The blossoms have begun to scent the air, which is turning warmer and drier, all sure signs that winter is going. That means more time drinking lighter, more summery beer. On today’s show, we’ll discuss one of the all-time great session ales, and a fine spring and summer beer to boot—kölsch, that specialty of Cologne. As much as a beer style, it’s an amazing cultural force. We’ll discuss its history, the beer and the way it’s made, and all of those cultural elements that have grown up around it.

Show 138: Kölsch!

For Show 140 we have a fascinating discussion about the scientific frontiers of brewing. Nick Harris, one of three founders of Berkeley Yeast, joins us today. Founded by scientists from UC Berkeley, the team at this lab is busy bio-engineering beer yeast to do amazing things.

Show 140: Next Gen Yeasts with Nick Harris

We are delighted to be back in a brewery! On today’s show, we are visiting Unicorn Brewing with owner Zach Vestal. We’ve been impressed with the tiny brewery’s beer over the past year, and wanted to come see the operation—which includes a homebrew shop and u-brew operation.

Show 142: Unicorns in Portland

Today we’re going to try something new. Over on his blog, Jeff has an ongoing series called “Making of a Classic,” which investigates why certain beers have become world standards over the decades. They contain a bit of history, a bit of ethnography, and often a bit of technology. We’re going to kick things off today with a beer you’re all familiar with: Guinness Draught. It seems as unchanging as it is ubiquitous, yet it has gone through tremendous change since its early origins at the start of the 19th century. As a special treat, we also have the voice of the man who created the final, and current, version of the beer.

Show 147: Making of a Classic - Guinness Draught

Throughout most of the past ten thousand years, brewing was a farmhouse chore, one of the many ways people preserved their harvest throughout the year. In more recent times it has become a commercial and industrial activity. Yet in a verdant pocket of Loudoun County, Virginia about an hour NW of Washington DC, the husband and wife team of Bonnie and John Branding are conducting an ambitious experiment. They’ve revived farmhouse brewing, growing their own barley, using wild yeast from the land, and brewing it up in a barn. On today’s show, we’re going to hear their story and learn how they’re making this work in a 21st-century world.

Show 156: On the Farm with Wheatland Spring

If you’ve been following us on social media, you’ve probably seen some photos Jeff posted from his recent visit to Norway. He was invited to participate at the Oslo Craft Beer Festival. We’ll hear about that and what he learned of the Norwegian beer scene. Craft beer is only about twenty years old, but the brewing tradition goes back centuries—and perhaps millennia. While he was in Norway, Jeff visited three breweries that melded the old and new traditions. 

Beer tasting: Juice Jr. from Great Notion / https://greatnotion.com/

Show 160: Norwegian Beer

When Stone Brewing launched in the mid-90s, its aggro “you’re not worthy!” vibe captured the counter-culture zeitgeist of craft brewing. It was able to build a brand on the rising popularity of IPAs—one that took it to Virginia and ultimately Berlin. Yet all that reversed itself in recent years and Stone found itself flailing in a new world that didn’t admire aggro anymore. It got us thinking about how breweries go through a familiar life cycle, one that would make a worthy topic.

Beers tasted: Fort George 3-Way, Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing
Photo: Sierra Nevada's first brewery (photo: Sierra Nevada)

Show 166: Lifecycle of a Brewery

A few weeks back, Jeff’s editor at Craft Beer & Brewing wrote to explain that the magazine was shifting to its original quarterly format. The reason wasn’t declining revenues, but efficiencies—it’s less expensive and simpler to put out four issues a year than six. That got us thinking: how do magazines work? How has Craft Beer & Brewing survived when so many other magazines folded? How do the internet, social media, and newer delivery systems like podcasting impact print media--should we be thinking in terms of media companies rather than magazines?  In today’s show, we have Jamie Bogner, Craft Beer & Brewing’s publisher, on to give us the low down about how they do it.

Show 171: Craft Beer & Brewing's Jamie Bogner on Modern Media

In Show 175, we are delighted to be joined by pFriem’s Campbell Morrissy. Campbell is currently the Head Brewer at pFriem, and recently crafted the recipe and formulation for a collaboration pFriem is doing with Jeff. In designing the beer, a pub-strength pilsner, Campbell used a California-grown floor malt. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to have him on the show and dig into malting. It’s a subject that can get technical pretty fast, but it’s critically important in making beer taste the way it does. In this show, Campbell walks us through malt's secrets.

Show 175: Talking Malt with Campbell Morrissy

[Note: Dodgy audio! Our field mic may be on the fritz! Apologies!]

