Welcome everyone to the DC Beer Show live at
Lost Generation. It's episode 100.
Hey, Brandy. What's in your glass this evening? What's in
my glass, Jake? Actually, I don't know. Oh, I was drinking some
random barley wine, and a Roush beer from our
friend, Mike Earl, who is here at the live recording. Thanks for
coming, Mike Earl.
I am drinking the Dunkel from Lost
Generation. You guys know that I'm a dark beer drinking
girl. I like my brown ales and my grave shift
and my Dunkels. So thanks to Lost
Generation for always crushing that dark
beer for your girl, Brandy. Mike Stein, what you drinking?
I'm having Vida, Mexican style lager, which
I'm so grateful for. It's just a delightful pale lager,
which I think was 81 degrees as I was walking into
Lost generation tonight. So it's the perfect beer for this humid,
muggy day, just ideal for our climate. Jordan,
what are you having this fine evening? Well, for those,
that have listened to the podcast before, you know I'm drinking a hazy.
Because someone has to, right? I mean, I, I have all these beer aficionados and
enthusiasts out here. Well, I gotta hold it down for those everyday folks,
that like that stuff, but we just appreciate our, Nelson,
Sovereign and Rawaka, especially when it's an age of islands, our
lost generation. So, yeah. I'm, I'm holding it down for the hot pits out there,
the the Hays Bros, even though I don't really like that, but the Hays Bros.
Jake, what you sipping on down there, man? So Port
City has, 2 seasons I joke. Aquila Whitt
season and Port City Porter season. I've been declaring, the lost
gen dunkle season just about over. Sorry.
I have Gas. Their kolsh. It's May. It
is time for the spring festivals. It is time for kolsh
weather. But did you come to their Koschfest? Oh,
there was a Koschfest. There was a Kolschfest and it
was fantastic. It was Lost Generation's first Kolschfest.
Kolschfest, say that three times in a row, and it
was incredible. They crushed it. They were a little nervous about it. Anne was back
there. She's like, I didn't know how that was gonna go. They ordered special glassware
just for Kohl'sfest, and they were walking around with the little servers.
It was adorable. So I'm assuming they're gonna do it next year. So for those
of you listening to this, come to Lost Generation's Kolsch Fest
next year. So Jake, back to the Kolsch. No.
It's lovely, light, delicate. It does the kolsch things it's supposed to
do. A little bit fruity, a little bit crisp. Is it a
lager? Is it an ale? The answer is yes.
It is a top fermented ale as Sebastian Sauer told me 2
weeks ago when he was in town for the Kolsch service at,
at shelter. Kolsch is drinking lovely. Mexican style lager
is drinking lovely. We are so grateful for Anne and Jared,
owners of Lost Generation, for having us here
tonight. You know, I just
have to give a massive
Andy's pizza. Andy's Pizza.
And, you know, this was a moment that that we manifested. We we
knew we had a 100th episode coming up with this
dynamite cast and crew of the DC beer show. And Brandy, you helped
bring this into existence, didn't you?
Oh, no. She definitely did.
Thanks.
I suffer from ADHD like many of us.
Applause for ADHD. Yes. Shout out to us neurodivergent folks.
But I always feel antsy when I'm
not doing a 1,000 things. So to keep my
brain stimulated, I'm like, oh, let's do this. I have so many ideas. I'm,
like, sending text to Anne, actually. I'm like, hey.
You should do a a this is a dog event with painting. And she's like,
okay, Brandy. You're crazy. And so but I still do it
because sometimes I have good ideas. But I
will say that I am so excited to have all of us in
the same place because for those of you who listen to the DC Beer Show,
you know that we don't get to we get to see each other, but we
don't we're not in the same space. So we record on, an app,
Riverside, and we do get to see each other's faces and
facial reactions, which sucks because other people don't because Mike
and Jake say some funny shit y'all. And I'm over here
and Richard's getting mad at me because I'm laughing and he's like, stop laughing because
you're interrupting the audio. And I'm like, I can't help it.
But you guys get to witness it live because Jake and Mike
and Jordan, everybody's just so funny. And so, this is the group that I get
to do stuff with. And I'm very excited to be in this
space and to be able to make events and bring people
together because that is what I love to do, because beer brings
people together. And I just keep putting this into
motion as much as I can, and, eventually, I'm gonna take over the
world. Thanks.
And, that that's not hyperbole. Seriously, she's going to take over the world.
