It’s been another crazy week in the world of craft beer, and that means that I want to take a quick little journey outside of Cincinnati this week. I was joined by Justin and Danny from Sonder Brewing Company, but while at the start of the show we did dive into the cellar to drink some Cincinnati beer, the bulk of the conversation lies elsewhere.

New Belgium is selling themselves off to a foreign company – which means they aren’t going to be “craft beer” anymore – and I’m struggling to understand how I feel about that.

We take a deep look at what it means, and how it makes us feel… while we drink some great beers from Rhinegeist and Fifty West. A little peek behind the curtain… we were in Sonder Studios because we started the night by recording an episode of Sonder Stories – so you’ll wanna go ahead and subscribe to that if you haven’t already!

Hang in there… this is a fun one!

It’s always fun to take a little dive into the other sides of the beer community, other than just the folks that make the beverage that we all love. BC’s Bottle Lodge and it’s owners Brian and Caleb are doing an amazing job in creating a space where you can not just grab a couple six packs on the way home, but take part in a much bigger community at the same time. Their two locations, West Chester and Montgomery are both amazing spaces, with huge tap lists and customers that make everyone feel welcome, and like a regular.

In short… it’s exactly like some of the big factors that made us fall in love with all this in the first place!

It only made sense to me, on the second anniversary of their Montgomery location to sit down with the guys and take a peek at not only what got them to this point, but where they see it all going in the next couple of years too. We also explored what the roll of bottle shops, and bars play in an ever changing craft beer world.

I love Cincinnati beer, that should be pretty obvious by the fact that I have a blog and podcast that are dedicated to showcasing it. There’s another side to craft beer, though… and it’s a pretty big one. It’s everything else. There is a TON of great beer being brewed up outside of our hometown, and there’s a lot that can not only be learned from it… but enjoyed with it.

This week’s episode I sat down with Michael from Adena distributing to talk about not just what’s going on with them, but to get a bigger “top down” picture of beer that isn’t from here, and why it might be more important than we give it credit for.

Cellar Dweller has been slowly upping their game, and putting out some new stuff for a while now, and hot off the heals of an Oktoberfest that I fell in love with, they just released their big (and hyped up) stout with peanut butter and chocolate, called Puzzle Pieces. Sounds like a great opportunity to pull their assistant brewer Marco into the studio for a Brewcast, right?

We drink both the new stout and their big Double Dry Hopped NE IPA called Governor Morrow, as well as a few other surprise goodies, and talk about the process that they went thorough in creating the new beers. We even try to get a little bit of a sneak peek into what might be coming down the road.

It’s a good old fashioned studio show, and a fun one at that!

It’s hard to be a fan of Cincinnati beer for very long before you get sucked into the history of this city and the beverage that we all call a hobby. The storied past of Cincinnati is one that Don Heinrich Tolzmann knows extremely well, and I was lucky enough this week to sit down with him to talk about it alongside his new book called Cincinnati’s Beer Baron’s in the Golden Age of Brewing.

We dive into the topic with a beer in hand, and try to figure out what made Beer Baron’s so important to what this city used to be – as well as trying to figure out if such a thing can (or does) still exist in today’s very different beer community.

Don Heinrich Tolzmann

Self Serve taps might one of the biggest things that you’ve heard about Anderson’s Big Ash Brewing… but this former Collaborative Brewing CO-OP has a lot more going for it than that. We settled into a seat on their warm sunny patio this week to dive into a couple of their great beers and to learn a little bit more about who they are.

We explored the pathway that got them to this point, and then outlined what you can expect when you head over for a point or two yourself. It’s another fun one, and always a good time when we get the chance to welcome a new brewery into the fold of Cincinnati Craft Beer.

I feel like I’ve heard people saying that lagers are going to be the next big thing in craft beer for a long time now. When you dive into the tap lineup at West Side Brewing in Westwood you definitely catch that vibe… I’ll tell you that! On this week’s episode we look deep into not just some of the beers that they brew, but why they brew them and what that might mean for the craft beer community at large.

There’s some really amazing stuff happening on the West Side of town – and this episode is just a tiny peek into that!

It’s still Oktoberfest season in Cincinnati, and as long as the Marzens are flowing, I’m gonna be drinking them!  This week we join Andy Reynolds at Alexandria Brewing Company for their ‘Alexandriafest’ where they were tapping this year’s Oktoberfest alongside some other great beers.

Andy has become my goto “style and beer science” nerd, so I wanted to see if I could finally get to the bottom of this whole festbier/marzen thing… all the while drinking something really tasty.  We definitely did that and more with a show that went a little longer than planned!

The title of this week’s episode isn’t really all that fair. While yes… the show was at the 2019 Mason Oktoberfest, which was hosted by Sonder Brewing company, the reason that I fell in love with the event in the first place was because it’s so ‘All encompassing’.  Somewhere around 18 different local breweries all came together to showcase their Oktoberfests… Marzens, Festbiers, German Party Lagers… they call came together in an incredible display of German happiness.

I sat down with not just some folks from Sonder, but some other perfect examples of some of the other pieces of the Cincinnati Craft Beer community.  Our conversation ranged from (of course) German style beer, to brewery closings and what it means for the community.  We touch on hard seltzer and if it grows the craft beer market, or takes away from it.  The wind whipped us in a frenzy, and the beer kept us cool headed.

It was an awesome time!

I just wrote last night about Streetside’s upcoming anniversary (make sure you know about that) but this week’s episode of the brewcast is about a lot more than just them celebrating another year. The brewery is in the middle of a phase in their life where they are getting to settle in, and really figure out who they are and what that looks like for us as drinkers and fans.

The last time we were out at Streetside to talk to owner Garrett Hickey, he talked a lot about their wood aged program, and the decision that they are in a lot of ways forced to make to lean into the sours, or the big bourbon barrel aged beers. This episode dives even deeper into the philosophy behind the decision and what it means for the actual people that are making these beers for us.