713 episodes

Award-winning interviews with a wide spectrum of people working in, and around, the beer industry. We balance the culture of craft beer with the businesses it supports, and examine the tenacity of its ideals.

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    • Arts

Award-winning interviews with a wide spectrum of people working in, and around, the beer industry. We balance the culture of craft beer with the businesses it supports, and examine the tenacity of its ideals.

    EP-403 Neil Fisher and Skip Schwartz of WeldWerks Brewing

    EP-403 Neil Fisher and Skip Schwartz of WeldWerks Brewing

    Fluffernutter and Oreo Marshmallow pastry stouts. Kettle sours brewed with "obscene amounts" of fruit. A cream cheese rangoon gose. Depending on your level of curiosity and adventurousness, these beers may sound exciting or challenging, but they also have two things in common: They’ve been made by Colorado’s WeldWerks Brewing and they’re fun beers made with serious intent.
    In this episode, we get into some of the technical ideas, philosophies, and search for dialed-in joy with Skip Schwartz, WeldWerks’ head brewer and Neil Fisher, founder and owner of the company. What makes brewing and beer fun these days? There are lots of answers, and as you’ll hear both explain, it could be from the never-ending tweaks to make a beer as perfect as possible or finding ways to connect with new drinkers who would otherwise turn away from a beer.
    Some of the more wild beers created by WeldWerks have gotten attention over the years, but it’s their flagship hazy IPA, Juicy Bits, that put this brewery on the map and has allowed WeldWerks to expand into 26 different markets this year. The runaway success of Juicy Bits has helped the business gain notoriety beyond Colorado, build out its brewhouse, and set a goal of modest growth as many companies in craft beer are focused on just staying flat with their production.
    So, maybe you’ve tried some of WeldWerks’ outlandish beers at their taproom or during a major industry event like the Great American Beer Festival, or maybe you’ve had their signature IPA and one of its variants. Allow Skip and Neil to give you some background on what it means to connect with drinkers today and learn how their approach to beer is setting them up for 2024 and beyond.
     

    • 51 min
    CL-140 Malts, Monoculture, and Money—The Future of Barley in North America

    CL-140 Malts, Monoculture, and Money—The Future of Barley in North America

    Some people nerd out about beer in general. Others go wild for water profiles, hop varieties, or yeast strains, but in Don Tse’s experience, not enough people are paying attention to malted barley. It’s something he’s been passionate about for a decade, and a topic he finally gets to explore in-depth in his first piece for Good Beer Hunting.
    In that Critical Drinking op-ed, titled “Fight the Power — How Craft Malt Is Central to Taking On Beer’s Industrial Complex,” Don explains how the barley of today shouldn’t be the barley of yesterday. Typical crops are bred to resist disease and blight every few years. But in North America, barley that’s now widely planted  has been around for three decades and is the main source of what’s used for malt in beer recipes. Why? Well, it takes time, money, and a lot of buy-in to change a monoculture crop like barley. That change is finally coming, thanks to investments from researchers at Cornell University, breweries like Allagash, and other forward-thinking farmers ready to make malt craft again. 
    In our conversation, you’ll hear Don talk about why it took so long for him to pursue this passion project, why as a Canadian he’s focused on American farmers, why he’s so stoked on things like protein levels and output, and what sort of potential and future he sees in the North American barley industry. He doesn’t expect people to be as nuts about the subject as he is. But he hopes that we’ll all start to care, at least a little, to keep moving craft beer and our shared agricultural future looking bright.
     

    • 31 min
    EP-402 Ryan Lavery, Founder & President of Widowmaker Brewing

    EP-402 Ryan Lavery, Founder & President of Widowmaker Brewing

    The story of homebrewing and craft beer is intertwined. Ask many craft brewery owners how they got their start, and you’ll probably hear about their homebrewing days—how it sparked their love of beer and eventually led them to turn their hobby into a career. However, homebrewing is only one part of going pro, and there are many more skills needed to open and run a brewery.
    Ryan Lavery, owner of Widowmaker Brewing, got his start brewing beer in his garage. A series of serendipitous moments, including a Craigslist ad, eventually led him to open his own brewery in Braintree, Massachusetts in 2017, and another location in Allston-Brighton, a neighborhood in Boston in 2023. Both locations reflect Ryan’s love for music with his second location being described as a place with “intergalactic, spacey, stoner rock” vibes.

    In this conversation, Ryan shares how he didn’t really know anything about opening a brewery and how those first decisions—like how they set up the brewhouse—still affect him and his team today. You'll hear Ryan discuss the distinction between the opening of his first taproom and the second one, as well as how the brewery discovered its identity and how that knowledge influenced the design of both locations, starting with the second. We also spend a little time talking about the special places he’s visited in Atlanta while on business for the brewery, including a previous podcast guest, Todd DiMatteo, and his brewing company, Good Word Brewing.

    • 41 min
    TG-010 The One With The Fighting Spirit

    TG-010 The One With The Fighting Spirit

    Modelo Especial continues to absolutely dominate as a lager, but is it so successful that we can call it the new domestic lager of choice? On this episode of The Gist, I’m joined as always by Lead Sightlines reporter Kate Bernot, along with special guest, freelance writer, and Good Beer Hunting contributor Jerard Fagerberg to talk about how Constellation Brands has grown Modelo to a 200 million case brand and what that means for the domestic beer category at large. Plus, we look at the latest c-store numbers—specifically, how cider is performing—and why combining “low” and “no” alcohol options into one group doesn’t really make much sense. I’m Beth Demmon, and you’re listening to The Gist. 

    • 24 min
    FFT-25 Matt Manthe from Odd Breed Brewing

    FFT-25 Matt Manthe from Odd Breed Brewing

    Next up in our series of interviews from the 2023 Foeder for Thought festival, Kate Bernot is talking to Matt Manthe from Odd Breed Brewing in Pompano Beach, Florida.
    Most of the locations of the brewers we speak to at Foeder for Thought come from far and wide, and usually from places with more mild climates than Florida has to offer. So Matt and Odd Breed adapt their process and expectations to that reality, working with yeast strains and styles that provide the nuanced results they’re looking for. He also talks about what it takes to help grow the audience for these beers in Florida, which is a younger scene that markets like California or the Northeast.
    One of the methods Matt enjoys most is fresh hopping his wild ales for a somewhat hybrid style of IPA and wild and sour beer that is delighting his fans.

    • 36 min
    FFT-24 Aaron Kleidon of Scratch Brewing

    FFT-24 Aaron Kleidon of Scratch Brewing

    In this episode of the 2023 Foeder for Thought festival, I’m talking to Aaron Kleidon of catch Brewing in Ave, Illinois, one of the country’s most obscure and isolated brewers, that also happens to be one of the most welcoming and casual visits among the class of brewers you might consider a destination brewery.
    Tucked away in far southern Illinois, Scratch has made a name for itself with foraged ingredients, ancient methods of brewing, such as hot stone and campfire heating, as well as a culinary program at the brewpub that delivers a similarly-minded approach to cooking.
    We talk a lot more these days about the connection between agriculture and brewing, but in this conversation with Aaron, you’ll hear something more akin to a naturalist or a conservationist obsessed with his land and the surrounding forests, and how he makes world class beers from those unlikely resources.

    • 46 min

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