Despite alarming headlines and loud proclamations that “craft beer is dead,” that’s only part of the story—and not a particularly accurate one, at that.

Industry insiders can get bogged down in the depressing details (even we’ve been guilty of it at one time or another). But reporters Kate Bernot and Beth Demmon decided to see how and where the heart of craft beer still beat, and went to the 2024 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival in Paso Robles to find out.

It turns out, the craft beer industry can’t just be measured by Circana numbers or market share. Websites and social media don’t paint a full picture, and after talking to a bunch of festival attendees, they realized there’s a whole lot of love and life still left to consumers passionate about the beverage, the people, and the community. Craft beer loves to talk about how it brings people together, and based on their observations, it still can. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from both Beth and Kate, as well as a number of attendees interviewed at the festival, on why they decided to spend their time and hard-earned money on an afternoon under the California sun. The beer itself plays a part of it, sure. But there’s so much more that keeps people coming back. This is finding joy in beer.

Beer is having a hard time these days. Category-wide, sales are down and interest just isn’t the same it used to be. But what if the enthusiasm that got us to this point—excitement that helped lead to almost 10,000 small and independent breweries scattered across the country—is still just as palpable now as it was one, two, or 10 years ago? It’s just a matter of looking.

In this special episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast, beer enthusiasts from around the country explain why for them craft beer still means friendships, new experiences, and most of all, something cool at a time when there’s a feeling that it might be anything but.

What a long, strange trip it’s been for the Miramar brewing facility that once housed Ballast Point and, after changing hands more than a few times, is now the centerpiece of West Coast brewing operations for Athletic Brewing Company. In this episode of the Gist, lead Sightlines news reporter Kate Bernot joins me, Beth Demmon, to talk about the United States’ 10th largest craft brewery’s plans both here and abroad, as well as inflation’s lingering hold on on-premise brewery sales and the business side of celebrity alcohol investments. 

There’s something special about when talent, vision, and respect are all wrapped up in a relationship. These attributes can provide people deeper meaning and drive which make dreams more attainable. Accomplishing a goal can be daunting on your own, but when you have partners who push you to be better—and complement each other in meaningful ways—that’s when whole new opportunities can come to life.

These ideas are at the core of this conversation with three co-founders of Kansas City’s Vine Street Brewing. The business earned national attention last year as Missouri’s first-ever black-owned brewery and from day one has backed it up with beloved beer and offering a space that quickly became a new and exciting part of the city’s downtown life. Located in the historic Jazz District of Kansas City, you’ll find all kinds of community connections stemming from the brewery, from beer collaborations, to music and film events, and more.

Joining me to talk about what this means are Kemet Coleman, Elliott Ivory, and Woodie Bonds Jr. Each has taken different paths to this moment, but their shared connection—whether it be brewing backgrounds with Woodie and Elliott or Kemet’s ability to bring people together—has allowed Vine Street to not just grow in its first year, but become a celebrated part of the Kansas City beer scene. What you’ll hear from them offers a lot of tangible examples of what it looks like when talent, vision, and respect turn into something you can see, feel, and taste. And as the trio prepares for their second year in business, these things also offer them plenty to reflect on and use as motivation for Vine Street’s future.

Listeners of The Gist know we’re all about the stats. But today, we’re dishing out numbers with narrative, from Anchor Brewing's out-of-nowhere yogurt angel to speculation about a potential Boston Beer Company sale and wine’s latest numbers and what they really mean. I’m Beth Demmon with Kate Bernot, and this is The Gist. 

So much has changed in craft beer since I became a fan more than a decade ago. One of the most intriguing things I’ve noticed as someone who loves being in taprooms is how many new breweries are moving away from the industrial look that was once ubiquitous in craft beer. For me, the shift represents a second wave, a move towards standing out instead of running with the pack. 

In this episode, we talk to Nicole Oesch, co-owner of Kismetic Beer Company, a brewery that looks more like a swanky cocktail bar than a taproom, to learn what made her want to differentiate her brewery from everyone else. Where did she get the idea for building a space with jewel-tone shades of purple and turquoise, leather wrapped booths, and geometric artwork decking the walls?

You’ll hear Nicole talk about how she focuses on comfort and beauty and how it makes it unique in a crowded market, offering customers something that other breweries in the area might not. She shares the importance of going beyond making great beer and how she used her own personal preferences to build an authentic brand that connects with local beer drinkers and engages with people outside of beer’s usual scope. Nicole also talks about how one of those personal preferences—drinking low ABV beers—led Kismetic to brew with tea, which helps them reduce sugar, and as a result alcohol, without impacting the final taste of their product. 

“The thicker, the better” sounds like something I would say about my thighs, but not necessarily about beer. But that’s exactly how Woven Water Brewing Company describes their infamous “fusion” concoctions, which are smoothie-style sours with flavors like peanut butter and jelly, banana split, and peach orange pop ice cream. That’s not all they brew, but this type of eye-catching beverage is what has put the Tampa brewery on the map and what owners Jay and Ciara Jones say keep them in business.

In this episode, I chat with both owners, who launched the brewery with Nicole and Eric Childs in August 2020, and have since assumed complete ownership. You’ll hear them describe their “adapt or die” mentality, and why despite Jay’s initial reluctance to brew what some might call “hype” beers or hard seltzers, they quickly realized it’s what people want to drink, so why not give it to them? It’s a refreshingly pragmatic approach to business, and they’re having fun with it, even hosting a tap takeover of the gloopiest, gloppiest beers from around the country in a celebration they call Gloop City, which is now in its third year. 

But all silliness aside, this conversation is a look at a brewery that was poised to launch at the start of the pandemic, and what they had to do and change in order to open in what they believe is the best craft beer scene in the country. They share what worked, what didn’t, what they would do differently if they had to do it all over again, and what they hope to accomplish in the future. Jay and Ciara say they’re investing in a few key areas: their people, their community, and in their ability to grow and change. That sounds like a solid plan to me. So, let’s hear about it, right now.

It’s almost summertime, and the living’s easy, especially if you’re a beer brand heading into the biggest sales season of the year. In this episode of The Gist, Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot shares her insights into a few ways taprooms and breweries are attracting people back on-premise, plus a sneak peek at some upcoming Sightlines reporting about events, sales, packaging, and much more. We also discuss Bud Light’s boycott comeback and what the numbers show, plus Gallo’s expansion from wine to beer and RTDs in a quest for total beverage presence. I’m Beth Demmon, and you’re listening to The Gist. 

If you're a beer fan, it's likely you know about the core ingredients in every recipe: hops, malt, water, yeast. Even if you're not an enthusiast, you may have at least heard about a hop varietal every now and then. But it's that last item—the yeast—that is getting renewed and extraordinary scientific interest as companies forge into a new frontier of fermentation.

In this episode, we're joined by the three founding members of Berkeley Yeast, all scientists who came together with the goal of pushing the microorganisms to new levels in order to create new flavors in beer. Whether it's recreating the taste of hops or adding nuances of fruit—the kind of yeast this company is making has the ability to not just alter our beer, but our perception of what's possible in the brewing process.

One brewer from San Francisco's Cellarmaker Brewing once said that Berkeley Yeast is "messing around at a level that’s just so far beyond what anyone else is doing," while another from Monterey's Alvarado Street Brewery said once that “It’s mind-boggling how these flavors could be created with no fruit.”

