Two straight weeks of nothing but doctors on the Craft Beer & Brewing podcast? This week’s episode is another scientific barnburner with the head of R&D for Wellington’s Garage Project. Dr. Peter Bircham has been working in laboratory settings with yeast for many years, but for the past few he’s taken on an additional role beyond the academic, working on everything from building better Garage Project non-alcoholic beers to developing a testing regimen to evaluate new hop varietals in the Hāpi Research breeding program. In this episode, Bircham touches on:

And more.

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Dr. Ron Beatson is the retired hop breeder who built a storied career at Plant & Food Research developing some of the most popular New Zealand hop varieties today, and Dr. Tom Shellhammer is the Oregon State University professor whose research into hop oils, hop terroir, hop-growing techniques, and more have made an indelible impact on the Pacific Northwest hop industry. Shellhammer is currently on a four-month sabbatical in New Zealand, studying the similarities and differences between U.S. and New Zealand hop practices, and presented at both the NZ Hops Harfest event (with Dr. Ron Beatson) and on his own at the Freestyle Hops Hāpi Symposium.

In this episode, we brought the two together to discuss:

And more.

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Homogeneity is the name of the game in certain circles of brewing—whether it’s massive brewers who standardize their hop lots by blending before pelletizing, or it’s hop companies that blend lots to iron out highs and lows in a particular crop year.

On the other end of that spectrum is Pete Gillespie and his team at Garage Project and Hāpi Research, disrupting the collective quest for like-minded optimization while prioritizing the expression and individuality that are core to the idea of craft beer. In their brewing program—and in their partnership to pursue new hop varieties—character and unique experiences are the name of the game, and they’re putting significant investment behind the pursuit.

In this episode, Gillespie discusses:

And more.

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Earlier this week, our Industry All-Access subscribers received in their email inbox this week’s subscriber-exclusive article that Kate reported, parsing the latest industry economic data but reading beyond the surface for a deeper look at what’s really going on. We’ve all read the hyperbolic clickbait articles out there about craft beer’s demise, and for the first time in almost twenty years, we saw a net decline in operating breweries in the United States last year. But at the same time, we’ve been hearing anecdotally from a number of brewers such as Neil Fisher of WeldWerks, in episode 400, that they were growing despite the significant headwinds. This cognitive dissonance got us thinking about how data purport to tell certain truths, but that “truth” is limited by the nature of how data are collected. Craft beer in the United States is both big and small, but our primary sources of data address only the biggest channels of the craft-beer business, leading to distortions in perception that could potentially have damaging effects for craft beer as a whole.

With that in mind, Kate sought out some answers to the questions we had—does this meta-narrative we’ve been reading have truth to it, does it accurately describe the reality that craft brewers are facing, do other data that suggest different or more varied truths, and what can we take away to build a fuller picture of the current state of craft beer?

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From their tiny outpost in the ski town of Park City, Offset Bier has turned Utah’s challenges—such as a ban on serving draft beer higher than 5 percent ABV—into opportunities. Last year was a breakout one for the budding brewery—we named their session IPA Dopo one of our Best 20 Beers in 2024, while another session IPA, Divi, won gold medal at Great American Beer Festival.

Necessity is truly the mother of invention, and the constraints placed upon founder Conor Brown force creative problem solving, as he pulls from various corners of the brewing playbook—European lager and hefeweizen, British ale, and more—for processes and creative angles that drive flavorful, aroma-led hazy LIPAs, or “Lie-PAs.”

In this episode, Brown covers:

And more.

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Strong brewing communities produce clusters of great breweries, and the Colorado brewing world, centered in Denver, is no different. Friendly competition drives innovation, exploration, and refinement as well as knowledgeable consumers with higher and higher expectations, and in this episode, we brought together three friends (each medal-winning brewers) for a conversation on their approach to West coast IPA.

Brian Hutchinson of Cannonball Creek has brought home a slew of medals in the pale ale space (11 total GABF and World Beer Cup medals between their pale ale and session IPA), and picked up a GABF gold medal last year for their New Zealand-style IPA. Jake Gardner of Westbound & Down has earned a handful of GABF and World Beer Cup medals for their West coast IPAs like Spirit of the West and Westbound Select. And Phil Joyce of Amalgam most recently brought home gold for West coast IPA in the Colorado Brewers Cup, after placing fourth at the Alpha King Challenge last year.

In this episode, the three move through a range of IPA brewing topics, including:

And more.

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In our latest issue, Louisville’s Atrium Brewing scored a category-leading 98 for their barrel-aged stout Denny-Lou, Blend 1, and that was as good a reason as any to check in with cofounder Mark Rubenstein and head brewer Spencer Guy for some background on brewing stouts. Their proximity to some of the best distillers in the Western hemisphere informs their approach to both aging and blending, and they take the same iterative approach to building flavor in more ingredient-laden beers.

In this episode, they touch on:

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For this 400th episode of the podcast, Neil Fisher of Weldwerks takes over the host chair and puts Jamie Bogner in the hot seat for a ranging conversation about business, passion, creativity, discipline, openness, and why the current prevailing narrative about the “end of craft beer” in no way describes the reality for many brewers today. It’s a departure from the normal technical conversations that define the podcast—instead, for this special episode, it’s an open conversation among old friends who offer honest takes.

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“If you’re a brewer and you’re not making things that you really want to make, or things you want to experiment with and learn more about, then what are you brewing for,” asks James Herrholz, Chief Creative Officer for Corporate Ladder Brewing in Palmetto, Florida. While some may feel “forced” to brew crowd-pleasing adjunct-laden stouts, Herrholz signed on for the challenge, and approaches the style with zeal and a drive to make the very best. Over the past six years, he’s seen incredible results from this dogged and open-minded focus—three GABF medals, including a gold in 2022, while the brewery has maintained its spot on Untappd as the highest-rated brewery in the state of Florida.

In this episode, Herrholz maps out their approach to pastry stout (barrel-aged and not), and along the way he touches on:

And more.

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Over the past few years, Denver's River North Brewery has collected accolades from top beer competitions around the world—four GABF medals, four World Beer Cup medals, four European Beer Star medals just to name a few—and beers like Father Time and Anniversary 11 have earned top scores from our blind panel. They most recently earned midsize brewery of the year honors at the inaugural Colorado Brewers Cup. While they brew a wide range of beers, including frequent medal winner Nightmare Fuel coffee stout, they're probably most well-known for the beers that push into the peaks of the ABV range—stouts, Belgian-style strong ales, and barleywines that regularly hit 15% and higher.

In this episode, founder Matt Hess and head brewer Matt Malloy share their techniques for making beers that not only turn heads for the their sky-high numbers, but also remain drinkable and as balanced as such beers could be. From controlling fusel alcohols through careful fermentation management, to building layers of flavors through malt selection, they share insights garnered from ten years of pushing the envelope. In this episode, they touch on:

And more.

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