Good Beer Hunting

For NYC Beer Week, in collaboration with The Well, Good Beer Hunting's Michael Kiser hosts a pair of panel discussions aimed at understanding the current state of the beer industry and the culture that supports it, from the perspective of both hometown and visiting brewers.

There's a case to be made that some of the most essential members of our craft beer communities aren't brewers, or writers, or distributors. They're publicans who influence the industry by connecting people. Chris Cohen is one such person, though he wears many more hats than that of just beer bar founder. He does indeed run a popular bar in Old Devil Moon, which opened in 2016 in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood, but he didn't always know he'd wind up there. He was a former IP lawyer in New York, who by chance got into beer by way of a curiosity about homebrewing. A hobby gave way to a passion, and before long, Cohen moved to the Bay Area, founded the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild, and earned the Advanced Cicerone certification. And then, realizing his meticulous Cicerone test note-taking might be of help to others, he launched Beer Scholar, a site and study guide aimed at helping prospective BJCP and Cicerone students pass their exams. But his most recent effort is a novel one, even for him: He's an outspoken proponent for the commercial use of Nordic kveik yeast, an ingredient he says will change American craft beer due to its ability to drastically cut down fermentation time. It's a bold argument, but he's ready to make the case. This is Chris Cohen of San Francisco's Old Devil Moon. Listen in.

For generations, a lot about the story of beer has been filtered through advertising or experiences geared toward men. This is rapidly changing, and for the better. In today's GBH Collective, we're talking with Gray Chapman about some of the ways beer lovers are finding new connections in settings that can enhance the camaraderie of something as simple as sharing a collection of beer. Gray recently published a piece for GBH in which she tells the story of a female-only bottle share and why its members find that setting to be welcoming, exciting, and comforting in different ways than similar, mixed-gender events. This conversation is part of our special series of interviews to dive deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer and the stories you read and hear from GBH. With Gray, it's a great reason to get some background on how she experienced this event—her first time participating in a bottle-share—and what she learned from the women surrounding her. Her story and this conversation make it clear that one way to approach such an event isn't bad and another good, but rather they can complement each other in ways that build a love and appreciation for beer differently. This is Good Beer Hunting contributor Gray Chapman. Listen in.

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.

It's fair to say that mixed fermentation is having a moment in the U.K. Natural wine is buzzing like craft beer once did, and its beer equivalent is starting to do the same. I mean, no one knows what to call it—mixed ferm, farmhouse, wild ale, sour beer, barrel-fermented beer, low intervention beer. They all mean subtlety different things that never quite cover all the bases. Each brewery seems to pick its own word as they launch their side projects, using the volume and margins of clean beer to let their brewers off the leash and appeal once again to the ever-demanding beer geek bubble. But for me, Yonder have come to define what it means. With a focus on foraged ingredients, mixed culture yeasts, and hands-on brewing, it's not an afterthought or a playground like it is for some brewers. It's their lifestyle—their very reason for being. Stuart Winstone and Jasper Tupman met working at Wild Beer Co, the OG mixed-ferm brewery in the UK. They had both been there since the start and bonded over a love of using unusual ingredients and yeast strains, often local to them in Somerset. As Wild Beer Co grew though, the production side became increasingly commercial and the proportion of clean beer being made grew. Stu and Jasper felt that to continue producing the beers they loved, they had to go it alone. With no outside investment, putting the pieces together took a long time. There is starting a brewery from scratch, and then there is literally buying secondhand parts as they came on the market, plumbing them in yourself, gathering your own ingredients, designing your own brand and sticking the labels on the bottle you just filled. Stu and Jasper did all that themselves. While it sounds like a lot of work, it seems that when you do everything yourself, finding a cohesive identity is a very natural process. I joined them on an expedition in the Mendip hills with the brewery terrier Taco, gathering nettles and dandelions for a new Pilsner they were brewing the next day. This is Stu and Jasper of Yonder Brewing & Blending. 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.

Today's episode is our annual Hangover Party podcast, and event we host in the wake of Upper & Downers, our coffee, beer, culinary, and cocktail festival. People come from all over the country to attend this insane mashup of cultures we put together with our friend and Uppers & Downers co-founder Stephen Morrissey, who's a world barista champion and works at the Specialty Coffee Association. And this hangover party, which we stupidly throw the morning after the big event, has become a bit like a brunch after a wedding, where we get to sit down with the out-of-towners and drink even more coffee and beer over breakfast. We set up the mics and ask our bleary-eyed collaborators to join us and talk about all the best parts of their week. This time we hosted the party at Cruz Blanca, our case study partner alongside Sparrow Coffee, which was one of the best things we've ever had at the festival. And if you didn't attend, well, I'm sorry about how amazing everything you're about to hear sounds. This is the Uppers & Downers Hangover Party episode. Listen in.