Joining me to talk about it all are Rachel Li, Charles Denby, and Nick Harris, who launched their startup from origins at UC Berkeley and in recent years have rapidly become a trusted source for brewers around the country looking to push the boundaries of what their fermentations can do. We'll hear about how and why they started the company, the kinds of yeast they're creating, and most importantly, why now is the moment this is all happening and changing the minds of brewers. Because your taste buds are next.

Some people know early on they’re destined to be their own boss. Rachael Hudson is one of these people. She’s the co-owner and head brewer at Pilot Brewing Company in Charlotte, North Carolina, a small brewery that’s made big waves in her local scene and beyond since opening in 2018. Since then, the business has racked up accolades at the Great American Beer Festival, the US Open Beer Championship, and the North Carolina Brewers Cup Competition, including being named North Carolina Brewery of the Year for 2023.

But for as nice as the awards are, Rachael says opening a brewery isn’t about fame (and it’s definitely not about money). It’s more about being an outlet for her ability and desire to teach curious consumers about what it is they’re consuming. She’s an Advanced Cicerone who plans to take the Master exam again later this year, as well as a national and international beer judge and co-host of the False Bottomed Girls podcast with Master Cicerone Jen Blair. Needless to say, she knows what she’s talking about, and she’s passionate about sharing her knowledge with absolutely anyone who will listen.

In this episode, Rachael shares when and how she knew she had to go into business for herself and why education is such a critical part of what Pilot offers to the community. She also talks about her “less is more” mentality when it comes to recipe development, and how their ESB tends to outshine even their IPAs. Pilot probably isn’t going to get much bigger, but that’s not what Rachael wants anyway. She’d rather focus on perfecting what they put out and keep figuring out ways to show other people that they too can turn their passion into a profession.

Spring hasn’t sprung for craft beer yet this year. It’s more like a belly flop into a deflating pool filled with the ghosts of profitable years of yore and future hopes for a better summer. But rather than languish in low numbers, beverage alcohol companies big and small are dabbling in new products, new segments, and really anything they can to stay afloat. In this episode of The Gist, I’m joined as always by Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot to talk about first quarter numbers for 2024, innovation across segments, and what BrewDog may be up to after CEO James Watt stepped down as CEO. I’m Beth Demmon, and you’re listening to The Gist. 

“If you can see, you can be it.” I believe this adage is a great example of the value of diversity in all aspects of life. Seeing someone who looks like you in spaces where most don’t is an unspoken invitation that you belong there too. When I started dipping my toe into Atlanta’s craft beer scene, Jen Price was the first Black woman that I encountered. I was immediately intrigued by her and might have stalked her Atlanta Beer Boutique profile on Instagram before I even had my own beer account.

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of following Jen’s journey (and writing about it). In 2020, she came so close to opening the Atlanta Beer Boutique, a concept she had worked on for years but ultimately had to put on pause after the pandemic pushed everyone into their homes. Along with a place to buy and drink beer, the Atlanta Beer Boutique would also allow Jen and others to host educational workshops.

But as you’ll hear in this episode, Jen turned her lemons into lemonade with her newest venture, Crafted for Action, an organization focused on providing real solutions for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the beer community. That’s primarily done through its signature event, CraftBeerCon, a hybrid conference combining a diverse array of participants, engaging panel discussions, and interactive workshops. With CraftBeerCon now in its third year, I thought it was the perfect time to share Jen’s journey with you in her own words. 

You’ll hear her describe how she transitioned from building the boutique to creating one of the most diverse beer conferences in the United States, welcoming a host of BIPOC and women panelists and attendees. We dive into the different aspects of the conference and what participants can expect this year. As Atlanta natives, we couldn’t end our conversation without talking about a city that we love so much and what it is that makes it special in general and how it relates to beer.

Brewing is famously a science and an art. There are loads of technical aspects a skilled brewer should nail down to create something special, but there’s also a point where you just have to give up some autonomy. Or, at least accept it’s OK to play a little for some R&D. One of the most important things people in American craft beer have learned in recent years is how this also applies to their customers. A diverse menu that may expand beyond just beer is becoming table stakes and creativity in what kind of styles and flavor experiences you offer—in or outside of beer—can matter more than ever. You can control your taplist, but you also have to be flexible to what you hear and learn from people sitting at your bar.

In this episode, we explore this idea and what it means to grow a business and expectations with Kevin and Britt Templin of Salt Lake City, Utah’s Templin Family Brewing, also known simply as TF Brewing. Since opening in 2018, TF Brewing has become known for its lager program, including its award-winning flagship, Granary kellerbier. The brewery has also earned recognition at the World Beer Cup, where in 2024 it won gold medals for its coconut-guava berliner weisse and Squirrel Juicy IPA. There are other medals from the Great American Beer Festival and WBC, but that hasn’t stopped Britt, Kevin, and their team from expanding their menu and listening to what customers are telling them they’re interested in drinking. The science of their beers has been stellar and the art of refining what that means for drinkers continues to evolve.

You’ll hear us talk about what it takes to feel OK about making these changes—which for TF Brewing has included a new wine program and successful cocktail menu—along with what it means to be a growing brewery in 2024. The value the Templins place on their staff and how those people help the brewery succeed is high. By the time this conversation wraps, you’ll have an understanding of how “family” isn’t just in the name of the business, but how they want to make people feel. Even in that, there’s a science to running a brewery that’s a business, but an art to creating a space that promotes imagination, community, and closeness.

Bongs, beer, and boogeymen—on this episode of The Gist, we kick things off with cannabis. Then, Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot shares her insights from the 2024 Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas. We’re also joined by special guest Paige Latham Didora, who chats with us about non-competes and the FTC’s recent ban on them. What does it mean for the beer industry? Keep listening to find out.

This is a special episode hosted in collaboration with the American Cider Association—a great way to bring you an episode with audio from an event dedicated to cider in the culinary space. While you will hear my voice now, this conversation is led by Leah Scafe of Stockpot Collective in Portland, Oregon. Leah worked with the Cider Association to host the roundtable discussion called “Orchard to Table” during the organization’s annual CiderCon event in January 2024.

With Stockpot Collective, Leah produces unique food and beverage events, and leads conversations that are specific to the needs and interests of food and beverage producers, which is what we’ll enjoy in this recording of Orchard to Table, a celebration of Pacific Northwest cider and Portland’s culinary community. Along with Leah, we’ll hear from three Oregon-based, James Beard-nominated chefs and sommeliers on why they love pairing, cooking with, and celebrating cider:

• Brent Braun of Portland’s OK Omens, a co-owner of that James Beard-nominated restaurant, a Food & Wine Magazine Sommelier of the Year, and co-founder of Post Familiar Wine.

• Katy Millard of Portland’s Coquine, a chef and co-founder of the award-winning Coquine, a multi-year James Beard Award nominee and finalist, and StarChef Rising Star Award recipient.

• Nate Ready of Hood River’s Hiyu Wine Farm, a James Beard Award semi-finalist, former Master Sommelier, farm owner, and alone with making wine at Hiyu, is cider maker for his Floreal line of brands.

Magic takes time, patience, and intention. So does brewing. The two concepts intertwine fantastically and theatrically in Jeff Alworth’s Signifier for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Long Live the Sorcery — Brujos Brewing in Portland, Oregon.” In the piece, he delves into the magical world of Brujos, a business that officially opened in March 2024, but has been percolating for a decade under the creative vision of owner and brewer Sam Zermeño.

