Good Beer Matters Podcast

Breast cancer is one of the most common, yet treatable forms of cancer that affects women, and some men. If you are in a group of 8 women, at least one of you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. This may sound intimidating. But there are many organizations that help promote coping with, and curing this disease. My next guest founded one of these organizations and serves up some delicious beer along the way.

A breast cancer diagnosis doesn’t have to be devastating. Early detection increases your chances of beating the disease. So, grab a good beer and include your partner in your self-exam. The relationships and experiences we’re trying to build are much better when everyone is alive and well enough to enjoy them.

This is the end of season three of Good Beer Matters. But I’d love to hear about your favorite episodes and who you’d like to hear from in season 4. Stay well and we’ll see you soon when we return in 2021.

This is a short series called Beer With Benefits. Armed with a smile and a tasty beer in their hand, these guests are changing the world for the better, one sip at a time.

This one goes out to all the men.

I know… I get it… I’m one of you. We feel the burden of the world on our shoulders. We may even have learned to just toughen up, to walk it off and act like we’re bulletproof. Then one day we realize, we’re not. 

It might be an injury that drops us to our knee. It might even be the words, “You have Cancer.” Luckily, when that day comes, there will be a community of men, and women, who will be there to lend a hand, and a rare pint.

My next guest spent his career writing and educating about beer. Now, he uses beer as a means to save the lives of men everywhere.

My next guest began with a passion for the environment and sustainability, then he discovered beer. He managed to put the two together when he founded his Portland, Oregon brewhouse in  2007. Eventually his brewery would become one of the only breweries in the world with B-Corp status, Salmon Safe Certification, and 1% For The Planet membership. In this episode he talks about beer and sustainability, positive steps that any brewery can take, and collaborating with one of the largest outdoor gear companies in the world, all for the sake of better beer.

Times have been tough this year for many of us. For those who are normally accustomed to life’s grand adventure, we’re probably ready for some stability. For those unprepared for uncertainty, we’ve been shaken to our core.

If there was a time to come together, to share best practices and to build a community as well as a business, I’d say now is a pretty good time.

But who can we turn to guide us through the chaos? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was someone who could pick us up by our bootstraps, tell us like it is and help us move on to something better?

If you need help clarifying the strategy and the finances of your beer business, I know a guy, and I want to introduce you to him.

My next guest will help your business not only survive, but set you up to thrive.

There are many things that influence our decisions as beer drinkers, branding, advertisements, flavor, etc. Most of us take for granted the wealth of beers available to us everywhere we go. But, what about those things that influence our decisions that are completely outside our control? What about the nefarious business practices such as price undercutting or tied houses that are meant to gain control over the drinkers and monopolize the system for the sake of profits? As some of the guests on the Good Beer Matters Podcast have shared, there are places around the world where these practices still exist. But, if you’re like me, you love your beer and you’re willing to stand up for something better.

My next guest has been leading consumer rights groups for decades and wants to give both good beer and power back to the people.

I want you to think back to that one perfect night you replay in your head over and over. You know the one. It’s the night that if you could go back in time, you wouldn’t change anything. Instead, you’d just sit back and relive the magic. It was the night where the food was amazing, the beer pairing sung like angels and the conversation flowed like a cold lager on a hot day. Have you ever wondered what made that night so special? What if we could deconstruct that experience and put it back together at will? What if events like this had less to do with magic and more to do with physics or, gastrophysics.

My next guest has studied and written about the psychology and the science behind events like this for years. In this episode, he shares some secrets to creating your next best night ever.

We may not always be able to recreate the magic. Frankly, if every night were special, then none of them would be. But with the principles that Dr. Spence described in his books and on this podcast, you can certainly improve your odds that more of your events will be remembered for a very long time.

There are men so devoted to their faith, they sequester themselves from the outside world. In order to sustain themselves and give to charity, they make a variety of products. Luckily for us, some of these products are the best beers in the world.

Trappist beers, as we know them, have been around for close to a hundred years. They have become a hallmark of quality, flavor and especially good for pairing with food. Many secular breweries make their own versions, called Abbey-style beers, but there is still an allure and a demand for tasting the real thing straight from the source. In recent years the number of Certified Trappist Breweries nearly doubled, and with it, some new variations in old traditions.

My next guest honored us with one of his first podcast interviews to tell us about the inner workings and process of becoming America’s first and only Trappist Brewery.

International Trappist Association (ITA)

Spencer Abbey Brewery - USA

Learning to pair beer with food is a lifelong pursuit that is all about the journey, not the destination. A great pairing has a way of elevating the experience, the discussion, the memory, and with some luck, the relationships with those around us.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time learning, thinking about and experimenting with food and beer pairing. Not everything works. Sometimes we inadvertently create a zing-boom-dud effect. That’s when we need help learning what went wrong and what to do about it. My next guest is one of the leaders in the food and beer pairing vanguard. And she wants to help you create better pairings.

Beer culture is nearly as diverse and as rich as our human culture throughout the world. But, while it pains me to say this out loud, there really is more to life than just beer. When we look at all of fermentation, we can see how interconnected, yet diverse the world truly is.

As we have learned from previous episodes, the craft beer movement is not alone in our pursuit of better and more interesting flavors. In the past few decades, we have also seen a renaissance in other fermented products including bread, cheese, chocolate, wine, spirits, and saké. Saké is often referred to as rice wine, but the brewing process more closely resembles beer than wine.

If we consider flavor as a tool to create great experiences, then it really doesn’t matter where the flavor comes from. Even though this is a podcast about good beer and great experiences, having more tools in our toolbox just helps us to do our job even better. While beer professionals tend to focus solely on beer, my next guest is an Advanced Cicerone and beer educator who has also spent a great deal of time learning and teaching about saké.

The Beer Judge Certification Program, or BJCP, works to categorize the world’s beer styles so that homebrewers can submit their brews for feedback on how well they hit the targets. These same beer style guidelines have become widely accepted as the go-to style authority because they are specific and also give us a way to communicate about beer. However, defining these styles is quite a challenge due to natural variation within a style. Even more, some styles pose another challenge because they are really similar and are differentiated only by geography, culture, or slight nuance. My next guest returns to the Good Beer Matters Podcast from episode 6 where he taught us how to be a better taster. In this episode, we discuss what we can learn from the BJCP and how to discern the difference between very similar styles.