But, I would like to just say all the things
that, Mike, Randy, Jake, Richard,
Tom, all of us that, all of these that we do, we wouldn't be able
to do without you all, especially you Patreon supporters. So we definitely wanna thank you
guys for this because, again, we can't have events like this and show love to
you guys and return the favor, excuse me, return the favor of all the love
that you show to us by showing love to you guys without your support via
Patreon. So just thank you guys so very much, for allowing us to
bring you guys the the local news and also buy you guys a beer
every so often. So again, thank you guys for coming out. We really appreciate your
support. If you're not a Patreon member, please become a Patreon
member. I mean, not only do we do a have we done a, a 100th
episode, but we're also doing a, a monthly beer share amongst other things,
right? And it's just $5 to get you through the door, right? Our
lowest tier is $5 I have a 12 tier a $12 tier and also a
$25 tier. And each of those have their own, added benefits. But
again, thank you to all the partners that have done things with us. Alyssa, I'm
thinking of you. You've done all these things with us. And it's not just her,
but I saw her, so I just had to shout her out. And I haven't
gotten my lucky attention. What's up, What's up, Alyssa? So does that. But it just
shout out to all the people, all of our partners, and our Patreon members. We
wouldn't be able to do what we do without you guys. So thank you guys
for coming out tonight. Yeah. Absolutely. Jake, do you remember where
our 50th episode was? Do you remember where we were? Was
that also live? And if so, was that at Silver Branch?
No. No. No. Do you have another guess? Coming
up blank. Doudrop Inn. Oh. Do y'all remember we
were at the Doudrop Inn? Of course. Super close to here. So what I have
to refer you. We're keeping it in the area. So, like, the 150 where we're
gonna be, hopefully, here. Anna Jared. Ahem. 150 here.
Thanks. So we have to keep 150 on the Met beer trail
is, alright. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Or or Hellbender or
Urban Garden Brewing because by the time Hey. Hey, oh.
Yes. So hopefully by the time that,
you know, next a 100 and 50th episode is a
thing, hopefully, knock on wood it is,
then, Urban Garden will be open right in my neighborhood actually.
So, yeah. Shout out to Emani and Lindsey,
because they will be the first black owned, Hispanic
owned, woman owned brewery in the district. Yeah.
Yes. Brick and mortar, brick and mortar. But also, I I have a question.
I know we get really excited about celebrating these different milestones. We're at we're
at our 100th. We're we're planning for our 1 50th. But, Jake Stein,
and I'm the padawan for those of you guys who don't know. So, I'm Jordan,
Jordan Harvey, beers are on the way, hazy aficionado.
But, Jake, Mike, could you tell me about the
first episode of DC beer, or just you all's first episode of DC
beer? Just give me some history as a beer historian. I would
like nothing more than to give you the history, Jordan.
So the history of DC beer goes back to 2,009. And if you can
imagine a DC without one commercial brewery, that
was us. That was DC in 2009. A couple of
brewpubs here, no production facilities. So when DC Brewers started, it
was started by a guy named Mike Dolan, who actually started the
DC Homebrewers Club at the same time. Not long after Mike
Dolan, Bill DeBaun, who is one of our editor, em
Emeritus, as well as Andy Nations were there. We had
some wonderful writers, Devery and Megan, some
some wonderful, women who wrote for us in the early days.
And things eventually got going to where I think Bill
DeBaun and and Aaron Morrissey, who's another local writer, had a
podcast for 1, 2, maybe 3 episodes.
But eventually, a a show grew, a a a different
show grew out of that. And Jake, do you wanna talk a little bit about
that and get us up to date? Yeah. So Aaron and Bill would
jump on a podcast over at the line, over
in Adams Morgan with Birme Radio's Sarah
Jane Curran. And they sort of spun off their own sort of a thing,
and podcasted there. I think that actually the
first time we podcasted was a pre snally
event over on 15th, like, between, like, k and
l or l and m over at the what was the
Junto media offices, back when,
there was a Junto Media as opposed to Voxtopica.
We'll get to that in a minute. This is your intro.
This is the intro. Wink wink.
Yeah. And I believe that we had Sarah Jane Curran
on that show. Really? Yeah.
Wow. As hosted by Richard. That's
me. Everybody make some noise for Richard Fowal,
publisher of DC Beer. Woah. Alright.
What do we what do we call Richard? What what's his name? Papa beer.
Oh. Papa beer. How sweet. But but there's
a reason and it's because of the brew daddy. So he's like the
Alright. So I gotta talk about it. Little bit little bit of in intermediate history.
So in 2018 well, no. In
2017, my good friend, Adam Frank,
that's Adam. Hey, Adam.
I had left a job where I built a podcast network
for, a think tank in Washington DC and I'd left that
and I was gonna start this podcast company, but I didn't have any clients. So
I was like, well, let's just start making podcasts. So, Adam, who's
been a home brewer, you know, for decades decades
decades. I was like, let's make a beer podcast. He was like, okay.
