Like most of my beer friends, I first met Chantel Columna on Instagram. Our online conversations eventually led to an in-person meeting when a work trip brought Chantel to Atlanta in 2021. We enjoyed beers while diving into a conversation about the beer industry and life at large. Last year, my husband and I traveled to Denver. I knew I couldn’t leave the city without visiting Novel Strand Brewing Company, the brewery Chantel, along with her husband, Tamir Danon, and Ayana Coker, opened in 2018. Again, this meetup led to a deep conversation about culture and life.  With a great selection of beers and a focus on Tamir’s Israeli and Chantel’s Dominican culture, it's no surprise to me that last year, Hop Culture named the brewery the best in the country for those very same things and more. Novel Strand doesn’t shy away from injecting their culture into thei r brewery. I was reminded of this passion when I ran into them at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference, and we continued our easy flowing conversation over incredible Lagers.  After sharing great talks with Chantel, it was hard for me to keep her compassionate and endearing energy from you. In this episode, we’ll talk about the business of beer with a key focus on her work as general manager for Novel Strand. How does she approach this role? What’s a North Star that guides her in work and life? We also share our experiences with entrepreneurship and what we've both learned along the way.

Family recipes, passed down through generations, are one of life’s greatest blessings. In my house, it’s a salsa recipe, started in earnest by my mother, fiddled with endlessly by me, and one that I plan to pass down to my son. For Good Beer Hunting community editor and cooking enthusiast Stephanie Grant, it’s her grandmother’s recipe for red rice, an evolved version of the West African staple jollof, and one that she had to seek out in order to nurture a connection to her Gullah-Geechee identity. In a story for Good Beer Hunting titled “Hidden Heritage — A Search for Culture, Heirlooms, and My Grandma’s Red Rice Recipe,” Stephanie describes the culinary treasures of past generations and how they shaped her love and longing to understand the people who came before her. In this episode, you’ll hear her talk about how she’s been writing this story since childhood, and what it’s meant to her to see Black Southern culture be honored in kitchens and cookbooks as a long overdue legacy.  You’ll also hear how her search for red rice began, how it ended, and where it’s going, as she continues to put her own touch on food and history, which is something she says all generations are born to do in order to keep traditions alive and accessible. Food is a link to our past, present, and future, and it’s something we can all look to as a common tie even in divisive times. 

For many of us, beer is a passion. It’s something that tastes great, brings us together with loved ones, and provides small details we can fret over in an endless quest to best understand everything that goes into the beverage. It can also be a lifeline. In this episode, you’ll learn why a job in beer became so pivotal for Tony Rahí Jaquez Moreno, who came to the U.S. at 19 to study at the University of Nevada, but turned away from a career in mechanical engineering to immerse himself in malt, hops, water, and yeast. Known as “Tony J” to friends as well as fans of his hip hop, he’s now a multi-hyphenate brewer, marketer, taproom manager, and more for North Carolina’s Outsider Brewing. He’s also a recipient of the Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship Award for Brewing from the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling. As we learn from Tony about what drew him to beer, you’ll better understand his love of art and science, how he approaches brewing, and how a truly unique set of equipment at Outsider helps him communicate with drinkers. You’ll want to pay close attention to how we describe this patented setup, which lowers barriers for casual beer drinkers and enhances a taproom experience for enthusiasts. In both cases, it allows Tony to connect with customers to literally show them a brew day in process and share why they should care more about what ends up in their glass.  

