Good Beer Hunting

In times of crisis, people tend to turn to the comfort of familiarity, whether it be revisiting the family recipes they enjoyed as a kid or just attempting to relive some idealized version of the good old days. Over the past year, between quarantines, lockdowns, and political strife, nostalgia has made a big comeback, in everything from the music we're listening to, to the very beers we drink. I'd...

Tiffanie Barriere is the epitome of southern hospitality—warm, kind, and welcoming. She's just the person you'd want as your drinking coach, which is fitting: The Drinking Coach is a moniker given to her by a friend, and it eventually became the name of the Instagram account where she shares stories of uncelebrated Black people throughout history, with a cocktail alongside. Tiffanie is more than a...

How does one survive in a place where temperatures regularly hit negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit, if not below that? A toasty Barleywine might hit the spot, but in the 49th state of the Union, residents are just as likely to pick up a classic IPA or Vienna Lager as they are an Imperial Stout. How, why, and when did Alaska, of all places, become a beer destination? In Bailey Berg's first piece for G...

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been countless stories of how individual people and businesses have adjusted, learned new things, and survived. At Good Beer Hunting we've had a collection of audio and written stories specifically asking what these transitions meant for state brewers guilds, the organizations that act as advocates and lobbyists for craft breweries across the country. I...

Italy is definitely not what anyone would consider part of Europe's traditional brewing heartland: In terms of beverages, the Southern European country is mostly known for its amazing wines, which complement its world-class cuisine. But since the mid-90s, Italy has developed a relatively small but dynamic brewing scene, which originally started in the country's north, before spreading throughout t...

Jules Gray describes herself as "someone that likes to keep busy." Not only is she the founder of Hop Hideout—one of the U.K.'s first drink-in bottle shops, which opened in Sheffield, northern England, back in 2013—she's also the organizer of Sheffield Beer Week; the Indie Beer Feast beer festival; and Indie Beer Shop Day, a new initiative she launched during the pandemic to celebrate independent...

Working in media today feels weirdly similar to trying to navigate the Fire Swamp in the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride. Success is possible, but the path is surrounded by quicksand, Rodents of Unusual Size, and numerous other obstacles along the way. It's tenuous at the best of times, and damn near impossible under trying circumstances—like during a pandemic, for example. It requires ingenu...

You may have read or heard industry pros or journalists like me throw around these acronyms lately—FMBs and RTDs. They stand for flavored malt beverages—that's the FMB—and ready-to-drink cocktails—the RTD. In layman terms, they're the industry stand-in for what we all see on store shelves as hard seltzer, alcoholic tea, or canned cocktails from the likes of Cutwater Spirits or Fling Craft Cocktail...

In beer, even the heaviest intellectual conversations around topics like racism or worker exploitation tend to hit a natural barrier after a couple of pints. That slow fizzle doesn't happen when you speak to A.J. Cox. In fact, her obvious passion for human rights only increases the longer the conversation goes on. Cox is a brewer and pro-union academic with an affinity for Marxism and social justi...

Have you ever dreamed a dream so perfect, so grand, so utopian that it seems impossible to turn into reality? Katie Mather has—but unlike most people, she transformed her vision into something tangible. The pastoral landscape of Clitheroe, a village in northwestern England, provided an ideal backdrop for Mather's dream to crystallize. Despite the copious amounts of lemons the pandemic dealt out, M...

Welcome to a Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer hunting Podcast The Fervent Few is our subscriber community - made up of 100s of beer fans, professionals, and curious readers from around the world who directly support our editorial with their monthly contributions and help form a direct connection between our editorial and creative teams. We share stories, meet up for special events, and create...

While Rock Leopard is relatively new to the scene, Ayeh is not. He's worked in the alcohol industry since 2002, when on a trip to Sweden he discovered Kopparberg cider. Seeing its potential he persuaded the company to let him be the UK agent, launching a brand that went on national prominence. Sadly larger distributors saw its potential too, and without an exclusivity agreement Ayeh was forced asi...

