Good Beer Hunting

Coffee starts its life as the seed of a cherry. You wouldn't think that when you look at a bag of beans, but there's a whole process that coffee goes through before it gets to you. It's picked, it's washed, it's milled, it's shipped, it travels across the globe—and that's all before it's roasted, packaged, and brewed by your favorite barista. Somewhere in the middle of all that, coffee hangs out w...

There are easy topics brewery owners love to talk about to promote themselves: interesting beer releases, charity work, GABF awards, or cheeky packaging.  And then there are other, much stickier issues most avoid addressing: gentrification, racism and sexism in the industry; labor; and a brewery's moral responsibility to its community and the people within it.  Sam Gilbert, who co-founded Oakland'...

One of my favorite things about industries like ours (beer, wine, food and drink) is the sense of community that springs up around them. People find others who want to talk about what excites them—and one of those communities is The Fervent Few.  Initially a group of beer enthusiasts, The Fervent Few has transformed into a lively corner of the internet that explores the world of beer in a way that...

Today, we bring you an episode of Good Beer Hunting's newest show, Electing to Drink. Hosted by author and professor David Faris and produced by GBH, Electing to Drink explores progressive politics, personalities and policies over a guest's favorite beer. This is Electing to Drink. Listen in. Subscribe to Electing to Drink on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. 

Welcome to the second episode of Into the Wild—part of our six-city tour across the U.S. with New Belgium Brewing this year.  This episode comes out of our experiences in the Bay Area, San Francisco and the East Bay , where we partnered with a few restaurants, bars, and special people therein to produce some of the best and most unique experiences I've ever had around food and beverages. And that'...

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 some of our favorite articles. I'm Bryan Roth, and I'm the Sightlines editor for Good Beer Hunting.  Whether you're a beer drinker or an industry pro, chances are you may have heard someone talking about "innovation" in beer. Usually, that means a brewery...

Craft beer has always had an uncomfortable relationship with marketing, Instagram and social media, and things like hype, status, and influencers. It's also long had an issue with women. Not just sexuality, but of course, also that. Not just gender and inclusion, but also that. Not just diversity and equality, but also that. In the most general, broad sense, craft beer (and beer in general), both...

Today's conversation is another deep dive into a product that fits into the emerging "Better For You" category of low calorie beer and non-alcoholic beer, hard seltzers, kombucha, and whatnot that grocer stores are starting to organize their shelves around as drinkers start looking for options that satisfy that itch for a beer or a drink, but doesn't interrupt their flow.  These kinds of drinks us...

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...

If you haven't noticed, the world is starting to think about the role that craft beer plays in a healthy lifestyle. Is this a reaction to the Pastry Stouts and high ABVs of contemporary craft beer? Or is it part of a larger trend where drinkers want to know more about what's going into their bodies and how it impacts their lives?  Anyone in the business of selling beer right now is talking about 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 Michael Kiser, and I'm the founder and director of Good Beer Hunting. And for today's conversation, I was also the photographer. I recently shot a unique story assignment in a remote corner of the Czech Republic, called...

What's the balance between being a bit "punk" and also being a responsible business owner? You can probably find examples from a variety of companies in beer that straddle this line. In this podcast, you're hearing from the owners of one of them. At Boise, Idaho's Woodland Empire Ale Craft, founders Rob and Keely Landerman have long been said to produce some of the best beer in town. Online refere...

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...

Today's episode is the second we've done with this duo of Mike Siegel of Goose Island and Ron Pattinson, beer historian, writer, and a collaborator on a recipe revival project of sorts. Way back in 2016 we invited these two over to the studio to discuss their Brewery Yard Stock Pale Ale, a barrel-aged brett pale reminiscent of what a beer brewed in England over a century ago may have been like acc...

Garage Project's Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand's hop harvest. The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand's Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country's Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington's famous Museum of New Ze...

Garage Project's Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand's hop harvest. The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand's Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country's Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington's famous Museum of New Ze...

Garage Project's Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand's hop harvest. The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand's Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country's Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington's famous Museum of New Ze...

Garage Project's Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand's hop harvest. The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand's Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country's Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington's famous Museum of New Ze...

Like all of the U.K., Wales has a long, rich history of brewing. The Welsh brewing industry has pretty much had the same fortunes, too—peaking in the late 1800s then declining thanks to temperance, World Wars, and consolidation throughout the 20th century. But at some point in the early 2000s, the countries' paths diverged. While Scotland got Harviestoun and then BrewDog, and England gained Dark S...

Barrel aging beer is like stepping back in time. But over the last few years, more and more breweries are turning to the historic practice, using it as a way to impart new flavors, expand their beer portfolios, and give a nod back to traditional brewing practices. But how did barrels make a comeback? Our Sightlines editor, Bryan Roth, who we sometimes joke is the man with all the charts, decided t...

It's no longer a surprise these days when a brewery announces it's opening another location. Secondary production facilities and taprooms aren't ubiquitous, but they are becoming more common for companies who quickly outgrow modest homes and expectations. In 2018, the largest brewer in Idaho came from California. Brewing a little over 10,000 barrels at its Nampa facility just outside of Boise, Mot...

Steph Byce was one of the first people I met when I started hanging out with the folks at Good Beer Hunting. I was judging an Irish Coffee Competition, as part of yearly celebration of coffee and beer called Uppers and Downers, and Steph was hovering around me, taking photos. Steph is GBH's resident photographer—she's based in Chicago, and at any Good Beer Hunting event, you'll usually find her sn...

To outsiders, the cannabis industry might seem like a mysterious machine. The myriad regulatory rules, the constantly changing legalities, and the complicated distribution practices make this business confusing and a bit unwieldy. And yet, in California's fledgling legal market, cannabis is flourishing. With more than eleven hundred acres of permitted cannabis farms in the state, some expect to se...

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...

At this point in the American beer scene, a love for IPAs, Wheat Ales, Stouts, and Saisons comes from all over. Our friends and parents. Our neighbors and celebrities. When we learn that someone has an adoration for craft beer, there's not a lot of surprise left to be had, except what kind of beer we can share as part of this fun bond. This spring, I had that debate—between a Wheat Ale and IPA—wit...