What started as a brand and hobby picked up steam on social media around 10 years ago, when Zermeño was still a homebrewer in Southern California with a penchant for making malty beers and an appreciation for what he calls “witchy shit” and the occult. Once he got some professional brewing experience under his belt—or, wizard robes, which seems more likely—and moved to the Pacific Northwest, things began to settle into place. It wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t magic, but it was definitely a journey that deserves its own story. When Alworth decided to write about it, he says it was that slippery concept of “authenticity” that drew him to write about Zermeño’s vision and the Brujos dream finally realized.

In this conversation, Alworth and I talk about how and why this story feels a lot different than much of the cynical, business-oriented beer writing that’s pervasive in media today. He talks about how, despite being in a city proudly full of weirdos, Brujos takes it to a whole new level, and how it still just works. We talk about the dichotomy of the sacred and profane, the beauty of ritual, and magical realism that serves as a foundation for the brewery. As I say later in the episode, it’s a nice story about good people doing cool things.

Hillary Barile isn’t sure what she’d call herself first: a farmer or a maltster. In reality, she’s both, working as a fifth generation farmer at Rabbit Hill Farms & Malthouse in Shiloh, New Jersey. There, she and members of her family produce barley and other crops, as well as run a small-scale malthouse that supplies ingredients for breweries and distilleries. And, as president of the Craft Maltsters Guild Board of Directors, she works to educate and grow the craft malt community across North America and beyond. 

So why, and how, did she make the jump from farming pottoes to investing in the agriculture and future of craft malt? It started with homebrewing, of course, with aspirations of opening a brewery to diversify and solidify her farm’s finances. But, as she explains in this episode, the business plan never got that far. As for what’s next, she says the breweries prioritizing local craft malt can tell unique stories that still reach the hearts of drinkers, giving them a small, but sufficient shield against difficult economic forces. We also discuss the many definitions of the word “sustainable,” and the efforts she’s making to ensure generations to come will still have the opportunity to nurture the land her family has cultivated. 

It’s time for the Brewers Association’s annual report for 2023. Who came out on top? Who’s new to the list and how did they get there? What on Earth is going on with draft sales, and what new data is still to come from the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference? All this and more is next, on this episode of the Gist.

You’ve heard the joke—four scientists walk into a bar, and hilarity ensues. But have you heard the one about a few NASA employees opening a brewery? It’s not a setup. It’s how True Anomaly Brewing Company in Houston, Texas actually started, when four friends and homebrewers decided to trade in the final frontier for a shot at making their own beer. 

Michael Duckworth is co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, which was recently named Brewery of the Year at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup for the second year in a row. Now in their sixth year, True Anomaly specializes in making wild and sour beers, but in a lager-focused state like Texas, they brew plenty of clean beers as well. They’ve been recognized for both with medal wins in competitions like the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival. And now, they’re preparing to open a much larger second location later this year, which you’ll hear about, and plan to up their output from around 1,200 barrels to around 2,000 by the end of 2024.

All this begs the question: how did a bunch of NASA nerds pull this off? Well, according to Michael, the four founders took a methodical, scientific approach to the business plan and applied an artistic sensibility to making the beers themselves. Wild beer can be unpredictable, but it’s that freedom from expectation he says makes each day a fun and unique surprise. In this episode, he also talks about the potential he sees in the Houston craft beverage scene, why they implemented inclusivity as part of their operations from day one, and why you might see an astronaut or two hanging around the brewery on the weekends.

What happens when a respected name in wine and spirits tries to make a move into the beer world? Does their experience translate into a new category, or do they have to build a reputation from the ground up? Does the beer industry welcome interlopers, or view them with skepticism and confusion? And if they’re asking to judge your beer at a new competition, does anyone show up?

These are all questions I asked myself when I was invited to judge at The Tasting Alliance’s second ever beer competition in December 2023. I, like some others in and around beer, had never heard of the group, or only knew them for their wine and spirits competitions that take place in San Francisco, New York, and Singapore. 

In this episode, I talk to Maddee McDowell, vice president of The Tasting Alliance and the person who handles the logistical organization of their beer competition. You’ll hear about what it was like for me to participate in judging, but also what The Tasting Alliance hopes sets them apart from other competitions. Maddee shares what the biggest category of entries was (it’s shockingly not IPAs), some of the differences between running wine and spirits competitions versus beer, and how they’re trying to build relationships in the beer community to gain a wider diversity of palates at the judging table. We also talk about how the competition changed from year one to two, and how many entries she, somewhat optimistically, hopes to receive in year three. 

The competition doesn’t end once medals are announced, McDowell assures us. And at the very least, The Tasting Alliance’s experience is another way for us to better understand competitions and what it takes to make them happen.

It’s a consumer’s world—we’re just living in it. Maybe that’s just how it seems nowadays, based on the number of new products on shelves and who’s putting them there. In this episode of The Gist, lead Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot and Beth Demmon (that’s me) take a look at what products Tilray has released since going on a brewery-buying bonanza last August. We also talk about what sort of vibes Kate saw at the recent Illinois Craft Brewers Convention, and finally, what’s the latest buzz on BuzzBallz after Sazerac announced their plans to acquire the one-in-a-million brand success story. All this and more is coming right up, right here on The Gist. 

So often, when you listen to these episodes, you hear conversations with people far along in their experience with beer, wine, spirits, or other alcoholic beverages. We’ve had our share of brewers and owners who have been in the game for a decade or more. And in this conversation, we’re invited to hear from Natalie Thurman, an up-and-coming brewer discovering what it means to go pro, create recipes, and learn all the time.

Natalie was a homebrewer before she was brought on as a vocational brewer at Pittsburgh’s Trace Brewing. Over a six-month period from summer 2023 through the end of that year, Natalie worked alongside and learned from a variety of staff at Trace, picking up tips, tricks, and an education that will guide her in brewing for years to come. It’s all new—Natalie is a clinical research professional and registered nurse who’s spent more than 10 years working in healthcare—but as you’ll hear in this chat, there’s a lightness and excitement at work in her life through beer.

While we talk about her beginnings in homebrewing and building an interest in beer, I invite you to really hear the way Natalie talks about finding herself through her homebrewing and her work at Trace. Spending time at a brewery and meeting industry peers has seemed to unlock something special for her, and it’s an opportunity you’ll hear she’s not taking for granted. This is a chance to hear what it sounds like to start something new and why it’s so meaningful. It’s an opportunity to hear about how the joy of homebrewing becomes the joy of professional brewing and all that’s to come for Natalie and those in her orbit.

Fluffernutter and Oreo Marshmallow pastry stouts. Kettle sours brewed with "obscene amounts" of fruit. A cream cheese rangoon gose. Depending on your level of curiosity and adventurousness, these beers may sound exciting or challenging, but they also have two things in common: They’ve been made by Colorado’s WeldWerks Brewing and they’re fun beers made with serious intent.

In this episode, we get into some of the technical ideas, philosophies, and search for dialed-in joy with Skip Schwartz, WeldWerks’ head brewer and Neil Fisher, founder and owner of the company. What makes brewing and beer fun these days? There are lots of answers, and as you’ll hear both explain, it could be from the never-ending tweaks to make a beer as perfect as possible or finding ways to connect with new drinkers who would otherwise turn away from a beer.

