Beervana Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jeff Alworth & Patrick Emerson
About the art, culture, economics and business of beer and brewing with hosts Jeff Alworth (The Beer Bible, The Secrets of Master Brewers) and Oregon State University economics professor Patrick Emerson.
Nine years ago, almost to the day, we recorded our first episode of the Beervana Podcast. All things must end, and it is with deep gratitude and appreciation that we announce this is our last show. If you'd like to read a bit more of a formal obit, we have one here.https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2024/5/2/old-podcasts-dont-dieThanks for everything, you wonderful listeners!
At this year’s Central European Brewers Festival, Polish brewer Marek Kamiński gave a presentation on the briefly extinct style of Grodziskie that has been making a comeback in its homeland. Jeff and Marek later sat down to discuss this fascinating style, its history, and how it’s doing today. We have that interview, along with the news and mailbag and a Croatian beer tasting.
Today we’re going to go to Prague and Budapest, where Jeff recently spent ten days. He was there to speak at the Central European Brewers Conference, and had a chance to get caught up on the beer scenes in the region. The countries there have very diverse brewing backgrounds, from the Czechia, with local intact traditions dating back centuries, to countries like Croatia, where craft brewing dates back only a decade. He’s going to tell us what he found.Beer Tastings: Varionica Pale, Zmajska Pils, and Maktoob IPA
Not long ago, we received a very interesting email in the mailbag. It came from Pete Hoppins of Portland’s British-influenced brewery, Away Days. It was the length of a short article and came with a color-coded graph. The essence of the email boiled down to a pithy question he posed about the viability of small breweries today. Pete asked: “Do you think we could ever see another brewery as successful as say Breakside or 10 Barrel (in Portland area)?” The email was far to detailed and meaty for a simple mailbag item, so we’re bumping it up to the main topic of this pod.PHOTO: 10 Barrel BrewingBeer tasting: Rogue Dead Guy IPA, Hetty Alice Belgian IPA (BIPA)
In September, Dublin's Guinness Brewery opened its second American site, this time in Chicago. Jeff went to the Windy City to check it out and while he was there, sat down with Ryan Wagner, who helped see the project over the finish line, and brewer Megan Schwarz.
When we think of different beers, our minds almost immediately frame them in terms of “style.” IPAs and witbiers and Czech dark lagers: this is how we’ve come to understand beer. Today we get philosophical and ask the question: what if styles aren’t the only way to think about beer? What if, rather than illuminating something essential about beer, styles actually deceive us?
Today we are joined by hop grower Max Coleman for a special edition of Beeronomics. Hops are a very unusual crop, sold only to a single industry for one purpose. How does this business relationship work? We’re going to ask Max how he knows which hops to grow and how many, and how the market for hops works.Photo: Max enveloped by a field of Mosaic hops.
Several years ago, beer experienced its “tulip mania” moment in the form of a pumpkin ale bubble. Many of those were bad—but that was the breweries’ fault, not the style’s. These should function like fun autumnal rituals. The new crop may bring you back.
Today we are pulling out our green eyeshades and squinting at some data—it’s another episode of Beeronomics. Our intrepid economist is going to walk us through some numbers. Inflation, draft numbers, taprooms—we’re digging deep so you don’t have to.Cover photo: Midjourney (prompt: beer economics) Beer Tasting: Buoy Festbier
For the second year in a row, we have decamped to Loyal Legion, a local pub that reliably has one of the best selections of fresh hop beers in town. As we sit here and turn our tongues green, we’re going to discuss the hop harvest. Patrick and Jeff went down to Coleman Farms a few weeks back to witness it, and we’re going to walk you through the process that takes 20-foot tall bines sunning themselves in the field and turns them into the T-90 pellets breweries use to make beer.
After screwing around on the margins for a while, this week I really plunged into the fresh hop marketplace. What I've discovered has been both unusual and enlightening. Here's an early-season report.
As everyone knows, the three great lager-brewing regions are Bavaria, Bohemia, and Austria. Wait, Austria? Sure it was famous in the last century for Vienna lager, but what has it done lately? We have Franz Hofer on the show today to answer this very question. Franz splits his year between Oklahoma and Vienna and writes about the lager-lands on his website, Tempest in a Tankard. Austria is, no kidding, a truly special place where one of the world’s major styles whets the whistles of a nation—while somehow staying hidden from the rest of the world.
Find Franz at his website: https://tempestinatankard.com/ Music: Herbert von Karajan, "Austria: Land der Berge, Land am Strome"
In their latest Fireside Chat, Breakside Brewery's Ben Edmunds and Beervana's Jeff Alworth speak with three brewers whose breweries do not make hoppy ales. We wanted to hear why they chose this path, and what it entails. Because IPAs are overwhelmingly popular among craft beer drinkers, these breweries have had to create interest in other types of beer. How did they do that? And how does the future look for these breweries? Guests in this show:
• Bill Arnott, Founder and Brewer of Seattle’s Machine House Brewing. • Dan Carey, Co-founder and Brewer of Wisconsin's New Glarus Brewing. • Alex Ganum, Founder and Brewer at Portland’s Upright Brewing.
We have an unusual transcontinental edition of the Beervana Show for you today. We thought it would be fun to compare and contrast our summer vacation destinations. I’ve been in Maine for a couple weeks and Jeff took a trip to Oklahoma. We both visited breweries, drank some beer, and we will give our full report.
Both Jeff and I are about to go on excursions out of the state and away from our microphones, so today we’re doing the one, time-sensitive task left to us: addressing your mailbag comments and questions.
Illustration courtesy Midjourney. Prompt: drinking beer on holiday in the sunshine
Nearly a quarter century ago, veteran brewer Vinnie Cilurzo brewed a one-off double IPA at Russian River Brewing for a local festival. It would become a regular, bearing the somewhat obscure name of a Roman naturalist—Pliny the Elder. Pliny pretty soon became a cult phenomenon and ultimately the brewery’s calling card. But what makes it special—what makes it a classic—is how Vinnie anticipated the future of hoppy American ales and brewed the first truly modern IPA all those years ago.
PHOTO: Russian River Brewing
In 1976, a blind tasting of Chardonnays known as the Judgment of Paris changed the wine world forever. Today, in this podcast, we offer you no less an earth-shattering blind tasting, the Judgment of Lents. That’s right, it’s part two of our mass market lager blind tasting, held in a luxurious conference room at Zoiglhaus in the Lents neighborhood of SE Portland. Together, Zoiglhaus’s brewmaster Alan Taylor, my sidekick Jeff, and I sat down to taste the final six lagers and determine which deserved the title of world’s best.
A Breakside-Beervana Fireside Chat.
How did the American IPA tradition start? Are West Coast beers just about the bitter? Did hazies change everything? What did West Coast breweries take from the east—and how much did East Coast breweries crib from the west? Are there actually two different traditions? Just one? Dozens? American brewers, in reinventing IPAs, have changed the way the world makes beer. But how accurately do we understand our own story? We will get to the bottom of this once and for all.
Guests: Noah Bissell, Co-founder of Bissell Brothers Brewing (Portland, ME) Vinnie Cilurzo, Co-founder and Brewmaster, Russian River Brewing (Santa Rosa, CA) Mitch Steele, Co-owner and Brewmaster of New Realm (Atlanta), former Brewmaster of Stone Brewing (Alexandra Nowell, sadly, was sick and couldn't join)
Today we have a very special show, along with a special guest. In Show 180, we kick off a two-part taste off of … are you ready? … mass market lagers! While connoisseurs eschew these beers because they have slight and occasionally objectionable flavor profiles, they constitute the vast majority of beers sold in the world. We have an international line-up, and to help us taste them, we invited friend-of-the-pod Alan Taylor to join us. Alan is the German-trained master brewer at Zoiglhaus, and he has a trained and nuanced palate. We invited him to help us all understand what we’re tasting in these beers.
Beers Tasted:
Round 1 1. Budweiser 2. Kokanee 3. Hamm’s 4. Busch 5. Heineken 6. Foster’s 7. Rolling Rock 8. Coors 9. Beck’s
Round 2 1. Singha 2. Modelo Especial 3. Miller High Life 4. Kirin 5. Rainier 6. Stella Artois 7. Michelob Ultra 8. Pabst 9. Narragansett
In our last show, we delved into the strange, wonderful tale of Belgian witbier. But that story was really just the first chapter in a wave of Belgian-inspired beers and breweries that got going thanks to witbier’s success. For more than a decade and a half, Belgian beer seemed to be growing in popularity, but then it cratered. Now it’s very difficult to find a Belgian style on a taplist—even witbier. We thought we’d try to figure out what happened.Tasting: Block 15, Garden Path
We’re less than a month away from the summer, and that means shifting down from big, boozy beers to lighter thirst-quenchers. We thought it would be a great opportunity to do one of our studies in style and look at that perfect Belgian summer ale, the witbier. If you think that sounds like a tame topic, stay tuned, because we’re going to get into the deep history of the style and describe a beer that bears no resemblance to Blue Moon. Tasting: Hoegaarden, Breakside Belgian White
[Note: Dodgy audio! Our field mic may be on the fritz! Apologies!]It’s been a minute since our last show. In the weeks since we last spoke, various events have transpired. Patrick has been to London and back. Jeff has been to Tillamook. The King of England was fêted by BrewDog—and then unfêted. The Belgians expressed displeasure with the Champagne of Beers. Portland lost an icon. Lots of stuff to talk about, so for this show, we thought we’d head to a pub and do a proper catch-up over beers.
