EP-115 Uppers & Downers Hangover Party

Today’s episode is our annual hangover party podcast, an event we host here at the studio in the wake of Upper & Downers, our coffee beer festival. People have started traveling from all over the world—in some cases, as far away as Japan!—to attend this insane mashup of coffee and beer culture we put together with our friend Stephen Morrissey (a world barista champion and works at the Specialty Coffee Association). And this hangover party, which we stupidly (brilliantly?) throw the morning after the big event, has become a bit like a brunch after a wedding. We get to sit down with the out-of-towners, drink even more coffee and beer, and for those brewers who want to celebrate coffee beers with us, but can’t make the fest, they send us bottles and cans of their latest experiments just for the party. We get some biscuits from Bang Bang, while some friends and roasters operate the La Marzocco espresso machine—in some cases getting a personal training session from people on the Acaia scales. Beyond that, we lounge. We also use that time as a chance to revisit the festival, talk about our favorite things, and interview some of the brewers and roasters that participated. We invited Jordan Michelman of Sprudge.com to sit in with us again, which is always super fun for me because I get to hear from someone who sort of does what GBH does, but for coffee. Plus, he’s been at it a lot longer than I have, and it shows.  This is a long one with a lot of different, shorter interviews just stacked end-to-end. So settle in, go for a drive, get in a run, whatever you gotta do. Hope you enjoy it.  Photo by Nick Kohout of Acaia