Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

This special ingredient-focused edition of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the brewing-ingredient experts at BSG . Today’s beer drinker loves pale beer more than ever, and over the course of the past decade, brewers have been feeding this shift by releasing lighter and lighter colored IPAs that pack a similar flavor punch without the heft that specialty malts can bring. To help...

Sarasota, Florida’s Calusa has become a fan favorite in the Sunshine State, focusing on compelling hazy IPAs that capture vivid flavors, consistent drinkability, and a bright, sunny color that cofounder and head brewer Jason Thompson describes as “glow.” In this episode, Thompson discusses: managing variable minerality brewing hazy IPA with flavorful malts such as Weyermann Bohemian Pils increasin...

This week’s episode is a panel discussion on lager brewing, recorded in front of a live audience late one night on the patio of Cerveza Fauna after a full day of judging for the Copa Baja beer festival in Mexicali, Mexico, in late 2023. Joining the discussion are three prominent lager brewers—Ashleigh Carter of Denver’s Bierstadt Lagerhaus , Ryan Brooks of San Diego’s SouthNorte , and Jeff Bagby (...

Lean is all the rage in hop-forward West Coast–style beers, from pilsner to IPA, and paring beers back to their bare necessities has been a significant focus for Burgeon’s Anthony Tallman. Yet the quest for crisp-and-drinkable doesn’t mean sacrificing flavor, and recent experimentation has given Tallman a fresh perspective on the ultra-minimal approach. In this episode—which is focused especially...

The final episode of the year is our chance to look back on the year of brewing conversations and highlight those episodes that struck the biggest chords with you, our listeners. Joining Jamie in the co-host chair is Khris Johnson of Green Bench in St. Petersburg, Florida, and together they count down the ten most-listened-to episodes while sharing excerpts from each. The top ten include: Averie S...

The Kernel founder Evan O’Riordain embodies a few interesting contrasts—he’s an Irishman in London committed to shining a light on the city’s own dark beer past, and he’s a brewer in Britain who caught the craft bug after experiencing hop-forward beers in the United States—but it’s this dynamic range that drives and defines Kernel today. History is important, yet no modern techniques or ingredient...

Past isn’t necessarily prologue for today’s lager brewers, but it certainly is at Goldfinger Brewing in Downers Grove, Illinois. A family history of brewing lager and manufacturing equipment for brewers in Poland and Czechia was just the kick that Tom Beckmann needed to pursue his dream of building a small, contemporary, lager-focused brewery. Now, as the brewery undertakes its next expansion, Bec...

Five years into cold IPA, the arguments still aren’t settled, but one thing is certain—strategic brewers have embraced the style for the unique counterpoint it can provide to more ester-driven IPAs, and the focus on light body has struck a chord with beer drinkers who increasingly want strong hop notes in ever-paler beers. We thought it was time to revisit the subject with three brewers who are no...

This special business-focused edition of the podcast is brought to you interruption-free by the transformational beverage-industry technologists at Encompass . As we head into 2024, the brewing industry is facing serious headwinds that have limited growth for many breweries and accelerated the closure of others. Consumer patterns are changing, product preferences continue to evolve, drinking occas...

Chicago’s Dovetail has earned a reputation for its refined yet flavorful lagers, but the team’s dogged approach to traditional methods is less about religion and more about expression—these techniques and processes allow them to imbue their beers with attributes they want while minimizing those they want to avoid or keep in the background. Each beer they make is like a musical score—a recipe desig...

Jacob Sembrano loves ingredients, and his background as a chef instilled in him a deep love of connecting ingredients and their stories with the dishes he presented to customers. Now, at the helm of the brewhouse at Chicago’s Cruz Blanca , he’s forged a similar identity for his beers—connecting through ingredients with stories, and making beers with unusual methods. Their customers may not realize...

As always, our annual Best in Beer issue includes different perspectives. Our subscribers and listeners—that’s you!—have spoken, and we’ve compiled your votes for the Reader’s Choice lists, including your Top 25 Beers . Plus, our Craft Beer & Brewing Best 20 Beers in 2023 are the culmination of a year of blind tasting by our review panel and then by our editors, achieving an internal consensus...

It’s been another year of great beers—and we’ve tasted thousands—but they can’t all be “the Best.” What sets certain beers apart, to not only light up our palates and our senses, but also our brains and our conversations? Winnowed down by a year of our review panel’s blind judging, and then selected by more blind judging among our editors and top writers, our Best 20 Beers in 2023 represent the hi...

