Good Beer Hunting

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Bryan Roth, and I’m the Sightlines editor for Good Beer Hunting.  Whether you’re a beer drinker or an industry pro, chances are you may have heard someone talking about “innovation” in beer. Usually, that means a brewery is releasing a new beer, sometimes a new style it hasn’t made before, or using a novel technique, or ingredient. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot for a product that’s existed for, well, thousands of years. That’s not to take away from all the incredible changes, old and new, that take place in beer—but in today’s Collective podcast, we’re talking about literal invention. In his latest piece for Good Beer Hunting, Stan Hieronymus shares the story, “There’s a Beer Patent for That — A Brief History of Curious Beer Ideas.” It’s his second story for Good Beer Hunting’s Mother of Invention series, which is told in collaboration with Guinness. In his story on patents, Stan looks at the history of beer, and the variety of people who have applied to get their creations protected through a longstanding government process. It's a way to ensure that a creator’s ideas and intellectual property stay with them. Stan pored over a treasure trove of beer patents to find the examples he shares in his story. Many were tracked down thanks to fellow writer Jay Brooks, who maintains a running collection of beer-related patents on his blog. Along with discussions with GBH editorial director Austin L. Ray (which also led to a previous piece on hop oils), it was Jay’s digital cache that set Stan on his way in telling this story. This is the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast. Listen in.

Craft beer has always had an uncomfortable relationship with marketing, Instagram and social media, and things like hype, status, and influencers. It’s also long had an issue with women. Not just sexuality, but of course, also that. Not just gender and inclusion, but also that. Not just diversity and equality, but also that. In the most general, broad sense, craft beer (and beer in general), both culturally and as an industry, has long been a walled garden for men in the U.S. And over the past couple weeks, we saw that play out in a pretty specific, explicit fashion. Here’s how it went down. - Links to the folks we spoke to:  Zach Johnston, Senior Writer-at-Large for Uproxx Caitlin Johnson, beer blogger and content creator, @bigworldsmallgirl Megan Stone, brewer for Duclaw Brewing Co., @isbeeracar Alyssa Thorpe, head brewer for Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery, @southernbeergirl

Today’s conversation is another deep dive into a product that fits into the emerging “Better For You” category of low calorie beer and non-alcoholic beer, hard seltzers, kombucha, and whatnot that grocer stores are starting to organize their shelves around as drinkers start looking for options that satisfy that itch for a beer or a drink, but doesn’t interrupt their flow.  These kinds of drinks used to be seen as alternatives. Something you drank as a compromise when you really wanted something else. But as you’ll hear today, these drinks are increasingly being seen as a primary option—something that’s desirable and perfectly designed to fit what you want from a moment or an occasions.  There have been dozens of articles written lately, published in places like the New York Times, about the increasingly popular sober lifestyle.  What’s behind that trend, and how big it is is entirely up for debate. In this conversation with Adam Warrington of AB InBev, who recently launched a new project with an old standby NA brand called O’Doul’s, we try to get at the heart of the matter from a variety of directions. Health consciousness, designated driving and moderation in general, but also some of the newer social conventions that give NA beer new relevance, like social media, and our increasing desire to always be in control and well-presented to an imaginary audience. Think about it. If you got a little drunk 10 years ago and did something lame, maybe five of your friends were there to see it. But now, you could wind up being viewed by tens of thousands. Which has implications for everything we do—from how we decorate our apartments to the things we eat and drink, to the freedom we feel to let loose, or not, based on how vulnerable we feel  This winds up being a very small part of the conversation today—this observation anxiety society we’re all living in—but it was by far the biggest takeaway for me, and I can’t stop thinking about it.  How does the anxiety of being observed and exposed outside of our control play in to the decisions we make around food and beverage? There’s a lot going on there, and non-alcoholic beer is perhaps a small sliver of that. But it’s growing at an impressive rate. Are we ready for more emphasis on a sober lifestyle amongst the next generation? Are we ready for a more sober society in general? O’Douls and other emerging NA brands are getting ready. In fact, AB InBev and others think non-alcoholic and ver low alcoholic beer could be as big as 20% of their worldwide sales in the next 5 years. That’s a very big bet they’re all making. And most of us still think beers like O’douls are just that beer that sits low on the shelf in the back of the liquor store. How wrong we might be.  This is Adam Warrington of AB InBev, listen in. 