Some of the more wild beers created by WeldWerks have gotten attention over the years, but it’s their flagship hazy IPA, Juicy Bits, that put this brewery on the map and has allowed WeldWerks to expand into 26 different markets this year. The runaway success of Juicy Bits has helped the business gain notoriety beyond Colorado, build out its brewhouse, and set a goal of modest growth as many companies in craft beer are focused on just staying flat with their production.

So, maybe you’ve tried some of WeldWerks’ outlandish beers at their taproom or during a major industry event like the Great American Beer Festival, or maybe you’ve had their signature IPA and one of its variants. Allow Skip and Neil to give you some background on what it means to connect with drinkers today and learn how their approach to beer is setting them up for 2024 and beyond.

It’s a classic question asked first in a novel, then in music, and often as a half-joke pop culture reference: Can you go home again? People change over time, but of course, places do, too. What we’ve previously experienced in our hometowns and where we grew up can feel distant for a very good reason. Time and experience changes us all, whether we like it or not. But in this episode, we’re going to explore what it means to lean into this question and ask instead, “what does it feel like to be home, again?”

Working through this with me is Trace and Eeva Redmond, a couple who in recent years took years of experience working in beer and returned to Eeva’s home town of Petoskey, Michigan where they’ve opened Elder Piper, a brewery and cidery located along the shores of Little Traverse Bay on the upper portion of the state’s mitten shape. As brewer, Trace brings brewing experience that includes stops at Michigan’s Founders and Roak Brewing, as well as North Carolina’s Highland Brewing. Eeva has worked in a collection of hospitality and communication roles in beer as well, including positions at Roak Brewing, Sierra Nevada, and Highland.

Why open a brewery now, at a time when we hear about so many closing? That’s where we start our conversation, but it leads us to many other ideas and reflections about what it means to start a business in a city of 6,000, especially when it’s the place where you grew up. As you’ll hear, community connection has been pivotal to Eeva and Trace, and their story offers something of a roadmap of what it takes to launch a new, neighborhood-focused brewery in today’s market.

Some people nerd out about beer in general. Others go wild for water profiles, hop varieties, or yeast strains, but in Don Tse’s experience, not enough people are paying attention to malted barley. It’s something he’s been passionate about for a decade, and a topic he finally gets to explore in-depth in his first piece for Good Beer Hunting.

In that Critical Drinking op-ed, titled “Fight the Power — How Craft Malt Is Central to Taking On Beer’s Industrial Complex,” Don explains how the barley of today shouldn’t be the barley of yesterday. Typical crops are bred to resist disease and blight every few years. But in North America, barley that’s now widely planted  has been around for three decades and is the main source of what’s used for malt in beer recipes. Why? Well, it takes time, money, and a lot of buy-in to change a monoculture crop like barley. That change is finally coming, thanks to investments from researchers at Cornell University, breweries like Allagash, and other forward-thinking farmers ready to make malt craft again. 

In our conversation, you’ll hear Don talk about why it took so long for him to pursue this passion project, why as a Canadian he’s focused on American farmers, why he’s so stoked on things like protein levels and output, and what sort of potential and future he sees in the North American barley industry. He doesn’t expect people to be as nuts about the subject as he is. But he hopes that we’ll all start to care, at least a little, to keep moving craft beer and our shared agricultural future looking bright.

The story of homebrewing and craft beer is intertwined. Ask many craft brewery owners how they got their start, and you’ll probably hear about their homebrewing days—how it sparked their love of beer and eventually led them to turn their hobby into a career. However, homebrewing is only one part of going pro, and there are many more skills needed to open and run a brewery.

Ryan Lavery, owner of Widowmaker Brewing, got his start brewing beer in his garage. A series of serendipitous moments, including a Craigslist ad, eventually led him to open his own brewery in Braintree, Massachusetts in 2017, and another location in Allston-Brighton, a neighborhood in Boston in 2023. Both locations reflect Ryan’s love for music with his second location being described as a place with “intergalactic, spacey, stoner rock” vibes.

In this conversation, Ryan shares how he didn’t really know anything about opening a brewery and how those first decisions—like how they set up the brewhouse—still affect him and his team today. You'll hear Ryan discuss the distinction between the opening of his first taproom and the second one, as well as how the brewery discovered its identity and how that knowledge influenced the design of both locations, starting with the second. We also spend a little time talking about the special places he’s visited in Atlanta while on business for the brewery, including a previous podcast guest, Todd DiMatteo, and his brewing company, Good Word Brewing.

Modelo Especial continues to absolutely dominate as a lager, but is it so successful that we can call it the new domestic lager of choice? On this episode of The Gist, I’m joined as always by Lead Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot, along with special guest, freelance writer, and Good Beer Hunting contributor Jerard Fagerberg to talk about how Constellation Brands has grown Modelo to a 200 million case brand and what that means for the domestic beer category at large. Plus, we look at the latest c-store numbers—specifically, how cider is performing—and why combining “low” and “no” alcohol options into one group doesn’t really make much sense. I’m Beth Demmon, and you’re listening to The Gist. 

Next up in our series of interviews from the 2023 Foeder for Thought festival, Kate Bernot is talking to Matt Manthe from Odd Breed Brewing in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Most of the locations of the brewers we speak to at Foeder for Thought come from far and wide, and usually from places with more mild climates than Florida has to offer. So Matt and Odd Breed adapt their process and expectations to that reality, working with yeast strains and styles that provide the nuanced results they’re looking for. He also talks about what it takes to help grow the audience for these beers in Florida, which is a younger scene that markets like California or the Northeast.

One of the methods Matt enjoys most is fresh hopping his wild ales for a somewhat hybrid style of IPA and wild and sour beer that is delighting his fans.

In this episode of the 2023 Foeder for Thought festival, I’m talking to Aaron Kleidon of catch Brewing in Ave, Illinois, one of the country’s most obscure and isolated brewers, that also happens to be one of the most welcoming and casual visits among the class of brewers you might consider a destination brewery.

Tucked away in far southern Illinois, Scratch has made a name for itself with foraged ingredients, ancient methods of brewing, such as hot stone and campfire heating, as well as a culinary program at the brewpub that delivers a similarly-minded approach to cooking.

We talk a lot more these days about the connection between agriculture and brewing, but in this conversation with Aaron, you’ll hear something more akin to a naturalist or a conservationist obsessed with his land and the surrounding forests, and how he makes world class beers from those unlikely resources.

In this episode of the 2023 Foeder for Thought festival, Kate Bernot is talking to Trevor Rogers from de Grade Brewing, a geographical outlier like many of these producers, based in Tilamook, Oregon. de Garde was part of the avant garde in American wild ales, founded in 2012 with his partner Linsey, considered by many to be one of, if not THE first producer of these styles of beer in the US.

Part of the legend of de Garde comes from its methods of collecting wild yeast along multiple locations in the Pacific Northwest coastal region, and that influenced a generation of wild ale producers across the US who were looking for the courage to try these traditional Belgian methods in untested areas of the country.

After taking a short break for a St. Pete-style rain to pass through, the crowd at Foeder for Thought gathered in the courtyard at Green Bench again, dried off some seats and got a beer to listen to our second chat featuring Brandon Boldt from Primitive Beer in Colorado.

A well-respected and novel producer of wild ales, Primitive is perhaps more widely known for their packaging style, putting uncarbonated wild ales into a bag and box serving package. These still beers provide a profoundly different drinking experience—without the carbonation, the flavors and textures move over the palate entirely differently than a beer in a thick glass bottle with those highly pressurized tiny bubbles.