The way we find and tell stories of beer is changing, and in recent years, what was once relegated to magazines, websites, and podcasts is becoming more common in film. As craft beer's trajectory has gone more mainstream, the awareness of the industry and its collection of people and stories has made a longer form, visual format another powerful path to explore the many ways a pint connects to dif...

As a total percentage of the beverage alcohol industry, cider hasn't really changed much in recent years. It amounts to about 1% and has been successfully static. I know a lack of growth doesn't really sound like a success, and 1% doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me on this one. Or, rather, trust Michelle McGrath. She's the executive director of the American Cider Association and while it's cer...

Every brewery has a story, and along with the beer they brew, their narrative is what helps to set them apart. A great story can captivate and connect with consumers, and help build brand loyalty—something any business owner would love to have. And when a couple opens a brewery together, there's a good chance their love story will become a foundational part of the business's identity. That was cer...

Beer history has blossomed in recent years, as a new generation of researchers and writers have uncovered fascinating stories from the murky early days of brewing. Some of those discoveries have taken us to exotic locales, while others have illuminated overlooked stories right in our own backyards. And beer history is not just a field for enthusiastic amateurs. Academics and other professionals ha...

Have you heard the phrase "stick to beer"? It's a version of an oft-cited phrase that people tell each other when one is veering away from their subject expertise. If you brew beer or write about the industry, you don't need to share insight about other areas of life … let someone else who's an expert do that. Stick to beer. In this episode, we aren't venturing far away from beer, but Ben Self's b...

Lately, the world has felt joyless. Even the weekends, which once offered a reprieve from the obligation of work, feel bland and gray when you're stuck at home all the time. Saturday gives way to Sunday, and time melts into hours of couch-sitting, Instagram-scrolling, beer-drinking, and the occasional debate on what to eat for lunch. I long for a trip away from the mundane cycle my life has become...

Women currently make up less than a quarter of all craft brewery owners in the United States, according to the Brewers Association's survey on demographics within the industry. While conversations around the importance of diversity, inclusion, and equity continue to spark important change within beer, sometimes it can feel like it's just that—talk. But pioneers within the industry who talk the tal...

We are well beyond the days of "Dry January," but the conversation around the success and long term impact of non-alcoholic beer continues. The month long effort at the start of the year is meant to give people a break from alcohol intake, and non-alcoholic substitutes often play a big role. But what Kate Bernot and I have come to recognize in the past several months is that the narrative of booze...

In today's episode I'm talking to James Calder, Chief Executive of the UK's Society of Independent Brewers. SIBA, as it's more commonly known, plays a similar role to the American Brewer's Association, representing the interests of around 800 small British brewers who vote on how the organisation supports the industry and lobbies the government at its annual conference and trade show, BeerX. Found...

This week's guest is a duo from Chicago who this past year, despite a pandemic, launched one of the city's most exciting Mexican-inspired brewery concepts: Casa Humilde Cervenceria. Chicago is perhaps uniquely focused on Mexican culture when it comes to beer. We're the city that launched 5 Rabbit Cerveceria—the first Latin-inspired craft brewery in the U.S. who despite many early, and seemingly on...

Stephanie Grant has an infectious positivity. You can't help but enjoy watching her cook amazing meals on her Instagram stories; or celebrating Black women in beer in her newsletter, The Share; or scrolling through her vibrant photographs. Her projects and pursuits all seem to radiate joy. But Stephanie's not afraid of getting real—far from it. In her latest story for Good Beer Hunting titled "Bey...

This week's guest invented one of the most impactful things in American beer history —but it's not a beer style, or a recipe, or a festival, or a piece of equipment—it's an app. Untappd grew from a side project for Greg Avola and his partner Tim Mather—one that they moonlighted for on weekends—to a leading social experience for beer geeks in a very short amount of time. Basically you try a beer, y...

Kristen Foster has been a part of Good Beer Hunting's Fervent Few community, as well as a contributor, since 2017. Since then, she's written a number of pieces and published a lot of great photographs — especially her poignant and candid photos of people in and around beer. Some of her recent Signifiers for Good Beer Hunting about Athletic Brewing Company and Notch Brewing also manage to capture t...