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH’s strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We’ll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we’re on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it’s my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

If you haven’t noticed, the world is starting to think about the role that craft beer plays in a healthy lifestyle. Is this a reaction to the Pastry Stouts and high ABVs of contemporary craft beer? Or is it part of a larger trend where drinkers want to know more about what’s going into their bodies and how it impacts their lives?  Anyone in the business of selling beer right now is talking about an emerging category known as “better for you,” which covers everything from low-calorie craft beer and kombucha to hard seltzers and gluten-free or gluten-reduced beer.  You’ve probably seen GBH reporting on Michelob Ultra, the low-calorie, low-carb front-runner, which is the fastest growing brand in beer history. Mich Ultra is sort of the tip of the spear for the category, giving corporate and craft brewers alike the confidence they need to explore some of these new directions for beer.  But while most brands are focused on the functional components of these beers—touting low-calorie, low-ABV, and other benefits—very few of them have tried to build a community around their brands and lifestyles the way today’s guest has. Caitlin Landesberg is the founder and CEO of Sufferfest, based in San Francisco.  Her brand was born out of, and still lives in, athlete culture. As a former marketing executive in the fitness tech start-up world, Caitlin had a front-row seat to athletes’ needs and motivations. And she was one herself. As a result of these interests, her homebrewing hobby took a radically different approach to beer making. She brewed for flavor, and fitness, and for a reduced-gluten profile. She used healthful ingredients and considered athletic occasions as prime beer-drinking moments. She should know—she loves to celebrate a win with a beer. A moment that she has dubbed “sufferfest”—hence the company name.  This year, Caitlin and her team are making a massive transition, as they recently earned the attention of Sierra Nevada, who will now brew their beers. Sierra is also working to expand the distribution footprint of Sufferfest as a major new portfolio play.  I’ve been working in and thinking about this “better-for-you” space for the last year on our studio side, helping our clients pivot and expand to new audiences interested in these beers. That plays into this conversation, and one way it shows up is that you’ll mistakingly hear me refer to Sufferfest as part of the non-alcoholic, or NA, trend. It’s not, though—Sufferfest’s beers definitely have alcohol, and that mistake is just part of my brain blurring a few conversations I was having that day. So for clarity, Sufferfest beers are gluten-reduced, and offer a host of other benefits.  This is Caitlin Landesberg of Sufferfest—listen in.

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get the behind the scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I’m Michael Kiser, and I’m the founder and director of Good Beer Hunting. And for today’s conversation, I was also the photographer. I recently shot a unique story assignment in a remote corner of the Czech Republic, called South Moravia. South Moravia, as you’ll hear, is a famous wine-producing region. And now, it’s also home to one of the country’s most wine-inspired brewers—Jitka Ilčíková of Wild Creatures.  I was especially keen to go on this assignment because it meant rejoining my friend and colleague, Evan Rail, who lives in Prague. I’ve joined Evan on a few journeys, starting way back around 2013 in Prague and Pilsen, when he first took me to Pilsner Urquell, Kout na Šumavě, and beyond. On this trip we met in Budapest for a conference and hitched a ride from some brewers to Mikulov, where we planned to visit what might be the country’s only wild ale producer. Listen in.

