Good Beer Hunting Good Beer Hunting

Hillary Barile isn’t sure what she’d call herself first: a farmer or a maltster. In reality, she’s both, working as a fifth generation farmer at Rabbit Hill Farms & Malthouse in Shiloh, New Jersey. There, she and members of her family produce barley and other crops, as well as run a small-scale malthouse that supplies ingredients for breweries and distilleries. And, as president of the Craft Maltsters Guild Board of Directors, she works to educate and grow the craft malt community across North America and beyond. 
So why, and how, did she make the jump from farming pottoes to investing in the agriculture and future of craft malt? It started with homebrewing, of course, with aspirations of opening a brewery to diversify and solidify her farm’s finances. But, as she explains in this episode, the business plan never got that far. As for what’s next, she says the breweries prioritizing local craft malt can tell unique stories that still reach the hearts of drinkers, giving them a small, but sufficient shield against difficult economic forces. We also discuss the many definitions of the word “sustainable,” and the efforts she’s making to ensure generations to come will still have the opportunity to nurture the land her family has cultivated. 
 

It’s time for the Brewers Association’s annual report for 2023. Who came out on top? Who’s new to the list and how did they get there? What on Earth is going on with draft sales, and what new data is still to come from the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference? All this and more is next, on this episode of the Gist.
 

You’ve heard the joke—four scientists walk into a bar, and hilarity ensues. But have you heard the one about a few NASA employees opening a brewery? It’s not a setup. It’s how True Anomaly Brewing Company in Houston, Texas actually started, when four friends and homebrewers decided to trade in the final frontier for a shot at making their own beer. 
Michael Duckworth is co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, which was recently named Brewery of the Year at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup for the second year in a row. Now in their sixth year, True Anomaly specializes in making wild and sour beers, but in a lager-focused state like Texas, they brew plenty of clean beers as well. They’ve been recognized for both with medal wins in competitions like the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival. And now, they’re preparing to open a much larger second location later this year, which you’ll hear about, and plan to up their output from around 1,200 barrels to around 2,000 by the end of 2024.
All this begs the question: how did a bunch of NASA nerds pull this off? Well, according to Michael, the four founders took a methodical, scientific approach to the business plan and applied an artistic sensibility to making the beers themselves. Wild beer can be unpredictable, but it’s that freedom from expectation he says makes each day a fun and unique surprise. In this episode, he also talks about the potential he sees in the Houston craft beverage scene, why they implemented inclusivity as part of their operations from day one, and why you might see an astronaut or two hanging around the brewery on the weekends.

What happens when a respected name in wine and spirits tries to make a move into the beer world? Does their experience translate into a new category, or do they have to build a reputation from the ground up? Does the beer industry welcome interlopers, or view them with skepticism and confusion? And if they’re asking to judge your beer at a new competition, does anyone show up?
These are all questions I asked myself when I was invited to judge at The Tasting Alliance’s second ever beer competition in December 2023. I, like some others in and around beer, had never heard of the group, or only knew them for their wine and spirits competitions that take place in San Francisco, New York, and Singapore. 
In this episode, I talk to Maddee McDowell, vice president of The Tasting Alliance and the person who handles the logistical organization of their beer competition. You’ll hear about what it was like for me to participate in judging, but also what The Tasting Alliance hopes sets them apart from other competitions. Maddee shares what the biggest category of entries was (it’s shockingly not IPAs), some of the differences between running wine and spirits competitions versus beer, and how they’re trying to build relationships in the beer community to gain a wider diversity of palates at the judging table. We also talk about how the competition changed from year one to two, and how many entries she, somewhat optimistically, hopes to receive in year three. 
The competition doesn’t end once medals are announced, McDowell assures us. And at the very least, The Tasting Alliance’s experience is another way for us to better understand competitions and what it takes to make them happen.
 

It’s a consumer’s world—we’re just living in it. Maybe that’s just how it seems nowadays, based on the number of new products on shelves and who’s putting them there. In this episode of The Gist, lead Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot and Beth Demmon (that’s me) take a look at what products Tilray has released since going on a brewery-buying bonanza last August. We also talk about what sort of vibes Kate saw at the recent Illinois Craft Brewers Convention, and finally, what’s the latest buzz on BuzzBallz after Sazerac announced their plans to acquire the one-in-a-million brand success story. All this and more is coming right up, right here on The Gist. 

So often, when you listen to these episodes, you hear conversations with people far along in their experience with beer, wine, spirits, or other alcoholic beverages. We’ve had our share of brewers and owners who have been in the game for a decade or more. And in this conversation, we’re invited to hear from Natalie Thurman, an up-and-coming brewer discovering what it means to go pro, create recipes, and learn all the time.
Natalie was a homebrewer before she was brought on as a vocational brewer at Pittsburgh’s Trace Brewing. Over a six-month period from summer 2023 through the end of that year, Natalie worked alongside and learned from a variety of staff at Trace, picking up tips, tricks, and an education that will guide her in brewing for years to come. It’s all new—Natalie is a clinical research professional and registered nurse who’s spent more than 10 years working in healthcare—but as you’ll hear in this chat, there’s a lightness and excitement at work in her life through beer.
While we talk about her beginnings in homebrewing and building an interest in beer, I invite you to really hear the way Natalie talks about finding herself through her homebrewing and her work at Trace. Spending time at a brewery and meeting industry peers has seemed to unlock something special for her, and it’s an opportunity you’ll hear she’s not taking for granted. This is a chance to hear what it sounds like to start something new and why it’s so meaningful. It’s an opportunity to hear about how the joy of homebrewing becomes the joy of professional brewing and all that’s to come for Natalie and those in her orbit.