Good Beer Hunting

The state of wild and sour beer in America is rapidly evolving. And this year, in partnership with Green Bench Brewing in St Petersburg Florida, the GBH team hosted a series of interviews and discussions at the Foeder for Thought festival. These discussions are meant to help us all dig in to the future of this loosely-defined, but highly-sought-after category of beers. It’s also a chance to get to know some of the people and stories behind how these beers are made, sold, and enjoyed all over the country.  In this 5-part series, you’ll hear from a variety of perspectives from this niche of the industry. 

The state of wild and sour beer in America is rapidly evolving. And this year, in partnership with Green Bench Brewing in St Petersburg Florida, the GBH team hosted a series of interviews and discussions at the Foeder for Thought festival. These discussions are meant to help us all dig in to the future of this loosely-defined, but highly-sought-after category of beers. It’s also a chance to get to know some of the people and stories behind how these beers are made, sold, and enjoyed all over the country.  In this 5-part series, you’ll hear from a variety of perspectives from this niche of the industry. 

The state of wild and sour beer in America is rapidly evolving. And this year, in partnership with Green Bench Brewing in St Petersburg Florida, the GBH team hosted a series of interviews and discussions at the Foeder for Thought festival. These discussions are meant to help us all dig in to the future of this loosely-defined, but highly-sought-after category of beers. It’s also a chance to get to know some of the people and stories behind how these beers are made, sold, and enjoyed all over the country.  In this 5-part series, you’ll hear from a variety of perspectives from this niche of the industry. 

At this year's Foeder for Thought, the festival of wild and sour beers hosted by Green Bench Brewing Co. in St. Petersburg, Florida, the GBH team co-hosted panels and discussions that help us all dig in to the future of this loosely-defined, but highly-sought-after category of beers.  WATCH THE ENTIRE SERIES ON VIDEO HERE. This podcast series includes: // State of sour/wild beer in Florida, featuring: Bob Sylvester of Saint Somewhere Brewing Co. Khris Johnson of Green Bench Brewing Matt Manthe of Odd Breed Wild Ales // Interview w/ Q&A - Chase Healey of American Solera // Sour Beer and Retail, featuring: Blake Tyers of Creature Comforts Greg Engert  of Churchkey, Sovereign, Bluejacket, and more Veronica Danko of The Independent, Jug & Bottle Christian Gregory of Shelton Brothers // Interview w/Q+A - Troy Casey, Casey Brewing and Blending // Sour Wild Ales Guild (S.W.A.G.) featuring: Jeffery Stuffings of Jester King Erin Jones of Point Five Creative Consulting Brandon Jones of Yazoo Brewing Company Josh Haimbright of Central State Brewing and Jeff Porn of Atom Brewing Company

