Drink Beer, Think Beer With John Holl

Thanksgiving is going to be different this year here in the United States but for many of us, smaller crowd sizes does not mean different foods or different beers.  This week we talk with Hutch Kugeman of the Culinary Institute of America on how to plan out beer and food pairings, what to think about if you’re thinking about a cooking education, and the current state of the hospitality industry.  ...

Show notes from host John Holl: "I’ve known Tom Troncone since before I was writing about beer. We were competing reporters at newspapers in the New York Metro area. The nature of our jobs, covering crime and breaking news, often meant that we would be hanging out at crime scenes in the middle of the night. We were always friendly, but we’d work to beat each other’s brains out in the paper the fol...

This week, as Drink Beer, Think Beer celebrates its one year anniversary, we’re glad to welcome J.C. Tetreault of Trillium Brewing Co. to the show.     Tetreault has packed a lot into the eight years his brewery has been open.    He’s helped establish beer styles, he’s had tremendous growth, has been the subject of intense scrutiny where he’s had to defend the brewery and its reputation, and throu...

Orpheus Brewing in Atlanta is the fun, familiar story of a home brewer who wanted to go pro and did. Head brewer and CEO Jason Pellett has a background in music but fell in love with beer making and wanted to bring something special to his city when he and partners opened up the brewery seven years ago. He’s seen the brewery evolve over time and while he has come to embrace some traditions, and ho...

Show notes from host John Holl: "Despite being one of the largest breweries in the country, I hadn’t given Lagunitas much of a thought in recent years. I’d of course see its IPA on tap at bars, back when I went to bars, and its familiar glass bottles on shelves. It was there, I was happy to see it, but usually ordered something else.    A lot of people are drinking the beer, sure, but as the beer...

On this show we like to get into the mind of a brewer and find out where their daydreams and creativity take them and how that ultimately winds up in our glasses. This week host John Holl is talking with Anna Jobe the innovation brewer at Night Shift in Massachusetts on how she approaches new styles, how she determines what works and what doesn't, and how she is looking for new avenues in cider, w...

There is good news in beer these days. Despite all the harm that COVID-19 is doing, there are businesses that are forging ahead and opening to the public. This week on the show we are talking with Mike Kraai of Drowned Lands Brewery in New York.  The brewery has been making beer for a year now, but only opened its tasting room five weeks ago.  The space is massive, suited for drinking apart during...

Joining us on the phone this week is Tomme Arthur of the Lost Abbey. In the roughly 15 years that the brewery has been open it has largely focused on Belgian-inspired ales that have helped shape the course of beer in America today.    Over the last months of COVID-19 he has had to look at his business model and find new ways to keep the lights on. This has been through new releases that include sp...

Justin Stambaugh started homebrewing a decade ago and quickly decided he wanted to pursue a professional career in beer. It wasn’t as easy as he had hoped but eventually he got an internship at Rip Current Brewing Co. in 2012 where he rose though the ranks, became a brewer, and even helped start that brewery’s sour program.    Eventually he decided that it was time to open his own place and didn’t...

This is a special time of year on the beer calendar. It's fresh hop beer season and if you live in the Pacific Northwest you are likely enjoying pints of vibrantly hoppy ales. The rest of us are just dreaming of what could be. Hard to define, difficult to describe, and a revelation each time, fresh hop beers are best experienced in person where the beers were made. Zach Beckwith, the head brewer o...

There is a lot going on out West right now, some of it good – like the hop harvest – and a lot of it bad, like the fires that are raging out of control. Napa Valley is often in the news when it comes to fires in California and while it is known for wine, there is also beer to be found.    Nile Zacherle of Mad Fritz Beer straddles both worlds. He is both a wine maker and a brewer and is thoughtful...

Show notes from host John Holl: "I love a good conversation over beer and these days it’s hard to do it in person, but it is alive online. One person I can always count on to get the brain cells working and to challenge the notions of beer is Brienne Allan, the production manager at Notch Brewing , in Salem Massachusetts.    She’s worked at the brewery for three years and handles a variety of role...

Alex Lovinggood of Barn Town Brewing has been in the beer business for less than a decade but has made a lasting impact wherever he has gone. He was a teacher and a bartender before he got into brewing. He started like so many others, as a volunteer washing kegs and learning the trade from time spent in various hands on experiences.    He worked at Temperance Brewing, Atlas (when it was called tha...