A couple of weeks back, Portland enjoyed the return of one of its most unusual events—the 8th edition of SheBrew. As the name suggests, the event celebrates women, and includes two components: a national female-only homebrew competition, and a one-day festival of beer made by women at professional breweries. We’re going to learn about SheBrew from one of the organizers, Jenn McPoland, and hear how it has accelerated the integration of women into brewing. PHOTO: SheBrew
In Show 175, we are delighted to be joined by pFriem’s Campbell Morrissy. Campbell is currently the Head Brewer at pFriem, and recently crafted the recipe and formulation for a collaboration pFriem is doing with Jeff. In designing the beer, a pub-strength pilsner, Campbell used a California-grown floor malt. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to have him on the show and dig into malting. It’s a subject that can get technical pretty fast, but it’s critically important in making beer taste the way it does. In this show, Campbell walks us through malt's secrets.
In part two of our conversation, we talk to Ben Love and Van Havig about some of the challenges facing breweries as the year nears its end.
Today we join you from the industrial tract in Southeast Portland that Ben Love and Van Havig selected ten years ago when they founded Gigantic Brewing. At the time, they expected it would blend in with its surroundings, and they devoted little attention to the tiny taproom space they called the Champagne Lounge. To their surprise, it has become a success, encouraging them to open a second taproom during Covid and, last month, a third. In today’s pod, we’re going to ask them about the new place, their tenth anniversary, and how things have changed since 2012.
The cold weather seems to come fast. Through October, crisp mornings often give way to sunny afternoons. After Halloween, however, the days grow short and the sun disappears behind gray clouds. Once we fall back after daylight savings end, darkness starts arriving at the end of the workday and the sun makes a slow, sleepy return. Winter is coming, and bringing the cold and wet with it. On today’s show we offer a tonic that’s at least a thousand years old—the winter warmer, a beer to heat body and soul.
Tastings: Ninkasi Sleigh'r, Anchor Christmas Ale, Deschutes Jubelale, Double Mountain Fa La La La La
A few weeks back, Jeff’s editor at Craft Beer & Brewing wrote to explain that the magazine was shifting to its original quarterly format. The reason wasn’t declining revenues, but efficiencies—it’s less expensive and simpler to put out four issues a year than six. That got us thinking: how do magazines work? How has Craft Beer & Brewing survived when so many other magazines folded? How do the internet, social media, and newer delivery systems like podcasting impact print media--should we be thinking in terms of media companies rather than magazines? In today’s show, we have Jamie Bogner, Craft Beer & Brewing’s publisher, on to give us the low down about how they do it.
For most of the 20th century, if you wanted to point to an actual American style of beer, you had to face San Francisco. Steam beer, a frontier concoction brewed fast for thirsty gold miners, became a signature of the city. Many breweries made it in the latter half of the 19th century, but they all died out, save one: the Anchor Brewery, which was rescued from bankruptcy in 1965 and helped jump-start craft brewing in America.
We join you from the best place on the planet for Show 169—a pub, smack dab in the middle of fresh-hop season. We recorded this show on-site at Portland’s Loyal Legion, which is reliably stocked with these little gems throughout the season. While we sipped on them, we discussed hops, the harvest, and the seasonal, regional delight that are fresh hop ales.
[Warning: raw audio of spotty quality] In this Pod Extra, Jeff interviews legendary London brewer Derek Prentice, beer historian Ron Pattinson, and Goose Island Innovation Brewer Mike Siegel. They teamed up on a special project to recreate a 1960s barley wine made by London's now-defunct Truman brewery--where Derek started brewing in 1968,
Double Eagle combines a wood-aged barley wine inoculated with wild yeast (Brett C), blended with fresh barley wine. In the interview, Jeff learns about the history of the beer, Derek's career, and many other lovely tidbits along the way. It is the raw audio, so there's no intro or outro.
It’s hard out there for a brewer. Heat, drought, supply-chain issues, metal shortages, war, and inflation—all these things seem to be conspiring against them. On today’s show we’ll have a look at these headwinds, assess how bad they are, and how soon brewers might see some relief.
Though many Americans may not realize it, Scotland is one of the world’s great old brewing countries. Even if you have heard of 80 shilling ales and wee heavies, however, you may not be familiar with the vat-aging tradition Gareth Young mines at Epochal Ales in Glasgow. Drawing on archival records, Young is bringing attention to beers like stock ale and Glasgow porter. In Show 167, we get on the horn with Glasgow and have a fascinating chat with Gareth.
When Stone Brewing launched in the mid-90s, its aggro “you’re not worthy!” vibe captured the counter-culture zeitgeist of craft brewing. It was able to build a brand on the rising popularity of IPAs—one that took it to Virginia and ultimately Berlin. Yet all that reversed itself in recent years and Stone found itself flailing in a new world that didn’t admire aggro anymore. It got us thinking about how breweries go through a familiar life cycle, one that would make a worthy topic.
Beers tasted: Fort George 3-Way, Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing Photo: Sierra Nevada's first brewery (photo: Sierra Nevada)
If a Portland brewery wants to drive a keg of beer across the river to Vancouver, WA and they have filed the proper paperwork with the state, they’re allowed to. The State of Oregon, however, forbids Washington breweries from doing the same. This rankled Justin Leigh, owner of Dwinell Country Ales in Goldendale, WA. He’s a lawyer, and he was pretty sure that didn’t pass legal muster. A few weeks ago, three breweries sued Oregon for the right to self-distribute South of the Columbia. Today we have Justin on the line, and we’ll talk to him about the lawsuit and the way protectionism hampers breweries’ access to markets.
It has been a while since we did a classic style dissection, but thanks to a listener request, we have a lovely, overlooked tradition to present today: bière de garde, France’s signature style. It has a history dating back to the 19th century, but the current examples look a lot different. In today’s show, we’ll discuss that transformation, what caused it, and what you can expect from this elegant, unexpected style.
Note: We had trouble with Zencastr again--and this will be the last time we use it. Sorry for the poor audio.
Tasting: Thiriez Ambrée
Portland has many breweries. Old breweries, new breweries, big breweries, small breweries. But which, among this dense thicket, are the best? For visitors to Portland, that’s an important question, and we’re here to help! This past week, Jeff posted his annual Best Portland Breweries list, and we go through it and discuss the breweries he chose—and whether his choices are correct.
Today's post kicks off Portland Travel Week. To get things started, I’ll offer an overview of the Rose City, a bit of beer-centric history, and some of the key features of the local drinking culture. Craft breweries follow a familiar model, and if you just go from one to the next, you might miss some of the character behind all that steel.
On June 11th, Portland’s English-themed, pro-cask Away Days Brewery hosts a cask ale festival with several regional breweries. As you know, Jeff and I love cask ale and have been promoting it for over a decade—all to little apparent effect. Something changed in the past few years, though, and now several Portland-area breweries have regular cask offerings (we toured a chunk of them on a podcast extra between Shows 155 and 156). That something may very well be Away Days, which has shown the kind of sustained commitment to cask that has helped raise its profile in the city. In advance of the fest, we wanted to sit down and talk to some folks from the brewery
Old breweries compact time and preserve it. The hands of old brewers are evident in every dent and scuff. Their habits are preserved in the movements of the brewers they trained. When I stepped into Caledonian’s brewhouse, wort steaming and foaming in weird bespoke coppers, it might have well been 1869.
On today's show we hear from Kjetil Dale, one of two dozen or so farmhouse brewers practicing an ancient craft in the western Norwegian valley of Voss. Brewing here is knitted into the culture of the region, beginning in the classic eldhus, or "firehouse," common on farms here. As the fire crackles nearby, Kjetil describes this tradition and some of his background.
Beer tasting: Kings and Daughters / https://kingsanddaughters.com/
If you’ve been following us on social media, you’ve probably seen some photos Jeff posted from his recent visit to Norway. He was invited to participate at the Oslo Craft Beer Festival. We’ll hear about that and what he learned of the Norwegian beer scene. Craft beer is only about twenty years old, but the brewing tradition goes back centuries—and perhaps millennia. While he was in Norway, Jeff visited three breweries that melded the old and new traditions.
Beer tasting: Juice Jr. from Great Notion / https://greatnotion.com/
On Show 159, we are joined by Tobias Hahn and Nick Greiner, founders of the Rosenstadt Brewery. They tell us about their unusual approach to the business, what it’s like to focus on German beer in the American Northwest, and how gemütlichkeit fits into all this.
Way, way back in Pod 16, Jeff and I tackled the Trappist beers of Belgium. In the time since that program aired, four new monastic breweries have opened, and in all a baker’s dozen have started in the past decade. We thought it would be fun to revisit monastic brewing, discuss whether abbey ales are more or less a style with their arrivals, and taste a couple of the new ones.
Among living beer styles, rare is the is the case where a single beer accounts for the survival of a whole tradition, but it’s mostly true in the case of saison. Well, a single beer, an English writer, and an American importer.