The phrase “sober curious” is picking up steam in beverage alcohol circles—perhaps most notably in the craft beer industry. More non-alcoholic products, sober events, and shared conversations regarding our collective consumption habits are taking place than ever before, but a stigma remains. If you’re not drinking, why are you even in a beer space to begin with? That’s exactly what today’s conversation is about. I’m joined by writers Jerard Fagerberg and Mark LaFaro to discuss Jerard’s sober-curious column “Let Go or Get Dragged” and Mark’s recent piece on Good Beer Hunting titled “Tapped Out — The Problematic Culture of Overdrinking in the Alcoholic Beverage Industry.” Neither writer shies away from sharing personal, sometimes very raw experiences with alcohol consumption, in an attempt to destigmatize moderation and sobriety as well as provide resources for those interested in cutting back.  This episode is part of a series exploring both personal and cultural shifts regarding alcohol, where we discuss the evolving vocabulary around sobriety—or steps towards it—and unpack the core reasons why people congregate around beer in the first place. As someone who still works behind the bar, Mark reveals some ugly truths about what breweries expect from consumers (spoiler alert: It’s not always in the individuals’ best interest), as well as where they both find support in a sometimes judgemental landscape. You never have to explain why you’re not drinking, or even drinking less, but whether you’re curious about minimizing or eliminating alcohol from your diet, listening to those who have been through it before is a great foundation on where you can begin.

Over the last decade, one of the aspects of beer and brewing I've admired the most has been an increased attention from the world of academics. Wine has long been a centerpiece for research, but it feels like college faculty are now catching up thanks to a better understanding of the social, cultural, and community side of beer. There is a ton to be learned beyond the science of making beer and in this conversation, we'll get insight on how space and place inspire one professor. It may be summer, but we're heading back to campus with Josh Merced. Josh is a geographer by education, with a Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and teaching experience at Florida State University, UNC-Greensboro, Middle Tennessee State University, and come this fall, he'll be newly appointed at Northern Arizona University. At each stop, his research has had important crossover with craft beer, most recently teaching the class “Geographies of Craft Beer and Breweries” in Tennessee. If you’ve ever sat in a brewery or thought about how cities and landscapes impact who drinks craft beer and why, Josh will clue you in on valuable findings throughout our chat. From locations to music to our own lived experiences, it may come as no surprise that these all impact the way we come to interact with beer—or not at all. Josh will explain why this is particularly important for us to understand and change. You don’t need to have a stack of highlighters or visit a bookstore to benefit from this educational opportunity. I hope that getting to know Josh and his work puts him on your map as someone to follow that will help you form deeper understandings and new questions about what craft beer offers and how we can consider what might change to offer more to more people.  

Back in 2019, my husband and I traveled to Cuba, and as part of our entry into the country, we had to book a cultural experience. We chose a tour around the city of Havana, visiting different local spots while learning about the history and present day struggles of the country. Our tour ended at our guide's grandmother's house, where she served us rum and coffee. It was a beautiful experience that encouraged me to continue to get off the beaten path whenever I travel. My friends Sara and Sam Kazmer champion getting off the beaten path. The couple met at a bar while traveling in Florence, Italy, so it's no surprise that seeing the world has become part of their lives and business. Since then, Sara and Sam have visited several continents  before opening Elsewhere Brewing in Atlanta in 2020. You can hear all about their story in episode 298 of this podcast.  In this episode, we talk about their recent trip to Patagonia, Argentina, where they led a group of people with their friend, Richard, as a guide. After reading a post on Instagram from Sara recapping the trip, I knew I had to have her and Sam on the podcast to share their experience.  You'll hear them talk about why it's important to create trips that allow them to connect to people and culture in a deeper way. They also aren't shy about sharing the difficulties of balancing their duties as hosts with the desire to disconnect and recharge or how a language barrier and fluctuating inflation made planning this trip much harder than they anticipated. Stay tuned to the end where they divulge their next destination, which sounds like a dream. 

As a former resident of Richmond, Virginia, and with family and friends still there, I visit the city fairly frequently. But seeing it through the eyes of someone else and hearing them describe places like the James River, Ardent Craft Ales, or Mekong made me long to go back. But the story you’ll hear about today isn’t a typical travel piece: Rather, it’s a bittersweet exploration of the city, an ode to a friendship that ended too soon. In her first story for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Share What You Have — Seeing Richmond, Virginia, Through the Eyes of John Stoner,” writer and cartoonist Em Sauter takes readers on a uniquely personal journey to memorialize her friend John Stoner, a Richmond beer fixture and early supporter of her own work at Pints & Panels, her visual beer education and art business. John died unexpectedly in 2021, sparking a wave of grief Em couldn’t help but ride until she decided to honor his legacy and friendship by visiting his town to remember him as he was and to explore what he meant to her. In this episode, you’ll hear how writing the story acted as a therapeutic balm for her, a way to sit with her feelings and memories as her own life moves forward. I’m sure you can relate to the idea of having online friends—and especially online beer friends—whose lives may or may not ever come in direct contact with you, but help shape your experiences in unexpected ways. In the end, it’s kindness that Em hopes people share with one another. That, and a love of beer.

