Expert interviews, brewing insights, and industry trends.
For this final episode of the year, Khris Johnson of Green Bench joins Jamie to recap and listen through highlights from your 10 favorite episodes of the past 12 months.
From their South London outpost in the arches beneath a bustling elevated railway, the Kernel has embraced London brewing history with a craft ethos—respecting and referencing tradition while thoughtfully building their own identifiable, modern, hop-forward character.
Through fastidious technique and a clearly articulated, creative point of view, this lager-centric brewery in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago is committed to building on a family brewing history while forging its own modern lager identity.
Three leading brewers pushing the limits of the cold IPA style—Sam Tierney of Firestone Walker, Jude La Rose of Hop Butcher For the World, and cold IPA originator Kevin Davey of Heater Allen and Gold Dot—join the podcast to discuss the current state of cold IPA, how their recipes and processes have evolved, and why they still choose to explore hops through the style dubbed “More West Coast than West Coast IPA.”
Three leaders at the intersection of brewing business and tech—Patrick Tickle, CEO of Encompass Technologies, Dave Thibodeau, cofounder of Ska Brewing, and Cole Hackbarth, VP of brewing operations for Rhinegeist—discuss strategies for managing a brewery through today's turbulent business environment.
What’s old is new again for Chicago’s Dovetail—direct-fire decoction, open fermentation, and coolshipping hoppy lager with whole-cone hops are just a few of the ways this classically focused brewery finds ways to build character in their lagers.
Chicago’s Cruz Blanca favors beers with a story to tell. In this episode, head brewer Jacob Sembrano tells the stories behind their their red corn lager, their thick and silky barrel-aged stouts, and their grisette made from 100 percent malted corn and acidified with native bacteria from the corn itself.
Indulge us: Once a year, some of our top writers dig into their notebooks and memories for the beers and experiences that they enjoyed most—the kind that everyone deserves to enjoy—and which left the biggest impressions on them. In this episode, they tell you why.
In this special once-per-year episode honoring the pinnacles of the craft, our editors reveal their Best 20 Beers in 2023 and the results of the annual Craft Beer in Brewing Readers’ Choice poll.
From its outpost an hour outside of downtown Chicago, Art History has quietly built momentum by focusing on a range of Czech- and German-inspired lagers as well as bitters, milds, and other English styles. In this episode, head brewer Greg Browne and cofounder Tom Rau share their approach to making traditional beers cool again.
Over the years, Metazoa has won more than a dozen GABF and World Beer Cup medals. The latest gold—for a double-decocted, Scottish-style ale made with ingredients on hand, minimal specialty malts, open fermentation, and yeast borrowed from their hazy IPA—is proof that there is more than one way to make a compelling and malt-forward ale.
Jason zumBrunnen of Ratio Beerworks and Jeremy Claeys of Protagonist discuss their respective 2023 GABF gold medal–winning saisons, from Protagonist’s classical take to Ratio’s carrot- and elderflower-infused rendition.
In this panel discussion from our recent Brewery Accelerator, Jake Gardner of Westbound & Down, Marni Wahlquist of Odell, and Sean Buchan of Cerebral discuss their approaches to contemporary IPA—hazy, clear, and everything in-between.
It’s two GABF gold medal winners in one episode, as Joel Stickrod and Spencer Longhurst of Nashville’s Barrique discuss the making of their Wet Hop Strata 2023, while 1840’s Kyle Vetter shares the process behind I Don’t Want To Wait.
In a former dairy creamery in northern Vermont, Wunderkammer creator (and former Hill Farmstead head brewer) Vasili Gletsos has developed a decidedly manual, hands-on process using locally foraged ingredients, a wood-fired copper kettle, and no glycol.
Over the past 12 years, Nat West has built a brand focused on flavor-forward cider made with a craft brewer’s mentality. Now, Reverend Nat’s is in its final act—winding down business operations—but not before leaving an indelible mark on the fabric of Pacific Northwest craft beverages.
In Sunnyside, Washington, Chris Baum and his team at Varietal Beer enjoy firsthand access to growers and a nuanced understanding of hop quality. In this episode, recorded mid-harvest in the heart of the Yakima Valley, Baum shares his thoughts on brewing hop-forward and fresh-hop beers, and more.
The wandering wizard behind the collaborationist Brujos brand talks about his heavy approach to bold flavor in hazy IPAs.
The head brewer for Boulder, Colorado’s longtime champion of craft lager outlines their approach to high-pressure lager fermentation, unconventional malt choices, domestic lager hops, exogenous enzymes, and more.
From Rock Bottom and Bell’s to Mountain Sun, Oskar Blues, Eddyline, Melvin, and now Ex Novo, Dave Chichura has spent a lot of time in a lot of different brewhouses. In this episode, he shares important lessons he’s learned while making the “things.”
The former head brewer of Jester King set out on her own path with her Keeping Together brand, brewed out of Half Acre in Chicago. Now, she's writing the next chapter of the story in the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Over the years and via multiple breweries, Mark Hastings has honed his American-style wheat beer and black IPA into gold medal–winning machines. Today, he’s pushing them forward using Montana-grown, locally malted barley—and the winning streak continues.
Since 2018, this Colorado Springs brewery has embraced the ethos, “Diversity, it’s what’s on tap.” In the aftermath of the shooting at Club Q—where Rich disarmed and subdued a gunman who killed five and injured 19 more—they reflect on their lives in beer, operating a values-based brewery, keeping the business running while dealing with trauma, and more.
Three influential, award-winning brewers in the realm of fresh- and wet-hopped beers—Joe Mohrfeld (Pinthouse), Steve Luke (Cloudburst), and Zach Turner (Single Hill)—share their approaches to brewing fresh-hop beers in this ranging panel discussion.