The Labor Department recently reported that inflation was up 7.9% over the past year, sending the stock markets down, and causing the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates. This news landed amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the biggest grain producers in the world. Add to that the rising costs of aluminum, a historically bad year for barley, and high gas prices, and it’s clear that the cost of your pint of beer is almost certainly likely to rise. We thought it would be a perfect time to bring in the Beeronomist and walk us through the issues surrounding inflation, including the way it affects buyer behavior.
Beers tasted today: Cloudburst Kevin!!! and Reuben's Dream Team
Throughout most of the past ten thousand years, brewing was a farmhouse chore, one of the many ways people preserved their harvest throughout the year. In more recent times it has become a commercial and industrial activity. Yet in a verdant pocket of Loudoun County, Virginia about an hour NW of Washington DC, the husband and wife team of Bonnie and John Branding are conducting an ambitious experiment. They’ve revived farmhouse brewing, growing their own barley, using wild yeast from the land, and brewing it up in a barn. On today’s show, we’re going to hear their story and learn how they’re making this work in a 21st-century world.
Our Friday: a two-mile, four-pub crawl (with a short tram ride) where we stopped in and had our choice of two cask beers at each location. We encountered three milds along the walk.
The crawl happened in Portland, Oregon.
Because we're podcast professionals, we recorded our thoughts at each stop. Have a listen and learn about this remarkable development.
Many American breweries make sixty beers a year. Rochefort hasn’t offered a single new release in sixty years. Because monks don’t do anything without considering the long view, the abbey also built a new brewery to handle the increased production.
The usual history of American hoppy ales takes us back to Northern California and the founding breweries there, who reinvented staid British ales by injecting them with expressive American hops. Sierra’s Celebration, a proto-IPA, seem to form a straight line through history to the present moment’s hoppy IPAs. But today we’re going to talk about a parallel development that happened further north, sparked by a colorful pioneer who is sadly an increasingly forgotten figure.
Beer tasting: Deschutes Black Butte vs Deschutes Black Butte N/A
What do Portland’s Level Brewing, Foreland, Upright, Steeplejack, and Away Days have in common? They form a growing list of breweries championing honest, proper cask ale. For decades breweries have tried to popularize this style, and Americans have spurned them. We’ll discuss what cask ales are and why Americans—and Portlanders—are finally starting to drink them.
Beer Tasting: Good Word Brewing
Today we’re going to be doing a bit more retrospective podcasting. In October, Jeff went on a national book tour—that’s the reason we had to put our podcasting on hold. Well, Jeff saw and learned much on his travels, so today we’ll discuss what he discovered.
Photo: Dan Cuzzocreo, the listener who inspired Show 149 on brown ales, came to the Chicago event
Since all has been quiet for months here at the Beervana Podcast, we’ve missed a lot of important happenings. As a part of getting caught up, we thought it would be good to review the key events of the past three months and discuss their implications. So buckle up and let’s go straight to the news!
Media in general has gone through a massive transition in the past decade with the rise of social media, the death of magazines, the arrival of podcasting, and, lately, a sort-of return to blogging in the form of email newsletters. But if you think blogs have no place in today’s media, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Prague’s U Fleků makes the iconic Czech dark lager, so much so they eschew terms like tmavý and cerne. Their’s is a “Flekovský ležák.” In my latest collaboration, this time with Zoiglhaus, we shoot for an homage. It’s a dead-on banger (no bias), but we didn’t dare name it Flekovský.
I was pleased to see his eyebrows shoot up during his first sip, and I caught him murmur “this is good” as he placed the glass back on the bar.
The Wiener has landed! Just before Thanksgiving, pFriem debuted their version of a 19th-century Vienna lager like Anton Dreher would have made. It was a tremendous beer, and I’m delighted to say I was a collaborator. This is the story.
When we talk about great beer cities, the name Atlanta rarely comes up. After a visit to five excellent breweries in town—New Realm, Bold Monk, Monday Night, Halfway Crooks, and Elsewhere—I was convinced it should.
Larry Bell announced that he was selling his 36-year-old brewery, Michigan’s Bell’s, today. The language was weird and somewhat concealed the actual details. Yet unlike so many bloodless M&A announcements, the reason may have everything to do with the difficulty of this sale.
On today's show, we beam into Jeff’s book tour and take you to a live recording of a stop he made at Guinness’s Open Gate Brewery in Baltimore, MD. This was a planned stop on the tour, and Jeff, brewer Sean Brennan, and Guinness “ambassador” Ryan Wagner spoke in front of an audience when he was in Baltimore.
In a rather shocking development, the mailbag overfloweth! Long-time readers know that our begging for comments is a regular feature of the show, and we’ve been supported by a few reliable regular commenters. Since our last show, however, the emails have been flying. We have so many that we’ll devote the whole show to them today. You are a smart and observant bunch, and these are great questions.
The Beer Bible 2nd Edition will be available a week from today. Here’s the skinny on everything that’s new. It’s a lot!
Not long ago, listener Dan Cuzzocreo wrote us with this request: “I've really enjoyed the episodes you have done on a particular beer style. I'd love to hear more episodes in this vein, especially about important but less trendy styles, and in particular I was curious if you might consider doing one about brown ales.” Well Dan, you asked, and today we deliver. There is no style less trendy—nor badly-named—than brown ale, but today we’ll dig into its roots and see if we can’t discover why it was once a beloved tipple in both the US and UK. Brown ales forever!
Photo: The Yorkshire squares of Samuel Smith
Writers and brewers have identified most of the useful frameworks we use to understand beer. An important one, often hinted at but never fully explored, is national tradition. It’s never been more important to understand, though—especially now amid the birth of the American tradition.
If you speak to anyone in the service industry these days, the conversation eventually turns to the ongoing worker shortage. Increasingly, people don’t want to work as restaurant servers or dishwashers—or brewers or keg-washers. What’s going on? Today we have a special Beeronomics edition of the show, wherein Patrick will give us the scoop. He’ll provide an overview of the labor industry, explain what drives worker shortages, and how salaries fit into the equation.
Picture: Farmers Brewing
Today we’re going to try something new. Over on his blog, Jeff has an ongoing series called “Making of a Classic,” which investigates why certain beers have become world standards over the decades. They contain a bit of history, a bit of ethnography, and often a bit of technology. We’re going to kick things off today with a beer you’re all familiar with: Guinness Draught. It seems as unchanging as it is ubiquitous, yet it has gone through tremendous change since its early origins at the start of the 19th century. As a special treat, we also have the voice of the man who created the final, and current, version of the beer.
Pliny was a bright light in the fog. Despite its hurricane of flavors, it was more focused, refined, and elegant than other IPAs of the day. With the benefit of time, we can see that it reset expectations about what was possible, pointing to the future we now inhabit.
Each year, people traveling to Portland reach out to Jeff for advice about which breweries to visit. Starting in 2018 he thought it would be easier just to write a post on his website with his recommendations. After several weeks of field research, he finally revealed the 2021 edition of the list on Beervana. Today we’ll discuss his recommendations and I’ll add my own comments and corrections.
Blog post with the selections: https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2021/7/29/portlands-best-breweries-2021
Of all the interesting stuff that has appeared at this site over the past 15 years, nothing was more important than the forty-odd posts from brewers and one cidermaker that constitute the Coronavirus Diaries series that ran on the site from March 2020 to this May. They’re now available as a book.
On Monday, Molson Coors announced it was ceasing production of a bunch of minor brands it owned, including one that hurts Oregonians’ hearts: Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve. It was a beer that helped make the city Beervana, but also a remnant of a dying era.
Three months ago, we were all excited to be entering a time when life could go back to something approaching normal following 15 months of a pandemic. But now cases are spiking again, and it’s time to take drastic action to prevent a return to shutdowns and death.
No doubt all the listeners have tuned in today for the thrilling conclusion of the Beervana Show IPA Smackdown! You’ll recall that last week we assembled a range of Oregon and Washington IPAs and tasted them blind. At the end of that show, we identified six beers we’ll be sending to the finals—which we will conduct today! We selected regular-production IPAs, and only IPAs—no double or session or black IPAs (though hazies and West Coasts were both in the mix). Of course, state bragging rights were on the line, but we also wanted to discuss the style and the nature of identifying “the best.” Today we continue the discussion and the judging.
In the latest article in the Sightglass Series, I’ve spoken to a number of women in the beer industry to highlight how their creative expressions have changed the way we make, market, write about, and of course, drink beer. It’s a process entirely of addition, and we are all the beneficiaries of their work.
Today we have a Beaver vs Evergreen State IPA showdown, tasted blind, for what will surely be the most coveted award in the beer world. Yes, in Show 144 we have the first annual Northwest IPA Smackdown!
In this episode we feature the preliminary round, where we describe each of the sixteen beers and begin to flesh out what "good" looks like when you're dealing with modern IPAs on a bitter-to-juicy and hazy-to-clear continuum. Stick around to the end when we announce the finalists we'll judge in Show 145.
Every beer contains a whiff of history. Traditional Berliner weisse, which went extinct in the mid-aughts before enjoying a revival years later, contains more than a whiff. Yesterday, at Portland’s Zoiglhaus brewery, I sampled both the ghost and its reincarnation.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Beervana Show has been on a five-week hiatus, and during that time, the old mailbag has fattened up. On today’s show, we’re going to turn to you and answer questions, respond to your commentary and opinion, and offer a much-delayed update on our mascot, Maris Otter, and the t-shirts she will soon be adorning.