So, we started a podcast called the Brew Daddies, which was
a terrible name for a podcast.
It was s and m involved. No. It was it was a terrible name, but
that's what our friends called us because we were like we were friends because our
kids were friends, you know, and that people started calling us that.
And I I emailed Bill DeBaun. I found dcbeer.com
and I emailed Bill DeBaun and was like, hey, we have this podcast. Let's
do something together. And And Bill Dibon was like, no.
I was like, okay. He was like, yeah. DC beer is kind
of winding down. Because he had he had he
was a new father, young kids, and he was like,
it's it we're kinda winding this down. I can't keep managing it. And I was
like, I'm unemployed.
Maybe I could take it over and, you know, he was protective of it, but
we talked over a few months. And then finally he was like, okay, great. Yeah.
Like, I'm gonna turn dcbeer.com over to you.
And so we tied the podcast, the Brew Daddies. And then our good
friend, Julie Verratti, everybody knows Julie.
Yes. Owner of Denizen's. Julie called me one day while Adam and I
we back then, we would drive to to breweries all over the region, and we
would actually do Saturday interviews
days. We were like, this beer is nice. That was that was as
descriptive as we could get for most for most beers. I
like it. It's good. It's nice. But Julie Verrill, we were on our way, I
don't know, somewhere, in Virginia to do it and Julie called me and
she was like, You know, Brew Daddy's
isn't cool. What do you mean? She was like, the name
is not, and I was like, when Julie tells me something, I listen
by the way. Like, Julie Julie tells you something, you do what she says. And
so we came up with the name of the DC Beer Show. That was probably
2019 and then the pandemic happened. We shut the
podcast down because we couldn't go to breweries anymore and then,
I thought, you know what? These people can talk about beer
way better than me and Adam. And that's how we got to the DC Beer
Show that you see here today. So that is
my history. Thank you for listening. Well said. And I'm
I have to say, as a pop of beer, I'm so proud
of these individuals and what they have done and what they've created
because all of you are here because of what they've done.
The hard work that they put into talking about craft beer,
talking about, the breweries and the brewers and the
folks who work in the industry and creating a community
around craft beer. Every single brewery we know
of tries to create a community around their brewery. I
think it was Greg Angert, from NRG who once said, no
other city in the country has a community
of craft beer lovers like DC does because DC
beer brings all of the craft beer lovers together
he did say And that is thanks to the folks that you're looking at up
here. So thank you guys.
Well said. Thank you, Richard. So,
yeah. A bit on the history because I can't just leave it there.
I also, was instructed not to
especially interact with the audience, but also I have to give a shout
out, to a DC beer sometimes writer, who
has garnered us our 1st North American Guild of Beer Writers
award. And that's Phil Runco right there. Hey, Phil. The handsome gent.
We have an award winner amongst in our midst. And this
award winner actually brought home gold for DC beer. What? So
we're so grateful, for the writers and the good writing. And also for Richard
for putting the writing first, putting the content first. You know, as
Greg Angert said, we have so many beer lovers in the city. Some of
us love imports, and we're constantly complaining about how little
Czech beer there is in the city. Some of us just love good local
beer, which is what brings us to places like Lost Generation.
But maybe you can share a little bit more about what
what you love, what what brings you joy, what you're passionate
about. Mike, I was gonna ask since you just mentioned Czech beer, what's
the oldest most out of date green bottled Czech
beer you've had in DC? It's called
cah cardboardova. I'm just messing with you. That's
a bad very bad language joke. Yeah. There's
some really bad stale beer out there, but there's also really fresh
pale lager. And I think that's kinda what's beautiful about our scene right now.
We're thriving in laugerville, and it's fresh, and it's
local. And honestly, it's better now than it was in
2009. I I think, you know, I
not not to date anyone, but any any of those who remember
what the lager was like in 2009, it's better now.
I'll just I'll leave it at that. I like how you didn't answer the
question, Mike. Mike I call Mike Sweden
because he is always very neutral, but always
very supportive. Like Switzerland did I say Sweden?
Yeah. Can I have another beer, please? Thank you.
I will say that for me, personally,
I got into the beer game late and
I because I work used to work at a distillery and I was super into
into gin and I wasn't to beer, but more of like a beer share kind
of thing because we'd always drink beer at the distillery. And
I've learned through my years of working in the
industry that all the people that I really liked were beer
people, not the
not the distilling people necessarily. Although, my friend, Alex,
I love him so much. But,
having having surrounding surrounded myself with beer people constantly and, like,
3
stars, rest in peace. And we've at 3 stars, rest in peace.
