Good Beer Hunting

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every two 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 Today we’re going to call Kate Nolan a freelance social media manager from the suburbs of Chicago and Brad Redick a sales manager from the Dallas, TX area . But before we talk to them here’s Michael Kiser and I talking about what’s been going on since the last episode.

Whether personal or professional, there are always types of risks when starting a new business. That’s often the case in the beer industry, where men and women quit their day jobs on a near daily basis to chase a dream of serving IPAs, Stouts, or Lagers to a thirsty public. These owners and brewers have a lot on the line. It's no different for the people behind Denizens brewing in Silver Springs Maryland, where family support helps to prop up very real risks of the three-year-old business. Denizens is doing just fine, by the way, having celebrated their anniversary not long ago with hundreds of friends and patrons. But it still means that checking the books at the end of every month carries a lot of weight. The public support behind the brewery, however, makes things easier for co-owners Jeff Ramirez and Julie Verratti. They’re two of the three people behind Denizens, who have created a community hotspot just over the border from Washington DC. A very specifically selected location, as you’ll hear, that connects deeply to the values of Jeff, Julie, and Emily Bruno, the third person behind Denizens. Among a spacious indoor and outdoor taproom, I recently sat down with Jeff and Julie to talk about all the things that they've learned in the first few years of operation. What those lessons are, and how they’re being integrated in the day-to-day, are bound to be a big big part of successes for all the other ambitious homebrewers and entrepreneurs looking to enter beer.

"Session" is a new word to many a craft beer drinker's lexicon, but the idea of session beer far predates whatever new lingo is helping sell balanced, lower alcohol brews. You may have also seen the words "light," or "table" used in a similar context. Meaning: easy to drink, balanced, dare I say crushable? Some of you just cringed, I know, but it’s been hard going for anyone looking to sell these kinds of beers in our culture of extreme flavor and high alcohol and rarity. That is, until someone decided to pair it with IPA. They need a pitch, a hook, to get people interested in what really, for most people around the world, defines normal everyday great beer. I mean, you don’t see Pilsner Urquell going around pitching itself as light or sessionable. But this is America—it all needs a qualifier of some sort.  One brewery in Salem, Massachusetts has done more than just pitch their beer with the word "session" in the title—they’ve gone all in on the concept, referring to their entire portfolio as American Session Beer. Notch Brewing—under founder Chris Lohring—started out as a contract brand, largely because he couldn’t convince anyone that these styles would ever be in favor. That’s hard to imagine in 2017 when it seems every craft brewer is gunning for the easy-drinking Lager, Hoppy Pilsner, and Golden Ale. So he took a hard road, scraping together support from fellow brewers with capacity, building his brand and base, and finally, just last year, got the investment he needed to open his own small brewery with a taproom and take another step into the future of his idea.  Oh, and the beers are absolutely delicious.  When I was there recently, I had the Pilsner, which was clearly more refined and delicate than most you’ll have in the U.S., and we’ll dig in to the reasons why in this episode. I also had the smoked Grodziskie, which was layered and balanced and just sang on the palate. I also enjoyed his take on the hazy IPA which, when viewed through the lens of session beer, makes a whole lot of sense.

On this week’s episode of the Fervent Few podcast, we’ll talk with a couple of members of the community about taprooms, social media, what they find exciting about the Fervent Few and whatever else comes up. The Fervent Few is our subscriber community who 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. 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 Today we’re going to call Chris Koentz a brewer at Pollyanna brewing in the suburbs of Chicago.

The county of Yorkshire has more breweries per capita than anywhere else in the UK. And though it’s home to buzzing city hubs such as Leeds and Sheffield, much of the brewing landscape is to be found within the county’s rural environment and smaller towns. It’s home to traditional breweries such as Theakston’s, Timothy Taylor, and Black Sheep as well breweries with a more modern outlook, such as Summer Wine and Rooster’s.   Richard Burhouse, along with his brother Johnny and head brewer Stuart Ross, founded Magic Rock Brewing Company in the town of Huddersfield in 2010. Before the arrival of Magic Rock, Huddersfield already had a reputation for being a great beer town, as it was home to renowned pubs such as The Grove and The Sportsman. However, it was perhaps the arrival of Magic Rock, and subsequently its taproom in 2015, which really put the town on the national beer map.   As well as being inspired by Yorkshire’s real-ale heritage, Burhouse was also fascinated by what was happening in the U.S., and has spent plenty of time researching beer in the States. The influence of West Coast breweries such as Stone, Green Flash, and Russian River is immediately apparent in his beers, such as High Wire Pale Ale and Cannonball IPA.   Not content to rest on its laurels, however, Magic Rock is constantly adapting its brewing processes to keep pace with trends. The past 12 months has seen them release several New England-inspired limited release IPAs, some of which have been collaborations with the likes of Cloudwater and Other Half. At the same time, Burhouse is trying to balance his brewery in the local market by simultaneously offering a high quality, nicely priced range of cask ales.   In this episode, we skip from topics such as pricing and quality issues, to the takeover of RateBeer, which has often showered plaudits on Magic Rock’s beers. We also speak briefly about the sold out Uppers & Downers London, where we’re super excited to have Magic Rock pouring a collab with Dark Woods Coffee this September. This episode was recorded in a working pub near my home in North London home, and as a result, there’s a couple occasions where there’s a little background noise. Thanks for your patience.