This week’s guest is Mike Benner, Chief Executive of the Society of Independent Brewers, or SIBA for short. SIBA is the largest UK trade body representing the independent arm of the British brewing industry. Founded in 1980 as the Small Independent Brewers Association, SIBA currently represents around 830 brewer members as well as around 300 or so non-brewing supplier associates. Its equivalent in the US would be the Brewers Association, and Benner’s equivalent at the BA would be its CEO and President, Bob Pease.  I recently attended the SIBA annual conference and trade show, BeerX, which also serves as its members Annual General Meeting. The meeting itself was full of fired up statements from some of the association’s smallest members. Folks who are feeling somewhat disenfranchised from an organization they feel should be helping them claw out some market share in an ever more competitive field but not delivering.  At BeerX a motion was proposed by SIBA to raise its threshold for membership from 200,000hl a year (just over 170,000 US barrels) to a figure that reflects 1% of current total UK beer production—just short of 440,000hl (or 375,000bbl). The motion was rejected by a slim majority, mostly due to the ire presented by the smaller members in attendance at the meeting. Had it passed it would have allowed two of the UK’s largest independent breweries, Fullers and St. Austell, to rejoin, after loosing their associate status, when this was scrapped in a similar vote in 2017.  This is one of many challenges Benner and his team at SIBA has to grapple with as it tries to meet the needs of its various members. Perhaps its greatest challenge is how these needs differ between its smallest and larger members. There just isn’t a one size fits all solution—and as SIBA attempts to evolve in a beer market that shows no signs of slowing down—trying to meet these varying needs becomes seemingly ever more difficult.  But if it wasn’t for SIBA, some of these very small brewers might not have had the opportunity to break into the industry in the first place. The actions of the association were key in the introduction of progressive beer duty or PBD—sometimes referred to as small brewers duty relief—in 2002. PBD meant that brewers producing less than 5000hl a year were eligible for a 50% tax discount on the beer they were producing. Once production is over 5000hl, the amount of relief is tapered until it hits 60,000hl, when a brewer will pay the full rate of tax on the beer they produce. As well as its trade association, SIBA also operates a commercial arm with. It launched a direct delivery service, now called BeerFlex, in 2002. This scheme allowed small breweries to sell to larger pub companies through SIBA. Recently, this scheme has been surrounded by controversy, as the pub companies continue push their prices ever lower, despite market conditions ensuring that the cost of beer production is rising. To compound these difficulties, SIBA recently acquired a distributor, Flying Firkin, to bolster its commercial wing, much to the ire of some SIBA members.  Finding a balance between its trade association and commercial arms is a challenge that’s been made all the greater by the emergence of hundreds of new brewers within the last decade—many of which feel that the association doesn’t represent them, and choosing not to become members. However, despite all of this relative uncertainty, Benner himself still seems positively upbeat. In fact he almost appeared to relish these new challenges as we sat down for this chat on the trade floor at BeerX a couple of weeks ago.

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every few weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn’t just stop at beer. And every week we pick one of these topics and present the community’s answers to readers in the form of an article posted to Good Beer Hunting. You can find out more information by visiting patreon.com/goodbeerhunting On this episode we talk to Thad Parsons of Crystal City Wine Shop about distribution and keeping track of so many SKU’s. But first Michael and I talk about Speciation Artisan Ale’s stealth tasting room opening, Hazy IPA becoming an officially recognized style by the Brewers Association, and what are we going to do with all of these 15 packs of lager?

Texas continues to receive plenty of attention from the beer world, and here on the GBH podcast, this episode rounds out a trio of recent opportunities to hear about what's going on in the Lone Star State. Jester King's Jeff Stuffings and a whole crew from Austin Beerworks have offered some context of what's going on with them in their corner of the beer world, and now we turn to someone sitting just outside the industry for extra perspective. Arianna Auber has worked as a journalist covering the city for the Austin American-Statesman since 2012 and has written about beer, wine and spirits for almost that entire time. The position has allowed her to watch the local scene evolve as foodies and beer lovers have made Austin a popular destination. Many beer enthusiasts know about Jester King, but the city provides so much more in terms of its drinking culture, whether about beer or not. During her time at the newspaper, Auber has had the opportunity to not only cover the stories shaping Austin's food and drink industry, but she's also been one of the people helping to shape perspective, informing residents on what's cool, interesting and even the basics of beer, from vernacular to state and country-wide trends. I love talking to other journalists, especially about the details that make reporting so special, and Arianna's insight is a great example of why it's important to take a step back and survey the entire beer landscape, especially as the industry tries to attract new drinkers and get people to think about beer differently.

