Good Beer Hunting

This year, we were lucky enough to be invited to Cooperstown, New York to take part in Brewery Ommegang’s annual camping and music festival, Belgium Comes to Cooperstown. It’s a famous festival in the northeast, with thousands of people setting up for a full weekend of bottle sharing, music, food, and of course, the beer festival part. And this year, as part of our Underwriting collaboration with Brewery Ommegang, we wanted to help lead a conversation around this idea of Belgian. Weather it’s Belgian-inspired, as you’ll hear U.S. brewers often say, or it’s authentically Belgian, or Belgian style, or anyways strain, or it’s some part of a brewing process, an ingredient, or even the mystery and closely guarded secrets that sometimes distinguishes Belgian brewing from other traditions. And of course, what parts of that even matter in 2018 when so much of what’s happening in the most popular aspects of American craft beer seem to be moving in the opposite direction. At least for now. Even Brewery Ommegang, somewhat of a trendsetter when they opened back in 1997, is on that 2018 juicy IPA trend with an excellent entry of their own. And if you look at the history of Belgian brewing, full of pilsners and English ales, and the likes, no one can reasonably scoff at the idea. Keeping the lights on and brewing beers that people want, even if only for a time, is as much a part of the Belgian brewing tradition as anything else we associate it with. Brasserie Dupont taught me that. But that’s only one part of the conversation. There are so many aspects of American craft brewing we take for granted that are basically driven by the brewing traditions Belgium then and now. And we wanted to talk about all of it as part of our underwriting series called Message in a Bottle. So we invited a bunch of brewers, a few cider makers, and people who work in the longer value chain of craft beer around the world to try and get a sense of where this long tradition of Belgian influence hots America’s shores today. This episode is called “International Export” How Belgian beer is thought about differently around the world, and how it makes sense locally. The panelists are: Chris Toia, Mikkeller Daniel Leeman, Global Beer Network

This year, we were lucky enough to be invited to Cooperstown, New York to take part in Brewery Ommegang’s annual camping and music festival, Belgium Comes to Cooperstown. It’s a famous festival in the northeast, with thousands of people setting up for a full weekend of bottle sharing, music, food, and of course, the beer festival part. And this year, as part of our Underwriting collaboration with Brewery Ommegang, we wanted to help lead a conversation around this idea of Belgian. Weather it’s Belgian-inspired, as you’ll hear U.S. brewers often say, or it’s authentically Belgian, or Belgian style, or anyways strain, or it’s some part of a brewing process, an ingredient, or even the mystery and closely guarded secrets that sometimes distinguishes Belgian brewing from other traditions. And of course, what parts of that even matter in 2018 when so much of what’s happening in the most popular aspects of American craft beer seem to be moving in the opposite direction. At least for now. Even Brewery Ommegang, somewhat of a trendsetter when they opened back in 1997, is on that 2018 juicy IPA trend with an excellent entry of their own. And if you look at the history of Belgian brewing, full of pilsners and English ales, and the likes, no one can reasonably scoff at the idea. Keeping the lights on and brewing beers that people want, even if only for a time, is as much a part of the Belgian brewing tradition as anything else we associate it with. Brasserie Dupont taught me that. But that’s only one part of the conversation. There are so many aspects of American craft brewing we take for granted that are basically driven by the brewing traditions Belgium then and now. And we wanted to talk about all of it as part of our underwriting series called Message in a Bottle. So we invited a bunch of brewers, a few cider makers, and people who work in the longer value chain of craft beer around the world to try and get a sense of where this long tradition of Belgian influence hots America’s shores today. This episode is called “Striking a Balance” While some brewers go all-in on “Belgian” others strike a balance in their portfolios. The history of Belgian brewing welcomes both. The panelists are: Amit Ram, Peekskill Brewery Steve Crider, 2nd Shift Brewery Doug Campbell, Brewery Ommegang