D.G. Yuengling & Son is the country’s oldest operating brewery, going back 191 years now.  It survived major events over the course of 6 generations, most notably Prohibition, and really hit its stride in the mid-1980s when Dick Yuengling Jr. purchased the brewery from his father and began making Yuengling Lager, which is the company’s flagship beer and accounts for 80% of overall volume.    A...

From host John Holl: "Every once in a while a beer comes your way from an unfamiliar brewery and just blows you away. It’s one of the great things about having so many breweries in the country these days – there is a lot to discover.    A few months back I had a slew of beers from Crane Brewing Co. in Raytown, Missouri. The gose and Berliner Weiss were subtle, flavorful, mixed with all kinds of in...

It really is a small world. Before Covid-19 sent us all into lockdown John Holl  received an email from a listener who encouraged him to book Ethan Cox of Community Beer Works in Buffalo on the show.   Alex wrote in saying that “Ethan is a big part of the craft beer culture here in Buffalo and helped take a plucky little nanobrewery and turn it into a place that represents the neighborhood and the...

Most people know Garrett Oliver as the globe trotting brewmaster of the Brooklyn brewery, but he is also an accomplished author , educator, and thought leader in the brewing space. His latest project is one that we can all get behind and support, it’s a foundation named after the late Michael Jackson , the writer.    Its mission is funding technical education and career advancement for black, indi...

This week's guest is Lisa Allen. She’s the head brewer of Heater Allen , the brewery her father started in 2007.  He lived the classic story of a homebrewer that went pro and decided to make the beers he wanted to drink. In a hoppy landscape his beers stood out in Oregon, even if you couldn’t get them too far from the brewery itself.    Lisa says she was fascinated by fermentation and brewing scie...

Remember the Brut IPA? It was, for a shining moment, seemingly the hottest beer style in the country and then it went away. The brewer credited with the style is Kim Sturdavant and he is our guest on the show today. From its origins, to its evolution ,and eventual death we cover the life cycle of a style. What does the future hold for the style? Well, Sturdavant who is working at Pacifica Brewing...

This is a special bonus episode on the channel featuring the Drinks Adventures podcast. A note from host James Atkinson: " I drove west of Sydney to the Blue Mountains where I visited Mountain Culture Brewing Company, a new brewpub founded by husband and wife team DJ and Harriet McCready. American-born DJ McCready exploded onto the Australian brewing scene at the inaugural Craft Beer Awards, now k...

If you are interested in the subject of beer, it’s likely that you’ve already heard of Pete Brown and have read his words. He is the author of nine books on not only beer but cider and food as well.    His prose effortlessly brings readers along on journeys whether is walking through orchards, sitting at the PUB, or traversing oceans with IPA.    His latest book, Craft: An Argument was written and...

If you are a fan of this show,  you are likely a fan of beer in general, and you have likely already heard of Averie Swanson.  She's had one of the more storied careers in beer thus far. Going from a volunteer at Jester King in Austin to its head brewer in just four years but new challenges awaited her, and so she moved north to Chicago last year where she started Keeping Together , a brewery that...

You might be surprised to hear what Chase Healey and his team were brewing up on a recent Wednesday morning when John Holl called down to the brewery. Healey founded American Solera as a wood project that would let time and microbes do their thing followed by some expert blending. But the beer industry has changed in the years since Healy opened up his location in Tulsa, Oklahoma and so the brewer...

Since founding 2nd Shift Brewing in Missouri a decade ago, Libby and Steve Crider have been through a lot of growth, a full brewery move, and the start of their family. Throughout it all, Libby Crider has worked to become an engaged business owner without compromising personal beliefs.    Like so many breweries in the country COVID-19 plunged the brewery into “chaos” but as summer begins, the brew...

With over 8,000 breweries in the country it can be easy to overlook the early pioneers, regardless of how big they are and how ubiquitous their beers are. So, when a bottle of Alaskan Amber showed up unexpectedly at host John Holl's house recently he wanted to catch up with the brewery's founders. From talking about the early days of sourcing ingredients for historical recipes to beers that they h...