And we've been besties ever since. And I'm so thankful. And
the way that my life brought me to be a
part of DC beer, is so interesting because Richard
met me at Battle of the Barrel Age Beers
at Boundary Stone, which is an excellent event. Y'all gotta go to it.
And ever since then, I have It's funny because I already knew
everybody in the industry, and then I just came in, and even though
I don't write necessarily, I'm the people person. I'm like, hey, what's up?
Like, you know, and I bring everybody together. And so I'm
thankful that you guys keep letting me fuck around with everybody all the
time because if that if I wasn't doing that, I'd be boring
probably. Yeah. Sorry. I don't think
you'd be boring. Oh, a little bit. But if anything, you still like gin. Right?
I do. Yeah. Brandy drinks, she knows. Plus, we do. My
birthday's coming up. If wanna bring me a bottle of gin, I'm I'm I'm
into it. Thanks. July 3rd. K. So I
think, to attempt to answer the question
before I field it back, my story is,
it's a little interesting. I got into beer really heavily,
I'll say 2016 or so. So probably late to the, late to the
party for some of you guys. So please, again, don't judge me for that. But,
how I actually got into the beer world was actually more Belgians and not IPAs.
So it was more Belgian style beers, doubles, triples, trapelles,
and quads. Those are really what appealed to me because, I have
family in Europe, so I would travel to Europe, and that was really
that was something was different from, those quads than
the Bud Light lines I had been exposed to. I don't know what it
was, but there is something different about it. But nevertheless, that kinda really, like, piqued
my interest, and I dove into the beer world. And, I
I lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for a for a stretch, so I was exposed to
kind of Central PA's Take on Craft Beer, your Troggs of the world,
your Yingling of the world. I mean, Yingling, you know, you know, America's oldest
brewery. So, like, all of that was, like, right there. And,
I I used to get hazed at at corporate happy hours for ordering ordering a
Heineken, because I at at the time, outside of, my affinity for
Belgian beer, I didn't really know any better. So now I just kinda jumped off
the deep end, went into the craft beer space. I hated
IPAs. Strobes Perpetual IPA was the worst thing I'd ever had in my
life. At that time, it's still
not my favorite, but it was just not good at the time.
And, I inherited a home brew kit, started
brewing regular beer, nothing fancy. I was
following the instructions on the kit. I was not doing any
adjuncts unless it came in the package, and I just began to do that.
And when I moved here, moved to the Silver Spring, the DC
area, via Silver Spring, Astra Lab and and Silver
Branch were popping up, and Astra Lab became my factory,
my Hayes factory. And and now it makes sense that I
love IPAs because if you've ever had Troggs, if you've ever had Fresh As,
they're 2 completely different beards and that kinda let me know outside of all
the the the lower and the West Coast IPAs and New England IPAs
that it might be the same style, but every beer is not created equal. So
that just took me down this long path of attempting to home brew. I say
attempting because none of them were great, but, they
were drinkable and no one died, so it was all good.
And I started just posting stuff on social media during the
pandemic and, started going to some of the local events as
I would risk it during the the pandemic. And I met Brandy.
And after meeting Brandy, I met Jake. And after meeting, I met Richard. And I
began to meet the DC beer fam. And,
if you know Brandy, you know she's everywhere, every day, all the
time. I'm sure we all are trying to figure out how in the hell she
does it all. But she was actually looking for some help. So she's like, Jordan,
you like people. Would you be so kind as to,
just come to a couple of DCB events? And that was, my invitation to join
the gang. So I would not be here without Brandi, and I wanna give her
all of her flowers and thank her for that.
But but with that, I've also had a crash course and everything, and and I
still love my Belgians, but I can't have as many of those as I can
IPAs. So that's why I love my IPAs. But, yeah. So tell me more
about, your New York story or your DC story, Jake.
Why you like beer? So this is, the 15th
anniversary of DC beer as Mike took us back to 2,009.
It is also to the month,
May 2011. It is the 13th year of me
writing for DC Beer. Oh, wow.
Yes. Jake
Jake is is an amazing writer. He really is. Like, he and we call
him Scoop. So if you ever if you guys ever hear us saying Scoop, it's
not like kitty litter. It's legit Jake. Breaking
news. Not kitty litter. Scoop
mask story. But also breaking news. That's true. You do have bunnies
and cats and stuff. Yeah. There there are some diamonds in the rough of that
proverbial, litter out there. Yeah.
But basically, I was in grad school and I was hanging out at the Brixkellar
in the Big Hunt And, I just kind of ran into, Build Upon,
John Fleury, Aaron Morrissey and them, and we started hanging out. I just started
pitching them stories and I stuck around.
