Good Beer Hunting

Back in the summer of 2018, Good Beer Hunting readers were introduced to a name that stuck with me for years: David Jernigan. He’s one of the country’s leading researchers in the area of alcohol use and policy and at the time, was acting as an expert for a government task force in Maryland looking at potential alcohol reforms. In reporting for Sightlines, his name was mentioned by sources who also said words like “prohibition” or “temperance.” That connection will make better sense to you after this conversation with Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot, who explains how a modern academic is seen by some to have a connection to a generations-old movement to limit Americans’ choice in how and when they consume alcohol. From Jernigan’s point of view, however, he’s simply using his research and platform to lead studies that might encourage greater responsibility toward ourselves and others. In Kate’s profile of Jernigan and his work, which you can read on Good Beer Hunting, she shares how Jernigan has worked for decades to impact government decision making while potentially stretching research beyond clear conclusions to earn attention from media and politicians. Who is David Jernigan and why should you care? Let’s find out.

Buzzwords like “craft,” “ethical,” and “sustainable” seem to be everywhere in hospitality. But do those terms actually mean anything, and if so, how do they relate to the most important resource of all: people? Burum Collective founder and writer Helen Anne Smith explores this strange and sometimes intentionally dissonant question in their first piece for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Last Call — The Human Sustainability Crisis at the Heart of the Hospitality Industry,” which was published on September 29, 2021. In it, they explain how resource sustainability, while crucial, often disregards the human element, and what consumers and employees alike need to do about it. In this podcast conversation, Helen reveals how they’re channeling emotions like cynicism and anger to push for a better industry for everyone, how to harness a sense of powerlessness and turn it into action, the importance of intersectionality when making necessary demands, and how we all need to collectively work together to ensure the safety and survival of the most vulnerable among us. This isn’t a conversation for you to listen to, lament, and set aside. I encourage you to sit with the discussion and think about what you can do to make the hospitality industry a better, most just, more liveable, and more equitable place.

In this episode we’re going to chat about the present and look back in time. You’re going to get to meet Cortni McKenzie, an aspiring beverage alcohol professional who got a taste of what it’ll take to excel in the industry this past summer and continues to put in the work to establish herself this fall and beyond. Earlier this year, Cortni was part of the Many Faces Initiative, a North Carolina-based internship program that provided mentorship and immersive training for people of color interested in pursuing careers in beer and other alcohol categories. The program was started by Town Brewing and included four other businesses, each with their own intern. After a ten-week period at Charlotte's GoodRoad CiderWorks, Cortni continues to work there and has also launched her own business called Cortly Crafted, meant to help people and businesses find unique drinks and drink experiences. In this conversation you’ll hear Cortni share stories about her experience entering the beverage alcohol workforce and a capstone project where she created pop-up shops that offered new ways to create more inclusive events for people of all backgrounds and interests. One of the special things about hosting the Good Beer Hunting podcast is an ability to meet new people and hear about how their experiences shape what’s happening in real time in alcohol industries. Cortni is part of that change, and when you meet her, you get an important perspective that reminds us of the excitement that comes with creating something new.  

Earlier this year, I had the honor of moderating “The Art of Storytelling: Highlighting Important Stories” at Crafted for Action, a four-day, hybrid conference for craft beer lovers. One of the members of the panel was Aaron Hosé, an Aruban-born filmmaker who has been working in the biz for over 20 years. Though the panel was virtual, I had a chance to meet some of the speakers in person at the opening event here in Atlanta. That’s where I met Aaron Hosé. He was actually the first person I ran into at Atlantucky Brewing, where the opening was happening. We quickly fell into a conversation about the film that he was premiering at the conference. It was easy to see how passionate he was about the story he was telling about Black people in the beer industry and the difficulties they experienced opening their own breweries. It took me mere minutes to ask him to join me on this podcast, even before I viewed the film. Once I saw the film, I was captivated by the stories and mildly amused at seeing some of my friends and acquaintances in the film. The Black beer community seems small when you know almost everyone on the screen. In our conversation, we talk about the film and the inspiration behind creating it. We discuss the importance of going with the flow, and how people of color should tell their own stories--the topic of our panel at Crafted for Action. Aaron also shares how he gained the trust of his interviewees and what he wishes he could change about the film.