As my perambulations take me around the beautiful sort-of post-Covid City of Roses, I have been finding a number of great beers to try. Today we have a look at stouts at Assembly, hoppy wild ales at Little Beast, and cask summer ales at Upright.
We love good beer, finding good beer, talking about good beer. But identifying what that “good” is in beer—that’s a lot harder. Truly great beers are defined by subjective, often subtle elements of a beer. Yet they aren’t unknowable. Here’s a proposal for how to identify them.
We are delighted to be back in a brewery! On today’s show, we are visiting Unicorn Brewing with owner Zach Vestal. We’ve been impressed with the tiny brewery’s beer over the past year, and wanted to come see the operation—which includes a homebrew shop and u-brew operation.
Following each new disruption, I keep looking for a return. Normalcy can’t be that hard to restore. Yet each disruption carries darker connotations than the event itself. I feel the need to publicly acknowledge that sense of danger the small animal feels. It has been growing in me for years now.
I will tell you a secret. It’s controversial and you will resist this information, but it’s true: hazy pale ales are better and more reliably good than their bigger IPA brothers. As summer heats up, find one and see if you don’t agree.
A provocative piece in this month’s Atlantic argues that “America has a drinking problem.” But does it? The evidence paints a fuller, more prosaic picture: things have been very stable for a decade now.
Last week we spoke to Nick Harris of Berkeley Labs about the ways in which bioengineering may remake brewing. That’s the latest example of technology’s impact on brewing, but it’s far from unusual. This week we’re going to look back at some of the pivotal technologies that changed brewing forever, even working a little beeronomics into the mix.
Seltzers, canned cocktails, hard teas, flavored malt beverages: these represent a complex regulatory stew of products but may in many cases be called “beer.” Once a small enough market it didn’t matter, they are now such big business they may destabilize the entire alcohol industry.
One of the country's best breweries continues to turn out incredible beer in relative obscurity. Taste Midnight Reflection, however, and you'll see why Portland's Upright really is that good.
For Show 140 we have a fascinating discussion about the scientific frontiers of brewing. Nick Harris, one of three founders of Berkeley Yeast, joins us today. Founded by scientists from UC Berkeley, the team at this lab is busy bio-engineering beer yeast to do amazing things.
After revolutions in hop breeding and product development and micromalting, yeast is getting its moment in the sun. A proliferating number of yeast labs offer organic and genetically-modified strains that do things like ferment without diacetyl or finish in half the time.
Celebrating the breweries owned and operated by underrepresented groups in no way diminishes the accomplishment of White, male brewers. Our celebration of Tonya Cornett does not come at Ken Grossman’s expense.
The past year has been so tough because it forced us into bubbles of stasis. We are creative, social beings who crave the way new experiences rewire our brains. We hunger to mix our minds with others. Few places are as good as breweries in delivering that charge of electricity we need to live.
Hazy IPAs are the style that launched a thousand breweries. Yet their fusty old predecessors haven’t been banished entirely, and Fremont’s new release, Ollie, shows why.
The Covid pandemic, for all its ravages, did create a few positive opportunities. A year ago, as breweries looked at their empty tanks and blank brewing schedules, many launched long-term projects like barrel-aging stouts. They were able to fire up the kettles to replenish, expand, or even start new barrel-aging programs, salting away stores for later release. Breweries like Breakside are just now putting out the first fruits of these projects, and the coming year will present drinkers with a bounty of these specialty ales. We thought this was a good time to have a look at what they’re doing.
Breweries managed to survive the pandemic far more ably than anyone expected a year ago. They did it by retrenching and focusing on core customers rather than chasing those tantalizing customer just beyond reach. The “fan service” approach may be Covid’s greatest legacy.
The blossoms have begun to scent the air, which is turning warmer and drier, all sure signs that winter is going. That means more time drinking lighter, more summery beer. On today’s show, we’ll discuss one of the all-time great session ales, and a fine spring and summer beer to boot—kölsch, that specialty of Cologne. As much as a beer style, it’s an amazing cultural force. We’ll discuss its history, the beer and the way it’s made, and all of those cultural elements that have grown up around it.
A new documentary looks at craft brewing through a familiar lens—scrappy, unorthodox risk-takers setting out to make their mark. The movie brings in founding figures and places their story in a familiar narrative. It’s a fun movie and well-told. But what if the story is all wrong?
Hammer and Stitch has been open seven months, but debuted in October, just as the pandemic entered its most debilitating phase. For most people venturing out with the spring sunshine, it is a brand new brewery. Here’s a first look.
Audioblog: The Complex, 500-Year-Old Story of Reinheitsgebot by Jeff Alworth & Patrick Emerson
Today I offer three beers that really impressed me. But they also made me aware of the trajectory their breweries are traveling. With Squeezy Rider, Neon Lights, and Bird-Day #1, we have liquid metaphors for where Deschutes, Ommegang, and Pelican are heading.
Guinness is treated as a beer as often as a brewery, as if it is a single, immutable force. Like Pacifico or Heineken, naming the company names the beer. Yet the beer we think of when we name the brewery doesn't date to 1759, but two hundred years later.
They’re fruity, expressive, and fun to drink, yet thanks to poor style-branding, people avoid them. A modest proposal: just call saisons IPAs. Okay, maybe “farmhouse” IPAs.
With the release of two new stouts, Breakside debuts a new approach to barrel-aging. Borrowing a page from the wild ale playbook, they blend not just different vintages, but different beers to create more integrated, subtle beers than the standard approach of single-batch blends.
We learned over the weekend that the proposed beer tax hike in Oregon, the one that would have given us a tax twice as expensive as any other state’s, has been pulled. Now backers want to set up a task force, but there are many reasons to think they’re not acting in good faith.
Today we speak to David Walker of Firestone Walker. The California brewery turns 25 this year, and its own evolution, from a brewery specializing in an English pale ale made on a modified Burton union system, to one purchased by a multinational brewery in the great consolidation phase of the middle-teens now featuring multiple product lines and locations, closely mirrors that of craft brewing itself. In our conversation, we use Firestone Walker’s experience to refract the lessons of the past 25 years of American brewing.
Oh my, do we have some fun for you today. We’re breathless with excitement over today’s topic: taxes. A new bill arrived in the Oregon legislature to tax breweries at twice the level of the next highest state, and we thought it was a good moment to step back and look at taxes and the way they function in our economy as well as the way they’ve helped shape and guide the development of beer. Despite the dry subject, stick with us—this should actually be an entertaining hour.
Every now and again, an explorer will follow a path deep into a thicket before finally tracing their way back out. The Sherpa has lately been following American-brewed Czech tmavés deep into the underbrush, and today’s edition reveals what he found.
Following last week's discussion about the way craft beer has changed since the first major acquisition, of Goose Island in 2011, we started thinking about the grander scope of craft brewing. How did we go from brewpubs serving amber ales and porters to milkshake IPAs. As two old guys who saw most of it, we spend the show charting that dizzying course.
Yesterday Bend’s Deschutes Brewery announced it was buying in-town rival Boneyard. Beware hot takes about how happy the marriage will be: the devil in these kinds of deals involves details we can’t see.
One of the more remarkable stories in the beer world is the incredibly long process of developing a viable commercial hop variety, and the long odds any single seed has of becoming a winner. In the first of the Sightglass articles, we examine HBC 1019 to see how it all works.
Oregon legislators have introduced a new beer tax that would make the state the most-taxed in the country—at a level nearly twice as high as the next state, and more than ten times the national median. Worse, the rhetoric suggests an explicit goal is to cripple Oregon breweries.
Chicago Tribune reporter Josh Noel joins us for today's show. Josh has been writing about beer for the Tribune since 2009, and in 2018 published one of the most deeply-reported books ever written on the beer industry, Barrel Aged Stout and Selling Out. We’ll talk about that book and get an update on what’s happening with its subject, AB InBev-owned Goose Island, as well as discussing beer more generally, as well as what it’s like to be one of the few working newspaper reporters covering the beer beat.
I am bad at predicting future events—often spectacularly, hilariously so. What’s a good anniversary without a good roasting? To that end, I have a looked back to see what what I predicted about glitter beer, hazy IPAs, and hard seltzer.
This week Beervana turns fifteen. Throughout the week I’ll be posting some lighthearted material looking back, and today we kick things off with a quick look back. It turns out this blog almost perfectly corresponds to the modern era of brewing in the US.
Mass market lagers aren’t, let’s be honest, especially interesting beers. They are often made by giant corporations in equally giant plants. But drinking them—in that act we might locate some pleasure.
So many forces are now scrambling the beer industry—including Covid, which may change it forever—that the very meaning of “craft beer” is up for grabs. It may help to consider the era through different lenses to take its full measure.
In May, Pelican Brewery turns 25. For the whole of its life, it has reflected the vision of its longtime brewer, Darron Welch. Yet unlike so many legacy breweries, Pelican is growing and thriving. There’s an important lesson here.
Today we continue our exploration of graphic design and branding with Jordan Wilson. In today's show, Jordan uses examples of his own work with Old Town, 54-40, and Foreland to illustrate how brands are built or recast, and what they should accomplish.