It’s been a minute since our last show. In the weeks since we last spoke, various events have transpired. Patrick has been to London and back. Jeff has been to Tillamook. The King of England was fêted by BrewDog—and then unfêted. The Belgians expressed displeasure with the Champagne of Beers. Portland lost an icon. Lots of stuff to talk about, so for this show, we thought we’d head to a pub and do a proper catch-up over beers.

Show 177: Jeff and Patrick Catch Up

We’re less than a month away from the summer, and that means shifting down from big, boozy beers to lighter thirst-quenchers. We thought it would be a great opportunity to do one of our studies in style and look at that perfect Belgian summer ale, the witbier. If you think that sounds like a tame topic, stay tuned, because we’re going to get into the deep history of the style and describe a beer that bears no resemblance to Blue Moon. 

Tasting: Hoegaarden, Breakside Belgian White

Show 178: Witbier

In our last show, we delved into the strange, wonderful tale of Belgian witbier. But that story was really just the first chapter in a wave of Belgian-inspired beers and breweries that got going thanks to witbier’s success. For more than a decade and a half, Belgian beer seemed to be growing in popularity, but then it cratered. Now it’s very difficult to find a Belgian style on a taplist—even witbier. We thought we’d try to figure out what happened.

Tasting: Block 15, Garden Path

Show 179: Where Have All The Belgians Gone?

In 1976, a blind tasting of Chardonnays known as the Judgment of Paris changed the wine world forever. Today, in this podcast, we offer you no less an earth-shattering blind tasting, the Judgment of Lents. That’s right, it’s part two of our mass market lager blind tasting, held in a luxurious conference room at Zoiglhaus in the Lents neighborhood of SE Portland. Together, Zoiglhaus’s brewmaster Alan Taylor, Jeff, and Patrick sat down to taste the final six lagers and determine which deserved the title of world’s best.

Show 181: The Judgment of Lents (Lager Tasting Finals!)

Nearly a quarter century ago, veteran brewer Vinnie Cilurzo brewed a one-off double IPA at Russian River Brewing for a local festival. It would become a regular, bearing the somewhat obscure name of a Roman naturalist—Pliny the Elder. Pliny pretty soon became a cult phenomenon and ultimately the brewery’s calling card. But what makes it special—what makes it a classic—is how Vinnie anticipated the future of hoppy American ales and brewed the first truly modern IPA all those years ago.

PHOTO: Russian River Brewing

Show 182: Making of a Classic - Pliny the Elder

Both Jeff and I are about to go on excursions out of the state and away from our microphones, so today we’re doing the one, time-sensitive task left to us: addressing your mailbag comments and questions.

Illustration courtesy Midjourney. Prompt: drinking beer on holiday in the sunshine

Show 183: Special Slimmed-down Vacation Mailbag Episode, aka Bratvana

We have an unusual transcontinental edition of the Beervana Show for you today. We thought it would be fun to compare and contrast our summer vacation destinations. I’ve been in Maine for a couple weeks and Jeff took a trip to Oklahoma. We both visited breweries, drank some beer, and we will give our full report.

Show 184: What We Did on our Summer Vacations

In their latest Fireside Chat, Breakside Brewery's Ben Edmunds and Beervana's Jeff Alworth speak with three brewers whose breweries do not make hoppy ales. We wanted to hear why they chose this path, and what it entails. Because IPAs are overwhelmingly popular among craft beer drinkers, these breweries have had to create interest in other types of beer. How did they do that? And how does the future look for these breweries? Guests in this show:

• Bill Arnott, Founder and Brewer of Seattle’s Machine House Brewing.
• Dan Carey, Co-founder and Brewer of Wisconsin's New Glarus Brewing.
• Alex Ganum, Founder and Brewer at Portland’s Upright Brewing.

Pod Extra! Fireside Chat: Fireside Chat: How to Succeed in Beer Without Selling IPAs

As everyone knows, the three great lager-brewing regions are Bavaria, Bohemia, and Austria. Wait, Austria? Sure it was famous in the last century for Vienna lager, but what has it done lately? We have Franz Hofer on the show today to answer this very question. Franz splits his year between Oklahoma and Vienna and writes about the lager-lands on his website, Tempest in a Tankard. Austria is, no kidding, a truly special place where one of the world’s major styles whets the whistles of a nation—while somehow staying hidden from the rest of the world. 

Find Franz at his website: https://tempestinatankard.com/
Music: Herbert von Karajan, "Austria: Land der Berge, Land am Strome"

Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon 1967-1969 CD098

Show 185: Austria – More Märzen, Less Vienna Lager

We're not dead and neither is the podcast. Bear with us, kind and forgiving listeners.

