Good Beer Hunting

If you're a regular Sightlines reader, you may have come across a story we published on Nov. 1 called " A Show of Hands – Breweries Take Political and Business Risks Mixing Beer and Social Stances ." The idea behind that piece was to give context around the space where political opinion and the beer business collide, all while poking at the question, as it relates to breweries engaging with drinke...

The is GBH Out Loud, and I'm Ashley Rodriguez. Today, you'll hear Mark Spence read the second entry of his blog, Beer is Offal, called "Load of Baloney," published on Good Beer Hunting on September 27, 2019. In this article, Mark extols the virtues of an unlikely hero: baloney. Before he starts, he tells us all about his rituals surrounding the lunch meat—the exact way he likes to eat it, and the...

There are so many ways you can engage with the beer world on a professional level—but few are more ambitious that attempting to become a Master Cicerone. The term "Cicerone" is still a relatively new concept in the beverage world—but you've probably heard of a Master Sommelier in the wine industry. It's not exactly the same thing—for example, the Cicerone exam focuses significantly on troubleshoot...

There's always more to every story you read. As a writer, I'm perpetually intrigued by the choices other writers make—what to include, what to cut—and I'm especially interested in people who are super clear about who their work is for. Part of that is selfish: I host a podcast, called Boss Barista, that I describe as a feminist coffee podcast—I like to let people know what they're in for from the...

Today's guest is one of the most unassuming brewery owners in Chicago: Mark Legenza of On Tour Brewing Company. On Tour is located in the brewery district that's popped up around Goose Island's Fulton Street production facility. The area is now home to half-a-dozen breweries and as many coffee roasters, and it's where the GBH Studio is located, too. So why is it that he hasn't been on the GBH Podc...

Today I'm going to catch up with our Sightlines editor and lead contributor, Bryan Roth. It's been a busy couple of years for Bryan, but this past week's range of stories is evidence of all the ways Sightlines has become essential reading for our audiences. From proactive analysis of the Denver scene as Colorado retail laws shift to digging into the closure of Lagunitas' Community Room in Portland...

What happens to a brewery when a game-changing opportunity comes along? There have been 11 buyouts of American breweries by Anheuser-Busch InBev since 2011, and in this episode, we're getting some insight from one of them. Roseland, Virginia's Devils Backbone Brewing Company was brought into the AB InBev network—now known as the Brewer's Collective—in 2016. At the time it was producing 65,000 barr...

If you're part of the beer world, you've probably heard folklore about our Founding Fathers—the men who signed the Constitution, the first American presidents—brewing their own beer. That's an appealing story, a fun tidbit you might tell a friend when they ask you about your own brewing adventures.  And yet, how critically have we regarded this story? Think about the timeframe folks like George Wa...

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Podcast. I'm Ashley Rodriguez.  I remember the very first time I went to Temescal Brewing in Oakland, California. I had been watching the buildout for months, waiting in anticipation. You could step outside of my apartment building and see it from the corner. So when they finally opened, I was excited—and pleasantly surprised by the number of crushable, low-ABV bee...

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get a behind-the-scenes look at our favorite articles. I'm Jonny Garrett, and I'm a staff writer and podcaster here at Good Beer Hunting. In our Mother of Invention series with Guinness, we've been looking at the great innovations in beer—ideas that have changed or could change the cours...

I remember the first London Craft Beer Festival like it was yesterday. It was actually six years ago, but I distinctly recall the excited atmosphere, revelatory flavor of Pressure Drop's new foraged Hefeweizen, and the look on my friend's face as he tried his first Saison. It's easy to recall because it felt like the start of something—not just for the festival itself, but the beer industry. It wa...

This is GBH Out Loud, a new series where we invite authors and staff members to read their favorite articles out loud, and provide tidbits and secret stories about the work that went into producing them. I'm Ashley Rodriguez. Today you'll hear Mark Spence read the first entry in his new blog, Beer is Offal called, "Fuck it, Let's Go," published on Good Beer Hunting on September 13, 2019. Beer is O...

Take it from me: Journalism, as a career, is a difficult one to hold in 2019's socio, political, and economic climate. For some though, like today's guest, LA-area writer and editor Sarah Bennett, it's way more than a job. It's how to support her community and the underrepresented voices within it. It's a way to elevate those who really keep Los Angeles great. Sarah was formerly a beer and arts co...

