Good Beer Hunting

Every inch of the land now known as the United States of America actually belongs to someone else. Some call them Native Americans. Others prefer American Indians, First Nations, Indigenous Americans, or use other monikers to describe the multitude of tribal identities that have been used, abused, and exploited throughout the generations by (mostly) white imperialist settlers. But these invaders didn’t simply erase history—they repackaged it with a new narrative, one that leverages ancient connections between the earth and its peoples for advertising purposes. History teacher and beer historian Doug Hoverson unpacks this widespread practice and beer’s role in it for his latest piece for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Chiefs, Maidens, and Image-Making — A History of American Indians in Beer Advertising,” which was published on September 22, 2021. Here, Hoverson and I discuss how his historical expertise and Midwestern roots led him to explore this phenomenon, as well as how other industries—such as professional sports—have finally begun to address the problematic nature of Native caricatures in advertising and beyond. He describes how Prohibition spawned a new wave of strangely puritanical marketing and how his research ultimately led him to tackle this project. You’ll hear what lies we’ve been told not just through advertising, but through history itself, and how the inescapable snare of white supremacy continues to emphasize tradition over collective improvement. It’s a complex conversation around a complex topic. But history buffs, beer drinkers, advertisers, and all Americans can learn something about ourselves, our communities, and our current social situation by looking at the past with fresh eyes. Let’s look back together.

If you’ve gone job hunting in the past 15 years, you may have sought out new professional challenges, a different geography, or more money, but there’s an ever-important part of the process for many that seeks out a harmonious crossover of personal and professional. I know I’ve looked for some semblance of that, where I don’t want my job to define who I am as a person, but I do want who I am as a person to influence how I go about my job, and ultimately, how much I may enjoy it. On a hunt to feel fulfilled, it’s perhaps inevitable, and in a healthy way, it’s needed, too. In this conversation, we’re lucky to hear from Amber Rosado, who has tracked a career path from restaurant server into the beer industry, and now as brewer at North Carolina’s Mason Jar Lager Company. At every step, she’s sought a deeper connection to what she does through who she is—using her personality, family history, and culture—and also found ways to bring along loved ones for the ride. If you’re a beer enthusiast and have friends or family in your life who don’t feel the same passion but like to turn to you for ideas, inspiration, or guidance for what to drink, you’ll enjoy Amber’s stories of using new found skills and experiences to help those closest to her. Or maybe you’ve reflected recently on your own career path and how you strive to find ways to create excitement and meaning, in which case you can probably relate to how Amber has seemed to find her place in beer instead of other areas of hospitality or beverage alcohol. Most of all, one of the things I appreciated hearing from Amber is the perspective of someone who has come of age as a drinker and a professional at a time when the stodgy rules of categories and what to drink when are blurring and being reshaped. Amber’s family may have guided her in what she enjoyed before, but it’s her hands-on work, a love for beer, and a pursuit of new ways to create flavor that drive her today. This conversation is going to be meaningful to you like it was for me because of how all of these things come together—Amber’s past and present creating a new and exciting future as a part of the beer industry.

Throughout my freelance beer-writing career, one person’s name has continued to pop up as someone to pay attention to. That person is Laura Garcia, a brewer who has worked across the state of Baja California, but primarily in Baja’s capital city of Mexicali, which also happens to be her hometown. But this isn’t a story about how I know Laura. It’s a story about why you should. Hailed by many as the best brewer in Baja, Laura worked her way from beer lover to beer judge to brewer and beyond. The pandemic interrupted her career trajectory, but she hasn’t let that dampen her enthusiasm for the craft. In fact, she’s using this time and space to reflect on what she wants for herself, for her beer community, and the Mexican craft beer scene at large. During the course of our conversation, Laura reveals how Mexicali’s scorching heat and surprisingly early brewing history helped launch the area’s now-thriving craft beer industry. She talks about how the region’s sometimes limited access to resources, coupled with her community’s willingness to share everything, has led to a tight-knit bond not seen in many other places in beer. We, of course, discuss how the United States—and San Diego specifically—have influenced the Baja beer scene, but also how its ability to accept that influence without compromising authenticity has led to amazing results. Laura also pushes back against misconceptions about Mexico in general, and invites listeners to experience the best of Mexicali without fear, with plenty of recommendations for the city’s ridiculously underrated food and drink scene.

