The Williams family has been farming apples and stone fruit on Colorado’s Western slope for over 100 years, and today their Snow Capped Cider is one of the winningest American cideries, notching big honors at GLINTCAP, the world’s premier cider competition, while cleaning up again at the annual Cidercraft awards. The secret, says owner, creative force, and cider maker Kari Williams, is the quality of their fruit.

Growing apples for cider on their own estate isn’t novel, but doing so at an elevation over 6000’ certainly is, and the extreme growing conditions produce apples with more vivid contours as well as more sugar, which provides Williams a saturated palette to paint with.

In this episode, Williams discusses:

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Both Yvan De Baets, cofounder of Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, and Eric Toft, brewmaster at Private Landbrauerei Schönram in Schönram, Germany, have appeared on the podcast in the past (episodes 162 and 244). However, for this special panel discussion—recorded live at the Senne brewery—we’ve brought them back to discuss a topic that’s increasingly front-of-mind for brewers around the world: the present and future of European hops.

Extreme heat and severe weather events have increased in frequency, often affecting the aroma and alpha-acid content of classic European-grown varieties and making it more difficult to source those of highest quality. Yet both De Baets and Toft have developed and deployed strategies not just to evaluate growers and track the progress of the crop each year, but also to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each new crop while hedging against risks.

In this episode, they discuss:

And more!

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Beers such as Oerbier, Arabier, and Stille Nacht may not be as familiar to today’s avid beer consumer, but for decades these unusual strong ales have been staples on the menus and cellars of more adventurous beer bars around the world. De Dolle Brouwers got its start in 1980, among the vanguard in a new wave of Belgian brewers who rejected the consolidation and cynical corner-cutting that had come to define the industry there. Cofounder Kris Herteleer was committed to a more natural approach to brewing, using real malt, whole hops, healthy yeast, spring water, and the highly manual mechanical tools of the decades-old brewhouse they purchased in the village of Esen, just outside of Diksmuide, in West Flanders.

Oerbier was, and still is, hard to classify. It limns the space between an overtly acid-forward oud bruin and a strong Belgian dark ale, borrowing from both where and when it needs to. Yet this ambiguity fits Herteleer’s approach; De Dolle isn’t concerned at all about adherence to styles. Herteleer would much rather get you asking questions than provide you with easy answers.

In this episode, recorded at the brewery as we sipped beers from their cellar more than 20 years old, Herteleer discusses:

And more.

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The Humble Sea origin story told by cofounder and brewmaster Nick Pavlina is a common one: Avid homebrewer turns pro at the urging of family and friends. Yet that early experience with brewing, brewing, and brewing some more—on a one-barrel system—instilled a discipline for testing, evaluating, and adapting that stays with Humble Sea to this day.

A 2022 World Beer Cup silver medal for Munich-style helles gave them the validation they sought for the nascent lager program—but rather than anchor them in place, that success put more wind in their experimental sails. They continue to tinker with that beer, testing mash-step times and temperatures as well as fermentation parameters, in an ongoing quest to make it as perfect as possible.

Meanwhile, they’ve hitched a ride on the swift current of hazy IPA—or, in their lingo, “foggy IPA”—but they’ve done so in ways inspired by their West Coast locale. The result has been significant growth, and the brewery now has five different ports they call home.

In this episode, Pavlina and brewing operations director Nate Chesser discuss:

And more.

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Carrying the weight of history and expectation poses a particular challenge for some European brewers, but nowhere is that more apparent than in the world of Belgian brewing. How, in the face of changing technology and consistently variable ingredients, does a brewer stay true to the ideas behind the classic recipes that underpin the core beers that their brewery produces? Over the past two decades, these are exactly the questions that St. Bernardus brewmaster Wouter Dely and sales and marketing manager Marco Passarella have had to face.

