Beervana Podcast

Periodically, we have tried to visit beer-centric places and report what we’ve found. That is now out of the question, but our wanderlust is no less active. So today we start a series of virtual tours, tapping into the knowledge and experience of locals who will give us a guide to their home towns. We’ll start in one of America’s most famous beer cities, San Diego, and soon we’ll welcome the writer and native San Diegan Beth Demmon to give us the tour.

We have recently been shining a light on lagers—and pilsners especially—which is all right and appropriate. But it means we have not been focusing on our other love, those glorious Northwest hops that have changed the brewing industry so profoundly. So today we plan to indulge ourselves by talking all things hops, including nerdy stuff like science, and indulgent, sensual stuff like juicy IPAs.

On Show 113 we have a special guest: Kevin Davey, the head brewer at Portland’s Wayfinder Brewery. Wayfinder specializes in lagers, and attentive listeners will recall that it won our Great Oregon Pilsner Taste-Off. We have long wanted to talk to Kevin about Wayfinder, his background, and his approach to making beer, and this seemed like a great opportunity to track him down.

In Show 111 and 112 we try something new: The Great Pilsner Taste-Off, a battle royale of all the very best pilsners in the state of Oregon. Over the course of these shows we conduct blind tastings to identify what is surely, definitively the finest example brewed here in the Beaver State. On today’s show we’re broadcasting the final round, in which we reveal the big winner. That plus news and the mailbag.

In Show 111 and 112 we try something new: The Great Pilsner Taste-Off, a battle royale of all the very best pilsners in the state of Oregon. Over the course of these shows we conduct blind tastings to identify what is surely, definitively the finest example brewed here in the Beaver State. On today’s show we’re broadcasting the preliminary round, and next week we’ll bring you the finals.

On today’s show we head to Belgian Flanders today and dig into one of the most interesting categories of beer in the world: brown ales. It is a style both changing and, surprisingly, expanding, and is as much a story of tradition and culture as style. We'll listen to one of the grand old masters of the style, along with a group of young guys embracing the ancient practice.

We have a special show for you today as we sit down to visit with Breakside founder Scott Lawrence and his brewmaster Ben Edmunds to celebrate the brewery's 10th anniversary. Jeff talks with Scott and Ben about those ten years, how Breakside, born in a different era, has grown and changed, and what is in store for them as their big celebration has been interrupted by world events.

On today’s show we’re going to play a little catch-up and offer a round table of topics. Among the issues we’ll touch on are a bit of Coronavirus Beeronomics, “entertainment” and the dubious new Netflix sitcom Brews Brothers, higher ed, new brewery initiatives—and probably a few other things along the way.

On today’s show we’re going to attempt to distract ourselves from all this pandemic business by thinking about some nice, tasty beer—but, since the virus is dominating all our attention, we thought it was high time for a “desert island” show. That is, if you found yourself on a desert island—or, say, sheltering in place—what beers would you absolutely, positively have to have stocked in the fridge?

On pod 106, Patrick and Jeff assess the ramifications to the economy and beer industry of the coronavirus sweeping across the globe in late March. Patrick offers some high-fiber macroeconomics, and Jeff discusses how it's impacting breweries on the ground.