As the curator of the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Theresa McCulla has access to some of the United States’ most treasured brewing artifacts. It was the uncovering of one such artifact that led her to explore the life of Patsy Young, an enslaved woman, brewer, wife, and mother who fought for her freedom (twice) and who left an indelible legacy on the narrative of American brewing. In her first piece for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Patsy Young — American Brewer, Fugitive From Slavery,” which was published on September 15, 2021, McCulla unpacks the realization that there is no single part of American history that the stain of slavery has not touched. We discuss her role as a historian and her responsibility for sharing the stories many have worked hard to erase, as well as how writing for a different sort of audience was a welcome challenge, if not also an academic duty. It’s only through analyzing history that we have any chance at informing the present, regardless of how difficult or traumatic the past may be, and she doesn’t flinch when faced with that inescapable truth. Is there a happy ending for Patsy Young? It’s hard to say. But McCulla likes to think so. Let’s find out why.

I’ve found myself adding some qualifiers to interview requests lately, ensuring people that while I create stories, analysis, and podcasts for Good Beer Hunting, the interests of myself and the publication extend far beyond what the name may suggest. If you click around goodbeerhunting.com or scroll through our podcast archive, you get the idea—we focus on so much more than just beer. That’s the way of the beverage alcohol industry these days, and why we’re talking to Vikram and Vivek Nayar in this episode. The pair are behind Two Robbers, a regionally-focused hard seltzer company that represents an ever-increasing portion of the category. There’s a good chance you know about White Claw, Truly, or Bud Light hard seltzers, but there are dozens of others who have found success by setting themselves apart from the most mass-produced examples on the market. What you’ll hear in this conversation is a reflection on current narratives of hard seltzer and what it means to build a company in a category that has completely changed beverage alcohol. Whether or not you’re a hard seltzer fan, the context and insight from Vik and Viv will help you better understand what it’s like for businesses in this rather new segment. And whatever headlines you may see, know that hard seltzer is wildly outpacing growth of beer, wine, and spirits in retail, which is why discussions like this can be so helpful to understand realities from within the industry.  

What is an IPA? Most drinkers around the world would probably identify IPA as the flagship style of the modern craft beer movement. As its popularity has grown, it has become known for a bunch of different—and often contradictory—characteristics. A modern IPA is either bitter or not bitter; pale, white, or black; very strong, sessionable, or nonalcoholic. But while IPA in all its forms is loved around the world, relatively few drinkers would be likely to name the drink’s intimate connection with the history of colonial exploitation. In this episode, I talk to David Jesudason, the author of a recent article, “Empire State of Mind — Interrogating IPA’s Colonial Identity,” that ran in our Critical Drinking series. In this conversation, we discuss David’s article and his take on the history of IPA, or India Pale Ale, to use its full name. We talk about mercantilism, extractive capitalism, and the East India Company, a massive corporation which maintained its own private army to protect its lucrative businesses during the British occupation of India. We talk about beer advertising and beer labels, and we discuss the prevalence of colonial-themed décor in modern British culture, including plantation shutters, and what seems like a widespread nostalgia for colonies and empire there.

The intersection between digital media and the more slow, meandering works of book authorship is one that, on its surface, might not seem to be well populated. But these days, to be a writer at all means being a lot of different things. You might work across channels, platforms, industries, styles, digital and print, freelance and newsroom, and all that mode switching is a lot. It’s just, a lot. The folks I’ve seen handle it really well tend to think and work in big phases - blogging or freelancing for a year and then diving into book writing for another year - reemerging some time later to ramp up their speedy output again. It’s an ebb and flow kind of thing, even if the changes aren’t so clearly defined as they might like. And underneath all this is the need to have a personal life that feels more continuous and permanent in some way. Some sort of arc of the author’s own story and interests that might never make it to the page or the browser, but certainly serve as a sort of invisible-to-the-reader backdrop for the things they write about most often. These things can be world-shaping, and perspective-creating and often, lost in the rigamarole of just trying to keep up with the work. Today’s guest, Emma Janzen, has been through all that - and this past year she’s found herself taking a big step back and weighing it all - sifting through the things that bring her joy and those things that maybe just ping her inbox, insufferably, with little value or meaning. She’s written full-length books and worked as a digital editor, often at the same time, and most recently found a collaborative process she really enjoys. All while navigating a pandemic and it’s many disruptions - some welcome, some not - to the path she was on. I’m sitting down with her on a farm in Michigan near where she’s been living, writing, and gardening. You’ll hear the airiness and insect-laden sounds of the farm itself as we share a couple pints from River St John brewery on-site - which if you haven’t been is a remarkable place full of saisons and freshly harvest vegetables, and on this particular day, a dead-of-summer sun that just wouldn’t quit. If sweat made a sound - you’d hear it.  

