Good Beer Hunting

Welcome to A Thousand Words, a special project by Good Beer Hunting. I'm Ashley Rodriguez. In this series of the GBH podcast, we ask members of our team to enter the realm of audio storytelling. Most of us are familiar with the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” right? But now, we're challenging our contributors to actually write down those words, and to create pictures of the world around them as told in their own voices.With that in mind, you’re about to hear different stories read aloud by members of our editorial team. Think of each brief narrative as a snapshot of a moment, like an audio version of the b-Roll series on our website. In this installment of A Thousand Words, we wanted to talk about beer and love. We asked our writers to recall moments from their lives when romance, heartache, camaraderie, and friendship intersected with beer. Like love, some stories are funny and some are painful. But they’re all complex, and they evoke feelings, moments, pangs of joy and sorrow that we’ve all felt before. And they all place beer at the heart of the narrative. Each storyteller will introduce themselves before jumping into their own anecdote. We hope you can visualize every vignette, and immerse yourself in the pictures they’re painting for you. This is A Thousand Words, a collection of audio stories. Listen in.

Today I’m chatting with one of the newer voices on Good Beer Hunting—Brian Alberts. He’s not technically new—we published a story from him back in 2018 about the importance of preserving the historical record in breweries. That was sort of a one-off piece on a topic that until then we hadn’t really invested much in frankly: beer history. And the main reason for that was that so much had already been invested in beer’s history that GBH’s charter was really about trying to capture the zeitgeist. But over the years, thanks to people like Brian, my perspective on that history had evolved. And seeing its relevance to the seemingly unprecedented movement of American craft helped me realize how little is really unprecedented at all. When we launched the From Barrons to Barrels series this past winter, Brian was the first person I reached out to discuss what was possible in the series. The stories were meant to be rooted in Midwestern beer history, but that doesn’t mean that it was meant to explore than history through conventional means. Rather, we wanted to find a way of connecting some of those dots between past and present. And for us, that means through the various lenses of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, and politics. When it comes to those things—alongside and interwoven with our beer—history really does repeat itself. Or at least, offers up the same songs but in a different key. Now Brian has a few feature stories under his belt—including a look at the Munich Beer Riots of 1844, the reactionary alcohol policies and life under the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and the longstanding economic dependency between Milwaukee and Chicago brewers. This is Brian Alberts, listen in.

I’m Evan Rail, and you’re listening to the Good Beer Hunting podcast. Pilsner, as a style, is currently “having a moment,” with cult breweries everywhere from Travis County, Texas, to County Durham in northeast England producing highly sought-after versions of the beer that was first brewed in the Czech town of Pilsen in 1842—and which was once the epitome, for many craft beer lovers, of the widely derided “fizzy yellow beer.” Formerly largely ignored in favor of Ales, especially variations on India Pale Ale, by earlier generations of beer fans, Pilsner, here at the start of the 2020s, is pretty close to the hot new thing. So how did that happen? And why did that happen? And what’s Pilsner’s backstory? Tom Acitelli is the author of a new book, “Pilsner: How the Beer of Kings Changed the World.” A longtime drinks journalist, Acitelli also wrote “The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution,” as well as books on wine and whiskey. You’ve seen his byline in The Wall Street Journal, Eater.com, The Washington Post, All About Beer (where he was the history columnist for several years), and most recently here at Good Beer Hunting, where his feature story, Grab and Go — How Imperialism Aided the Spread of European Beer, covered the historical connections between colonization and the appearance of European beer styles in Africa and elsewhere. In this episode, I’m talking with Tom Acitelli about Pilsner, its backstory, the history of craft, as well as imperialism, the temperance movement, and the big picture of alcohol in America. It’s a wide-ranging conversation with one of the beer world’s best writers. This is Tom Acitelli, author of “Pilsner: How the Beer of Kings Changed the World.” Listen in.