Since me and Brandon spoke at Foeder last year, they closed up shop in Longmont Colorado and starting making a big move to a new location—in an annex at New Image Brewing in Wheat Ridge Colorado.

We’re kicking off our 2023 Foeder for Thought episodes with Zach Adams of Fox Farm in Salem, Connecticut. Like many craft brewers, Zach was a home brewer, but unlike most home brewers, he competed at the top of the game in the Boston Beer Longshot challenge and won.

Riding that boost of confidence, he and his partner bought a 1960s dairy barn and renovated it to create a humble but beautiful destination for what would quickly become one of the ties premier beer destinations.

That confidence turns to some measure of humility however when we talk about his venture into wild and spontaneous brewing where he feels they’ll still finding their way and making a name.

Unless you’ve been listening to older episode of the GBH Podcast, you may not have heard my voice in awhile. I’ve been working on some new projects this past year or so that I’m excited about, but if there’s one thing that pulls me out of semi-retirement each year, it’s the Foeder for Thought festival in St Petersburgh Florida every March with Green Bench Brewing Company, and here we are again on the cusp of that annual gathering of wild and spontaneous beer producers gathering.

This year its on Friday March 8th, and in the run-up to that event where I get to sit down and chat with a few leading producers in the category about their trajectory and the future the envision.

I’m releasing last year’s talks as a way to sort of get people excited again and remind them of some of the aspects of Foeder for Thought that make it so special.

First of all, it’s a small event but there’s some serious work and care put in that makes it fantastic. Khris Johnson and his team at Green Bench pull out all the stops for this thing. They get Web’s City Cellar, their companion bar, primed and ready to welcome fans of wild and spontaneous beer to what I consider one of the best beer bars in the country. And I’m certainly not alone in the opinion—this year the James Beard Awards nominated them for the Outstanding Bar category. That’s big time stuff.

It’s going to be a fantastic time - and I hope to see you there.

Now, let’s talk about 2023’s lineup of guests that you’ll hear in these episodes, hosted by myself and Good Beer Hunting’s Kate Bernot.

We’re talking to folks from de Garde Brewing in Oregon, Fox Farm Brewery in Connecticut, Off Breed Wild Ales in Pompano Beach Florida, Primitive Beer in Colorado, and Scratch Brewing in far Southern Illinois.

As per usual, it was an inspired lineup of beers and the producers behind them. All connected through their love of wild and spontaneous beer making, but also unique in their own rights—serving unique audiences and geographies, adapting to the realities of climate change and a shifting market, and finding their own way even as they hold the ancient traditions of these beers in a kind of reverent state.

This episode is one of a three-part series recorded as part of the Rare & Vintage Beer Tasting, an annual event held in Durham, North Carolina that brings brewers and beer lovers together from all over the country. Along with a beer festival, Rare & Vintage also hosts beer industry professional development conversations each January. The combo acts as a fundraising and awareness effort for the Michael James Jackson Foundation, which funds education and career advancement for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the brewing and distilling industries.

For this year’s event, I moderated three discussions, and in this episode, you’ll hear me in conversation with three panelists talking about measurements, bias, and how these things impact the making of beer and how we bring people together for beer. Joining me are:

• Nicole Steinhilber, laboratory operations manager for Charleston, South Carolina’s Edmund’s Oast Brewing.

• April Dove, founder of Tha CommUNITY, a collaborative beer initiative that partners with breweries to offer a blueprint on how to attract Black drinkers to taprooms.

• Jen Currier, cellarmaster at Wicked Weed Brewing and head winemaker at its spin-off winery, Vidl Cellars.

The experience between all three of these industry pros gave us fodder to get nerdy about lab work, ingredients, and more, but it also allowed us to look at big picture challenges facing beer today, most notably how to better welcome new drinkers into the fold. After you listen to this episode, make sure to check out the other two, which includes a panel discussion about bias in sensory and a keynote conversation with my Good Beer Hunting colleague and friend, Jamaal Lemon.

West Virginians take a lot of pride in their state. As well they should—it’s one of the most stunningly gorgeous destinations in the United States, albeit one that can be hard to get to, thanks to the same mountainous spectacle that draws people there in the first place. 

Matt Kwasniewski is a West Virginia native, as well as the owner and head brewer of Big Timber Brewing in Elkins, West Virginia. It’s the largest craft brewery in the state, with an annual output of around 6,000 barrels last year, positioning them solidly in the “microbrewery” category. He says that West Virginia’s rural location, small population, and generally blue collar workforce makes it an unlikely place for craft beer to thrive. But the state is much more than how it’s defined by outsiders. Kwasniewski has seen the craft beer industry grow from 10 to around 32 breweries in the past 10 years, and for residents, that’s a lot. 

In this episode, Kwasniewski walks us through the state of West Virginia, both as a local and as a brewer, and what he wishes more people knew about the relatively undiscovered Mountain State. For instance, they have some of the purest water anywhere in the country—ideal for brewing Big Timber beers like lagers, IPAs, and their award-winning porter that took gold at the 2024 World Beer Cup. He’s not interested in expanding much further than his home state, and why should he? He wants to be the beer of West Virginia, and you can hear him explain why and how he plans to do that.

This episode is one of a three-part series recorded as part of the Rare & Vintage Beer Tasting, an annual event held in Durham, North Carolina that brings brewers and beer lovers together from all over the country. Along with a beer festival, Rare & Vintage also hosts beer industry professional development conversations each January. The combo acts as a fundraising and awareness effort for the Michael James Jackson Foundation, which funds education and career advancement for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the brewing and distilling industries.

For this year’s event, I moderated three discussions, and in this episode, you’ll hear me in conversation with my Good Beer Hunting colleague, Jamaal Lemon. Jamaal has written some of the most celebrated work published at GBH, which includes a 2023 James Beard Award for his story, Come Hell or High Water — Oysters, Brewing, and How the Come Yahs & Bin Yahs Could End Sea Level Rise in Charleston. He’s been a contributor to Good Beer Hunting since 2020 and also writes the blog, Bootlegger’s Baby for us, which focuses on Jamaal’s ruminations on fatherhood and family.

During our talk at Rare & Vintage, Jamaal was welcomed as a keynote speaker, so we engaged in a discussion that would inspire conversations between brewers for the whole weekend. We talked about big ideas, storytelling, innovation in beer, and more. You’ll hear us talk about where Jamaal gets his ideas, why he cares about stories of the water, and much more. After you listen to this episode, make sure to check out the other two, which include panel discussions about bias in beer sensory and science with some of the smartest minds in beer as well as a discussion of how to build inclusive language for how we talk about beer.

This episode is one of a three-part series recorded as part of the Rare & Vintage Beer Tasting, an annual event held in Durham, North Carolina that brings brewers and beer lovers together from all over the country. Along with a beer festival, Rare & Vintage also hosts beer industry professional development conversations each January. The combo acts as a fundraising and awareness effort for the Michael James Jackson Foundation, which funds education and career advancement for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the brewing and distilling industries.

For this year’s event, I moderated three discussions, and in this episode, you’ll hear me in conversation with three panelists talking about how language and culture have built the lexicon for beer and what we can do to change and enhance it all. It’s a spiritual connection to a James Beard Award-winning story Good Beer Hunting published in 2022, in which Mark Dredge explored how flavor wheels and tasting tools should evolve to speak to a global collection of beer drinkers. To build on the ideas you may have read about in that story and share new ones, joining me were:

• Breeze Galindo, director of operations for the Michael James Jackson Foundation and founder of MiLuna Brewing.

