FF-016 Jim Plachy goes solo, gets sour with Collective Brewing Project

This week’s episode is a fun one for me, largely because I’m not on it. About a year ago, we started a subscriber community called The Fervent Few . And since then, hundreds of people from all walks of life, all kind of professions, and all over the world have joined to support GBH financially—and to commune with each other over beer. Some of them are experts and producers, others are distributors, retailers, sales reps, and the like. Plenty of them are homebrewers and people trying to break into the industry. That seems to make up about half of the group, which I’m judging purely anecdotally based on who tends to take part in the community aspect of it all. Then there’s the other half, made up of people who love beer and love talking about it purely from an entertainment or educational perspective. This part of the community is a blast. They’re a big part of the reason that The Fervent Few has remained so fun and funny for me personally. Getting everyone in the same room creates what I find to be one of the most edifying communities in beer. Today’s podcast is a perfect metaphor for all that. Jim Plachy, who was one of our first members, quickly became an indispensable voice in the community. So we went ahead and put him in charge of it. And his guests today hail from a Texas beer maker called Collective Brewing. One of them, Dave Riddile, has gone on to become a GBH contributor and now works for GBH in a marketing role. The reason this is so fascinating and enjoyable for me is that, over the course of the last 12 years or so that GBH has been alive, it’s evolved from a solo effort—literally just myself writing my way through the beer industry—to a team of journalists and photographers, to a studio side with artists and designers building brands, partners helping create events like Uppers & Downers, and now a community-driven component that has sort of pieced together that last few rungs on a ladder whereby people are able to ascend within GBH according to their own interests and means. And so now I, the guy who started it all, gets to watch it all expand well beyond my wildest imagination. That’s how today’s podcast came about. So this is Jim Plachy, GBH’s Fervent Few community manager, and Dave and Ryan from Collective Brewing in Texas. Listen in.