And as, Build A Bond kind of dropped out, I
was still here. My kids are a little bit older. They
can put themselves to bed which allows me to be out here
on a Tuesday night, having my 4th or 5th beer,
live podcasting which is lovely, lovely.
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it's like
certain things like when you buy a house they convey, and so when
Richard, took over DC beer, Stein and I,
we we kind of conveyed. We're like that that
You were in the cellar just high now. Yeah. We were. Like that that weird
end table that nobody knows what to do with and so, we just
kinda stuck around. Well said. He did. Yeah. Well
said. Agreed. I'm so glad. Yeah. Well,
I'll I'll intro myself. I am Mike Stein. It's great to
see all you here tonight. Like Jake, I
was at the Big Hunt during a DC beer tweet
up. So it's largely thanks to Twitter
that I found Berg, and we both had New York in
our in our backgrounds. We both were a bit skeptical
of Bill de Baun at first, but then came around to him. But yeah.
So I started writing for DC Beer, as a grad student, similarly,
at George Mason, and then started writing. And
then, you know, Richard was grateful to have us
because, you know, Jake broke news, and I
wrote too long about things that could have been a
200 word article turned into 2,000 words. So, yeah. That's basically it.
I I am all filler, no chiller.
No. But I I think it's really important to recognize all the folks we have
here tonight. And at the risk of turning it into the, recognize
Brandi's Genius show, we're so grateful
for, the Women's Brew Culture Club,
particularly Whoo. Shout out shout out to the club. I see some club members
here tonight. But but Brandy was able to carry forth
some wonderful things that had had come before. And I
think in terms of thinking about the future of DC beer, it's really important to
remember the past. So, most most recently, The
Forum at Other Half. And and we have Erica Erica Gaedrick here
tonight. Shout out to Erica. So Love you, Erica. I
I wanna set I wanna set Brandy up for success. We have some
some successes we're repeating, with with Andy's Pizza
and with Erica being here. But, Brandy, tell us a little bit about the
just past recent success you've had. Thanks,
Mike. Thanks, Erica. Love you so much. So much.
So much. I had been friends with Erica for quite a while,
and and if you guys don't know Erica, you know Erica. Never mind. That was
a dumb question. Go see her. That was dumb. That was dumb. Those of you
listening to the podcast who have listeners. If you haven't met Erica,
she's amazing. Google it. You'll figure it out. Get to h Street Sundays,
Granville Morse. That's true. She's over at Granville Morse now. So, because
I knew Erica from the days where I worked at that the distillery. And so
when I worked there, I did tastings at craft beer cellar and I was like
Erica is dope as shit. I love Erica so much. And so
when I moved over to DC beer, I realized she everyone in the beer
industry obviously loves and knows Erica. And so when
she ended up doing, an a women's
panel forum round table thing. It wasn't really a panel but,
the way that she set it up which was brilliant and I hope to continue
that forever and ever. But I I attended that one as a
guest, and I was like, this was so amazing because it was women and
beer. And and not just, you know,
this, you know, like, oh, what do women like to drink kind of thing
or like, you know, it it's it was highlighting
different aspects of different roles that women have
in the industry. And the way that she did it was it was
so inspiring that it inspired me. And then she
actually legit cried. I'm not lying. I cried when
I found out that the following year after attending the previous
year's event, she invited me to be a panelist,
like to be one of the speakers. I'm like, really? Just me? I just take
pictures for DC beer. And so that inspired
me so tremendously. I I I can't even I
cried. I got goosebumps. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. That
was such a wonderful event. I left that
evening and immediately created the women's brew culture club. And I brainstormed
names with the guys. I'm like, guys, what do you think? And I was like,
I wanna do alliteration and stuff like that. And,
we came up with a name. And when
Erica left the craft beer cellar, I was like, well, who's gonna do
this? And so I took it upon myself
to do it. Thanks to Matt Splein over other half who I also
love in different ways. And
Whoo. Ow. Ow.
And so I I kinda took over the event.
And, when I was able to get,
so many folks to join the panelist, it was the most diverse panel to
date. And it, you know, folks flew in the
Berry Godmother flew in to from Georgia just to come to this
panel. It made me feel so
proud. And just having the group of women and non
binary folk that come to the events, it just it seems
like this community is growing. And not only have I helped build
the DC beer community, and we are always 1000 percent.
We will never stop supporting our local businesses,
1,000 percent, especially our black owned breweries,
our women owned breweries, our our yes.
And I having
having communities, building groups of communities, and then bringing them
all together is the best possible
solution that we could ever have. Mhmm. And
we support each other. We give each other good words. We say, oh, well,
maybe you can work on that. You know, fix a flavor of that. Like, because
we're your friends. Right? And having somebody
on your on your team and behind your back
is the best asset that any of us can give all of you. And we
all do. We all love all of you guys. Like Jasmine and Andrew here
from Lakewood Intrusion. Yes. And Lauren is
gonna open her own brewery. I'm so excited.