• Lindsay Barr, co-founder of DraughtLab Sensory Software.

• Rafael D’Armas, brewer at Brookyln’s Kings County Brewers Collective, also known as KCBC.

As you listen to the back-and-forth between these three, you get to hear practical, scientific, and philosophical approaches to how we can all think differently about the way we describe and talk about beer. The importance of this, as you’ll hear, is a necessary step to acknowledge how diverse beer is becoming—even if it’s been slow—but how much the language we use is going to matter next year and long after that. After you listen to this episode, make sure to check out the other two from Rare & Vintage, which includes a panel discussion about bias in measurement, brewing, and more, and a keynote conversation with my Good Beer Hunting colleague and friend, Jamaal Lemon.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times—beverage companies are going to have to expand their offerings not just to grow, but to survive at all. In this episode of The Gist, lead Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot joins me, Beth Demmon, to take a big look at 2023 and what the numbers mean for 2024, why diversification is the word of the year, and what a brewery buying into CBD could signal to the rest of the industry. This is the Gist.

In my time in and around the beer industry, I’ve heard too many people underestimate the Cicerone Certification Program, a worldwide standard for recognizing people who are experts in  beer sales and service.

While I haven’t taken it myself, I understand the rigorous studying that’s required to pass the written and tasting exam to become a Certified Cicerone, just the second level of a four-part process to become a Master Cicerone. And even those who take the test seriously aren’t guaranteed to pass it the first time. But don’t take my word for it, let’s hear from an expert.

In this episode, Jen Blair, who recently became a Master Cicerone—the highest level of certification and a title just 28 people in the world hold today—shares details from her almost decade-long journey to reach this pinnacle. If you’re interested in becoming a Cicerone, this episode is for you. But even if you’re not planning to take these tests, you’ll learn so much about what it means to explore beer, its history, and all the sensory experiences it can provide. There’s a personal side to it all, too, and you’ll hear from Jen about the importance of learning from your mistakes, honoring deadlines, and creating realistic schedules. 

As a straight-A student, Jen thought she knew how to study for the Cicerone tests, but realized that to pass even the first level exam she had to go beyond memorization and fully master the material. Throughout the episode, Jen shares some of the shifts in mindset she had to make to cross the Master Cicerone finish line, including relearning how to learn and strengthening her weak areas instead of ignoring them, like memorizing commercial styles despite disagreeing with the requirement. Listen in until the end to hear about the inspiration behind her newsletter, get tips on palate training and health, as well as what Jen is focused on now that she’s completed her Cicerone journey.

In this episode, we’re talking about process. And it’s not just in context of the brewing of beer, but everything that leads up to it, what happens during, and how a brewer can get better after. Helping us get into the detail of it all is Julia Astrid Davis, the head brewer and zygurmatrix at Burke-Gilman Brewing Company in Seattle.

And if you're going to talk to a brewer about all these intimate aspects of their job, Julia is a great example of someone you should listen to. Over the course of her career she's brewed at companies small and large, from Denmark to Chicago and now Seattle. Her stops include Goose Island, Lagunitas, and Empirical Brewery, all in the Windy City, and has now been at Burke-Gilman for three years. That’s a who’s who list of barrel-aging and hop-forward breweries and in this conversation you’ll hear how Julia’s time at each place has helped build an understanding and appreciation for the process of brewing, experimentation, and constant improvement to dial-in recipes and drinking experiences.

We’ll also talk about inspiration, collaboration, and why it’s important for a brewer to always think about how to get better. Through it all, is the idea of process.

It’s only February, but beverage companies are already setting the stage for the rest of 2024 with new products, big investments, and… TV ads? Today, Kate Bernot and me, Beth Demmon, recap the best and most blah Super Bowl commercials, discuss the potential of high and low ABV products, and you’ll hear from Drinkways Editor Emma Janzen about the economic outlook for spirits this year. This is the Gist. 

When it comes to careers, longevity is hard to come by. Most surveys and job-focused websites will tell you Americans find a new job roughly every three-to-five years. The average American worker changes some aspect of their career—if not their entire professional focus—multiple times over their life. So, when you find someone who’s really committed to the people they work with and those they work for, you know something must be going right.

Such is the case for Jess Griego, now the chief operations officer and co-owner of New Mexico’s Bosque Brewing, which has nine different locations in the state. A decade ago, Jess started with the brewery as a server and has worked up through a variety of jobs, also becoming an equity partner in 2019. But her roots aren’t just with the company, they’re interwoven in New Mexico itself as a native, college graduate, proud resident, and a co-lead for the state chapter of the Pink Boots Society. Jess has also taken her longtime focus on local to a national stage, where she’s a newly elected pub brewery representative to the Brewers Association’s board of directors.

For as much as beer industry pros tout “local” as core to what they do, that often means locally-produced products. In this conversation, we get about as local as we can get as Jess reflects back on her years with Boseque, what inspires her as a leader, and what it takes to oversee a rapidly expanding brewery today. Growth is hard to come by for beer these days, but Jess and Bosque offer a unique example of what happens when you play the long game, in your career and in your business plan.

Sometimes when dreams get put on hold for too long, they can fade away and become nostalgia for what never was. But in the case of Sarah Real, her dream of starting a brewery was never far from her mind, and when she was finally able to open Hot Plate Brewing Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts earlier this year with her husband and co-founder Mike Dell'Aquila, it had been many years in the making.

As one of the few Latina-owned brewpubs amongst the nearly 10,000 total breweries in the United States, the pair is acutely aware of what representation means and what responsibilities they feel come along with it. According to a 2021 survey by the Brewers Association, just 2.2% of brewery owners across the country identify as “Hispanic, Latina -o, or of Spanish Origin.” In this episode, Mike talks about how they try to offer multiple access points for consumers through the beers they make and how Hot Plate cultivates a safe, welcoming community for anyone who may not feel represented or seen in the current craft beer industry. A storyteller by trade, Mike crafts the narratives and Sarah brews the beer in a unique partnership that seems to suit them both. 

However, Sarah and Mike both admit that while it was, at times, a struggle to start the brewery, now that it’s open, they’re ready to welcome everyone through the front door. They talk about their backgrounds, their passions, and the future they’re already building together—the dream finally realized.

American craft beer is old enough to have “good old days,” which means it's no stranger to retirements or its best and brightest moving on to new careers. In October 2023, Theresa McCulla announced she’d conclude seven years of work with the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution, wrapping up an effort that saw her collect artifacts, design exhibits, interview nearly 100 icons of American brewing, award-winning stories, and more.

Theresa’s departure leaves a distinct void—her job was literally to trace the history of beer's ups and downs through all kinds of change–global pandemics, industry trends, demands on behalf of the marginalized, climate change, and of course the beginnings, middles, and occasional ends of important breweries and people who made American craft beer what it is. Without her and the American Brewing History Initiative, our risk of forgetting will be that much greater.

So, before she could move on to her new position as curator at candy giant Mars, Incorporated, I sat down with her for one last interview. A symbolic exit interview.

It’s a new week with new news, but you already knew that. In this week's episode of The Gist, Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot talks with me, Beth Demmon, about Drizly’s billion-dollar bust, cider’s rising star, and… beads? BEES! Hat tip to Arrested Development for that one. This is the Gist. 