Having been neglectful about actual, tasty beer, I offer a round-up of recent discoveries, both in trends and individual beers.
The Covid pandemic has been especially brutal on downtown businesses, and last week claimed one of the most important independent bars in Portland, Bailey’s Taproom. It counts as its legacy a host of breweries it championed and a richer, more interesting beer scene.
Today we unveil a new logo for the show featuring our newly identified mascot “Maris Otter.” On today’s show we’re going to talk branding and design with Maris’s creator, Jordan Wilson. Jordan is a branding expert responsible for the incredible design and marketing at Old Town, as well as a redesign of 54-40 and the branding of new brewery, Foreland. In a special two-part show, we’re going get under the hood of this fascinating process and see how it works.
American brewers invented cream ale as a way to cheaply combat the rise of pale lager. It was neither creamy nor especially ale-like, and it wasn’t until well after Prohibition that breweries found commercial success with the style, none more than Rochester’s Genesee.
You may recall a recent podcast extra in which Jeff and I sampled beer sent from New England—and these included a milkshake sour the brewery described as “Berliner weisse.” But was it? Today we’re going to unpack one of the world’s great beer styles, going into the history and classic brewing techniques, and then see how these modern, fruity interpretations fit in.
Located in the West Flanders city of Roeselare, Rodenbach has been making dark ales for 200 years in a brewery that inspires the reverence of an old church. The brewery’s history, their process, and the beer’s quality make Grand Cru one of the most important beers in Belgium.
Today we’re going to welcome a guest to discuss a new business model that developed as a reaction to the Covid pandemic. Casey Armstrong is behind Road Beers, a direct-to-consumer delivery service with a growing slate of brewery partners. We’ll slingshot off that discussion to expand our inquiry and give it the Beeronomics treatment. In what ways will the pandemic permanently alter the way we do things? What will snap back to the way things were before the interruption? We’ll look at the beer industry, of course, but also consider the wider economy.
For decades, Americans have been warned of the dangers of the “tied houses” and the sterling virtues of a three-tiered system of production, distribution, and retail. But is this all hogwash? Craft breweries are testing the theory.
The sense about craft beer right now, with assaults from a global pandemic and hard seltzer, is often morose. In purely financial terms, beer seems to be sputtering. But as a cultural force, it has never been stronger.
On February 5, 2021, Portland Brewing will close its doors for the last time. The brewery’s closure marks the end of that scrappy, DIY era of craft brewing. And while it’s sad, a review of what Portland Brewing accomplished also reveals what a success its 35-year run was.
Today I welcome two new partners to the blog—but these aren’t ordinary advertisers. Together, pFriem, Reuben’s Brews and I plan to try a new model that strengthens rather than cheapens reader experience, and will result in a series of in-depth, interesting posts.
Darkness has fallen. Winter has come. And amid these cold, dark tidings, a pandemic rages. Jeff and I talk often about how we’re coping—which of course means thinking about which beers will allay which forms of malaise. On today’s show, we offer a pandemic survival kit of beers that will help you survive the winter. And because vaccines are on the way, and because warmth inevitably follows the cold, a celebratory beer as well.
A moment passing through a warm, cheery pub brought back vivid memories of cozy evenings I’ve missed the past nine months. As 2021 dawns, I kindle the hope we’ll be drinking together sometime this year.
I don’t pretend the beer I’ve chosen for 2020 is the “best”—that kind of designation is a fool’s errand. But this year’s selection is a perfect example of where American brewing is at this moment, and it’s an amazing beer.
Everyone is dying to leave 2020 behind, to forget its traumas and tragedies, and allow themselves to look forward with a glimmer of hope. Despite the pain, however, much about the year should be remembered. We may be too near events to extract their lessons, but the mere act of remembrance reminds us of what we’ve seen.
Alesong's Matt Van Wyk, one of three men behind Alesong Brewing in Eugene, Oregon, joins us on today's show. Alesong recently won two medals at the GABF to add to the six they’ve already won. The brewery focuses entirely on barrel-aging, working with aged ales as well as wild and spontaneous beers. Founded in 2016, the brewery has quickly become one of the most-decorated in the state, and its unusual approach makes it a fascinating subject for today’s discussion.
On today’s show we’re going to delve into one of the hottest old things in beer—kveik yeast. These old farmhouse strains of yeast have been around for generations—and longer—as brewers in Western Norway pass them from one generation to the next. Lately, IPA brewers have repurposed them to make bright, juicy IPAs, but the possibilities extend far beyond hoppy styles. Today we’ll dig into kveik and farmhouse brewing.
IMAGE: LARS MARIUS GARSHOL
On today’s show we are going to discuss one of the most interesting projects in the beer world, the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archive. On hand is the architect of that project and its archivist, Tiah Edmunson-Morton. The archive, founded in 2013 and housed at Oregon State University, contains extensive records of published books and periodicals, photographs, and memorabilia. In addition, Tiah has initiated a collection of oral histories with brewers, growers, scientists, with a special focus on women who have worked in the industry. It’s a hugely valuable resource—not just for Oregonians, but beer fans everywhere.
Today we do something we swore we never would--sit around drinking beer. But wait!--there's a method to our madness. A Boston listener sent us some very special beer from New England, and we taste a Maine-grown Cascade fresh-hop saison. Also, Patrick and Jeff encounter East Coast juice tarts from Trillium.
On October 16, the GABF awarded 271 medals to 240 breweries in their annual competition. On today's show, we look at those winners and see what patterns we can discern. Do different states and regions perform better in certain certain beer styles? We've crunched all the numbers and have all the answers!
Today we go on another virtual tour, this time to the warm, brisket-scented city of Austin, Texas. Our tour guide for today’s travel is Ruvani De Silva, whom you may know by her social media handle, Amethyst Heels. Ruvani, an expat Londoner, has embraced her city with gusto and has perhaps the most comprehensive reviews of Austin’s breweries and beery places at her website CraftBeerAmethyst.com.
The broad category of IPAs is at the center of craft brewing, and as such it’s always changing. Over the past several months, we have been noticing a shift in the buzziest member of the IPA family, hazy IPAs. They seem to be getting a bit more bitter, a bit drier, and maybe even a bit less cloudy. Meanwhile, “regular” IPAs are getting fruitier and cloudier. IPAs appear to be on the move, and we discuss what's happening.
We welcome a true luminary to today's show. Garrett Oliver has been Brooklyn Brewery's brewmaster since 1994. He’s written books, judged beer, and been an ambassador for American craft brewing. His newest project, the Michael Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling has a goal to fund technical education and advance the careers of BIPOC individuals in the brewing and distilling industries. In today's episode, we discuss his life and the new foundation.
PHOTO: TOTALFOOD.COM
In any normal year, Munich’s Theresienwiese fairground would have been the site of much activity this week, as workers prepared for a party. Before the pandemic struck, the 187th annual Oktoberfest was scheduled to start this Saturday, Sept 19th. Alas, it has been canceled this year. Nevertheless, we’ll take the opportunity to discuss the fest, its history, and the beer it inspired. We may not be able to attend this year, but we can remind ourselves why it remains the granddaddy of beer fests.
Over the past two weeks we’ve been unpacking distribution with Craig Mullarky, a wholesaler in Bellingham, WA. We wanted to hear a distributor talk about distribution from his perspective. Yet this tier is a strange one, and we thought it was worth delving into the issue in a special Beeronomics episode. Today Patrick will give a more global view on markets and how they function, and how distribution is an odd duck in the world of consumer products.
In the American three-tier system, the distributor sits in the middle of the process, somewhat hidden, but absolutely central. Today we have Craig Mullarky of Sound Beverage Distributors in Bellingham, WA joining us. In part two of our conversation, he discusses some of the more unusual aspects of his business.
In the American three-tier system, the distributor or wholesaler is literally and figuratively in the middle of the process, somewhat hidden, but absolutely central. Today we have Craig Mullarky of Sound Beverage Distributors in Bellingham, WA joining us, and he will give us a full primer on distribution as well as describe some of its more esoteric aspects.
This week Jeff spoke with the directors of a number of brewers guilds across the country to discuss what was happening to breweries in their areas as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. We discussed effects on breweries as well as the guilds themselves. This is the complete conversation.
Even though we’re pinned down during the pandemic, we continue to indulge our sense of wanderlust with the second of our “virtual tours.” Today we're off to Chicago, where Chalonda White, aka Afro Beer Chick, gives us the lowdown on why the Windy City is now one of the country’s best.
The long, warm days of summer are upon us, which means it’s time to do one of our regular examinations of seasonal tipples. Today we’ll consider summer beers, with a special focus on an American classic—cream ale. We’ll explore some under-appreciated styles and talk about what we like in a summer beer.
Periodically, we have tried to visit beer-centric places and report what we’ve found. That is now out of the question, but our wanderlust is no less active. So today we start a series of virtual tours, tapping into the knowledge and experience of locals who will give us a guide to their home towns. We’ll start in one of America’s most famous beer cities, San Diego, and soon we’ll welcome the writer and native San Diegan Beth Demmon to give us the tour.
We have recently been shining a light on lagers—and pilsners especially—which is all right and appropriate. But it means we have not been focusing on our other love, those glorious Northwest hops that have changed the brewing industry so profoundly. So today we plan to indulge ourselves by talking all things hops, including nerdy stuff like science, and indulgent, sensual stuff like juicy IPAs.
