Good Beer Hunting

Barrel aging beer is like stepping back in time. But over the last few years, more and more breweries are turning to the historic practice, using it as a way to impart new flavors, expand their beer portfolios, and give a nod back to traditional brewing practices. But how did barrels make a comeback? Our Sightlines editor, Bryan Roth, who we sometimes joke is the man with all the charts, decided to find out. As our Sightlines editor, you'll usually find Bryan's name on breaking news stories and analysis industry trends. So it was exciting to see Bryan take on a topic like the rise of barrel aging because I knew I'd read something comprehensive and learn a ton about something I didn't know much about. This was a fun conversation because it was such a change from the way we normally talk to each other—usually we go back and forth on things like deadlines, or where in the latest episode of our Sightlines podcast I need him to clarify something or cut down content, and it was refreshing to dive deep on a story and learn more about how Bryan approached this topic.

It's no longer a surprise these days when a brewery announces it's opening another location. Secondary production facilities and taprooms aren't ubiquitous, but they are becoming more common for companies who quickly outgrow modest homes and expectations. In 2018, the largest brewer in Idaho came from California. Brewing a little over 10,000 barrels at its Nampa facility just outside of Boise, Mother Earth Brew Company has quickly become a mainstay in the state after opening its second space in 2016. The output from Idaho was about a quarter of all beer the business made last year, with its original facility still cranking out beer in Vista, California. So, what does it take to pull this off? While traveling through Idaho this spring, I sat down with Mother Earth's president and CEO, Dan Love, and Chris Baker, director of brewing operations, to get an idea. In this conversation, they reveal that it's not just a matter of time and money, but relationships and community-building can play a big role. And that's before you even get to making and shipping the beer. With rapid expansion thanks to the popularity of beers like Boo Koo Mosaic IPA and Cali Creamin' Vanilla Cream Ale, there's a lot to navigate on the march toward 100,000 barrels. In addition to selling beer, that also includes a unique situation—Idaho's Mother Earth Brew Company happens to share an eerily close name to North Carolina's Mother Earth Brewing. For a company coming east and entering many locations around the Tar Heel State, it creates a wild and interesting backstory you'll hear in this interview. Dan and Chris share a lot on running a modern brewery over this hour, and it's definitely representative of the variety of challenges owners and brewers have to consider today. This is Dan Love and Chris Baker of Mother Earth Brew Company. Listen in.

Steph Byce was one of the first people I met when I started hanging out with the folks at Good Beer Hunting. I was judging an Irish Coffee Competition, as part of yearly celebration of coffee and beer called Uppers and Downers, and Steph was hovering around me, taking photos. Steph is GBH's resident photographer—she's based in Chicago, and at any Good Beer Hunting event, you'll usually find her snapping photos. There's one of me in particular that she captured at our annual get together called Olly Olly, where I'm looking longingly at a burrito—it's pretty perfect. But she's also a longtime contributor, and went to Durago, Colorado to report on Ska Brewing's 23rd anniversary party. The article was published in May on our website, and I got to talk to Steph in our studio about how this story came to be.

To outsiders, the cannabis industry might seem like a mysterious machine. The myriad regulatory rules, the constantly changing legalities, and the complicated distribution practices make this business confusing and a bit unwieldy. And yet, in California's fledgling legal market, cannabis is flourishing. With more than eleven hundred acres of permitted cannabis farms in the state, some expect to see California cannabis become a $5 billion industry this year or next. It's a notable statistic, considering sales of the plant for recreational use only became legal here in 2018. For brewers, cannabis' rapid growth has become potential cause for concern. Some fear the expanding use and social acceptance of recreational weed — be it in vape, flower, edible or concentrated form — could one day soon cut into beer's market share. It's a topic Teagan Thompson is well acquainted with. Thompson spent 7 years in marketing for Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco before making the jump to a concentrated cannabis start-up called Space Coyote several months ago. After working through the most recent craft beer boom, she's now poised to experience cannabis as it explodes in popularity too. Zack Ruskin, a freelance cannabis journalist in San Francisco, stands ready to document that growth. He spends days conversing with new cannabis companies and testing strains for the curious consumer. He also highlights the growing pains of a blossoming industry. Will cannabis become a threat to beer? Or can they work together? Let's hash it out. This is Teagan Thompson, Chief of Marketing for Space Coyote, and cannabis journalist Zack Ruskin. Listen in.

