Grit & Grain Podcast

We’re back, baby! The team took a week off for the holiday and some travel, and we’re pumped to be back on the mic to catch up on what everyone has been doing. Bethany was off in France fantasizing about how French brasseries clean their draft lines. Doug was crushing every cask ale he could get his hands on in England and Wales. Phaedra bounced around Hood River, reconnecting with old beert...

We know many of our listeners have tried their hand off-flavor tasting .  Whether you’re studying for certification exams or just leveling up your brewing game, off-flavor identification is a must. But many of the options for isolated flavor compounds are prohibitively expensive for many of us.  So, what if there was a better way? This week, Matt sits the crew down for his own off-flavor exp...

This week, we’re on location at Washington Brewers Fest . Held each year smack dab in the middle of Seattle Center , with dozens of Washington breweries and cideries, local food, and all the funk music you can handle.  We scoured the festival floor, found a few familiar faces, and made some new friends. The folks at Capitol Hill’s Outer Planet Brewing joined us for a few minutes to talk about owne...

A little over a year ago, we had the fantastic folks behind Burien’s own Logan Brewing on the podcast to celebrate our amazing collab with them and Lander Coffee for Tacoma Beer Week 2025 .  Since then, they’ve opened a new space, acquired some new toys, and made the leap into beer distribution ( with someone we know! ). Michael and Chris are back this week to fill us in on all the changes they’ve...

The 2026 Firestone Invitational Beerfest was amazing.  Matt, Ron, and Phaedra had all planned to meet up for the festival, but Ron had to rain check this one as he had a staff emergency and hung back to cover the bar, because he is an absolute saint of a business owner.   BUT! with our long-time industry friend Melissa having gone for the first time this year, we wanted to hang out for a beer and...

The World Beer Cup added a “Rice Lager” category for the first time in 2026, and two Northwest breweries promptly earned medals in it — which is pretty amazing. Much like Mexican lager, rice lager, or Japanese rice lager, as some folks call it, seems to remain relatively ill-defined outside of the newly instituted guidelines.  This week, we sat down with a flight of five iterations of this wonderf...

Way back when our episodes were still in the double digits, the stellar brewing talent Mike Hunsaker sat down to tell us about his journey setting up shop in Washington and winning every award in the book brewing at Grains of Wrath . We’ve been long overdue in getting the rest of the Grains of Wrath team behind the mic and thankfully they were in town and made it a point to swing by and hang for a...

Happy Seattle Beer Week! A bunch of amazing brewers and beer folks have converged on Seattle this week to celebrate all things beer.  We took advantage and dragged Michael Messenie down for a quick pod to talk all things cask, English brewing traditions, and recipe tweaking. Michael started Dutchess Ales to bring the balanced, refined English beer he loved to New York, where he lived. It quickly g...

Happy Cinco de Mayo / May the 4th week! Owners and operators of Vice Beer , Michael and Bria Perozzo are in the house! We are flush with Star Wars-themed beers, and we just couldn’t wait to bring the Tournament of Beer Best PNW Breweries champion onto the pod.  Round after round of single-digit victories led Vice to the top spot of Peaks & Pints ‘ 10th iteration of their famous bra...

Matt’s back from Berlin!  He was gone so long and missed so much that we figured we might as well just crack a few beers and catch up a bit. Ron’s been busy traveling all over the PNW trying to hire as many breweries as he possibly can to wrap up his 10th year of the Tournament of Beers . Matt fills us in on his Berlin trip. And Bethany and The Funk Busters have some updates of their o...

Matt’s still in Germany, and Ron, Bethany, Phaedra, and Doug held down the fort beautifully for this week’s super special episode. We are joined this week by one of the strongest brewing duos working the state right now — Dan Cady and Meghan Michels of Holy Mountain Brewing .  Dan, having recently moved back up to Washington after years of brewing some of San Diego’s best b...

There are brewers who arrive with a résumé, and then there are brewers who arrive with a landscape. Kulshan Brewing Head Brewer Wes Finger brings the latter — a stretch of Bellingham terrain shaping how he brews and how he thinks. In this episode of the Grit & Grain Podcast, Wes traces his roots to the Nooksack River Valley and a life built around weather, water, and patience. That ethos shows...

