Cincy Brewcast

The holidays are great… I love spending time with friends and family, getting away from the normal craziness of life for a little bit – but the show takes a big hit – and I don’t like that. As we get back into the swing of things this week, I finally get to dive in a little bit about how things are about to change.

I quit my job.

That means a lot to me, to my family – and yes… to you. This all becomes a little more important in my day to day life, and those weeks where “work” takes over… they won’t exist as much.

I get to spend more time creating, more time thinking about creating, and more time on all of THIS. And for that… we can all hopefully get excited.

Stay tuned – this is gonna be fun!

I love this time of year. It’s not just the holidays themselves, or the fantastic seasonal beers that we get to enjoy, though. There’s a bit of a forced retrospection that we enjoy. There’s something about the end of another calendar year that makes you look back at all we’ve endured, and with optimism look forward to what’s coming.

That’s what this show is about.

I was joined by my good friends from Truth Beer and Podsequences Marco and Julia along with new friend John from Cellar Dweller to have a peek forwards and backward to see where we all think we are with craft beer right now. We drank a few beers along the way – and had an absolute blast hanging out for a bit at BC’s Montgomery.

Just as a reminder… this show (much like all of them) is brought to you by folks just like you. We’re supported by The Gnomies, a group of dedicated supporters who make it all keep running. If you’d like to help out and become a Gnomie yourself you can do that!! Go to TheGnarlyGnome.com/Support!

I think that it’s sort of Cincy Brewcast’s “thing” – to go off the rails from time to time. This week is a great example of one of those times. I sat down at Streetside with owner Garrett Hickey to talk about the collaboration beer that brought us all together, Socially Influenced, and instead – we went down an entirely different path about growth, expansion, new locations, brewpubs vs breweries, Big Beer vs craft beer.

We hit a lot of stuff.

We did still manage to talk about Socially Influenced a bit – and I even brought on Craft Beer Joe to try to get us back on track… but this was too good of a topic to not dive into it.

In fact, we were having so much fun we didn’t even do a from the beer fridge segment (rest assured we were drinking, though).

I love episodes like this a lot, it’s a very natural conversation – there are probably a few things that we should have cut out during the edit – but I thought the context was important for everything. Enjoy! Remember to make sure that you’re subscribed to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts – and probably even more importantly, tell a friend or two about it!

Zac Holley is a local beer geek. He’s passionate, he’s having fun with his craft beer journey, and he’s a guy that you’re probably going to see around from time to time. He founded a Facebook group for folks who love craft beer, but think that there might be a little too much negativity in some of the other Facebook groups. He’s working on a podcast where he can sit back and share his thoughts of a cold beer…

Basically, he’s working his butt of trying to share his love of craft beer with all of us – and that? I’m most certainly here for that.

I met up with Zack last week over a few beers at Sonder Brewing Company. We talked about how Zac got into craft beer, why he thinks this community is awesome and even talked about the infamous Bourbon County Brand stout. There’s a lot here, and I hope you leave feeling like you just hung out with your friends over a couple drinks!

These two guys have been in this industry for a very long time… and so while the purpose of the episode was to talk about Little Miami’s recent expansion with their event center along with the BCCA Sunday after thanksgiving show coming up – I couldn’t resist diving into talking about the bigger pictures stuff. We drank a couple beers and dove into what makes all this tick, how things have changed, and where we think it might all be headed.

The Queen City Chapter of the BCCA is about a lot more than just collecting random Breweriana… though that’s a major part of it. This Sunday After Thanksgiving Show is a great chance for you to not just head out and pick up a few items for the beer geeks on your Christmas list – it’s a great time to just get out with a few of your friends, grab a couple beers and spend an afternoon doing something a little bit different.

It just so happens that this show takes place in the new event center at Little Miami Brewing Company. If you haven’t seen what they’ve done out there, it’s an amazing chance to get a little peek at how much they’ve grown. This event center has a massive indoor space, and a patio that makes the incredible outdoor space over at the brewpub jealous.

I am more than excited to see Hamilton, Ohio growing in the ways that it has been. If you’re a regular listener of Cincy Brewcast, you’re aware of that. I’ve sat down with plenty of people this year to talk about it… and I’m not done yet! I’ve been watching the Hub (That’s the abbreviated name of Hamilton’s Urban Backyard) as they’ve been working on getting their space together for awhile now – and their doors are finally open. You know what that means… time to dive in!

The Hub is a perfect blend of a food truck park, a comfortable bar, and a gathering space for downtown Hamilton. They nailed what they were trying to do with it, and I think you’re gonna understand why I’m as excited as I am when you stop for your first visit.

Aside from the beginning of this episode where it is AGAIN, me solo in the studio… this week’s episode is fantastic. I am always more than thrilled to get Brady and Kenny from MadTree on the show. They are at the helm of a brewery that has become an inspiration for breweries all across Cincinnati. When you talk to them, you can clearly see why, also. This is a brewery that pushes it’s own limits, spends a lot of time exploring who it is and that grows in the most organic way possible because of that.

The world of craft beer is always evolving, and this episode is really about how MadTree as a destination always tries to evolve with it.

It’s wonderful. I mean… we also drink some beers and make some really great tree puns along the way… its not too serious the whole time.

I had a big pumpkin episode planned for this week, but as it seems to go from time to time things didn’t quite work out as I had hoped. Here I was, left alone in the studio with a fridge full of beer, and pumpkin on my mind. I just talked very briefly this week about pumpkin beer and a little broader about fall beers. What makes a good fall beer? What are my favorite styles to drink this time of year? It’s all hard hitting questions that I know you guys are chomping at the bit to have answered.

I do what I can.

We’ll be back to normal next week!

This week is a little, uhhh… different. This isn’t what the show was supposed to be, and it certainly isn’t “normal”. Lucky (or unlucky) for you, I have a few thoughts in my mind that I could sit and ramble about for a little bit, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Of course, it’s still a beer podcast – so the whole time I’ll be sipping on one of the new Italian Pilsners from HighGrain, called Giulia. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll even dive into what makes it an Italian pilsner a little bit.

We’ll be back to normal next week – thanks for hanging in there! Make sure you share the show with a friend, and go get your tickets to Beer, Booze and Bonks!

I love a good collaboration beer. It brings folks together and immediately reminds me of all the things that I love about the community side of craft beer. When this idea first started floating around, I knew that I had to be a part of it (and not just because my “real” name happens to fall in line with the theme at hand). This is a goofy, fun reason to get together, but the beer that came out of it is really, really fantastic.

The concept was that each member of the collaboration came up with an ingredient that when combined would (hopefully) turn into something delicious!

Andy Bird (with Braxton as of brewing this…) came up with Gin Barrels, Andy Foltz from Casual Pint wanted Mosaic hops, Andy Clawson from Paradise wanted Vienna malt and Galena hops, McCleese over at Brink wanted Maris Otter and Galaxy hops, and Andy Reynolds at Alexandria came at it with Simcoe. Me? My contribution ended up as “We definitely don’t need fruit”.