Good Beer Hunting

Chris Quinn and his wife Margaret run my favorite bottle shop in Chicago. Whenever an adventurous beer hunter passes through the city, I tell them to make his shop, The Beer Temple, their North Star. Obsessed with date coding, blocking UV light, and curating a world-class selection, the Quinn's have set the bar for the future of beer retail — and for Episode 2 of the GBH Podcast, Chris came by the studio with a couple of recent stand-outs and opened our eyes to the world of selling beer, one bottle, or can, at a time.

Van Havig is one of craft beer's latest arrivals. And with a PhD in economics and a background working in other successful production breweries, he felt emboldened to build a brewery in one of the nation's most mature and competitive markets — Portland, Oregon. Van joins me in at the GBH studio in Chicago, Illinois to discuss the misnomer of "the saturation point," how to have fun with your beer, and all things "urban."