On Show 113 we have a special guest: Kevin Davey, the head brewer at Portland’s Wayfinder Brewery. Wayfinder specializes in lagers, and attentive listeners will recall that it won our Great Oregon Pilsner Taste-Off. We have long wanted to talk to Kevin about Wayfinder, his background, and his approach to making beer, and this seemed like a great opportunity to track him down.
In Show 111 and 112 we try something new: The Great Pilsner Taste-Off, a battle royale of all the very best pilsners in the state of Oregon. Over the course of these shows we conduct blind tastings to identify what is surely, definitively the finest example brewed here in the Beaver State. On today’s show we’re broadcasting the final round, in which we reveal the big winner. That plus news and the mailbag.
In Show 111 and 112 we try something new: The Great Pilsner Taste-Off, a battle royale of all the very best pilsners in the state of Oregon. Over the course of these shows we conduct blind tastings to identify what is surely, definitively the finest example brewed here in the Beaver State. On today’s show we’re broadcasting the preliminary round, and next week we’ll bring you the finals.
On today’s show we head to Belgian Flanders today and dig into one of the most interesting categories of beer in the world: brown ales. It is a style both changing and, surprisingly, expanding, and is as much a story of tradition and culture as style. We'll listen to one of the grand old masters of the style, along with a group of young guys embracing the ancient practice.
We have a special show for you today as we sit down to visit with Breakside founder Scott Lawrence and his brewmaster Ben Edmunds to celebrate the brewery's 10th anniversary. Jeff talks with Scott and Ben about those ten years, how Breakside, born in a different era, has grown and changed, and what is in store for them as their big celebration has been interrupted by world events.
On today’s show we’re going to play a little catch-up and offer a round table of topics. Among the issues we’ll touch on are a bit of Coronavirus Beeronomics, “entertainment” and the dubious new Netflix sitcom Brews Brothers, higher ed, new brewery initiatives—and probably a few other things along the way.
On today’s show we’re going to attempt to distract ourselves from all this pandemic business by thinking about some nice, tasty beer—but, since the virus is dominating all our attention, we thought it was high time for a “desert island” show. That is, if you found yourself on a desert island—or, say, sheltering in place—what beers would you absolutely, positively have to have stocked in the fridge?
On pod 106, Patrick and Jeff assess the ramifications to the economy and beer industry of the coronavirus sweeping across the globe in late March. Patrick offers some high-fiber macroeconomics, and Jeff discusses how it's impacting breweries on the ground.
If you step into a beer hall in Cologne, you’ll be handed a stange of kölsch. Your bitter will come in a pint glass in London. And in Brussels you might be handed a tulip glass. On today’s show, we plunge into the thorny thicket of beer glassware. We’ve got some on hand and we’ll discuss which is appropriate, as well as some of the features that serve different purposes in each.
In Show 104, we have a special guest in the studio to talk about the Oregon Beer Awards, which recently announced winners for the 2020 competition. He his Ben Edmunds, the competition director of the event and brew master at Breakside Brewing. We will talk to Ben about why this festival is different, why he and the organizers of the OBA reworked style categories, and also what constitutes excellence when comparing beers.
On episode 103, we take a look at a topic of some confusion: aging beer. A decade ago, everyone was doing it, and aged bottles were fetching hundreds of dollars online. Modern juicy IPAs have re-set our expectations about age, however, prompting a renewed focus on freshness. In this episode, we’ll look at the process of aging, what happens chemically inside the bottle, and which beers are suited for cellaring.
In episode 102 we look at a style that seems like a revival of something much older, but is in fact a modern invention: mixed fermentation saisons. These beers, made by regular fermentation combined with wild inoculation, have great depth and complexity, but are balanced and approachable. They may be the most accomplished beers made in the world today.
On today’s podcast, we address a trend that has changed direction of the industry and has breweries quaking in their rubber boots: seltzer. Introduced just four years ago, the segment has grown into a $3 billion behemoth. We’re going to explore the topic today with cider maker Nat West, whose Cascadia brand recently introduced a line of seltzer. We’ll talk about their impact on the market, how they’re made, and of course we’ll taste a few.
A slightly dodgy mic didn't dampen our excitement in having John Harris join us live at his brewery, Ecliptic, for our 100th episode. The mic problem cleared up after about ten minutes, and we had a wonderful time hearing John's perspective as a veteran whose career started in 1986 at the McMenamins, took him to Deschutes, where he was the founding brewery, and Full Sail before Ecliptic.
In a special edition of Beeronomics, we’ll be welcoming Josh Lehner of the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Josh looks at a number of indicators affecting the state, and one of his special interests is beer. One of his recent posts caught our eye, and in this episode, he discusses some of the currents that will be affecting the brewing industry in coming years.
Today we have a special guest in studio: Ezra Johnson-Greenough, the founder and contributor at the industry website The New School. Ezra is perhaps the most well-connected voice covering beer in Oregon, and he is always the first to suss out the latest news. In this episode, we'll discuss the new brewery projects in Oregon that Ezra recently wrote about.
PHOTO: Portland Business Journal
Today we’re going to look at a topic of perennial interest: good beer cities. For at least three decades, American municipalities have been heavily invested in touting themselves as great beer destinations. Over time, the competition for bragging rights has only grown as more and more places develop an interest in beer. The problem, though, is that no one can agree on the definitions. Are brewery counts a good metric? Does barley need to grow nearby? What about the availability of imports? Well, we’re going to sort all of this out and give you the gold standard of measurement.
As we record this podcast, it is the last day of the decade—at least as decades are popularly tracked. A lot happened in the 2010s, from changing fortunes in the craft and mass market segments, the emergence of new product categories, and lots of change and evolution in the beer itself.
We are just a few days away from the Christian celebration of Christmas—a big deal in many countries, including of course Belgium. And as with so much, this little country does things differently when it celebrates Christmas, from the steaming mugs of gluhkriek handed out in the Grand Place to the ubiquitous tradition of bière de Noël—Christmas beers. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss these wonderful holiday ales and use them as an opportunity to consider the question of spicing in beer. When Americans spice their beers, it can be off-putting, but when Belgians do it, it’s delicious. We’ll examine why.
PHOTO: EVENING STANDARD
When we taste a beer and our brain tells us “chocolate” or “grapefruit,” what’s happening? Flavor is a composite of what our bodies tell us—our hardware, so to speak—and what our brains do in synthesizing that information into meaning—our software. In today's podcast, we take a look at the very complex processes involved in constructing what we call "flavor."
In episode 93 we were delighted to welcome Level Brewing's Jason Barbee. Jason has impressed us with his love of small, simple beers, and especially those from the British tradition. His brewery, Level, is known for smaller, more balanced beers--and of course the occasional hazy IPA or three. We discuss how brewers appeal to drinkers with something like a Vienna lager or mild ale when all they clamor for are IPAs.
PHOTO: THE OUTLOOK
Portland has seen ten brewery closures or sales in the past year--and one was even announced while we were recording this podcast! In Episode 92, Patrick, our resident beeronomist, offers us ways to think about this through the lens of game theory, economies of scope, and more.
In episode 91, we conclude Jeff's travels to Europe with perhaps his most interesting stop. Lithuania has one of the most unusual beer cultures in Europe, one that emerges from the country's similarly unusual history. Jeff and Patrick discuss what makes Lithuania so interesting, and of course taste some of the beer.
In today's episode, we have an interview with UK writer Mark Dredge about his new book: A Brief History of Lager: 500 Years of the World's Favourite Beer. Mark has gone deep and discusses things we didn't know.
Today we are going to continue on with Jeff through his European travels. After he left Belgium, he made stops in Vienna, Krakow (Poland),and Berlin. In pod 89, Jeff will let us know what’s shaking in the lands of maerzen, grodziskie, and Berliner weisse.
Jeff returns from Europe with fantastic and wonderful tales. In today's pod, he describes how Belgian brewers have reacted to the craft beer incursion--by rediscovering their ancient heritage. He discusses the importance of Brasserie de la Senne in this process, and describes the young brewers at Verzet who are reviving oud bruin. All that, and the regular features.
Jeff phones in from Belgium to discuss the adventures he had in the country he just left: England. He discusses the state of heritage brewers, craft brewers and cask ales. Patrick drinks beer.
Jeff travels to Lewes in East Sussex, UK to talk to Head Brewer Miles Jenner of Harvey's. Patrick holds down the fort in Portland and through the miracle of modern technology, they communicate!
In today's pod, we discuss the hop harvest season, a major acquisition in Europe, and unexpected acquisition in America, and an expected acquisition that didn't happen. All that plus the announcement of a new sponsor--pFriem Family Brewers.
Gigantic Brewing's Van Havig joins Patrick and Jeff in episode 84. Van is one of the most transparent brewers in beer, and he offers his unvarnished opinions about Vienna malt, brewing kölsch, running a business, hoppy beers and more. Warning: salty language herein!
PHOTO: Jon Urch/Drinking Classes
In this episode, we are joined by Japanese beer expert Red Gillen and cidermaker Nat West to discuss the blossoming world of craft beer and cider in Japan. We discuss the history and development of these beverages, explore Japanese drinking culture, and taste some of the beer and cider Nat brought back from a festival he attended.