On a recent trip to Boston and the surrounding area I was keen to hit up some of the more sought-after breweries like Trillium and Lamplighter, but also a few places that were fundamental to the still-underdeveloped scene in the area, like Cambridge Brewing and the business of today's guest, Suzanne Schalow of Craft Beer Cellar.  Suzanne was the voice in the desert for awhile in Belmont, a short drive from the city, in a commuter town that has a lot of questions about craft beer when she and her partner Kate first opened their doors 16 years ago. Fundamental questions that we're all still trying to answer in different ways, like, "What is craft beer?"  And earlier this year, as Suzanne lead the business into a national franchise model, she encountered a few unknowns, like how to talk about and manage quality with her franchisees—and who makes a decision about quality. It seems simple in many ways that a retailer would have a strong point of view in their curation process, but like defining craft, defining quality presented a host of issues as well.  So speaking with Suzanne and her new brand manager John Thompson, it was clear that while we were at the end of one long phase of the Craft Beer Cellar's story, a whole new chapter was about to begin.

On this week’s Fervent Few bonus episode, we’re going to get to know some more of our subscribers, a community we started called Fervent Few. These folks subscribe to GBH like a magazine, supporting us financially each month, and as part of there subscriber benefits, they join the GBH team in a community forum where we discuss a wide range of topics, often including professional retailers, brewers, distributors and sales people with expert perspectives. But in the Fervent Few community, everyone has an equal voice, and a respect for others opinions. I’ve been thrilled to see so many genuine and intellectually honest conversations transpire.  Our Fervent Few community is managed by Jim Plachy, and each week he hosts a weekly topic with our members and captures their opinions in a regular column on the site.  We'll ring up a couple Fervent Few members, Kristen Foster a blogger and GBH fan from Boston and Michael Boyer a lawyer from North Carolina who works with a host of craft breweries.

We’re a little over two months since Wicked Weed, one of the nation’s most popular and ambitious sour beer producers, was acquired by AB InBev in a sale that set the beer world on edge. Indeed, it seemed to push many people over the edge, galvanizing craft beer’s hardcore base against AB while others started reconsidering the future of craft beer, from its definitions and divisions to even the future of their own breweries and customers.  Since then, AB InBev itself has seemed to get a bit on edge with the release of the Brewers Association “independence” seal. Despite the fact that the seal was reportedly in the works for more than two years, the timing of its release seemed to add fuel to the fire of an imminent crisis point between BA-defined craft brewers and those who had passed over the threshold into just being brewers of craft beer.  In response, AB's High End group, which is a portfolio populated by those acquired craft brewers, many of whom have maintained their posts, are now part of a strategic and creative leadership team for AB. They created a somewhat impromptu video response to the BA encouraging them to think about the overall health of the beer category, which is indeed shrinking, as a result of increased competition from wine and spirits. Unity was their call, rather than division. And that, depending on your scale, priorities, and opinion of AB InBev, is either prescient or absurd.  Needless to say, it’s been a wild couple of months for craft beer. This barely scratches the surface, really. But relevant to today’s guest, that’s more than enough context for what makes this interview both timely and interesting to me.  Today, I’m talking to Luke Dickinson of Wicked Weed. Luke is the less-exposed, less-publicized brother of Walt Dickinson. This starts as a story of siblings, Luke being the quiet one who was initially inspired to start a brewing career based on his time at Dogfish Head, and Walt being the more entrepreneurial type who saw Luke’s vision for what was meant to be a nano brewery on paper, and consistently found opportunities to finance and scale the concept for Wicked Weed into the force it is now, including the sale to AB InBev, alongside the Guthys, a very successful, Asheville-based business family they’ve known since they were children.  Talking to Luke, the story of Wicked Weed comes to light as a sort of humble concept that created its own vortex of growth and a series of can’t-say-no kind of opportunities. It’s a story of what happens when a single idea gets dispersed amongst four other partners, each with their own skill sets, resources, and ambitions. And if nothing else, it tells a story of how two brothers can challenge and motivate each other into unknown—and what remains still a somewhat-unknown territory.  Before we begin, I wanted to give a couple shoutouts. First to Marco from Craft Commander down in Florida and Artisan & Apprentice, two blogs whose interviews with Luke some time ago served as great primary resources for some of the things we talk about today. It’s amazing how much craft brewing history has been captured by writers all over the country in the last five years, and we appreciate what you do so much.

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.

London’s beer scene is made up of a complex tapestry of interesting folks. Like with any beer community, its people are what really makes it, and here in London, one of those people is journalist Will Hawkes. Hawkes has written about beer since 2010 for mainstream publications such as The Independent, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times as well as specialist beer mags like BeerAdvocate and All About Beer. He’s authored two books including the city beer guide Craft Beer London along with its accompanying app. And in 2013, he won the prestigious British Guild of Beer Writers Beer Writer of the Year Award. Will is also the brains behind London’s original craft beer week, London Beer City, which is now entering its fourth year this August. Full disclosure: I’m now involved with helping Will organize this year's event, and as is often the case it was this involvement that made me realize that we should sit down and record a conversation together.   As you might expect, our chat is typically London-centric as we dig into topics such as cask ale, the recent opening of Camden Town Brewery’s $40 million facility and the recent acquisition of London Fields Brewery by Carlsberg and Brooklyn Brewery.