So it's it's such a wonderful community, and
I couldn't be more excited to continue building the
women's brew culture club and having other events and bringing
that all together. Well said. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you called
out Liquid Intrusion Brewing Company because, I
I'm Gang gang. I'm a massive massive fan of their south of DC
cream ale, wonderful beer. Go to dcbrew.com, check out a
stein compares and contrast. I did that. I did that. Other half had a cream
ale, so you have a very large brewer. DC's biggest, that other half. And then
an a a wonderful,
brewery. But but I have to say that DC as a city, we are
always small but mighty, reflecting our our brewing community.
Right? So we have a dozen breweries in the city, but we have some wonderful
ones here. And we're so excited, for Urban Garden. We just broke the news
that Urban Garden. Yeah. Shout out to Urban Garden. We just broke the news that
they signed their lease. Normally, Jake breaks the
news. I was scoot. On this Scoop, Brandy broke the news. So
so Brandy put her reporter hat on, and and Jake and I followed
up. So we love bringing you fresh news. So thank you for report
for supporting us so that we can do the reporting.
But I'm I'm so excited for Urban Garden Brewing to open
up. And, you know, in DC, that's so important, but it's also happening around
the world. There's a a brewery in South Africa. The first, black
owned, woman owned brewery in South Africa opened not that long ago. So
DC is lucky as a city to have connections around
the globe, to these historic firsts. So we're super
grateful for that, super grateful for you for supporting.
Jake, I I wanna hear what what your take is. Are are we
unique DC, or do I just think we are because we're here
now with Well, before you says that, I I would just be remiss because we
just talked about liquid intrusion to not acknowledge that they are also the
first black woman owned to own. Come on.
Yes. CG County and it unless we forget Maryland.
So I I just wanna put that out there. Thank you for that question. You
know, words matter. But alright. 100%. 100%. Part of
a global movement. I gave you time to think. Now it's up to you. No.
No. Thank you. I think that, like, this this whole last, like, 5, 10 minutes
or so has been, like, a very good transition to where we're coming
from and where we're going,
And I think I can say this as a white dude up
here. I mean, Stein and I like, we're fish
in water. It's been a very long time since
I have never not known craft beer. Like, I've been
drinking, like, I grew up in New York City, my dad came home with a
6 pack of Brooklyn Lager, by the way, Garrett Oliver, black owned.
Yeah. Shut up. Michael James Jackson Foundation. Oh, hey.
That's pretty good. You know, and this was in like the mid nineties
and you know, we've come a long way. You put like craft beer
enthusiast into mid journey or some AI thing right
now and it spits out a white guy with a beard and
a plaid shirt and dead ass. I own that
same plaid shirt that it's spitting out.
And so, like, yeah, I guess on one hand I feel a
little attacked, but on the other like that
the the action isn't here for me.
It's not from Mike. Every white person who's
listening to this show already knows about craft beer.
We want to give shout outs to Anne at Lost Generation, Asian American
Pacific Islanders. Woo.
Yeah. My favorite part of them. Right?
Drew Drew and Jasmine over at liquid
intrusion. I mean, you go you go to an event at
Metro Bar for black owned breweries, 2 February is now, and it's
been the line has been 1 in 1 out. Around the block. Yes.
Yeah. Yes. I mean, the the future of beer is not
me, and that's a it's a super super
cool thing to see. And we get Yeah. The future the future is here and
now. I think that's the point. And so we're living it out in real time.
You know, outside of of my DC beer work, I
have lost lagers. We are the premier beverage research firm in
DC. Lost Lagers. What's up? I was about
to touch the vet. Peter Jones is in the audience. So thank thank Pete
for, discover discovering the recipe for senate. We
have lovely tasty cold senates all around town. But the
reality of public history is that we we people don't know
we're living history just day to day. You know, Monday through
Friday, you're you're going to work, getting your kids, seeing your partner,
whatever it is. You know, day in, day out, we don't realize
we're living history, but this is a great time to be alive. It's the best
time to be a beer lover, I would argue.
And so we're super grateful for you all joining us here as we celebrate
this historic 100th episode. Hey.
Just as as as as grateful,
you know, just hosts, writers, content
creators, and otherwise, dynasty and shout out to
Bitter Fruit as well. We were able to create our 1st collaboration,
beer collab. So hopefully, some of you guys got your hands on the People's Pale.