Whether food or drink, there’s so much that goes into process. That could mean how a brewer combines hops, malt, water, and yeast to get the flavor of a beer just right, or how a chef takes even more ingredients to build a dish with cascading tastes on every bite. In this episode, process and place come together in a unique way from a brewery in Ohio. Little Fish Brewing Company doesn’t just have a curious head brewer in co-founder Sean White, but also a James Beard Award-nominated executive chef in Becky Clark. And whether through their beer or restaurant menu, you’ll hear in this conversation common themes of appreciation for a place—Athens, Ohio—and process that makes local agriculture a key component of experiencing what Little Fish has to offer. While we start by discussing what it means to explore food and beer pairings, you’ll also hear how and why Becky and Sean care about the process of what they do and how they hope it shows up whenever someone takes a sip of Little Fish beer or a bite of their food. It’s clear that Becky and Sean think about their home as key to what they’re building at Little Fish, and as you listen to what they share you’ll gain a better understanding of what the brewery and a college town in Ohio may offer you, too.  

Many of the people who work in the craft beer industry got their start because they were passionate about the liquid in their glass. Eric Pham, head brewer and innovation brewer at Prison City Brewing in Auburn, New York, is one of those people. After feeling unfulfilled at his desk job, Eric's fiancé suggested he look for a job in the beer industry since they spent many of their weekends visiting breweries. Eric found his way into beer in 2018 as a warehouse assistant at Lamplighter Brewing Company, with roles at Trillium Brewing Company, Tree House Brewing Company, and Other Half Brewing Company. Each role would eventually prepare him for a leadership position at Prison City.  In our conversation, he’ll describe this journey from his early days at the company to becoming a head brewer. One of the valuable lessons he learned along the way is that there's no magic in big breweries like Trillium or Tree House, but simply a team of people working hard to get a pint in your hands. We also talk about his Michael Jackson Fund Scholarship and what he hopes to learn, but more importantly, how he hopes his moment in the spotlight will help him encourage other BIPOCs to join the beer industry. 

For years, spirits have taken up a larger share of alcohol consumption across the U.S. Almost exclusively stealing sales from beer, this trend has been boosted by increased interest in cocktails. Whether making them at home, buying them canned and ready to drink, or going out to a bar or restaurant, America’s cocktail culture is thriving as drinkers search for new flavor experiences. In this episode, we’re going to explore a few aspects of why. Durham, North Carolina’s Kingfisher bar was among this year’s semi-finalists for a James Beard Award in the Outstanding Bar Program category. Considered one of the highest honors a food or drink-focused business can receive, the nomination came as a testament to the unique agricultural and gastronomic focus created by co-owners Michelle Vanderwalker and Sean Umstead. Along with a dedicated list of year-round cocktails built off southern fruit and vegetables, Kingfisher also experiments with the idea of time and place through special collections like its "Biome Series," a way to explore terroir through spirits through themes of different environments. A "Desert" cocktail includes yucca flower, a "Prairie" sunflower shoots and sunchokes, or "Marine" with its oyster shells and caviar. But that’s the drinking part of what Kingfisher offers. As you’ll hear in the first part of our conversation, creating a sense of space at Kingfisher is pivotal to a drinking experience. Similar to how people may see drinking at a brewery taproom an immersive opportunity with beer, Michelle will walk us through why so much detail goes into building somewhere people want to drink cocktails and what that conveys when they sit down at the bar. Spirits and cocktails are thriving all over the country and don’t show any loss in momentum. With Michelle and Sean, you’ll get a peek into why from their corner of the Southeast.