New interviews with professional brewers coming soon
Our Interview with a Brewer series has been immensely helpful to us, and we are excited to announce that soon two more interviews will be making their way onto our website:
- The first is with Triangle Brewery out of North Carolina, which specializes in Belgian beers. From them we hope to learn a bit more about brewing Belgians and also about brewing in the South.
- The second is with Great Lakes Brewing out of Cleveland, Ohio. We learned about them via Chris O’Brien’s book, Fermenting Revolution. They’re doing some exciting things with brewing and sustainability. And if you’ve kept up with our blog, you’ve probably noticed that we’re moving more and more in that direction.
Stay tuned for some great stuff! You can read all of the old interviews here.
OH SWEET MONDAY
After an unprecedented 2 consecutive weeks off, we’re starting to get cranky. Milling the grains. Soaking grains in hot water. Smoking cloves next to 10 gallons of boiling wort. These are the things that we miss. Fortunately, it’s already Thursday. Oh sweet Monday, wouldst thou would smite the rest of the week and embrace Jeff, Joel and I with thy sweet caress. (Who knew anyone would ever wish so much for a Monday?)
On a sadder (though no less frustrating) note, Joel has recently confessed that he has a flu. Please pray that he would man up. Our prayers go out to our frail friend.
But seriously Joel, man up.
It’s hard out here for a brewer
West sent in this uplifting story about how difficult it is to make it as a brewer in Georgia. The article doesn’t contain any information that we don’t already know, but it’s always good to remind ourselves of the barriers we’re up against. The difficulty of being a micro in Georgia is actually one of the reasons why we feel compelled to do it. From the story:
Demand for microbrewed beer has grown in the last few years ? and the South is one of the hottest areas for the craft beer market. But Georgia microbrewers say they’re basically blocked from taking full advantage of the potential market here.
In the last few years, Georgia has lost three microbrewers: Dogwood Brewing Co., Zuma Brewing and Old Savannah Brewing Co. Its three remaining microbreweries produce about 45,000 barrels a year, or roughly $10 million in revenue. That’s a pittance compared with microbrewers like California’s Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., which does nearly 700,000 barrels a year.
“It’s tough to be in this business,” said Freddy Bensch, the big kahuna at Sweetwater Brewing Co., another Atlanta area microbrewer.
I encourage anyone living in Georgia to read the full story. You’ll definitely appreciate Georgia’s 3 remaining micros more.