Where does inspiration end and innovation begin? When it comes to contemporary takes on established traditions, that line can seem a bit blurry at times. But in David Neimanis’ piece “The Architecture of Brooklyn Amaro — What it Means to Make Amari in the New World,” which was published on August 19, 2021, he expertly explores that line, its lineage, and what the future holds for American-made amari. In our conversation, Neimanis describes what led him to write about amaro, and Brooklyn-made amaro specifically. He’s looked to the past before for Good Beer Hunting, but his passion for his home borough is evident throughout this piece, thanks in part to his ability to meet with subjects in real life once more, after a year where so many in-person events and tastings have been stifled. We talk about who inspires him as a writer, what attracts him to the bitter spirit, how balance coupled with bitterness can create unexpected flavor sensations, and what qualities he looks for in his glass. By exploring the tension between tradition and innovation, local versus global, and the various philosophies swirling together in this modern-day spirits renaissance, Neimanis doesn’t just talk about what it means to make amaro in Brooklyn—he shows us.

There’s a lot of change taking place in beer and broader beverage alcohol, but you might not notice it. It’s not the form of sales shifting for hard seltzer or Mountain Dew announcing an uncaffeinated, alcoholic version of the soda, but in the quiet space of distribution. Alcohol sales are broken out into three traditional tiers—the producer (tier one) who makes it, distributors (tier two) who move it, and retailers (tier three), who sell it. These are broad brushstrokes, but are a key part of the painting Kate Bernot is going to create for you in this episode. Kate, Good Beer Hunting’s Sightlines reporter, has recently had a series of stories focused on what’s happening around shipping beer and other products, and we’re going to spend a good chunk of time talking about a very grey area that’s allowed some shipping companies to do business in a space of uncertain legality. Here’s why this podcast matters to you, whether you’re a drinker, business owner, or legal pro: there is a jockeying for power you may not see, with ramifications that you may not know until later, about a future that is increasingly blurry as drinks and drinks businesses explore new ways to make a buck. What you hear from Kate will matter to you, whether you’re thinking about it now or seeing it later. And with that in mind, I should also note that Kate and I are doing this kind of deep dive regularly for Good Beer Hunting’s Sightlines+ newsletter, which is an extension of our newsy Sightlines coverage and has a goal of combining objective data and reporting to help industry pros make informed decisions about managing a portfolio, access to market, and more. You can learn more at goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines-premium.

Finding good, honest people making good, honest beer isn’t as easy as craft beer has led us to believe. But every once in a while, a truly singular brewery—shielded by geography and rooted firmly to the land—reveals itself, putting forth artistry in liquid form while also providing a safe, beautiful, and intentional space for everyone who stumbles across its path. Fox Farm Brewery is one such place. In his latest piece for Good Beer Hunting, titled “Degrees of Intent — Fox Farm Brewery in Salem, Connecticut,” Matt Osgood explores the unique utopian vision that founders Zack and Laura Adams have for their small New England operation, along with the cosmic coincidences that helped pave their way. By harnessing genuine curiosity and a sense of discovery, the family-run brewery remains a rare example of craft beer actually living up to expectations of humanity, where the beer is revered but the people are paramount.  As Matt explains in this podcast conversation, everyone’s stories matter to somebody, and we all share memories of family, community, and communion through food and drink. He describes what drew him to Salem in the first place, and what will likely keep him coming back. We explore the overlaps between beer and wine, however esoteric, and how spontaneity tinged with intent can yield delectable results. And we also talk about what else he’s working on, why he loves profiling people, and where he’s going next.