I’m Evan Rail, and you’re listening to the Good Beer Hunting podcast. It’s September 2020, and the coronavirus pandemic is still raging on—and nowhere more obviously than in the United States, which has about 25% of the world’s reported cases, even though it is only home to about 4% of the world’s population. Because of that infection rate, for the first time in memory, U.S. citizens haven’t been able to travel to Europe, with almost all of the European Union countries currently closed to travelers coming from the United States. So when it comes to beer, what are we missing out on? Although I’m originally from California, I’ve been living in Europe and writing about food and drink here for over 20 years. Normally, I’d spend a good part of my summer showing North American brewers and beer lovers around Prague, Czech Republic—my adopted hometown—or bumping into folks from back home at beer festivals and pubs in places like Brussels, Berlin, and Munich. I started thinking about what beer lovers really get out of a trip to Europe—what they’re missing out on, in other words, while the pandemic makes travel impossible, at least for now. For this podcast I reached out to four friends in the U.S. who have spent quality time here in the Old World, including Joe Stange, managing editor of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine and the author of Good Beer Guide Belgium; and Annie Johnson, the 2013 American Homebrewers Association Homebrewer of the Year and a BJCP National Judge. I also talked to Aaron Johns, whose company, Taste Local Beer, used to run beer tours in Prague until he moved back to the West Coast a few years ago; and Good Beer Hunting’s own Jamaal Lemon, who toured across a bunch of European beer countries after winning a competition for bloggers from World of Beer in 2016. I wanted to ask these folks what they missed about beer in Europe, and what they thought was valuable about their time here. I wanted to know what they learned and what they thought beer fans might miss out on if they just read an article or watched a video from Europe instead of traveling there themselves. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I wanted to know why this situation sucks.

I love interviewing Good Beer Hunting contributors in these Collective episodes, mainly because I get to learn behind-the-scenes stories that might otherwise have been left on the cutting-room floor. Hearing about our writers, their lives, and their sources of inspiration lends new context to their work—and makes their already-accomplished articles feel even more complete. Today, I’m talking with Stephanie Grant, who wrote “Drinking While Black—The Isolation and Loneliness of Navigating All-White Taprooms,” published on our website on June 25, 2020. This piece has lived a lot of lives. It was first commissioned before COVID-19 effectively shut down taprooms around the country, and later had to adapt to the new, post-pandemic world. It morphed again after the murder of George Floyd, and subsequent nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Ultimately, Stephanie's essay is intentionally dualistic, contrasting her experiences drinking in taprooms in Asheville, North Carolina—an overwhelmingly white city long known as "Beer City USA"—and the much more diverse city of Atlanta, where she's based. That tension—and that pull between two totally different experiences—is no accident. Stephanie studied information design and communication, and thinks a lot about how people take in information. This shows up in her current work as a social media manager for Monday Night Brewing in Atlanta, and is especially important now, given how many breweries and brands are relying on social media to communicate with their customer base. Stephanie’s story is also personal—she’s used to highlighting others, and working behind the scenes, but this piece was a journey in telling her own story. We talk about finding the moment where you realize the most powerful story you possess is your own. Here’s Stephanie.

Hey listeners—this week’s GBH Collective episode is a timely conversation between two of our writers who bring two very different perspectives to the site. First up is Kate Bernot, our Sightlines lead reporter. Kate recently wrote a great story about the neo-Prohibitionist laws, policies, and sentiments that seem to be experiencing a groundswell of support during the pandemic. In this conversation, she outlines exactly how goofy, yet unshakable, some of these ideas are when they reach the status of conventional wisdom. Have you seen a headline lately about how Americans are drinking insane amounts of beer during lockdown? Yeah, on average, it’s bullshit. But that’s not stopping the rhetoric. And, as Kate explains, those headlines add up to a kind of critical mass of truthiness—which starts influencing politicians and policymakers. Next up, we have Brian Alberts, a scholar who writes about beer history for GBH. He explains why these repeated moments of Prohibitionist rhetoric appear throughout American history. He also describes why, instead of operating cyclically, these episodes are the result of a force meeting a counterforce—and both sides gaining strength at the same time. Is temperance a war of attrition? Or will previous precedents point to likely future results? This conversation digs into the many factors influencing America’s long pattern of Prohibitionist tensions. This is Kate Bernot and Brian Alberts. Listen in.

Welcome to this episode of Sightlines. I’m Bryan Roth. This podcast is part of our content for Sightlines Premium, an insights-driven professional community and subscription newsletter designed to help industry decision-makers grow their business. In this episode, you’ll get a snippet of that content, as we explore a style-specific case study of what’s working for breweries around the country. Discussions of these timely and relevant topics are what drives our content on Sightlines Premium, and if you’re interested in what’s changing at breweries—or if you’re someone at a brewery making business decisions—our subscriber community is continually getting up-to-date market analysis and sharing expertise in our dedicated forum, and via video chats with fellow subscribers. If you like what you hear, learn more at goodbeerhunting.com/sightlines-premium. Starting in 2019, fruit beers—a non-specific category comprising fruited and flavored brands—showed some of the strongest growth among beer styles in grocery, convenience, liquor, and other chain stores. This has become even more stark in 2020, as COVID-19 has accelerated brewing and sales strategies that are focused on easy-to-understand flavor experiences, like hop-forward beers … or beers featuring fruit. Let’s be clear: In terms of raw dollar sales, nothing is even close to what IPAs sell in chain stores. But more and more, the pace of growth for fruit beers is becoming noteworthy. Listen in as we discuss.