We dropped back in January. And we we hope to be able to collab in
the future as well. Right? So again, that's that's credit to the community that
you guys have supported us and helped us create, in doing that. So
I just want to give a special shout out to Favio and Dynasty, the whole
Dynasty family, Lauren, all of you all, thank you guys so, so,
so, so very much, for that. And if you have any
questions and or recommendations, especially from our Patreon members, of some of the things you
might like to see more, because again, we wanna continue to grow. Like, we don't,
don't, we don't want to sunset this thing, right? We want this thing to continue
to grow. So, all, I think that feedback could be beneficial to us,
because again, I mean, this is a community. We, you guys don't work for us
and we don't necessarily work for you, but we want to work to provide you
what you guys are looking for. So we got Scoops and we got Stein and
we got, we got Brandy who is like Wonder Woman doing all the things. You
got me, I might just pop up on you and drink all your hazy IPAs.
So you just never know. But, again, we wanna get good feedback and get questions
for you guys. Do trivia. I do trivia. Mhmm. And game
night. Mhmm. I do some games. Y'all, he does games and trivia. So go to
those man, Scott. That's all. Yeah. Scott. Hey. We do some hikes too.
Yeah. If you ever if you ever wanna get outside and know Harvey Wilder Foundation.
That's right. Yeah. You know, I know. Hello. This is not about Jordan. This is
about this is about all of us. But, yeah, shout out to all of the
the DC beer folks that have supported us in the hiking, the trivia,
the trivia aspect, and also just the women brew culture aspect. Because I
mean, we've created these, like, sub pockets because these are things that we like to
do in general and it's nice to find other people that agree with us. Right?
So we do those things because we love to do those things and also we
appreciate you all supporting. But anyway, if anyone has a question, my
microphone will be the question microphone. So please, Greg,
come on up, good sir. Ask your question.
Don't ask what my favorite hop is because it changes by the week. Alright. Here
we go. So and you guys may not know this, but because you're tapped into
the beer scene, maybe you have an insight on it. But, with the rising cost
of rents, the rising cost of materials to make beer, how do you see small
breweries actually surviving, thriving, and staying around
in D. C. How do you see the beer scene here
evolving in that? So here's a fun
thing. I get emails from a landlord
in Silver Spring every so often who tells me that a brew pub
is available just off maybe on let's say
East Shmishtresht shy way. Oh, yeah.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Right. And
so, it was probably email
3 or 4 where I finally wrote back and was like,
you had a renter. Right?
And so, yes, rents are rising.
Why are they rising so so much in
conjunction with a bunch of other
brewery inputs. Think of the cost of cans. Think of the
cost of hops. Think of the cost of grains and of
shipping that all over. You can
certainly be a landlord and you can make
money. The question to me really is
can you make as much money as you used
to off of that rent in terms
of breweries and brew pubs or
is are our tax codes such that it's
easier for it to be depreciated asset. You could write it
down. You could take a loss,
And so, to some extent, I feel like it's it's almost not
up to the folks who want to either start brewing
or continue brewing, so much as it is
higher up the chain.
Beer is an agricultural product. It's
going to cost more as everything else costs
more. I've got 2 kids. I buy peanut butter at the grocery
store. I don't like how much it costs either, but
we gotta eat. Right. And I like beer and I
need to make sure that on the other side of whatever
this is, my locals make it out.
And so that we, you know, we all survive. And and so to that point,
I I think there's a I think that's an answer to the question. And I
guess my answer to the question would be, we all
have a finite amount of money, right? Everyone in this room. And
I'm not saying it's up to everyone in this room, but I think it's up
to us to spread the word to people outside of this
room because I'm trying to try not to be long winded because I I
think Papa Bear has something to say. But as as folks who break the
news, our greatest hits are when breweries are
closing. It shouldn't be we we shouldn't wait till the last
or after the last minute to try to support a brewery. I I
I've always loved Hellbender, and I myself, I'm guilty of not going to Hellbender every
week. I mean, a, I can't afford it, and b, it's not in my it's
just not in my neck of the woods. But the breweries that are in your
neck of the woods, the breweries that are in your your bikable, walkable,
Uberable metro area, whatever, we have to be the people to
support them because they don't last if we don't drink their
products or purchase their products. So I think, how do I
see them surviving? We continue to do the work we
do in encouraging other folks to drink local and to drink craft. But also,
we need other folks to at least be interested in it. And I
understand people's habits change. Right? I think people are
releasing nonalcoholic beer to kinda to battle that. Right? Because everyone doesn't wanna
drink every night, which is fine. That's safe. It might not be the healthiest thing
to drink every night. I'll still do it. Forgive me. My point is, I think
we have a lot of work to do to get the word out and to
encourage folks to support those local businesses because a
sign of a healthy neighborhood is having a brewery there. So when our breweries
are closing, we are essentially kind of failing or allowing the neighborhood to fail
or and or take a dip before a new brewery comes
in if that happens. So I think that's just some of the things that we
have to do as as consumers to do, and we'll continue to do the work
we do as, promoters to do. I'm gonna step in real quick
because it that this is that's a good top it's a good question. It's a
good topic. In a in a very recent episode of the DC Beer
Show, Brandy and Jake and Mike were talking
about food and beer. And and they they all
generally agreed that they will drink
okay beer if the food is really really really good. And
if the if the beer is great but the food is
okay, they'll pick up the beer and take it home. Both of those are great
solutions. They both support, the local brewery.