Over the past several months, Good Beer Hunting reporter Kate Bernot has been at the forefront of covering allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and unsafe working conditions at Mikkeller, a Denmark-based brewery with bars and brewpubs all over the world, including a prominent location in San Diego. Kate’s coverage has included stories on protests at the brewery’s Copenhagen headquarters and stories from former employees who alleged instances of inappropriate workplace behavior and silence from leadership. Most recently, Kate has written about how these previous storylines came together ahead of the company’s Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen, one of the most prestigious beer festivals in the world, from which dozens of breweries withdrew in opposition, and eventually garnered an apology from Mikkeller. In this conversation, Kate will recap all this and more, and give you insight into what it’s been like to report on an evolving story. This is an opportunity to better understand what it takes to write about all of what’s happened to, with, and toward Mikkeller since this summer, and get a better understanding of the context behind it all.

There are a lot of parallels between good music and good beer, from the similarly creative processes of conceptualizing new beers and writing new songs to the way independent makers are fighting for their place at the table in two industries that are dominated by massive corporations. Beer media and music publications have a lot in common, too.  Although I mostly write about food and drink nowadays, I got my start by writing music reviews for the San Francisco Bay Guardian while playing guitar in an indie band in the city. Several beer writers, actually, started out as music writers. And more than a few brewers, publicans, and brewery owners had early careers in the music industry. In this episode, I talk to Blake Enemark, head brewer at Tailgunner Brewing Company in Calgary, Alberta. Before he became a brewer, Blake played guitar in a band called We Are the City, touring in a van from show to show and recording a bunch of cool songs. Since he left the band, he’s become an award-winning brewer who spent a couple of years working with Mike Lackey at Great Lakes Brewery in Ontario, followed by gigs at breweries like Last Best and OT Brewing in Calgary. We met at the Central European Brewers Conference in Budapest, Hungary, where Blake was giving a presentation on modern IPA techniques. (Interestingly, he says that one of his most popular beers at Tailgunner is a Czech-style pale lager, a style that is close to my own heart.) We talk about music and brewing, what the two fields have in common and what sets them apart, as well as Blake’s influences, from brewers he never brewed with (but was inspired by) to mentors like Luc “Bim” Lafontaine of Godspeed Brewery in Toronto. By chance, we’re speaking at the Hungarian Rock Museum, which is filled with vintage guitars, musical equipment, and photographs of people rocking out.

There are more than half a million bartenders working in the United States, although it’s a pretty safe bet that those numbers have changed in COVID’s wake. Still, that’s a heck of a lot of people mixing cocktails, pouring beers, and popping bottles for guests, all while also acting as therapists, entertainers, and occasionally bouncers for the mere privilege of serving us. But where do we form our collective expectations about the role of bartenders? In her latest piece for Good Beer Hunting, freelance writer Gloria Rakowsky describes her early introduction to the sometimes-illustrious position from places like The Love Boat and Cheers. Her piece, titled “Do It With Flair — The Changing Role of the Bartender in Pop Culture,” unpacks how society views the people between us and the drinks we love through a cultural analysis of movies, television, and other influences that have redefined the role over the years. As a writer who also serves beer at a local brewery in her hometown of Syracuse, New York, Rakowsky’s perspective as both observer and participant gives her a unique insight into what it means to serve. During this podcast conversation, she discusses a range of topics from how to differentiate empowerment from exploitation, the disconnect between who we’re shown as icons of hospitality versus who’s actually behind the bar, and how society has influenced our perception of bartending as either a glamorous end goal or temporary stepping stone.

