Graining In

This week, the guys go geek and talk with Dr. Jason Bolton, a food science professor at the University of Maine. In addition to creating and teaching the course "Brewing with Food Science" at UMaine, Jason is also the food safety specialist of the University's Cooperative Extension, which serves as a resource for Maine's brewing industry, as well as all food and beverage producers and retailers in the state.
While Noah and Matty were intimidated by his immense education, this good doctor was able to keep the conversation incredibly approachable and very funny, despite his handsomeness (some people get all the luck..). We talk about his work with Allagash (which resulted in a published paper), the loose cannon that is Brettanomyces, UMaine's role as a resource for the state's food and bev industry, and the goal and future of brewing education at state universities. We also talk a lot about balsamic vinegar, and most importantly, about the greatest show ever created - Seinfeld.

Straight outta Littleton! Recorded in the heart of the cellar at Schilling Beer as a double session with two of the company's owners, smack dab in the middle of the brewery's 6th anniversary, this is a fun one. 
Jeff Cozzens, the business/community outreach side of the brewery, leads off the conversation. He talks with the guys about Lederhosen and Schilling's evolving role as an anchor of a small New Hampshire town, and also offers a special shout-out to a particular breed of Untappd user.
Next, things get geeky in a hurry with John Lenzini, Schilling's founding brewer. John traces his commitment to lager back to the many years he spent in Austria and blesses Noah and Matty with some valuable thoughts on the merits of decoction and nature of kellerbier. 
The guys barely made it back to Maine alive after Jeff, John, and the whole Schilling crew literally tried to kill them with kindness, but all's well that ends well, and hopefully the conversation is half as fun to listen to as it was to have. 

JC Tetreault, the fated farmer himself, somehow wound up in Milo for a night. Even weirder, he spent most of his night talking to Matty and Noah. Considering Trillium's worldly prominence, it'd be easy to assume you know enough about the brewery's founder...but you'd be wrong. In this conversation, JC and the guys talk hops and hospitality, leadership and lager, cultivation and cooking, and just about everything in between. He also shares a huge amount of insight into how he balances his work and home lives with the present, future, and even a little of the past. Hell, the guy even recorded this podcast immediately after a long nap AND he does what he does without the aid of coffee. If that's not enough to prove you're about to listen to a real demigod, or at least a very handsome alien, then you probably need to go back to school.

The guys are reunited! The conversation quickly becomes decidedly hop-forward, with Noah freshly home from sniffin' hops in Yakima. He does his best to break down the hop selection and contracting processes to Matt, which reveals (or reiterates) a noteworthy level of expertise on Home Alone and crude oil on the respective sides of the table. Citra is mentioned in excess, but Fuggles comes in just once and hits its mark perfectly. It certainly won't be the last time our favorite flowers dominate an episode, but it's a fun start, if only to hear Matt's qualifications for fame.

With Matt MIA, Noah finds conversational comfort in the soothing voice of Alex Lyscars. Alex is the Community Outreach Coordinator at Bissell Brothers, a job he essentially created within the brewery that aims to further the business' social impact. He breaks down for Noah the many ways BBB determines the list of charitable organizations it works with, how he continually tries to expand its impact, and the emphasis on "Community" within his title. Additionally, the guys talk about how Graining In wouldn't exist without a donation of a different kind, the trials and tribulations of being a local podcasting god, and what it's like to commit to a relationship with both Kolsch and his future wife while reenacting Dante's Inferno.

This week, a Three Rivers food pop-up prompts a discussion about serving in the beer industry. Through a conversation that includes nostalgia, moonwalking in kitchens, Spike TV, the magic of connecting across the bar, the guys end up where they usually do: right where they started. However, there's at least a slight chance that you just may want to become a butler after listening.  They are the moving target of hospitality, after all.

Recording from the state's capital, the boys break bread (pizza) with Tobias Parkhurst of Cushnoc Brewing Company. To put it lightly, Tobias is an interesting dude. After spending all of his 20s traveling the country as a professional skateboarder, he moved back (considerably less spry) to his hometown of Augusta to take over his family's commercial glass business. Ever since, he's been "selfishly" playing a large entrepreneurial role in Augusta's steady evolution into a town that attracts more than grade school field trips. His perspective is fresher than a Men's Warehouse three-piece, and there's much to be learned from how his brewery reflect both the people behind it and the space it exists in. Apparently, it's all about roots, baby.

With the '19 Maine berry crop starting to roll into the brewery, the guys decide it's as good as time as ever to talk fruit. Matt - channeling his inner Thoreau following a recent trip to a blueberry farm - inquires about how sourcing works and how brewer/grower relationships evolve. Across the table, Noah does his best Atticus Finch impression in defending the superiority of whole fruit over aseptic puree, even in the barren tundra of Maine. The struggles of living in a world of distractions are discussed, the pains of fruit processing lamented, and any future sponsorship potential from Oregon Fruit Products destroyed. Get jiggy with it if you're in the pursuit of happiness.

This week, Matty and Noah talk beer retail with Greg Norton of Bier Cellar. Greg's store is arguably the most respected bottle shop in Maine, and the perspective and insight he shares makes it very easy to see why. Despite Matty forgetting a big chunk of pertinent equipment, some bootstrapping (and a very patient guest) allowed us to have a conversation we felt genuinely honored to be a part of. Greg reflects with the guys on how quickly beer culture continues to change, the wide range of people constituting the "beer customer", the balance between catering to and guiding them, and the complicated relationship between taprooms and retailers. On top his articulate navigation of these nuanced topics, he cements his place as one of our best guests yet by making lemonade out of on of the most avant-garde Three Bay Sinks we'll hope to ever have. 

After a brief recap of Foam's Funk on the Water festival, the conversation dives straight into homebrewing. Matty takes the stance that it is the hobby of Satan himself; Noah is curiously unable to explain where his interest in it even came from (malevolent forces?); and both guys fail to determine why anyone homebrews in the first place.  Whether making beer at home is true witchcraft or merely a laborious pastime remains a mystery, but thankfully, the episode is saved from falling too deeply into the dark fog by the divine power of '90s R&B.