Beervana Podcast

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 t...

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 col...

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 unus...

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...

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 in...

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 di...

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 t...

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...

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 distribut...

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.