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it's my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

At this point in the American beer scene, a love for IPAs, Wheat Ales, Stouts, and Saisons comes from all over. Our friends and parents. Our neighbors and celebrities. When we learn that someone has an adoration for craft beer, there's not a lot of surprise left to be had, except what kind of beer we can share as part of this fun bond. This spring, I had that debate—between a Wheat Ale and IPA—with the musician and rapper, Fish Scales of Nappy Roots. Scales, whose real name is Melvin Adams Jr., isn't just accomplished in the world of music, but he and others in the Grammy-nominated group see beer as a next step in their creative journey. They've already made collaboration beers with Atlanta's Monday Night Brewing and Louisville's Against the Grain Brewery, and I sat down with Scales this spring in Boise, Idaho, where Nappy Roots was performing and releasing a new beer with the city's Woodland Empire Ale Craft. In recent years, there have been a variety of musicians, groups, actors, and athletes who have gotten into the world of beer. Scales and Nappy Roots are among that growing number, and his appreciation for the history, process, and what he sees beer to be culturally is what's propelling him toward this love while still performing about 100 times a year. As many conversations have circled around in beer lately, there is a component to this effort to bring craft beer to audiences that were long neglected. We talk about that, the cross-section of music and beer, and so much more, during the course of this conversation. So, what's the perspective on beer from one of the most successful musicians in America? This is Fish Scales, beer lover and rapper, of Nappy Roots. Listen in.

Before I started working at Good Beer Hunting, I was a pretty avid reader, and the stories that resonated with me most were the stories that were more about people than they were about the beer themselves. Just a few weeks ago, we published one of the most ambitious and important one of these stories to date. The article is called, "A Story of Resilience—Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, Calif.," and it follows the creation of a beer by Sierra Nevada. The beer, which is called Resilience as the name of the article implies, was created in response to the Camp Fires in Northern California last year. Sierra Nevada, whose headquarters were not far from the towns affected by the fire, jumped into action almost immediately, and started giving out food and brewing Resilience to raise money for victims of the fire. We sent members of the GBH team to learn more about Resilience, and the story they told, which came out in April, was so much more than I could have ever imagined a story about a beer to be. But hey, that's why I started reading stories on GBH's website, right? We learn more from GBH contributor Alyssa Pereira and photographer Clara Rice on what it took to take tell this story.

Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.

Every year, hundreds of baristas come together for the United States Coffee Championships. The competitions are heavily anticipated, with folks preparing for months to present their routines to judges and figure out who is the best coffee brewer, roaster, or taster in the nation. The heart of the entire competition is the barista championships. You might be thinking, what could a barista competition even be? Is it who can make the best coffee? Is it who has the best beans? Is it who can make the prettiest latte art? All these things make up a portion of the competition, but it's fundamentally a test of skill, expertise, and perhaps a little bit of luck and circumstance. Competitors have 15 minutes to present four espressos, four milk drinks, and four signature drinks to a panel of sensory judges, all the while having two technical judges hovering around you, scoring your technique and technical abilities. The winner goes on to represent the United States at the World Barista Championships, which happens to be in Boston this year. The competitions are the breeding ground for new ideas in coffee. You might see competitors freeze their coffee beans or talk about new processing methods. Techniques and concepts that we accept as commonplace in the coffee industry usually come from coffee competitions, and their influence on the future of specialty coffee can't be measured. Every year, my colleague, Colin Whitcomb, and I sit on the sidelines and provide live commentary for folks watching at home. The competitions are livestreamed by the Specialty Coffee Association, who hires a professional AV team to run sound and shoot live video, and Colin and I meticulously re-read the rulebook and watch past competitions to see what's new, what trends have carried on from years past, and provide context for the decisions that competitors make. This is a task that Colin loves. He's a long time barista competitor, Executive Council member for the Barista Guild, and is currently building out his new café, Canary Coffee Bar, in Milwalkee, Wisconsin. Colin has been part of the specialty coffee community for over a decade, and competed in his first barista competition in 2008. In this interview, which we recorded on the eve of the United States Barista Championships, Colin talks about the history and ever-changing format of the competition, what trends and ideas came out of the competition sphere, and we make some spur of the moment bets on who we think will win (spoiler alert—we're 100% wrong). This is Colin Whitcomb of Canary Coffee Bar. Listen in.

It started when i went to the website. "FLOODLAND BREWING" it read in all caps at the top. "Floodland is a brewery in Seattle" below. A spot to enter your email. You want to know more? There's a text file FAQ with some basic points of info. That's it. When I first came across the homepage—if you'd dare call it that—I had no idea what to expect. The business was started by Adam Paysse, one of the original partners of the city's beloved Holy Mountain Brewing. He had decided to go on his own with this venture, taking over a modestly-sized storage space in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and filling it with barrels, focusing on a collection of barrel-fermented and mixed-culture beers. He released his first beers in 2018 to wild fanfare, and it really hasn't stopped. What interested me in seeking out and chatting with Adam pretty much went right back to that website. He has a deep appreciation for his craft, and like the barebones appearance of his digital presence, is straight-forward in what motivates and excites him. He talks up his friends and partners, local farmers, and fellow brewers who inspire him. He worries about social media and line culture. He is wonderfully committed to the people he cares about and what he does for a living. He's a fascinating guy, and one who doesn't really talk publicly too much. It made for an incredible, wide-ranging conversation when we met in Seattle this spring. Spending an afternoon with Adam quickly introduced me to a personality I'm thankful to know, and happy to follow. In the Pacific Northwest, he's got lots of fans, and if you haven't heard of him yet, I hope this introduction puts him on your radar, too. This is Adam Paysse of Floodland Brewing. Listen in.