In Geneva, Illinois, Art History Brewing doesn’t want to be everything to everyone, but they’re committed to brewing traditional styles well, while also making them relevant to today’s drinkers. That message has resonated in the broader Chicago beer world, winning them fans among some of the most influential bars and retailers in the city. For head brewer Greg Browne, it’s the logical outcome of a...

In this GABF Gold! edition of the podcast, the last of our 2023 focus on GABF gold medal winners, Jamie is joined by Rob Malad, director of brewing operations for Metazoa in Indianapolis, Indiana. Metazoa recently won gold for William Walrus, a Scottish-style ale and product of necessity, that employed brewing techniques to overcome ingredient challenges while staying true to the spirit of the sty...

In this GABF Gold! episode, we dive into the saison category. First up is Jason zumBrunnen, cofounder of Denver's Ratio Beerworks , recent gold medal winner for their King of Carrot Flowers carrot saison (and 2020 silver medal winner in American-Belgo style ale for their Dear You saison dry hopped with Citra, upon which King of Carrot Flowers is based). He dives into saison standards, like buildin...

e recorded this episode of the podcast live from Odell Brewing on Sloan’s Lake as part of our recent Brewery Workshop: New Brewery Accelerator event in Denver. The three panel guests—Jake Gardner, director of brewing operations at Westbound & Down ; Marni Wahlquist, head brewer at Odell Sloan’s Lake; and Sean Buchan, owner and head brewer at Cerebral —represent a compelling cross-section of IP...

In this special episode, two 2023 gold-medal-winning breweries discuss their methods and approaches to making wood-aged sour beer. First up is Kyle Vetter, founder of 1840 Brewing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whose kriek-inspired "I Don't Want To Wait" won gold in the fruited wood- and barrel-aged sour beer category. He hits on the details behind how the beer was made, including: using oak as an ingre...

Over the course of his decade-and-a-half, bicoastal brewing career, Vasili Gletsos has brewed a wide range of beer styles on an equal wide range of brewing systems. But after launching Wunderkammer as a personal brand while serving as head brewer for Hill Farmstead, he ultimately decided to make it his focus, building out a simple brewery with an old dairy tank mash tun and a wood-fired copper ket...

Reverend Nat’s Cider has helped change peoples’ assumptions about craft cider in the Pacific Northwest, over their past 12 years of operation. The iconoclastic cider maker has adopted a flavor-forward, reverential-but-forward-looking approach to cider making that has ruffled some feathers and changed default narratives, but one thing it’s never been is boring or cautious. A few weeks ago, West ann...

When you live and work in Yakima Valley, hops become a way of life. They’re second nature, omnipresent, and a constant topic of conversation—after all, many of the patrons of craft breweries in the Yakima Valley are the same folks who grow, process, study, and sell them. As such, Varietal Beer’s focus on brewing with hops has picked up momentum as fans flock to their taproom—about 30 minutes south...

Based in Portland, Oregon, Sam Zermeño is the brewer behind Brujos—a nomadic brand that’s given him the opportunity to make some intensely flavored, highly regarded beers with friends and favorite brewers from around the country. Yet behind the acclaim and heavy-metal imagery is a mind of real technical know-how and experience. Previously an R&D brewer at Portland’s Great Notion, his accomplis...

Boulder’s Upslope has been brewing Craft Lager since long before lager brewing was “cool,” and today the small brewery has built a production methodology for the longtime core offering that optimizes both quality and production efficiency. In this episode, head brewer Alex Meyer discusses the way the brewery makes their signature lager with a litany of unconventional ingredients and processes, and...

Dave Chichura loves brewing, and loves to work. He's always lived simply, and maintained a lifestyle that allows him to move around. And move he has, from breweries in the Midwest as well as up and down the Rocky Mountains. Now, as Director of Brewing Operations at Ex Novo in Corrales, New Mexico, he's putting in practice all the lessons he's learned, building and managing the brewing team as they...

If Averie Swanson had her way, saison would outsell IPA among craft beer aficionados. The longtime saison brewer hopes to move beyond stereotypes and romanticized history and show (through beautifully designed and constructed beers) that saison provides a broad palette for brewers to explore flavor. With her Keeping Together brand, now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she hopes to write a new chapte...