Pity the poor pale ale, once the king of craft styles. Since IPAs supplanted pales in 2011, they have fallen further and further from the center of the beery discussion--but they remain one of the very best expressions of American brewing. In today's episode, we explore the history, brewing techniques, and evolution of the humble pale ale. Long live the king!
Photo source: Kegerator.com
Over the past month, Patrick and Jeff have been rambling around the country on a vacation. In today's episode, they tell us about the delights they found, including a secluded little brewery in the Maine woods that should be on every beer fan's bucket list.
We conclude our tour with one of the most interesting people in beer: Paul Arney of Ale Apothecary. Paul's approach is incredibly hands-on, with a focus on wood (even the mash tun is wooden!). Paul tells his story, from how he got from Deschutes Brewery to a garage in the Deschutes National Forest.
In part four of our visit to Bend, Oregon, we talk to one of the more interesting and unique characters in Bend brewing, Tony Lawrence of Boneyard. Tony has a long history in brewing but got his start in the kitchen at Deschutes decades ago. From his hands on approach to building a brewery from the discarded parts of others (from their 'boneyards'), to the relatively unique situation of selling almost all their been in kegs, Tony's story and brewery is a must listen.
In part three of our visit to Bend, Oregon, we talk to a living legend in Brewing--Larry Sidor. Larry has been brewing beer since 1973 (!), when he worked for Olympia Brewing. He has had an incredible career, but far from resting on his laurels, he's in the midst of his latest project at Crux Fermentation Project, where he's doing some very interesting things. We taste one product of his experiments on the pod.
In the first of our spotlight interviews, we speak with the OG of Bend beer, Gary Fish--founder of Deschutes Brewery back in 1988. Gary talks about what it was like to get started, how the brewing industry has changed, and where things are headed. Lots of fantastic anecdotes, including the one rule employees couldn't break back in the early days.
Patrick and Jeff recently made a trip to Bend, Oregon on one of their periodic explorations to beery cities. With a population of just 100,000, Bend punches way above its weight with two dozen breweries. Patrick and Jeff give an overview of this small city and what makes it tick.
When Firestone Walker started out more than two decades ago, it had an uber-traditional English brewing system and a slate of English-style ales. Over the years, it has changed, becoming one of the most decorated--and successful--American craft breweries. In this episode, we speak to founder David Walker about what makes the brewery tick.
Photo: Firestone Walker
Jeff recently traveled to Paso Robles, CA to attend the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest, one of the country's premier events. While he was there, Jeff interviewed six brewers in attendance. He wanted to hear their thoughts on the evolving nature of the beer festival. We have those interviews, and our own thoughts.
Today on the pod we have Alex Ganum in studio. Alex is the founder of Upright, which earlier this year celebrated its 10th anniversary. The brewery, known for its fidelity to European styles as well as mixed-fermentation, barrel-aged beers, is routinely cited as one of Oregon's best. We speak to Alex about his approach and taste some of his beer.
PHOTO: Willamette Week
Dick Cantwell has been brewing for around three decades, and was one of three co-founders of Elysian Brewing in 1995. He was the lone dissenter when AB InBev offered to buy the company, and left thereafter. Recently he was part of a deal by New Belgium to buy San Francisco's Magnolia Brewing, where he plans to do spontaneous and barrel-aged beers, along with the cask ales the brewery has always made. In our podcast, Dick describes his time in craft brewing, and the lessons he's learned at his various stops. The interview is packed with the kind of wisdom only experience brings.
Photo: Brewers Publications
As the weather starts to warm, our interests turn to summery offerings. One type that has gained popularity are lightly acidic sour beers, many times made with fruit. These beers are made from a particular method called kettle-souring. Today we’ll explore the technique and some of the beers.
Photo: Breakside Brewery
We are in the midst of a haze craze in beer. But for Pacific Northwesterners, it's not the first. Starting in the 1980s and continuing for a decade, one style dominated brewing with pervasiveness not seen since. The style has almost entirely vanished, but Patrick and Jeff return to their youth to revisit hefeweizen's salad days.
Photo credit: Oregon Hops and Brewing Archive (OSU)
In episode 68 we discuss Jeff's new book, The Widmer Way, with a little help from a very special guest--one of the brothers that was the subject of the book.
In the time since our last episode, four major events happened. Patrick and Jeff talk about these news items and discuss the ways they interact and inform one another. Plus, they reveal something new about the pod.
Jeff and Patrick interview J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, a professor recently named the Brewers Associations Diversity Ambassador. Dr. J has been thinking about the intersection of power and beer since her dissertation, and brings rare insight and clarity the subject.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the recent spate of brewery, brew pub and craft beer bar closings in Portland Oregon and ruminate on what it portends for the rest of the country. Special attention is paid to the failure of BridgePort, a beloved Portland institution that was fundamental in Portland becoming Beervana.
Jeff and Patrick visit the Benedictine Brewery at Mt. Angel Abbey and sit down with Father Martin, the Procurator of the Abbey and the Head Brewer of the Brewery. They learn about the origins of the brewery, how the brewery fits in with the monks' vision for the Abbey and how the brewery thinks about its beer in the tradition of monastic brewing worldwide.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the ancient practice of monastic brewing and all its modern forms. They talk about the Belgian Trappists as well as brewing monasteries around the world.
Jeff and Patrick discuss Jeff's industry compensation survey and discuss the findings in the context of industry trends.
Jeff and Patrick interview Bill Shufelt, Co-Founder, and John Walker, Co-Founder and Head Brewer of Athletic Brewing in Stratford, CT. Athletic is an entirely non-alcoholic craft beer company and in the interview we discuss the origins of the company, how their beer is made, the market for non-alcoholic beer and the regulatory environment.
Jeff sits down with Michael Kiser, founder of Good Beer Hunting, the leading resource fo beer news on of off the internet. The discuss Michael's background, how he got into beer and how he has built GBH into the success that it is.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the curious case of Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY. Now owned entirely by Duvel, its association with Belgian beer and sterling reputation for high quality make it unique in the American beer scene. Jeff sits down with Master Brewer Phil Leinhart to discuss their beer, their association with other Duvel breweries and their incorporation of local ingredients.
Jeff and Patrick discuss and preview the 2018 Oregon Brewers Festival, the annual mega-beer festival held in Portland, Oregon. They highlight beers to try, single out some more adventurous offerings and mention a couple of beers to avoid. They also discuss beer trends, changes in the festival and make some suggestions about how to approach the festival and things the fest could do differently.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the complicated world of beer laws and how they are evolving from post-prohibition era laws that dealt with few large breweries to modern laws to regulate the craft beer industry. Jeff interviews Liz Murphy, beer columnist for the Capital Gazette in Maryland, about recent changes and proposed legislation in that state.
Jeff and Patrick delve deeply into weissbier, the German wheat beer that is distinctly non-German: it is an ale, cloudy, feature yeast flavors, use wheat and are distinctly rustic. The origins and history, the methods and the variants of the style are discussed and a number of examples are sampled.
Jeff and Patrick interview Sally Alworth, co-founder of Luminous Botanicals, makers of the Universal Cannabis Tonic. They discuss the origins of the business, how Oregon went about creating a legal market for cannabis and the intersection of cannabis and craft beer.
Jeff sits down for a long-form interview with John Holl, Editor of Craft Beer and Brewing. They discuss the future of beer writing, beer-themed media and what's next in the beer media world. Patrick and Jeff try some beers from Free State Brewing Co-op in Minneapolis and expound on whether George Washington actually brewed 'beer.'
Patrick and Jeff explore the field of behavioral economics and discuss how the insights from this blend of economics and psychology could translate to the craft beer world.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the recent phenomenon of glitter beer. What is it, where did it come from, what does it signal about the fate of humanity? Glitter beers are admired and tasted and verdict is reached.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the legendary British beer writer Michael Jackson: who he was, his writings and his impact on beer and the craft beer revolution.
Jeff and Patrick visit with Matt Lincecum, co-founder and co-owner of Fremont Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington. They discuss the new production brewery they recently opened in the Ballard neighborhood as well as their devotion to the triple bottom line and organic and sustainable practices. And beer.
Jeff and Patrick visit with Adam and Grace Robbings, founders and owners of Reuben's Brews in Seattle. They discuss the origins of the brewery, their approach to beer and their plans for the future.
Jeff and Patrick travel to Seattle to discover the beer scene in the Emerald City. In an exercise in beer podcast verité they live pod from the breweries themselves as well as reflect after the fact about the local scene, personalties and flavors of their neighbor to the north.
Jeff talks to Ben Love of Gigantic Brewing Company in Portland. Oregon who recently travelled to China with other North American craft brewers to collaborate with Chinese brewers and learn more about the craft beer scene in China. Patrick prattles on about taxes.
Jeff and Patrick visit Hopworks Urban Brewing in Portland, Oregon to learn about the packaging side of craft beer. Hopworks has both a canning line and a bottling line and they discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both and go deep into the details of canning - increasingly the preferred package type of craft beer.
Jeff and Patrick discuss everything Saison. What are they, where they came from, modern interpretations and the market viability and challenges of the style. They taste examples form DuPont, Fantôme and The Commons Brewery.