# On Becoming Hawk

Hi there - this is Michael Kiser, founder and publisher of Good Beer Hunting. I’m coming to you today with a difficult message—but a simple one. 

Good Beer Hunting—after nearly 15 years, and at least 10 of that that I would consider serious years—is going on a platform-wide sabbatical. It’ll be indefinite. It might be permanent.

We have some ideas for what the future of Good Beer Hunting might look like—and soon I’ll be working on that vision with the counsel of my colleagues to see where it takes us. But the earliest vision is so drastically different than what GBH currently is, that the only way to get to the other side is to make a clean break. We’ve got to clear out the cache. We’ve got to quiet everything down for a bit and see what it all sounds like on the other side of that silence.

We’re shutting down our various content streams—the podcast, the website, social—ending a sort of always-on feed of content that’s been, for many of us writers, editors, and artists, our life’s work. And for most of us, our best work.

This thing that started as my personal blog would go on to be published in the annual Best American Food Writing, and win multiple Saveur blog awards before I had the courage to start publishing other voices beyond my own. It began as a way to pursue my curiosity for beer, combining the beauty I saw in it with the strategic implications of a new wave of culture and industry the world over. Good Beer Hunting came from a simple idea and simpler execution of a blog and grew into an international publication covering unique stories from countries all over.

With every major shift, from one editor in chief to another, it would morph into something that felt beyond any reasonable ambition. Eventually winning awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Imbibe Magazine, more than 100 awards from the North American Guild of Beer Writers, and most recently nominated for 6 James Beard Awards and winning 3 of them. If I consider what it would mean for us to achieve something beyond all that, I’d have to believe in a truly insane fantasy.

In the many years of running a beer publication that took us to the top echelon of all publications —literally taking podiums next to the New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Yorker—we’ve had to build and sustain an organization that simply doesn’t have a roadmap for survival in 2024’s media landscape. And to be clear, it never did. 

From day one, I vowed to not try and make GBH profitable, because the media world already showed that to achieve profitability was to welcome a certain kind of death—and often a shameful one. Chasing advertisers and clicks with listicles and promotions—and as a result, never creating anything of real value to anyone but the advertisers. It was a fool's errand, and one we didn’t follow. By not hunting down ad revenue and declining offers over the years, Good Beer Hunting was able to remain a personal project in a way, even as our ambitions continually grew and results showed what an impact our stories and contributors made on the world of beer and beyond.

Instead of trying to manage our costs with advertising, we’ve been able to form longstanding partnerships with companies like Guinness, which has helped mitigate at least some of financial losses we took on every year. We also launched an experimental subscriber community called the Fervent Few, which took a meaningful chunk out of the debt and paid its dividends by connecting readers and fans from all over the world during the loneliest parts of the pandemic. But in reality, even these things combined didn’t cover the gaps as we continued growing. 

The challenge of expanding GBH during its rapid growth phase came from my own pocket, which kept our editorial team independent and in control. But it also guided us to this moment. Paying for writers, designers, and editors was a budget pulled from my own strategic consultancy called Feel Goods Company, which was no small thing. Each year, the costs sometimes crested over $100,000 that weren’t covered by underwriting partners like Guinness or subscribers from the Fervent Few. And in the last couple years, costs went far beyond that. For years, I put other important things in my family’s life on hold to continue supporting GBH’s growth and ambitions. 

As a father of three kids—and sometimes the only one working—that decision wasn’t made lightly. I exhausted myself making the consulting business uncommonly successful in order to keep both things afloat and growing. And as costly as that was in a financial sense, I’ve never regretted the decision to do it—and I never took a dime. In fact, there was one year when we more or less broke even, and with the small amount left over we gave the editorial team, including our freelancers, a surprise end-of-year bonus. More like a tip really. 

Good Beer Hunting is the longest I’ve ever done anything, and it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done. And it existed entirely because I wanted it to.

But outside of anything I wanted it to become—my own pride and ambitions for GBH don’t really compare to the awe I feel when I look at what people like Austin Ray, Claire Bullen, and Bryan Roth helped it become. Our three successive Editors in Chief over those 10 years—each of whom shaped a new generation of Good Beer Hunting into an image that only they could have. Each of whom provided the shoulders for the next to stand on. And the countless writers and artists who were drawn to their leadership and the level of execution in our collective work—who gave us some of their own best work. 

I’m thinking of Kyle Kastranec from Ohio, the first writer other than myself, who wrote a feature for GBH, setting a high bar. I’m thinking of Charleston’s own Jamaal Lemon who won a James Beard award for GBH alongside other winners and nominees like Stephanie Grant, Teresa McCullough, Chelsea Carrick, and Mark Dredge. 

I’m thinking of people like Matthew Curtis, our first editor in the UK who turned the lights on in an entirely new country for us, and Evan Rail who kept turning on lights in dozens of countries since as our first International editor. Emma Jansen, and Ren Laforme who joined our editors team in the last iteration, rounding out some of the most ambitions and wide sweeping storytelling we’ve ever produced. Kate Bernot, who leveled up our news reporting to create an unmatched source of access to explain to readers why things matter in beer and beverage alcohol, which is now a growing stand-alone business unit in Sightlines.

What felt like a fluke at first, has become something I can confidently own. We produced industry-changing, internationally-recognized, and James Beard Award winning material…consistently.

I’m also often reminded of the smaller things we’ve done—like the blogs and short stories we wrote—about the politics and personal traumas of the way we eat, drink, and relate to each other in our families, in our communities, and against the injustices so many people face in an industry that’s ancient and profoundly immature at the same time. It’s an unlikely place for a beer publication to have a voice —but GBH has always built its scope around the perspectives of the individual souls who occupy space within it rather than narrowing down a profitable and popular slice of the beer conversation and reduced them to it. 

Mark Spence unpacked his Midwestern anxieties around family and food, Lily Waite and Holly Regan opened a door to discuss non-binary and transgender issues,  Jerard Fagerberg and Mark LaFaro took big risks to focus us all on the dangers and costs of alcoholism, David Jesudason and many others captured our attention with stories of harassment, racism, labor abuse, and more that so many readers told us were critical and prescient and more importantly, helped. These stories helped people.

Over the years, we’ve had readers cry as they recounted what a story meant to them. We’ve had others scream and curse at us for the same. Some even went on the record as sources to ensure our reporting had the substance it needed to make an impact. Careers were started and ended because of the stories we wrote. Those stories had the same effect on ourselves. We’ve had writers put something heartbreaking or inspiring into the world only to have it wake something up in them and want to do more—take even bigger swings —and find a voice within them that carried them far beyond Good Beer Hunting.

And ultimately, that’s where my heart is today.

This week, I was struggling to find the words to describe what I was going to do with Good Beer Hunting—what comes next. I knew what the move was, and why, and I knew it was time—but I didn’t have the poetry for it—so I couldn’t quite feel it yet. 

On a long drive to rural Michigan to pick up my son from summer camp, I was listening to an episode of my favorite podcast, On Being. And I heard Azita Ardakani and Janine Benyus, two biomimicry specialists who have a way of describing the natural world with a stunning relevance. They said:

 “Life is just so full of vitality and so much ON and being alive and then it’s not.”

“…What is the difference between something that’s alive and something that’s not? It seems that with the holding on to life —there’s also a feeling of once it’s gone, the letting go—like a body breaking down—but it doesn’t really. I mean, not for long. What happens is a tree falls and eventually becomes a log. Eventually grows a fungus and you think of it as breaking down—it is no longer a tree. But then a mouse comes along and it's the end of the fungus. And that material—thats’ where the reincarnation comes in —that fungus becomes mouse. 