This week, we are joined by Stoup Brewing co-founder, board president of the Washington Brewers Guild , and all-around industry powerhouse, Robyn Schumacher! After spending her early career teaching high school biology for over a decade, Schumacher made the jump into the beer world and has been running at full speed ever since — being one of the earliest recipients of the Cicerone Certification in...

The Grit and Grain team was lucky enough to be invited to the famous yearly celebration of Double Mountain ’s legendary inception, so we packed up the cars and took a field trip to beautiful Hood River. Nestled in the Brewer’s Lounge couches, the entire Double Mountain team sat with us for a glorious hour of brewery history, shenanigans, and fond memories of the early days of Hood River craft beer...

Happy Orval Day Eve! Saturday, March 21st, marks this year’s international celebration of one of the most unique and highly regarded beers ever made, Orval . A 1000-year-old Belgian ale brewed by Trappist Monks and bottle conditioned with Brettanomyces. We thought it was the perfect time to bring back Aaron Cohn, regional sales manager at Merchant du Vin and lover of all things monastically produc...

We’re back for the second half of our Tacoma Beer Week double header.  Hopefully you tuned in last week for the stellar hour we spent with Ezra Johnson-Greenough of New School Beer + Cider — he’s back again for another episode and joined this week by an extra special guest. Founder, publisher, and CEO  of SIP Magazine , Kristin Ackerman Bacon joins us this week alongside Ezra to...

Happy Tacoma Beer Week! A whole week dedicated to fun events and just about everything craft beer around Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest.  No better time to bring on one of the busiest beer writers and event organizers in the industry. We are joined this week by the founder of New School Beer + Cider , Fuji to Hood Beer Festival , and the Oregon Beer Awards — Ezra Johnson-Greenough!  From his beg...

If you’ve been following some of the big craft beer news outlets lately, you’ve likely seen some of the big stories coming from Oregon recently.  Distributor consolidation, new craft beer start-ups, and brewery buy-outs.  These are all big indicators of industry shifts — so what do they mean for the future of beer in the Northwest? This week, we discuss some of the big shake-ups in the...

This week, we are joined by Nick Ladd and Jessie Quan, owners, operators, and the respective Ladd and Lass from Ladd & Lass Brewing . Nestled in the heart of Seattle’s University District — and in the old Fabulous Rainbow Tavern , no less — the couple have spent the last four years creating something very special: bringing the attention to detail that comes from years studying architectu...

Are you still scrambling for a thoughtful gift for your loved one? Look no further! The Grit & Grain team put our heads together and came up with a romantic plan you can use for the occasion — a beer and chocolate pairing, of course. We’re joined again by our best buddy Stacey O’Connor , who stopped by to hang out after her Pink Boots episode last week and who also happens to teach a foo...

The Pink Boots Society Conference wrapped up a few weeks ago. The every-other-year occasion brings together women and non-binary identifying beer industry professionals together to learn, network, and build community. Our best buddy and fellow Funk Buster , Stacey O’Connor, was in attendance this year and joined us for a few beers to fill us in what the conference looked like. Everything from earl...

This week are joined by veteran firefighter and Top Rung Brewing Company owner Casey Sobol. For over a decade, Top Rung has slowly but surely built a loyal community around Lacey’s only brewery by creating a hub for local drinkers, training a staff of hyper-knowledgeable beer servers, and brewing award-winning beers. Crack a Top Rung beer if you’ve got one, and tune in for the details...

The Tacoma News Tribune is in the building!  We are joined this week by food and dining reporter Kristine Sherred. A longtime food writer who first cut her teeth writing a feature for a Chicago brewery, Kristine moved to Tacoma in 2019 to immerse herself in the city’s long-standing food and beverage scene via the TNT Diner. Crack a Tacoma Brew and tune in to find out what hoops an up-and-com...

Way back in 1978, craft beer legends  Charles and Rose Ann Finkel founded a small importing business and began shipping classic European beers into the US, effectively changing the American craft beer landscape for generations. Nearly five decades later, and they’re still setting the standard. Aaron Cohn, regional sales manager at Merchant du Vin , joins us this week.  After many years in th...

It’s 2026! After a short holiday break, we are back to bring you an absolute banger of an episode to kick off the new year. We are joined this week by fermentation expert and beer education icon, Shanleigh Thomson. A longtime industry professional and creator of extra-crispy beer-focused content, Shanleigh has amassed an insane amount of beer experience and expertise. We dive into her history in t...