The full interwove between Jeff and Dan Kenary, co-founder and CEO of Harpoon Brewery in Boston, Massachusetts. (Dan is pictured on the right)
Jeff and Patrick take a closer look at Harpoon Brewery in Boston Massachusetts, one of the earliest pioneers of craft brewing. Jeff sat down with Dan Kenary, co-founder and CEO, for an interview in which they discuss the origin story of the brewery, the Boston and New England market, self-distribution, pay-to-play, and location.
Jeff and Patrick engage in a marathon of tasting, assessing, and discussing the New England IPA phenomenon. They talk about the history of New England's beers and this recent development, mention all the different ways breweries are making them, trot through a list of characteristic features, and then, importantly, tase them.
Jeff and Patrick preview the 2017 version of the Oregon Brewers Festival highlighting interesting and exciting beers, looking at trends and discussing all things OBF.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the next big thing in craft beer ingredients, artisanal malts. They discuss the techniques, the artistry, the beer and the economics of artisal malts and interview Seth Klann of Mecca Grade Estate Malts in Madras, Oregon.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the origins and evolution of IPA. They pay particular attention to the history of American IPAs since the mid-90s. They try seven different IPAs that represent different eras in the history of American IPA.
Patrick and Jeff discuss the recent op-ed by Boston Beer's Jim Koch in the New York Times which sounds a warning about the future of craft beer in the face of consolidation among the macro brewers. Patrick discusses the economics behind anti-trust actions and gives his take on why the government has allowed consolidation. They discuss the plight of the mid-size brewers and ease some recent examples of beers from large craft brewers that are trying to cater to current trends.
Jeff and Patrick discuss Jeff's recent trip to Mexico where he got to learn about the craft beer scene in Mexico and interview Enrique Acevas brewer at Crveza Loba Artisinal in Guadalahara. They also taste beer made with lupulin power, a new hop product from Yakima Chief.
In the second part of this podcast, Jeff and Patrick are given a tour of the OSU Fermentation Science program's brewery by Tom Shellhammer and they meet up with Jeff Clawson, Pilot Brewery Manager. With Tom and Jeff, they taste some of the beers produced by fermentation science students and discuss brewing topics such as biotransformation.
Jeff and Patrick pay a visit to Tom Shellhammer, Nor'Wester Professor of Fermentation Science at Oregon State University, to talk all things beer but particularly to learn more about hops. Tom discusses the flavor and aroma compounds in hops, how he and his students at OSU study hops and how they test them both in labs and in practice.
Jeff and Patrick visit Imperial Organic Yeast to find out how yeast is produced, the changes in brewing yeasts, the yeast business and what it means to be organic. They interview Jess Caudill, Owen Lingley and Jason Stepper, the men behind Imperial.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the worth of superstar brewers, are they being paid their true value? They also take a look back at 2016 and look forward to 2017 in the word of beer.
Jeff and Patrick follow up their deep dive of lambics to explore the world of wild ales beyond Belgium. They pay special attention to the various ways wild ales are made outside of the constraints of lambic.
Patrick and Jeff return to Patrick's favorite topic: Beeronomics! They first talk about the evolution of U.S. breweries from over 4000 in the 19th century to 80 in the late 1970s to over 5000 today. Then they interview Nicole Fry, Managing Partner for First Beverage Group, about the spate of mergers and acquisitions and what makes a brewery an acquisition target. Finally they discuss scarcity in beer and Patrick opines on why it might be in a brewery's best interest to keep a popular beer scarce.
Jeff and Patrick solve the mystery of the lambic, the spontaneously fermented beer of Brussels. They talk to Frank Boon of Brouwerij Boon and Jean Van Roy of Cantillon about the process and art of lambic and describe the complex processes by which it is made.
Jeff and Patrick take a deep dive into Stock Ale - an historic beer style recently revived by beer historian Ron Pattinson and Goose Island. They discuss the history of the style, the process of reviving a dead style, and the process by which Pattinson and Goose Island re-created a version of Stock Ale. Includes interviews with Ron Pattinson and Mike Siegel, Goose Island Brewing Innovation Manager.
Patrick and Jeff sit down for a roundtable discussion with women working in the beer industry. The women discuss their experiences, good and sometimes bad, and surface some interesting insights. Joining the conversation are Sarah Pederson, owner of the Saraveza pub and bottle shop, writer Lucy Burningham, brewer Natalie Baldwin of Burnside Brewing, Pink Boots Society director Emily Engdahl, and homebrewer and professional distiller Lee Hedgmon.
Pod 27 - Alan Taylor - On Building a Brewpub, Brewing & His Beer by Jeff Alworth & Patrick Emerson
Jeff and Patrick discuss the 2016 Oregon Brewers Festival. They pick a number of beers to try, discuss trends and themes at this year's festival and whether they portend the future of American craft brewing.
Jeff and Patrick discuss Jeff's recent junkets to Guinness and Carlsberg breweries and what he learned about big breweries, the business of big beer and the future of big beer the the era of craft. Patrick chimes in with his usual blather about economics.
Jeff and Patrick take listeners on a beer tour of Portland highlighting the best breweries for beer, quintessential Portland locales, historical breweries, places noted for good food, places with good ambience and they suggest a couple of day trips afield.
Jeff and Patrick celebrate their one-year podcast anniversary by reveling the four best beers in the world...sort of. They engage in a lively discussion of what they love about beer and what beers they love.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the amazing beer scene in the Czech Republic focusing on the history, the preservation of traditional brewing techniques and the amazing variety of beer. They try Budvar (Czechvar) and Pilsner Urquell. They also compare these beers with American pilsners and sample a pilsner from Ecliptic Brewing.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the fascinating and forgotten mughal cistern beer and its recent revival by the Mayavi brewery in India.
Jeff and Patrick describe the process of barrel aging beer. They talk about the historic role of wood barrels, the modern use of bourbon and wine barrels and the wild ales of Belgium. They discuss the flavor profiles, the economics and the art of barrel aging and blending beer.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the Trappist Ales of Belgium and beyond - their history, provenance and modern examples. They taste beer from Rochefort, Westmalle and Orval and discuss the wide variety of styles to be found in monastic brewing.
Patrick and Jeff discuss the rapid expansion of the craft beer market and discuss whether there is reason for concern that the market is overheated and heading for a crash.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the origin and history of the porter and stout styles and how, aided by improvements in malts and the advent of steam power, they grew to become the first global super-styles of beer. They go on to discuss their popularity in the early craft beer movement in the U.S. and how they seem to be falling out of favor in the current craft scene.
Jeff and Patrick discuss how flavors in beer are created during the the brewing process and sample examples of malty, hoppy and yeasty beers along the way. As a bonus they solve the mystery of the 22oz bottle premium.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the seasonal emergence of Winter Ales and talk about the traditions of winter beer in England and Belgium. Examples of Belgian of American winter ales are sampled and discussed. They also introduce new segments to the pod: Beer News, The Mailbag and The Beer Sherpa Recommends.
Jeff and Patrick take a foray into the world of cider to commemorate the official launch of Jeff's new book "Cider Made Simple" from Chronicle Books. They discuss the origins of cider, how cider is made, the main cider making regions of the world and cider in the new world.
Jeff and Patrick take you on a beer tour of Germany, discussing the major brewing regions, styles and beers. They sample eight different German beers and discuss both well-known and lesser-known styles.
Patrick and Jeff discuss the recent news of potential mergers amongst marco brewers, the recent spate of acquisitions and the infusion of private capital into craft brewing and what it all means for he future of craft beer.
Jeff and Patrick visit Breakside Brewery to discuss the history, evolution and culture of fresh hop beers and the fresh hop beer season in the Pacific Northwest. With fist ever live guest! - Ben Edmunds, Brewmaster at Breakside.
Jeff and Patrick discuss Jeff's new book "The Beer Bible" and share memories of their trip to England and Scotland as Jeff conducted research of the book.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the incredible red beers of flanders and the economic challenges inherent in making such a complex and nuanced beer. What characterizes a Flanders Red and how do they taste? Are there good American versions? Will the market support the style or will price competition kill it off? Rodenbach Grand Cru and pFriem Flandrs-Style Red are tasted and compared. Interviews with Rudi Ghequire (pictured) at Rodenbach and Josh Pfriem.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the lessons of the 2015 Oregon Brewers Festival. They cover what makes Oregon and Portland (Beervana) special, what the OBF tells us about the evolution of beer and their impressions of this year's offerings. With interviews of Jamie Floyd from Ninkasi, Mark Strooker of Rooie Dop & RUIG, and John Holl of All About Beer Magazine.
Jeff and Patrick preview the 2015 Oregon Brewers Festival, discussing the history of the festival, the evolution of styles over the years and offer their festival-going advice.
Jeff and Patrick venture afield into the world of 'progressive adult beverages,' the fastest growing segment of the overall beer market. They discuss the business, economics and beer-ish-ness of these 'malternatives.'
Jeff and Patrick discuss the emergence of the "Session IPA" style. Is it a thing? They discuss brewing techniques, economics, nomenclature and more.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the rapidly expanding craft beer scene in Italy and sample some exceptional offerings from Birrificio Italiano.
Jeff and Patrick discuss the emergence of lagers, and Pilsner in particular, in American craft brewing.
Jeff and Patrick explore the mysterious and arcane brewing practice of parti-gyle brewing and discuss why it still exists.