Good Beer Hunting

JW Lees' Harvest Ale is not a beer to drink casually, and it's not one to speak casually about, either. As an icon of British brewing, this Barley Wine is described by journalist Adrian Tierney-Jones as elegant, eloquent, and contemplative in his piece titled "The Arrow of Time — How JW Lees' Harvest Ale Has Defined British Brewing for Decades", which was published on February 16, 2022.

As a longtime freelancer who writes about beer, pubs, and travel, Adrian has a unique perspective on Harvest Ale, in that he's had a front-row seat to this beer's evolution over the decades. He's also been witness to how it's stayed the same—a paradox we discuss in today's podcast. We talk a lot about time: How flavors deepen, how appreciation for history changes, and why there may never be another beer like Harvest Ale, thanks to FOMO beer culture and social media. He walks listeners through the JW Lees vertical tasting he attended while researching this story, which featured bottles dating back to the '90s, and reminisces about the styles and beers of bygone days that have influenced today's craft beer culture.

There's a time and a place to hold onto beer, but it's always a good day to savor one. I recommend taking a look at your stash right now and selecting something special to pair with this podcast. As Adrian says, "Beer is fascinating."

GBH Co-Founder and Creative Director, Michael Kiser returns with of one of our favorite festivals with Greenbench Brewing in St Pete, Florida, and a new kind of fundraising that helps you invest in the future of GBH and our industry.

In this episode, we explore what it means to chase flavor memory with Zahra Tabatabai, founder and CEO of Back Home Beer, a fast-growing company based in New York City rooted in her family's past. Zahra started homebrewing in order to recapture past tastes from her grandfather's days of homebrewing in Iran as a way to bring those memories back for her family. A hobby soon became more, and now her Sumac Gose and Persian Lager act as ways to recapture the ingredients and flavors of the past.

As you'll hear in this conversation, at the core of Zahra's journey is her grandfather, Gholam-Reza, who was better known by his familial nickname of "baba joon," a term of endearment that translates to "father dear." Join me and Zahra as we talk about what led her to this moment, the speed of which her beer flies of shelves in New York and now Washington, D.C., and what it means to look back in time to bring something special into today.

There are some artistic endeavors that occur against all odds. Perry, or cider made with pears, is one of those things. Perry pears are hard to grow, hard to ferment, and sometimes hard to explain. But when all the elements of time, energy, climate, effort, and care come together, the end result can be otherworldly.

In his piece titled "Madness and Bitter Fruit — Making Perry in the Shadow of May Hill," writer Anthony Gladman dives into the relatively unknown world of perry, and how ancient seeds have helped create a contemporary cult following around this marvelous and mythical drink. He admits that you have to be a bit of a nerd to really get into perry, but once you do, there's no turning back.

In today's conversation, we talk about who's making perry (and why many people don't), how perry's PR problems have created confusion about what it actually is, the importance of preservation in the face of climate change, and how this fragile fruit may hold the key to our past and our future. If you can (legally) partake, this conversation and article are best experienced with a bit of cannabis influence, and, of course, with a nice pint of perry as well. We only scratch the surface of what there is to know, but it's a great place to start.

In this episode, we meet the people behind one of the companies carving out a corner of this increasingly successful—and interesting—hard coffee space. We meet Amin Anjedani, Sam Madani, and Kai Drewry of BOMANI Cold Buzz, a 5.7% alcohol-infused cold brew. The trio are friends who have identified this percolating space and have created a premiumized version for a category once monopolized solely by Pabst Blue Ribbon Hard Coffee.

How can this space exist? How is this not Four Loko 2.0? These are things we'll learn about as the three co-founders give insight on a continued evolution of beverage alcohol. We're at a point where consumers can find just about anything to fit their mood or occasion—with or without alcohol—so it actually makes perfect sense that in 2022, we should be talking about what's next for alcohol-infused coffee.

In this episode, we're talking about dads. Their influence on us, the things they taught or didn't teach us, and how we do or don't follow in their footsteps. That's actually a small part of this conversation with Dave Infante, but perhaps the most surprising and fun piece of it all. Come for the dad talk, stick around for a reflection on alcoholic milk, labor relations, journalism, and more.

