I’m currently sitting in the car outside Black Back Pub in Waterbury, VT waiting for one of my favorite bars in the country to open its doors. I came out to visit Hill Farmstead for the quarterly pickup of the membership club called Collected Works. It’s my first time joining the club - which I mostly did as an excuse to force myself to visit more often. It’s buried in about a foot or two of snow at the moment but it’s as special as ever. And now my bags are full for the trip home.

I’m also here for the weekend for a grafting workshop with Shacksbury Cider. A bunch of us are hoping up in an old farmhouse and learning how to craft apple trees in an orchard outside of Middlebury. So O figure I better bring some bottomed of Hill Farmstead’s Dorothy to share - which is perhaps the best entry point to those beers being as light and delicate as it is.

As much as I admire these kinds of artisanal producers - they really speak to what I love about the ancient traditions of making these delicate, fermentation driven beers and ciders, if you’ve been listening for awhile you know that another part of my brain is just as turned on by the business and strategy of running a contemporary craft brewery.

This week’s guest is Austin Beer Works, one of the best in that regard, and someone I’ve been following closely for awhile now. They have a strong brand, they’re growing, they self-distribute, and they know their market. They’re really the quintessential case study for how to make and sell contemporary craft beer in a somewhat underdeveloped market - especially when you know that market won’t stay that way for long. Very few do these days.

So this is Austin Beer works - pretty much the whole crew of them, representing a variety of skill sets and perspectives but with a unified goal, to discuss the many facets of what constitutes their vision, strategy, and execution. Listen in.