’d highly recommend you check out his entirely too short-lived podcast, One More Road For the Beer, which he co-hosted with fellow beer and travel writer Zach Johnston. It only lasted for 10 episodes but it was glorious and we talked a bit about it and whether it might one day return.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Joe Stange
Sponsors: Arryved
The pandemic has been a weird experience for everyone. Everything suddenly stopped, things went quiet, we became trapped in our homes for months on end. Even for the most stable among us, the experience was unsettling. For my guest today, the pandemic was anomalous in an entirely different way. Newly returned to the US after more than a decade living abroad, writer Joe Stange and his two children moved to a family farm in rural Missouri and then found themselves sort of stuck there as COVID hit. After years in bustling, major international metropolises, his life became about quietly homebrewing in a barn and helping his kids deal with school via Zoom.
Joe is one of my favorite people in the beer world. He’s a writer’s writer. Clever, smart, thorough, and thoughtful. At times intense, focused, but also given to a sort of knowing humor, he’s an entirely enjoyable drinking partner. While Joe is serious about beer, dedicated to it in a way that is not just ephemeral or about the alcohol or the scene, he also knows its place and not to take it too seriously.
Joe is a trained journalist, having received a proper education at one of the country’s best journalism schools, Mizzou, and trained at the Associated Press. And while his background provided him with a solid foundation on which to build his freelancing and writer career, it was his wife Kelly’s career that in a roundabout way led to his work as a beer journalist.
Kelly has long worked as a diplomat with the US Department of Agriculture, helping to promote and protect American interests abroad. And her work has taken their family to Brussels, Costa Rica, Berlin, and now Bangkok. It was this first location, Brussels, where Joe really became involved in the beer world.
He developed a love of Belgian beer and began writing about it, eventually leading to his work as a co-author with Tim Webb of the excellent Good Beer Guide Belgium. Joe would go on to write another book, Around Brussels in 80 Beers, and contribute to many magazines. He’s now the managing editor of Craft Beer & Brewing.
Joe was locked down in quarantine for several weeks after arriving in Bangkok, and it was late his time and very early mine when we connected via Zoom for our chat. We haven’t seen each other in a couple of years and so our conversation ran more than twice as long as I expected. So we’re going to break our conversation up into two episodes. On this first one, Joe and I talk about the experience of being a diplomatic spouse, about what it was like to return to the states after so long abroad, and how he came to contemplate and capture the essence of a tree during the pandemic. We also talk about his passion for writing about the technical side of brewing, whether lagers and saisons will ever truly have their day, and about tradition, style, and whether the classic beer bar can survive.
For more information on the Beer Edge Podcast, follow us on Twitter @thebeeredge. And visit Beer Edge for more articles and engaging content.
Host: Andy Crouch
Guest: Joe Stange
Sponsors: Arryved
The podcast currently has 53 episodes available.