Today’s guests are behind a fairly new brewery in Baltimore - a city where many of the breweries are fairly new. I remember Chicago going through this phase when after being a bit slow to start, we suddenly had a large number of breweries opening at once. In Chicago’s context, the beers that were popular at the time influenced those concepts - it influenced the kinds of beers those brewers wanted to make. Because the shelves were already full of world class IPAs, many chose to go a different direction and the result is one of the most exciting spectrums of beers styles available in any one city. Baltimore in the midst of its own propagation in 2017 and 2018 is having a very different experience. Adjunct stouts and hazy IPAs are so popular, that the ubiquitous strategy, as in many other small cities, is to emulate those trends. As start up brewers with limited cash flow and desperate for a customer base, it’s almost impossible not to. Diamondback was one of these breweries. And to an extent, still operates along these trends. But only a couple years in they’ve started thinking differently about who they are, what they want to brew and drink, and what that means for them long-term. A trip around the northeast to places like Suarez Family Brewery has a profound effect on them as a group. Would brewing crispy little lagers give them something they felt they were missing in both sales and spirit? Would it attract a new customer base they were eager to meet? Would they derive an intellectual satisfaction or an emotional resonance by shifting their priorities from short term trends to long term relevance? It was a great conversation to be having with a group so young but wise beyond their years. Whichever way they go, the most important thing is they’re thinking about it now.

Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.

When beer lovers think of what goes on behind the scenes at a brewery, thoughts may drift to barrels or exotic ingredients or post-shift taste trials of the latest, trendy creation. Rarely does it concern the long hours, professional development and rather yeoman work it takes to become good at a job that straddles art and manufacturing. Here in the U.S., we recently celebrated Labor Day, a holiday to give thanks to all the effort our workforce provides to help our country and economy chug along. This kind of effort should never be lost on the behind-the-scenes staff who make the American beer industry what it is. I didn’t expect to follow this kind of thematic path when I sat down with Chris Leonard, brewmaster and operations manager at Heavy Seas Beer, not far outside of Baltimore. But over the course of our recent conversation, I became enamored with his perspective on recruitment, retention, and professional development. These are unsexy HR terms we don’t often think about when it comes to beer, but they’re also the key tenants to an otherwise apprentice profession that uses these learning opportunities to create some of the most thoughtful, innovative, and efficient brewers in the country. And there is a lot that goes into teaching a brewer, let alone running one of the most successful brewing operations in the country. Over the course of our conversation, Chris will offer you perspective on what it’s like to oversee a collection of young brewers, but the impacts and considerations he has to weigh when it comes to creating and improving some beloved brands. These are the kinds of conversations I love to have, when I can step back from the excitement of daily news and dig into the day-to-day issues that directly impact what happens to the beer in our glass. As we’ll come to learn, Chris’ voice is a worthwhile one to consider.

I spent the better part of last week traveling around the Baltimore area for the first time. I was there to shoot a series of short documentary videos we’re producing for Guinness as part of our Coming to America series . It was a fantastic few days of eating and drinking and shooting around Baltimore—places like WC Harlan, Bar Clavel and Woodberry Kitchen. I have a ton of stuff to share from that part of the trip, but I’m going to start at the end, because that’s where my heart still lingers. I drove three hours south across the bay to Chincoteague Island, a long barrier island off the coast of Virginia, to visit a guy I met a few years ago at Wicked Weed’s Funk Fest—a brewer named Josh Chapman. I’ll never forget him popping up out of nowhere late at night at the fest to tell me a story of a time he was visiting a cidery in Virginia. And as he started poking around in the back of the place, he got to chatting with the producer, and they started setting up for dinner in the back, a staff meal of sorts, and they causally invited him to join. He was stunned by the invitation, to what seemed like an intimate gathering. But he slipped right in, sat down, and did what he described as his own little version of “doing the Good Beer Hunting.” There’s a lot packed into that summary of events, described as Good Beer Hunting, but it was all quite familiar to me. So many of my best memories are from unexpected invitations into someone’s small world where you learn what drives them, how they live, and how all that supports how they do business. A few years later, Josh has his own little brewery out on Chincoteague called Black Narrows. It’s a small, family business with his wife and her parents, and it supports his two young children, the newest of which is only a few months old. So he invited me by, set the table with some oysters and clams and corn and tomato pie, and had me sit with his staff for a meal. While he prepped dinner in the kitchen, and the grandparents Bob and Wendy sat at the table with me, and his wife and business partner Jenna held the baby, and their little girl and her friend ran around the house, I turned on the mics, and did what Josh might call “the Good Beer Hunting.”