Let's take a trip. Let's get away from our warehouse districts and downtowns where so many of our favorite bars and breweries are found. We're going to the farm. As discussions of place have become more common in beer and brewers and drinkers alike have taken up the effort of using "terroir" as a descriptive term, the place of agriculture has never been more front of mind in the U.S. beer industry. Best of all, you can find those conversations happening all over, including in North Carolina, where if you look hard enough, you'll find that direct connection between people, place, and a pint. Dan Gridley is owner of Farm Boy Farms, a 90-acre farm in Pittsboro, North Carolina. His contribution to the local beer scene doesn't come from boiling wort or pulling tap handles, but the hops he grows on a small plot of land about 30 miles west of the state's capital in Raleigh. He started this business a decade ago with dreams of creating a self-sustaining farm brewery, and while that's yet to come true, he's slowly upped his annual yield of Cascade, Chinook, and other hops to go into beers made a short drive away. For as much as beer lovers enjoy talking about dry-hop rates and whatever amount of dankness or juiciness can be found in their glass, Dan is the guy who's making those conversations possible. He's the first link in this chain that starts on a quiet, rural farm, and ends up at a bustling taproom. Education and story are big for the way Dan interacts with locals, whether they love beer or not, and I hope that over the course of this conversation you'll gain an added appreciation for some of the important behind-the-scenes work that goes on in beer. So many of us love talking about hops, but rarely get the chance to hear about bringing them to life. This is Dan Gridley of Farm Boy Farms. Listen in.

Look around the beer industry, and you'll see lots of things going on that are decidedly...not beer. With the success of flavored malt beverages, hard seltzer, and even a resurgence of regional cider brands, brewers all over are finding new ways to attract drinkers and boost their bottom line with products outside of their wheelhouse. Not that there's anything wrong with that. These are businesses, after all, and as the market is changing, so many are adapting by creating new kinds of beverages that more people can enjoy. This is a hot topic to start 2019, and something covered here on Good Beer Hunting for some time. Among the leaders in this space of transition and innovation is Craft Brew Alliance, which went all in last year with the pH Experiment, a new standalone branch of the company that will focus on incubating ideas and all kinds of trial and error, ultimately with hope of finding the Next Big Thing. On this Sightlines podcast, we're talking with Karmen Olson, who's spent just over seven years with CBA, recently taking over as general manager for the pH Experiment, where she's looking to anticipate and identify where things are going. You'll get a little background on this new initiative and what created this need, which, in some ways, stems from the beer industry's slow willingness to adapt. For a long time, Olson says, beer focused on industry challenges, not customer ones, which has led to this point, and these new ideas. If you want to grow in today's competitive alcohol industry, it's adapt or die. This is Karmen Olson, general manager of Craft Brew Alliance's pH Experiment. Listen in.

Like so many other areas of publishing, things have changed in recent years for beer-focused media. While the stories told from all corners of the world have gotten more in-depth and introduced new people and ideas, the number of platforms where enthusiasts can find this information has been shifting. It wasn't long ago that All About Beer, one of the most prominent beer publications in the country, folded, along with DRAFT magazine. More recently, some newspaper-style "brewsletters" have disappeared, either under the weight of failing advertising or other pressures. Throughout it all, BeerAdvocate has remained—but things are about to change there, too. On today's GBH Collective, we're talking with Ben Keene, editorial director for BeerAdvocate, and moving forward, perhaps a little more. Ben has long overseen the evolution of BeerAdvocate magazine, but with the print edition going away, he's now shifting his attention to other daily responsibilities related to storytelling and the business. The rating website is still a big part of what BeerAdvocate offers fans, and even a new app that recently launched, but it can't stop the same challenges of publishing that have impacted others. We'll talk all this, and reflect on the state of beer-focused media, in this Collective conversation, part of our special series of interviews to dive deeper with Good Beer Hunting contributors and friends on topics of writing, beer, and all the ways they intersect. This is Ben Keene, BeerAdvocate editorial director. Listen in.