I’m currently sitting in the car outside Black Back Pub in Waterbury, VT waiting for one of my favorite bars in the country to open its doors. I came out to visit Hill Farmstead for the quarterly pickup of their Collected Works membership club. It’s my first time joining the club, which I mostly did as an excuse to force myself to visit more often. It’s buried in about a foot or two of snow at the moment, but it’s as special as ever. And now my bags are full for the trip home. I’m also here for the weekend for a grafting workshop with Shacksbury Cider. A bunch of us are holing up in an old farmhouse and learning how to graft apple trees in an orchard outside of Middlebury. So I figured I better bring some bottles of Hill Farmstead’s Dorothy to share.  As much as I admire these kinds of artisanal producers (they really speak to what I love about the ancient traditions of making these delicate, fermentation-driven beers and ciders), if you’ve been listening for a while, you know that another part of my brain is just as turned on by the business and strategy of running a contemporary craft brewery.  This week’s guest is Austin Beer Works, one of the best in that regard, and someone I’ve been following closely for a while now. They have a strong brand, they’re growing, they self-distribute, and they know their market. They’re really the quintessential case study for how to make and sell contemporary craft beer in a somewhat underdeveloped market—especially when you know that market won’t stay that way for long. Very few do these days. So this is Austin Beerworks—pretty much the whole crew, which represents a variety of skill sets and perspectives, but with a unified goal—discussing the many facets of what constitutes their vision, strategy, and execution. Listen in.

You may have already heard of Wild Card Brewery’s Jaega Wise—especially over the past few months, as she’s positioned herself as a prominent anti-sexism campaigner within the British beer industry. I had hoped to highlight the great work Wise is doing within this field in this episode, but was also keen to learn more about her history as a brewer and her businesses plans for future expansion. The danger with conversations like sexism in beer, as Wise and I discuss, is that too often the din of conversation can drown out voices, like hers, which are far more relevant and important to these vital conversations that we’re having. While it’s crucial that every effort is taken to create a platform for these voices, it’s equally important to know when it’s time to pipe down and let these voices be heard. And to all the dudes listening in right now, I’m talking about you and me.  Wise originally hails from Nottingham, in the British Midlands—the “land of the Pale Ale,” as she puts it. She speaks passionately about the region’s pub culture and how it raised her into the world of beer. It’s an industry she kind of just fell into, after studying Chemical Engineering at Loughborough University. Wise is also a musician, currently fronting a London based rock band as a singer. Oh, and she’s a TV host, providing her wealth of beer knowledge on Channel 5’s The Wine Show.  Despite all of this attention, she appears to be at her happiest and most content when she’s working at her brewery, based in Walthamstow, North East London. When she’s not brewing, you can usually find her in the taproom which, along with neighboring businesses like Pillars Brewery and God’s Own Junkyard, has become an important hub for the local community. That sense of community has been key to this brewery’s growth too, as it raised £300,000 last year, aiding it’s expansion to a new site this spring. Wild Card’s five years of existence has not been without its obstacles, however. Wise is quick to point out the challenging margins available for cask beer within the current UK market. And, she concedes that despite trying not to succumb to trends, the pull of those such as New England IPA have been too great to resist. Listen in.

Hey we did it - we made it through another year of Uppers & Downers in Chicago, home to our annual festival of coffee, beer, and coffee beers held in collaboration with our friends at Thalia Hall.  This time around, of course, we decided to make an entire week out of it, with a series of smaller events leading up to the festival featuring tours of local coffee roasters, espresso demos, tap takeovers, an incredible chef-driven dinner, an Irish cocktail competition with some of chicago best bartenders. It was a real haul, but we were thrilled to bring in so many new partners and collaborators this year to pull it off.  So as we do every year, but especially this year, is we sit down for the Hangover party and reflect on what we learned and what we were inspired by from the festival with some of the brewers, roasters, and others who came to town.  Our co-founder, world Barista Champion Stephen Morrissey couldn’t be with us this year, he was off in London getting ready for our first major Uppers & Downers festival there this May 19th — he was doing a site visit and working with the brewers, roasters, and our London-based editor Matthew Curtis in the run-up to what will be a major international expansion for us with the festival. we’ve got some really exciting things to share. Tickets for the London fest are on sale now - on goodbeerhunting.com/events But to sit alongside me for the recap podcast was a very worthy substitute with Nick Kohout and Jen Hoverstad of Counter Culture Coffee based in North Carolina, but with a lab here in Chicago.