Suarez Family Brewery has become something of a North Star for our editorial staff—not to mention many brewers and drinkers around the country—for everything that’s right about craft beer in 2018. Sessionable, delicious beers made by a family in the Hudson Valley that’s part of a small community of farmers and small businesses in the area: What’s not to love? To top it all off, Dan Suarez’s brother owns an essential restaurant in Germantown called Gaskin’s. At the little brewery on U.S. Route 9 across the from the corn fields and housed in an old lighting factory, the Suarez family makes exquisite Pilsners and Pale Ales alongside what they call Country Beers—those that are barrel-aged or wild-fermented, but still every bit as delicate and balanced. Their taproom is family-friendly, in large part because they have a small, young family of their own. How could it not be? Our Editorial Director Austin L. Ray’s profile of the brewery in 2016 was something of a coveted assignment amongst our team, and one of the few that Austin claimed for himself. It’s a moving portrait. You should read it. But like any small business so closely tied to the family that runs it, there’s struggle, too. And it’s about more than just making ends meet. While the beers may be the epitome of balance, balancing one’s life is every bit as difficult and necessary. Managing the start-up pace of a small, hands-on brewery, expanding the market for those beers via delivery runs to New York City, raising a toddler, and maintaining a busy taproom that’s increasingly becoming a destination for beer fans? These things, perhaps even more than trying to crack the code on these so-called “crispy little beers,” are what’s keeping Taylor and Dan Suarez up at night. Not that you’d believe they struggle with anything. Their reputation for being very relaxed, chill folks with a small town brewery is, at least on the surface, the epitome of the small brewer dream in America. Taking a deeper look, as we do today, will only make you love them more.

Before we get started today I want to tell you about a couple of upcoming GBH events happening right here in London this September. First up, we’re incredibly excited to be bringing New Belgium’s wonderful sours to British shores for the first ever time, in an event called Into the Wild. They’ll be pouring their 2018 iterations of Le Terroir, Transatlantique Kriek and, of course, La Folie, alongside some incredible cheeses selected by Cheesemonger Ned Palmer, meats from The Charcuterie Board and sourdough from Bread by Bike. We’ve also hand picked a small selection of brewers, cider makers and winemakers to pour alongside them, in an effort to showcase all things delicious and fermentation driven—and crucially—what they all have in common. Along with New Belgium themselves we’ll be joined by, Burning Sky, Cloudwater, Beavertown’s Tempus Project, Boundary, Oliver’s Cider and Perry and New Zealand’s Garage Project, who’ll be bringing natural wines from their Crushed series. It’s happening on September 5th at the Beer Merchants Tap in Hackney, and I hope to see some of you there. 
We’re also busy prepping for this year’s Beavertown Extravaganza. We’ll be there again this year with two days worth of panel talks happening over the course of both sessions on the 7th and 8th of September. A few tickets are still available, but they’re selling fast, so head over to beavertownbrewery.co.uk to grab yours now, and we’ll see you there. Now onto this week’s episode—an experiment of sorts that ended up being a lot of fun to record. A couple weeks back I travelled to Sligo, on the West Coast of Ireland to visit The White Hag brewery, which happened to be celebrating its fourth birthday with its annual Hagstravaganza Festival. I can’t tell you how many emails and tweets I’ve had over the years from Irish beer lovers asking me when I was going to visit and experience the Emerald Isle’s thriving beer culture for myself. So, while at the festival, I tried to capture as much of that culture as possible in a series of shorter interviews. I hope you’ll agree that the passion, and enthusiasm for Irish beer is infectiously evident in each one of them. Over the next couple of hours you’ll hear from The White Hag’s head brewer, Joe Kearns. Tom Delaney, head brewer at Galway Bay Brewery, and his own mixed-fermentation project Land and Labour. Cormac Wall, an Irishman working for Honest Brew in London, who also recently started contributing to GBH’s b-Roll blog. Wayne and Janice Dunne, who collectively as The Irish Beer Snobs author a blog, and host a podcast of their own. Mark Twig and Maurice Deasy of Canvas Brewery, and Francesca Slattery, of London’s Five Points Brewing Company, who lives in Dublin and works as the brewery’s rep out in Ireland. The Irish beer market is a fascinating one, and also one not without its struggles. It’s an industry dominated by the giants of Heineken and Diageo via its Guinness Brand—the latter going as far as to serve as a core part of this nation’s identity for so many. However, what I found, was that if you scratch below the surface—even just a little—you’ll soon find a thriving set of young, entrepreneurial brewers, each one desperate to prove that the beer scene here is composed of far more than merely “the Black Stuff.” A quick note—this episode was recorded at a working beer festival, so there is some noise. But hopefully that’ll convey how fantastic the atmosphere was at this event.