Producing and hosting a weekly local radio show likely isn’t how most beer writers get their start—but that’s exactly where Emma Inch’s career in beer began. With a passion for rockabilly music, which she saw as an outlet from the stress of her day job as a mental health crisis worker, Emma went from hosting club nights to approaching her local radio station with a show idea. Then a few years later—as she began noticing a change in her local beer scene in Brighton, England—she pitched an idea for a new show, and in late 2015 Fermentation Beer and Brewing Radio began. Initially a live monthly radio show with a local focus on the beer scene in and around Brighton, Emma later decided to continue producing the show as a podcast instead. As she puts it, with most podcasts sought out rather than stumbled upon, as radio programs often are, this enabled her to not only broaden her geographical scope (from Brighton to the rest of Britain and beyond), but to narrow her focus and take a deeper dive with the stories she was telling. And in 2018, Emma’s storytelling skills won her the U.K.’s highest accolade for a beer writer: the Michael Jackson Gold Tankard for Beer Writer of the Year. When I ask her to take us back to that moment, her memories are a bit fuzzy. Not from alcohol, but from the rather tough bout of sinusitis she was battling at the time. But when I ask her to reflect on how the win has impacted her career since, she rapturously reels off a list of the incredible opportunities it brought her way. We also discuss the impact of her win on the industry more broadly, and what it means to be a queer woman taking home the top award in a space still dominated by straight white men. And with Emma’s recent election as Chair of the British Guild of Beer Writers, the organization behind the awards that recognized her work, she tells us how she’s keen to bring further focus to issues of diversity, representation, and equity within the beer writing community. From looking forward to her newest role, we then take a look back at her longest-standing one. Alongside her current career as a drinks writer, audio maker, and podcast consultant, Emma is a part-time university lecturer in social work. We explore how that role—then and now—has influenced her perspective on the beer world, her approach to her work, and the stories she chooses to tell.

Conversations around beer often focus on what to drink: I had this great beer the other day. Here's something you might like, or a brewery worth supporting. Fewer conversations focus on what not to drink. But that’s exactly what happened on a spring day in 1974, between a Teamsters union leader named Allen Baird and a gay leftist activist named Howard Wallace. Wallace ran into Baird outside a supermarket in the Castro, San Francisco's queer neighborhood, and they started talking about Coors beer, which at the time was one of the most sought-after brands in the Western United States. But they weren’t talking about drinking it—on the contrary, Baird was there to protest it. The two were taking part in one of American history's longest conversations about what not to buy. More than that, the unlikely alliance they formed would rejuvenate an iconic consumer movement that joined organized labor with civil rights groups of all stripes. These were the Coors boycotts of the late 20th century, and they were a big deal. Confined neither to Coors' hometown of Golden, Colorado nor San Francisco, the boycotts were a nationwide phenomenon that swept from the brewery’s gates through California, Montana, Utah, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and many more places in between. Officially, the boycotts lasted over 30 years, from 1957 through 1987. And for some, they never ended. Reverberations and reminders of the boycott's legacy endure even to the present day. That’s because the boycott merged the motivations of underrepresented community groups, labor unions, and leftist organizations, transcending single issues to become a shared cause. For everyone involved, it was about much more than just beer. Note: During this episode, we inaccurately refer to LGBTQIA+ rights activist Harvey Milk as the first openly gay person elected to Congress. Instead, Milk was the first openly gay elected official in California's history, when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early 1978. He was assassinated later that year while serving in that role. We apologize for the error.

Every now and then, I get to host an episode where the conversation has very little to do with beer or other kinds of beverage alcohol. This is another one of those opportunities as we hear from Hoby Wedler, an organic chemist with a Ph.D. from UC-Davis, an entrepreneur, teacher, and genuinely positive guy. If I had my way, I’d likely put that last description first for sake of what Hoby radiates out into the world. He was recently named to Wine Enthusiast’s “40 Under 40 Tastemakers” for his work in wine research and education, which is where you may have come across his name, but Hoby has been recognized many times for the contributions he’s made to science and beverage. He’s been blind since birth and as a sensory expert, regularly takes others on journeys through their own imagination to more fully appreciate what each of their senses can provide and help them discover. You’ll hear in our conversation why this matters and the richness it brings Hoby and those he meets. This is not an episode about beverage alcohol, although we do talk a bit about wine. It’s more an exploration of happiness and not just existing in the world around us, but finding excuses to be consumed by it in the best ways. So whether or not you’ve heard of Hoby or heard him talk, I invite you to join us, consider what makes these next moments great for you, and experience today’s sounds and tastes a little bit differently, with a little more adventure, and a lot more positivity. This is Hoby Wedler, chemist, sensory expert, and entrepreneur.