In this episode, they discuss:

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In Anzegem, Belgium, about 20 miles southwest of Ghent, Brouwerij ’t Verzet is no cover band. Sure, they could make some local waves by brewing up Citra-Mosaic hazy IPAs, but what would that mean to the strong brewing traditions in their corner of Flanders? Rather than play someone else’s tunes, could they instead take the familiar, culturally significant notes that everyone around them knows, and play them with a swagger and attitude that helps people see them in a new light?

Or, as cofounder Alex Lippens muses, could they drink these innovative hazy IPAs from the United States, learn from them, and inject that knowledge back into classic Belgian styles, to help move those traditions forward? Couldn’t they develop their own take on a classic Flemish style such as oud bruin—but instead of making it taste like Rodenbach, make it feel cool and relevant for a younger generation of drinkers?

These are among the questions that Lippens asks throughout this episode. While the answers are still in progress—check back with the Verzet team in 40 years, maybe, when their brewing careers are complete—he also touches on:

And more.

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Mythmaking and superstition may play a role in others brewers’ approaches to making lambic, but for Thomas Vandelanotte—brewmaster for Belgian breweries Timmermans, Bourgogne de Flandres, and Waterloo—science is a far better tool for achieving great-tasting beer that people want to drink over and over again.

“I think it’s important, first of all, to not talk about lambic as a wonder of nature, but it’s something that can be completely scientifically followed-up,” Vandelanotte says.

To that end, he and his team have engaged in deep study of their own brewery environment, the dynamics at play through fermentation and aging, and every barrel or foeder that finds its way into an oude gueuze blend. Their goal is balanced beer—flavorful, citric, not too acidic—and they’re intentional in both adhering to the historical parameters of lambic brewing while also using all the modern abalyticak tools at their disposal.

In this episode, Vandelanotte discusses:

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At last year’s Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers in Chicago, a relative newcomer grabbed both the silver and bronze medals in the Wild Beer Mixed Culture with Fruit category, immediately sending the crowd to flood the pouring table with requests for tastes. The brewery brand—Idyll Forest Artisan Ales—is the wild, mixed-culture passion project of Pryes Brewing cofounder Jeremy Pryes. The small production facility he’s built about 20 minutes from the main brewery is his culture and flavor laboratory.

Despite founding the brewery over a decade ago, Pryes still spends time on the production brew deck and then makes time for his acid-forward labors of love, but the long days are worth it for Pryes. There are too many ideas to try, too many experiments to work out, and too much to learn to slow down now.

In this episode, Pryes discusses both their classic approach to “Midwest IPA” as well as the wild path he’s forging with Idyll Forest. Along the way, he touches on:

And more. Note: After we recorded this episode, Pryes went on to win a World Beer Cup bronze for Soirée, which had also won bronze at FOBAB.

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Tim Johnson of Barrel Theory in St. Paul, Minnesota, started brewing progressive styles of beer—hazy IPA, fruit beers, barrel-aged stouts, and more—out of necessity. As a beer lover and beer trader, it made sense to try his hand at these things he would trade for, both for the creative thrill of pursuing excellence in these styles, but also for more pragmatic reasons—to have things to trade.

Today, Johnson still loves tasting the wide breadth of beer out there, and he remains active in trading beer with brewer friends. Now, however, he’s more focused on his own brewing—mastering hazy IPA, tart fruit beers, and barrel-aged stouts—and he’s not afraid to let you know that he loves those styles.

In this episode, he discusses:

And more.

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The world may know Austin’s Meanwhile for the GABF and World Beer Cup medals they’ve won, including golds for Helles and Pilsner, and silver for Secret Beach IPA. But the locals know it as a great beer garden with a playground for kids, an outdoor concert stage, a wide array of food trucks, and tasty beer that can be either dissected or just digested. It’s a beautiful place to spend time with friends over beer, with beer that’s worth talking about (if that’s your thing).

In this episode, Director of Brewing Operations Robert Fulwiler, himself an alum of Seattle’s Fremont, discusses some of the keys behind Meanwhile’s successful lagers and IPAs, including:

And more.

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