A reoccuring theme we’ve had here on the audio version of GBH is one of partnerships. Marriages, siblings, friendships — the full gamut. The guests on this episode are another example. Ryan Witter-Merithew and Mahalia Breen have traveled the world together for the sake of beer as Ryan’s job has taken him around the country and abroad. As far as they’ve gone, family has remained a connective part of who they are and how they consider business, which has led them to starting Casita Cerveceria, a brand launched at Hill Farmstead and since brought home to North Carolina. Their relationship and family are at the core of what they do. Despite a rather prolific career, Ryan has somehow managed to fly a little under the radar to beer fans. As you’ll find out, he’s played something of a Kevin Bacon role over the last decade, interacting and connecting with some of the biggest brewing names in the business. His dedication, talent and curiosity is what led him to start his own business, in addition to a little motivation from Mahalia, too. Contract brewing has had a strange relationship with craft beer, going back a couple decades when there was an impression anyone who didn’t own their equipment and have skin in the game might have been doing it for the wrong reasons. Namely to make quick money and not care as much about the beer. But brewers like Ryan have shifted that impression, showing just how much love and attention can go into production even if you’re not the one carrying debt. Throughout it all, Ryan and Mahalia have supported each other, creating stronger bonds and lasting stories which they’ll share with us in this conversation.

This is a special episode of the podcast, made possible by the underwriting of New Belgium Brewing and our collaborative series, Into the Wild. Last week, New Belgium kicked off their Sour Saison blending tour, starting in California, pulling this rad vintage trailer behind a pickup truck and parking it at bars and breweries across the country. I joined them for that leg of the journey, and again recently here in my hometown of Chicago. Right now, it’s headed back to Denver and then L.A., so you still have time to link up with the tour. One of the reasons this collaboration is so special for us is because it’s helping us devote a portion of our editorial, this podcast, and our design team to a category of beers we love—wild fermentation, sour, wood-aged, mixed-ferm. Those beers that are keeping alive an ancient tradition for a new generation of drinkers. In addition to the articles we’re writing, we also published a print mag, which we’re handing out for free at the events. And we’ve been able to put together some one-off podcast episodes, like this one, featuring Jay Goodwin of The Rare Barrel, and Dick Cantwell, formerly of Elysian, and now the owner of Magnolia brewing, not to mention the author of numerous books on brewing. So while the taproom at The Rare Barrel was full of people sampling and blending Sour Saison, and Dick was demonstrating how to take apart and re-build an oak barrel, we got together on the stage and struck up a conversation about the state of the category.