What’s the balance between being a bit “punk” and also being a responsible business owner? You can probably find examples from a variety of companies in beer that straddle this line. In this podcast, you’re hearing from the owners of one of them. At Boise, Idaho’s Woodland Empire Ale Craft, founders Rob and Keely Landerman have long been said to produce some of the best beer in town. Online references started popping up not long after the brewery opened in 2014 ,and have picked up steam in recent years. But for this husband-and-wife duo, the focus behind the scenes hasn’t been about chasing trends or finding ways to get high scores on rating platforms. As you’ll hear in this conversation, a lot of it has to do with finding balance between pursuing their own passions and appreciations for beer alongside ways to address what drinkers are into at a certain moment. In one example, these factors can be seen by way of their Ada County Stout, a barrel-aged Imperial Stout created to specifically mimic Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout in name and visuals. You'll hear the reasoning behind these decisions—and a variety of legal considerations that came along the way. There’s also talk about how and why a need for certain hazy kinds of IPA came to be, and finding the right balance between brewing what you want and giving customers what they want, too. The pair share their path toward beer, which winds through the country’s music scene, and how they ended up choosing Idaho as a place to base their entrepreneurial project. Their company hasn’t been around for a long time, but it has played a part in helping to shape the next wave of Boise beer. This is Rob and Keely Landerman of Woodland Empire Ale Craft. Listen in.

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH’s strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We’ll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we’re on the road, or they hang out with each other, but it all comes together in our community forum on Slack. If you value the content and experiences that GBH produces, you should join. Your monthly subscription gets you access to the community, special events, and exclusive gear deigned just for members. I joined, and now I manage it all. Plus, it’s my favorite place on the Beer Internet. Visit goodbeerhunting.com/ferventfew to strike up a conversation in beer.

Today’s episode is the second we’ve done with this duo of Mike Siegel of Goose Island and Ron Pattinson, beer historian, writer, and a collaborator on a recipe revival project of sorts. Way back in 2016 we invited these two over to the studio to discuss their Brewery Yard Stock Pale Ale, a barrel-aged brett pale reminiscent of what a beer brewed in England over a century ago may have been like according to their research.  Today’s conversation is about a new beer called Obadiah Poundage, which isn’t trying to replicate a recipe so much as try to approximate what a porter might have tasted like if it were brewed in London in 1840.  These beers have both been fascinating, not only for their history and story, but the final product itself. They taste and feel familiar, but with an edge that’s entirely foreign. Like a bizarro world version of a beer you think you know. Sometimes that’s an ingredient choice, or a process decision, or in some cases, a fermentation character that’s just slightly outside the norm. All of it adding up to a wholly enjoyable, yet intriguing  version of, in this case, a porter.  I love getting these two guys together—you can see the child-like excitement that comes out of their shared passion for these collaborations. It’s a great reminder of how genuinely fun beer, brewing, and history can be when it all comes together in a project like this.  This is Ron Pattinson and Mike Siegel, listen in.

Garage Project’s Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand’s hop harvest. The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand’s Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country’s Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington’s famous Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, speakers such as Alexandra Nowell from Three Weavers Brewing Company, Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker Brewing Company, and Paul Jones from Cloudwater Brew Co. gave talks with a focus on hops. Good Beer Hunting was there to capture a slice of the discussion.   Afterwards, the invited breweries poured for a small festival of 1,000 people. It was a surreal situation: seeing world-renowned breweries like Trillium, Other Half, Hill Farmstead. Tired Hands and Cellarmaker serving beer in New Zealand’s national museum.  *** “Crucial Taunt” is a great name for a fictional band, a beer, and a hacky-sack team—at least that’s what Matt Tarpey from The Veil and I decided when we caught up at the Hāpi Festival and Symposium. When I saw him pass me in the symposium hall, my immediate thought was, “Damn, that’s a nice Veil jacket.” Then I wondered why he looked familiar to me. It’s because The Veil was profiled in 2016 on Good Beer Hunting, complete with some incredible photography from Cory Smith. That story went live soon after the brewery launched; since then, Matt’s talents in the brewhouse have helped The Veil build a sterling reputation for hop-forward beers. In this fourth and final episode from our Hāpi Festival and Symposium, Matt also shares the story of his first helicopter experience, and even gives us a scoop on some expansion plans for the brewery. Listen in.