Podcast Extra: Special, "We're Not Dead" Announcement

After  screwing around on the margins for a while, this week I really plunged  into the fresh hop marketplace. What I've discovered has been both  unusual and enlightening. Here's an early-season report.

Audioblog: Fresh Hop Beer Report

For the second year in a row, we have decamped to Loyal Legion, a local pub that reliably has one of the best selections of fresh hop beers in town. As we sit here and turn our tongues green, we’re going to discuss the hop harvest. Patrick and Jeff went down to Coleman Farms a few weeks back to witness it, and we’re going to walk you through the process that takes 20-foot tall bines sunning themselves in the field and turns them into the T-90 pellets breweries use to make beer.

Show 186: The Hop Harvest

Today we are pulling out our green eyeshades and squinting at some data—it’s another episode of Beeronomics. Our intrepid economist is going to walk us through some numbers. Inflation, draft numbers, taprooms—we’re digging deep so you don’t have to.

Cover photo: Midjourney (prompt: beer economics) 
Beer Tasting: Buoy Festbier

Show 187: Autumnal Beeronomics

Several years ago, beer experienced its “tulip mania” moment in the form of a pumpkin ale bubble. Many of those were bad—but that was the breweries’ fault, not the style’s. These should function like fun autumnal rituals. The new crop may bring you back.

Audioblog: Pumpkin Ales Are Fun — And They’re Making a Quiet Return

Today we are joined by hop grower Max Coleman for a special edition of Beeronomics. Hops are a very unusual crop, sold only to a single industry for one purpose. How does this business relationship work? We’re going to ask Max how he knows which hops to grow and how many, and how the market for hops works.

Photo: Max enveloped by a field of Mosaic hops.

Show 188: The Business of Hops with Max Coleman

When we think of different beers, our minds almost immediately frame them in terms of “style.” IPAs and witbiers and Czech dark lagers: this is how we’ve come to understand beer. Today we get philosophical and ask the question: what if styles aren’t the only way to think about beer? What if, rather than illuminating something essential about beer, styles actually deceive us?

The Space Lady's Greatest Hits

Show 189: The Problem With Style

In September, Dublin's Guinness Brewery opened its second American site, this time in Chicago. Jeff went to the Windy City to check it out and while he was there, sat down with Ryan Wagner, who helped see the project over the finish line, and brewer Megan Schwarz.

Vous Et Nous

Show 190: Ryan Wagner and Megan Schwarz of Guinness Chicago

Audioblog: Singha Beer, Don't Ask No Questions

Not long ago, we received a very interesting email in the mailbag. It came from Pete Hoppins of Portland’s British-influenced brewery, Away Days. It was the length of a short article and came with a color-coded graph. The essence of the email boiled down to a pithy question he posed about the viability of small breweries today. Pete asked: “Do you think we could ever see another brewery as successful as say Breakside or 10 Barrel (in Portland area)?” The email was far to detailed and meaty for a simple mailbag item, so we’re bumping it up to the main topic of this pod.

PHOTO: 10 Barrel Brewing
Beer tasting: Rogue Dead Guy IPA, Hetty Alice Belgian IPA (BIPA)

Tales Of A Dead Fish

Show 191: Is the Era of “Next Big Thing” Over?

Today we’re going to go to Prague and Budapest, where Jeff recently spent ten days. He was there to speak at the Central European Brewers Conference, and had a chance to get caught up on the beer scenes in the region. The countries there have very diverse brewing backgrounds, from the Czechia, with local intact traditions dating back centuries, to countries like Croatia, where craft brewing dates back only a decade. He’s going to tell us what he found.

Beer Tastings: Varionica Pale, Zmajska Pils, and Maktoob IPA

Show 192: Czechia and Central Europe

At this year’s Central European Brewers Festival, Polish brewer Marek Kamiński gave a presentation on the briefly extinct style of Grodziskie that has been making a comeback in its homeland. Jeff and Marek later sat down to discuss this fascinating style, its history, and how it’s doing today. We have that interview, along with the news and mailbag and a Croatian beer tasting.

Show 193: Polish Brewer Marek Kamiński on Grodziskie

Nine years ago, almost to the day, we recorded our first episode of the Beervana Podcast. All things must end, and it is with deep gratitude and appreciation that we announce this is our last show. If you'd like to read a bit more of a formal obit, we have one here.
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2024/5/2/old-podcasts-dont-die

Thanks for everything, you wonderful listeners!

Show 194: The End

Author Jeff Alworth (The Beer Bible, The Secrets of Master Brewers) and Oregon State Economics professor Patrick Emerson host this engaging podcast about the culture, economics, history, and business of beer and brewing.

Beervana

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