Welcome to another Fervent Few episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast where myself, Jim Plachy, and GBH's strategic director, Michael Kiser, catch up. We'll talk about the topics and discussions that took place in our membership community in the last couple weeks. Our 500 or so subscribers are scattered all over the world. Sometimes we meet up with them when we're on the road, or they hang out w...

Hard seltzer aside, conversations around the alcohol industry still tend to circle the trio of beer, wine, and spirits. Flavored malt beverages, like those seltzers, have recently entered our lexicon, but what about cider? It feels like discussions about cider as the next big step in booze happened far in the past—it might only have been a few years ago, but that timeframe can feel far extended in...

For this Collective episode, I'm talking to writer Evan Rail. Evan is based in Prague, and has become more active with Good Beer Hunting as we increasingly look beyond the U.S. beer market and bring you stories from around the world. Evan has a unique perspective, having grown up in Fresno, California, and later relocated to the Czech Republic. For us he's an essential voice: both because he has a...

What does beer have to do with politics?  It's a simple enough question. And some would argue that beer has nothing to do with politics—the two should remain totally separate. Here at Good Beer Hunting, that idea has never really sat well with us. So instead of staying away from politics, we invited it in. After a particularly low day—the 2016 election, GBH founder Michael Kiser was talking to his...

Today's episode is a bit of an ensemble cast. With the limited time I had in Austin, Texas, I wanted to get some quick and clear perspective on the city's scene, both past and present. To that end, I collected a few fast friends along the way, and gathered them all at Pinthouse Pizza, one of the city's more contemporary craft brewers. A recent legislative session saw some massive changes to Texas'...

I live in Chicago, and there's this liquor—maybe some of you have heard of it—called Malort, which is made from wormwood. If you ask anyone in Chicago what their local spirit is, they'd point to Malort, perhaps tricking their own of town friends to take a straight shot of it when they come to visit the city. And everyone knows how hard it is to drink Malort. Even the founder, Carl Jeppson, was kno...

Today's guest was a must-see during our time in Austin, Texas. Josh Hare is the lone founder of Hops and Grain Brewing. He's an avid cyclist, and a massive Lager advocate. He's long been one of those Twitter handles that I was attracted to—his rational, skeptical voice stands out within an industry that can sometimes be an irrational, cynical place. He's a breath of fresh air. And back in 2017, he...

Welcome to the third episode of Into the Wild—part of our six-city tour across the U.S. this year with New Belgium Brewing. I'm Ashley Rodriguez, and together with Good Beer Hunting's creative director Michael Kiser and studio designer Cooper Foszcz, I recently headed to Austin, Texas, for three days of great food, hot days, and unique events celebrating the specialness of wild and sour beers. It...

Founders' All Day IPA. Firestone Walker's 805 Blonde Ale. Victory's Golden Monkey Tripel. These are all examples of brands that have shaped bottom lines and shifted futures for some of the country's biggest breweries. For most of them, that runaway success and influence came about serendipitously. These are business-altering beers that now steer the course of their respective companies—and there a...

Welcome to the Good Beer Hunting Collective podcast, the show where members of our team interview each other to get the behind-the-scenes look at some of our favorite articles. I'm Claire Bullen and I'm the Editor in Chief at Good Beer Hunting. I have an almost endless appetite—no pun intended—for stories about food and beer. This isn't particularly surprising, given the fact that I wrote a cookbo...

Even if you barely dip your toe in the shark-infested waters of Beer Twitter, there's a chance you've heard of Pilot Beer. You don't even have to follow the brewery for it to regularly hit your timeline, as its pithy, satirical, and self-deprecating posts are retweeted and liked hundreds of times. So you'd be forgiven for thinking that Pilot is much bigger than it is. It's still a five-man operati...

Welcome to the Sightlines podcast from Good Beer Hunting. I'm Bryan Roth.  If there were ever a defining slogan to sum up the past decade in American craft beer, "hops rule everything around me" may be a good fit. Pale Ales begat IPAs in all their bitter, then fruity, then juicy, then hazy glory, pushing sales and success for many businesses. IPAs, quite frankly, are driving key growth, but they'r...