It's an eclectic lineup of topics, but if you're familiar with Dave, it may not be surprising. As a two-time James Beard Foundation award winner, he's earned one of the highest recognitions for journalists covering food and beverage. He's currently a writer-at-large for VinePair and the reporter behind Fingers, an alcohol-focused newsletter that covers the space where booze and culture connect. Dave's archive of stories spans clickbait on Thrillist about hating IPAs to investigative pieces uncovering the crowdfunding finances of BrewDog.

If there's something culturally-relevant that's taken place in beverage alcohol, Dave has likely been on it, and you'll get the chance to better understand his work and motivations in this conversation. You'll also get to learn about his dad.

Today, you'll hear from Missy and Shyla about when they decided to open a brewery, how their local community supported them before and during the pandemic, how Albuquerque's unique location allows for a diverse mix of locals and travelers, how New Mexico is shaping the craft beer culture at large, and what success means to them as part of this family-run business that they call a labor of love. Of course, we'll also talk about the beers themselves—how sustainability in water and foraged ingredients shapes their recipes, how seasonality determines which ingredients are used, and how they balance delicate flavors with the wild beauty and bounty the land provides.

Brienne Allan became a household name in the beer industry last year, when she inadvertently sparked a reckoning against sexism in beer that quickly went global. Her face and words were featured everywhere from Imbibe to the Boston Globe, Eater, right here at Good Beer Hunting, and her Brave Noise initiative with Ash Eliot was named Brewbound's Cause of the Year for 2021.

But now that nearly a year has gone by, what's changed? For starters, Brienne left her home at Notch Brewing in Salem, Massachusetts, something she'd never envisioned doing until she became a worldwide phenomenon. Part of that decision was due to the sudden, and often scary, visibility she had to confront as a public face of social justice and change, which forced her to quickly figure out who she could talk to and who to trust. But even in the darkest times, she describes pockets of joy and hope that shifted her perspective about craft beer, but ultimately kept her within its space in order to keep driving positive change.

Today, Brienne and I talk about the past year—what she's learned, how she's changed, what she wants people to know, and what she's looking forward to. Later in the conversation, we're joined by her fiancé and partner Michael Fava, who shares his reaction to the reckoning as well as some of their future plans as business owners. You'll hear an exclusive announcement about that business (yes, it involves Lagers), and why we shouldn't expect the name Brienne Allan to go away anytime soon. We finish with a conversation about the current reconciliation plans for Mikkeller, which she calls a "huge breakthrough" as the first-of-its-kind effort to acknowledge, apologize, and atone for past sins. The dust hasn't settled yet, but with the help of people like Kate Bailey, Fanny Wandel, Ash Eliot, and more, Brienne's path forward is becoming slightly more clear.

From talking frogs to Bud Light loving dogs and Will Ferrell unexpectedly shilling Old Milwaukee, there's a long history of beer advertisements that have found cultural relevance. Viewers across the country see these commercials every week during sporting events and reality TV shows. But as fewer people drink beer and more cut the cable cord, what's next for this segment of advertising?

That's the question at the core of Kate Bernot's story on Good Beer Hunting that explores what happens when overall minutes of beer ad airtime decline and all kinds of entertainment fills up our days. And in this conversation, Kate and I explore the ins and outs of why beer brands advertise on TV today and the reason big beer companies still see this avenue as an important way to connect with people, whether customers or distributors or retailers.

What if beer commercials are no longer just about trying to sell more beer in a literal way? And how can you measure cultural impact if it doesn't show up in sales? Saying "Dilly Dilly" can only take you so far.

"For the past two years, the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) has conducted an awareness and advocacy campaign to combat human trafficking, an initiative whose focus and scale are unprecedented in the organization's history."

That's from the start of Kate Bernot's story on Good Beer Hunting about a worthwhile cause to fight a global problem of trafficking here in the United States. But as you'll read and as you'll hear in this conversation, there's far more understanding to what it all means. And that's before we get to the many unknowns, which include unanswered questions about why the Association and some of its supporting organizations can't or won't provide details of how this effort came to be, and how they're quantifying success. Human trafficking is not a cause directly related to the beer industry. But industry professionals and elected officials say beer distributors have the ability to be on-the-street "eyes and ears" and are uniquely positioned to help.

So what does this all mean, exactly, when one of the largest trade organizations in beverage alcohol makes human trafficking a priority? And what are the questions we still want to learn more about? That's in this conversation.