“And then a hawk comes along and the material—that material of that mouse becomes hawk. There’s this circulation—called metabolism. It’s catabolism—then it gets anabolized up into a new form. The grief is brief because transformation happens almost right away—it gets transformed.”

Now, GBH isn’t dying and it’s not wasting away. The truth is it’s still sort of thriving in its own manner of being. It’s a tree taller than I ever imagined. But success can kill an organization—I’ve seen it a hundred times in the companies I’ve worked for, companies I’ve consulted on—big and small. It’s all proportionate. How far away from the roots does that beautiful canopy get before it surprises itself with its own extended weight? How much life force does it expend trying to prop itself up at the expense of something new? 

There’s never an objectively right time—but there is a good time. A time not informed by reactionary fear and loathing - but by guts, love, and ambition for something new. 

So I’ve decided it’s time to take the tree down. 

If I look back over the past few years I can see that Good Beer Hunting will be that fallen tree for many. It’ll be a source of nutrients for many a mouse that becomes hawk.

But the truth is, GBH has been the start of a kind of upward anabolism for some time now. Jamaal Lemon recently took a dream editors job at the Institute of Justice. Stephanie Grant has launched her own community project called The Share. Before that, Matthew Curtis started Pellicle Mag in the U.K. Lily Waite opened a brewery. So many GBH writers have gone on to write books, start podcasts, and create platforms of their own, it’s astounding. And what I’m describing right now isn’t something that started with GBH—indeed, GBH has been a recipient their upward anabolism from the lives they’ve lived—each bringing their own energy and nutrients here and nourished us with lifetimes full of curiosity, learning, and love for their craft.

The risks in starting something like Good Beer Hunting are myriad. Financial risk is everywhere—but I’ve happily and defiantly borne the brunt of it for many years. There’s personal risk—in media, everything you put out into the world has a way of coming back to you in unexpected, and often dangerous ways. And it does. There’s opportunity risk—if this thing fails, and if it takes a long time to fail, what opportunities might you have missed out on in the meantime? But to me, the biggest risk of all is it just not mattering. Not being relevant. Missing the mark.
Today, I feel satisfied that Good Beer Hunting matters.

I have so many people to thank—and so many feelings to share that are best relayed one-on-one. It’ll take me many months and years to pass along those sentiments to individuals who took that risk with me and succeeded.

I’m not going to the final word on all this. 

My experience of GBH is singular—being the sole source of continuity over those 15 years. But so much of what’s defined GBH have been the perspectives and voices of those who’ve invested their talents in it over the years. So before our final sign-off this summer, you’ll hear reflections from leaders, contributors, partners and friends of Good Beer Hunting as well. This is part of the grieving and metabolizing process. 

There are a few more episodes of the podcast to share still, and a few remaining stories we’ve been working on that you’ll see this month and maybe into August. If you want to stay up to date on future plans, sign up for the newsletter. 

This episode—along with all podcast episodes over these many years—was edited by Jordan Stalling. And it was scored by my friend, soulmate, and composer, Andrew Thioboldeax, who himself has been along for the ride for over a decade.

Aim true, pour liberal folks—have a great rest of the year. 

People who work in beer arrive from all kinds of professional backgrounds and even different career trajectories. But once they’re in beer, it’s less common to find examples of those who will be true chameleons, working across businesses that make, move, or sell beer, or even for companies that just handle the raw ingredients that go into making it. That’s what makes this conversation particularly special.

Shanleigh Thomson has been a food scientist, brewer, and sales rep for distributors and companies that provide malt and hops. She's worked as a consultant and analyst. She's also a beer fan, which means that this wide range of roles and expertise gives her a unique vantage point for how she does her job, shares well-informed points of view, and applies a variety of education that ranges from advanced degrees in food science to business and brewing. She splits her time between Canada and the U.S., which means the scope of her understanding and work offers us a good perspective, too, all of which she’s combined in the last two years to run her own consultancy business, Shan.Ferments.

In this episode, we’ll talk about all this and how we can learn from what Shanleigh has picked up over the years. But in addition to hearing how her professional life has brought this together, there’s also time in our chat to reflect on the personal impact a changing industry has left on her. Beer in Canada is facing many of the same challenges as the U.S., as prices and competition increase and a camaraderie that was easy to find 10 years ago is harder to come by. For someone who’s spent a career focused on so many different aspects of the business of beer, what happens when the shine wears off? And what’s at stake for us should we lose professionals with an array of ideas and expertise like Shanleigh? Let’s find out.

Football and beer tend to go together without much thought. But in places like Pope County, Arkansas, alcohol is noticeably absent from tailgate coolers, plastic Solo cups, and concession stands. That’s because the area, which is home to Arkansas Tech University, is also one of the state’s 29 dry counties, where access to alcohol is restricted thanks to political influence, conservative mindsets, and tradition left from the time of Prohibition. 

In his first piece for Good Beer Hunting titled “No Blitz — How Arkansas Tech University Fans Tailgate in a Dry County,” freelance writer Brian Sorenson portrays a small, but proud slice of the American South, where sports like football dominate much of the culture. That culture, he says, lags behind the more liberal coastal areas of the United States, but that doesn’t mean it’s less worthy of attention. In our conversation, he describes his hope for readers and listeners to set aside their notions of what they think Arkansas is like, and to instead experience it through fresh eyes and open minds. 

You’ll hear about his background in beer, football, writing, and the state of Arkansas, where he grew up used to rowdy sports fans fueled by alcohol. For this story, he was fascinated by the idea of separating the two, and shares some of the surprises he came across while writing the piece. It’s an insider’s look at seemingly contradictory ideologies, and it’s likely you’ll walk away with a new framework from which to view a different, but beautiful, way of life.

When I tell people that I’m really into beer, a quarter of the time someone mentions cider despite the two being vastly different. These interactions have always left me feeling helpless because I lacked the knowledge to educate them about the differences, and I certainly couldn’t guide them to a beer style that would be similar to cider. The extent of my cider knowledge was extremely limited—until I read fellow GBH contributor and podcast host Beth Demmon's book “The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider.”

In fact, she addresses this common mixup in the first line of her book “Cider is not beer.” Cider is more like wine than beer because it’s created from fruit whereas beer is a combination of malt, hops, and yeast. Despite their differences, Beth is able to draw a connection between beer and cider to show us how vast the world of cider really is, encouraging us to look beyond what we might find in our local grocery store. Much like many of us had to do in the early days of craft beer when shelves were stocked with domestic Lager and other mass-produced beers.   

In our conversation, we talk about Beth’s inspiration for the book, which includes a trip to CiderCon, an annual conference organized by the American Cider Association. Beth also shares how she approached writing the book and how she was able to lean on her community for help. But what I love most about our conversation is how she draws parallels between those initial days of craft beer and the current state of cider here in the United States. For those of us who have explored all corners of craft beer, cider offers a new landscape of flavors, producers, and techniques to dive into, so let’s jump right in.

It’s a new year and things are already shaking up in the beer world, first with Asahi’s entry into brewing in the United States, plus Coca-Cola subsidiary Red Tree’s big plans for 2024. Looking outside of beer, Kate and I preview what Sightlines has planned for CiderCon, the annual cider industry conference kicking off January 16, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. Keep listening for all that and more, right here on The Gist.