Good Beer Hunting

About 20 miles outside downtown Austin, Texas, it's easy to forget you're a short car ride away from one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Sitting partially hidden in the middle of spacious farmland is one the crown jewels of modern U.S. beer: Jester King Brewery. Enthusiasts make the pilgrimage from all over, waiting in line to try some of the most beloved wild, sour, and spontaneous...

Welcome back to another episode of the GBH Collective, where we bring you the stories behind the stories from our writers and photographers all over the world, and from our studio team based here in Chicago.  This week we've got Kyle Kastranec from Ohio who was GBH's first new voice back in 2014. We recently launch a sub blog of sorts where he explores his own perceptions of beer and the ever-evol...

I first met Miguel Rivas a few years ago when I was learning about the Brooklyn beer scene. He was an avid photographer, beer geek, and all-around welcoming guy who I've since followed on his journeys all over the world through Instagram. He travels regularly to Costa Rica, so today we talk a lot about that, what he's been up to in Brooklyn these days, and the general state of being an influential...

The UK brewing market is getting pretty crowded. It's now home to more than 2,000 breweries, including nearly 110 in London alone, all crammed onto an island that's roughly the size of Michigan. And when you consider the divide between modern and traditional breweries, constant debates over cask, keg, and the price of beer (to mention only a few of the oft-discussed topics), its no wonder conversa...

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every few weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community, The Fervent Few. Members subscribe to GBH like a magazine, making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members also join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics well beyond beer. Each week, we pick one of...

This week's guest was recently part of an Uppers & Downers dinner we did in Grand Rapids at the Sovengard. It was spectacular. But more recently, I've gotten to know Nathan Walser from his latest project, which is his own brewery, Greyline. In a city like Grand Rapids, it's easy to get carried away with thinking of it as Beer City, USA, and there's good reason for that. There are a ton of brewerie...

Welcome back to another episode of the GBH Collective where we bring you the stories behind the stories from our writers and photographers all over the world, and from our studio team based here in Chicago. This week we've got Hillary Schuster, our Experience Director at GBH. Hillary is in charge of all the events we produce as Good Beer Hunting, and working with our clients around the world to de...

When it comes to beer, there is plenty on which we can disagree. Tastes, smells, brands, breweries—these are all things beer lovers embrace and debate on a regular basis. But one thing we can all agree on? We just want good beer. But even on that, there's plenty of subjectivity. Or is there? What makes a beer "good" or "bad" is often put into the context of our taste buds, not always with analysis...

As the growth of craft beer and its various offshoots continues to find its niche in smaller and smaller cities and towns, a remarkable thing is happening. Some of the most obscure styles of brewing are making their homes far from the urban centers where most of the drinkers they tend to attract actually live. Breweries like Jester King and Hill Farmstead have long embodied this anomaly. And incre...

In craft beer, so many of the conversations we lead are less about the beer we're drinking and more about how we identify with it, or the person who made it, or who owns that company and how that reflects back on our own self-image. Craft beer is a foggy mirror that way. And we get caught up in so many contradictions, hypocrisies and, in some cases, some serious self-hatred as a culture.  Basicall...

Fuller Smith & Turner—or Fuller's as it's more commonly known—is the oldest surviving brewery in London, as well as being one of its largest. Fuller's has been brewing at The Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, West London, for more than 160 years. The face of the British brewing industry has undergone tremendous change many times over during the course of its existence. Now, in 2018, the brewery faces f...

This episode is part of a series of interviews recorded in December at Salud Sourfest, an annual beer festival hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event attracts a curated selection of skilled, sour-making breweries from around the country, with a heavy presence from the Mid-Atlantic region. Sourfest represents a kind of festival that's rapidly growing in popularity, where attending breweries...

This episode is part of a series of interviews recorded in December at Salud Sourfest, an annual beer festival hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event attracts a curated selection of skilled, sour-making breweries from around the country, with a heavy presence from the Mid-Atlantic region. Sourfest represents a kind of festival that's rapidly growing in popularity, where attending breweries...

This episode is part of a series of interviews recorded in December at Salud Sourfest, an annual beer festival hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event attracts a curated selection of skilled, sour-making breweries from around the country, with a heavy presence from the Mid-Atlantic region. Sourfest represents a kind of festival that's rapidly growing in popularity, where attending breweries...

This episode is part of a series of interviews recorded in December at Salud Sourfest, an annual beer festival hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event attracts a curated selection of skilled, sour-making breweries from around the country, with a heavy presence from the Mid-Atlantic region. Sourfest represents a kind of festival that's rapidly growing in popularity, where attending breweries...

This episode is part of a series of interviews recorded in December at Salud Sourfest, an annual beer festival hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. The entire series of interviews is here! These episodes feature: Jason Glunt, founder of the festival host, Salud Beer Shop of Charlotte ,North Carolina Barry Labendz, co-founder of Connecticut's Kent Falls Brewing Jason Pellett, founder and brewmaster...

When I tell people I'm originally from Upstate New York, it typically comes with a qualifier: an extra "up" tacked on as an awkward prefix to create Up-Upstate New York. If I just stick to regular, old "Upstate," there's a good chance people will assume I'm talking about some place in Westchester County. It's a never-ending discussion, trying to figure out non-specific geographic boundaries, but t...

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every few weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. And every week we pick one...

There's a lot beer lovers may miss when they travel to the Pacific Northwest, a region overwhelmed not just with breweries, but really good ones. And while there are plenty of businesses that captivate beer geeks, one in particular has long caught my eye. Seattle's Reuben's Brews is something of rocket ship in an area pleasantly saturated with some of the best beer in the country. The name might n...

Our resident composer for the podcast and our commercial video work, Andrew Thiboldeaux, is writing original scores devoted to beers he finds fascinating. These are interpretations of the experience of drinking them. But they're also just great tunes.

The UK's independent brewing scene is booming. Recent figures from the British Beer and Pub Association put the number of active breweries in the UK at more than 2,000, meaning that the UK has more breweries than any other European nation. At the heart of this growth have been the UK's metropolitan areas, cities such as London, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, and many more. But thankfully, that gr...

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every few weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. And every week we pick one...

This past fall when GBH experience director Hillary Schuster and I were in London for the Beavertown Extravaganza and Uppers & Downers, we were thrilled to get outside the city for a couple of days to visit one of my favorite cider makers in the world, Tom Oliver.  He was pouring at the Extravaganza, of course, right next to Other Half, which made me laugh a bit as I entered. There were dozens of...

The Brewers Association loves to tout the ever-growing number of small and independent breweries that are popping up across the country. It's gotten to the point where there's really no type of geographical area that's without some "hometown" beer. In North Carolina, the number of breweries has ballooned in recent years, with businesses finding homes all over. While you might have heard of places...

Welcome to another episode of The Fervent Few podcast. Every few weeks we present you with this bonus episode of the GBH podcast where we chat with members of our subscriber community. The Fervent Few subscribe to GBH like a magazine making a monthly contribution via Patreon. Members join us in a forum to talk about a wide range of topics that doesn't just stop at beer. And every week we pick one...