I’m Jonny Garrett, and you’re listening to the Good Beer Hunting podcast. My guest today is Felix Nash, founder of the Fine Cider Co, a distribution company focusing on small-batch, natural ciders. When you first meet Nash, he seems an unlikely fit for the fast, hard sell nature of alcohol distribution. But as you’ll likely hear during the podcast, there’s a steely grit and relentless positivity about him—both as important in distro as the ability to upsell or talk numbers. His background sounds more like that of a producer—a fine arts degree, a eureka moment, a series of supper clubs that he used to try and convert his friends. But living in London meant only one route was open to him, and the remarkable trust placed in him by Tom Oliver of Oliver’s Cider has sent him on a journey he would freely admit is unlikely. We talk about the start of the company, his relationship with some of the best cider makers in the world, his focus on fine dining customers, and of course the impact that COVID-19 has had on all of them. Cider was perhaps on the verge of having a moment in the U.K., of finding its own space after years of being an interesting aside to the worlds of craft beer and natural wine. Hereford, in particular, has gained a reputation for making exception natural ciders and was seeing plenty of growth and innovation in the months leading up to the outbreak. It would be easy to assume that momentum has gone with most of Nash’s customers closing for the summer, but he has found a way to make it work, keeping people talking and most importantly going direct to sell through some of his stock in time for this year’s vintage. Nash gives some fascinating insights into a small industry with huge potential, and a young company at the start of a long journey—how inspiration is more important than education, how he hopes cider can learn from the mistakes of craft beer, and what the future of cider looks like post-COVID-19. This is Felix Nash of the Fine Cider Co. Listen in.

This is GBH Out Loud, and I’m Ashley Rodriguez. Today you’ll hear our editor-in-chief, Claire Bullen, read “A Fire Being Kindled—The Revolutionary Story of Kveik, Norway’s Extraordinary Farmhouse Yeast,” published on Good Beer Hunting’s website on July 31, 2019. It’s interesting when an article exceeds its bounds, and when a story touches upon themes that end up being even more relevant months, or even years, after it was initially published. Norway’s kveik yeast, employed by farmhouse brewers across the western portion of the country for thousands of years, had nearly disappeared before it was rediscovered by the mainstream beer world. Now it’s gained international renown and is being used by some of the most prominent brewers around the world. As you’ll hear, Claire’s story is about this extraordinary family of farmhouse yeast, but it’s also about extinction, history, sustainability, and what it means for something to belong to a place, or a group of people. Here’s Claire reading “A Fire Being Kindled—The Revolutionary Story of Kveik, Norway’s Extraordinary Farmhouse Yeast.” Listen in.

In today’s episode, I’m interviewing someone who—until this pandemic hit—I didn’t realize I would miss on a personal level. We’ve only interacted a couple of times in person—and always at the Foeder for Thought festival, hosted by GBH and Green Bench Brewing Company in St. Petersburg, Florida. In the months following the cancellation of the festival back in March, I found myself paying more and more attention to Ren LaForme’s Twitter—and honestly, I think a big reason was that I was lamenting the loss of that once-a-year hang we’d get after a day hosting talks under the Florida sunshine. Walking off that stage and across the street to the Independent Bar, and having a few beers with Ren, was usually a great nightcap to an already stellar week. Another reason I started paying attention to Ren’s Twitter was its level of nuance. I came to realize that he’d taken on a new role at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and as a result, the content coming from its site, Poynter.org, had shifted in a direction that was increasingly applicable to me, and what GBH does. Ren has long focused on the technology and tools of journalism as part of the institute’s ongoing public education. And more recently, he took over as Managing Editor, and shifted his focus to publishing stories about everything from the tensions among newsrooms and threats to the safety of journalists to equity in the pursuit of the craft. So I don’t know. Maybe I was missing him. Maybe he was publishing some great content. Either way, the algorithm provides. And as a publisher myself, I wanted to hear more about some of these issues, and how journalists who are coming up in academia now are thinking about them. This is Ren LaForme of the Poynter Institute. Listen in.