But, some of you may know, last year, I moved to
Tennessee. I don't live in the DC metro area anymore
and I'm talking to a lot of brewers and a lot of craft,
you know, brewing companies in East Tennessee,
all the way to Asheville. Basically from Nashville to Asheville
is the way I describe my new range, right? And
what I'm hearing more and more and more and more is
that brewery owners are recognizing that they have
to provide that there has to be good food options. That it has to be
a brew pub model because they just serving beer
for a lot of folks is just not enough to keep people coming
back for a lot of the reasons that Jordan talked about. Like, you just can't
drink every night. I mean, you can. Probably shouldn't. You
know? And it's hard to maintain, especially because there's
so many craft breweries. There's a lot of competition.
So I'm I'm you know, my thinking is that that tying
beer and and craft breweries closer to food
is is gonna be what more and more breweries start to do to
really give people reasons to come in. Is there another question? That was a good
question, Greg. Thank you. Anybody else?
Kim. Okay. Women's brew culture clue.
And the beer heads Facebook group. Lost and found everybody.
Yes. So my question is, we're getting into the summer
and, you know, we've gone through,
sours. We went through the IPA phase. So what's the next
big thing? Kolsch.
It is. Cream ales. I I'm I'm I'm
with Andrew. I'm with Drew over here. Yeah.
Cream ale. You know, it's a great question. What's the next big
thing? We've seen cycles with super popular styles. It's not
hazy IPAs? That's not the next big thing. Moment. So I
think the the the truth of the matter is
markets within markets. And if cream ale does
really well, a brewery would be wise to keep making it.
IPA, everybody says IPA is king, which I'm not crazy
about, but the retail dollars don't lie. It
is what it is. You know? That being said, lagers,
definitely on the rise. You know, the the best
selling lagers in America, are not at
threat from the smaller craft breweries. We've
seen Modelo outsell Bud Light.
You know, the that that was the story of of last year. The biggest threat
to Bud Light was Modelo, which was under the imports
blanket canopy tent. But imports, really,
nobody's touching, Mexico right now. Germany's nowhere near
it. The Czechs are nowhere near it. Italy's nowhere near it. So imports
has been folded in under the Mexican brand. I'm totally nerding out right now. I
realize I'm in, like, Nielsen data IRI mode. Let me just turn this
over. What's the next big style to answer Kim's question?
So I just kinda like rudely yelled out Kosch because
I'm biased towards Kosch, but actually I think the answer might be
closer to what, to where Jordan is. Maybe not
necessarily hazy IPA, but I think of a beer kind of like 3 Floyd's
gumball head where it's like it's an American wheat ale, but it's
aggressively hops and, you know, comes in under 5a
half, 6%, and to me that would kind of
capture, I think, where people are. Are you sure it's not
the pickle beer that you brought to me? No. No.
I'm not mad. That was good. But I like pickles.
Yeah. Pickles. Brandy and I will go to restaurants and, like, we have, like, if
we see the pickle plate, like, we're on it. We want Yes. We want
pickles, we'll drink we'll drink pickle juice, we do the pickle backs.
What about the pickle beer for those that don't have it? Yeah. Dude, the pickle
beer was delicious. Wait, who brought that? So I brought a pickled beer at
That was Cliff. Hey Cliff. What's up? Thank you. Yeah. So Cliff brought a pickle
beer To Texas. To the last beer share,
best made which is a popular pickle brand out of Texas.
There's another Texas brewery, Donna's Pickle
Beer, and really what they're doing is they're making a Radler,
but instead of adding lemonade, they're
adding pickle juice. It's super
refreshing if you're into it, if that makes you gag.
I like I kinda understand where you're coming from, but like my favorite
Gatorade flavor is that like cucumber melonie one.
I really like Yeah. I did Yeah. You could I feel like I should cut
him off down. Hannibal Buress dot I feel like I need to to cut
Jake off now. I'm gonna jump in, pop a
beer back one last time, because That's what he said.
I've been He's back. I've been talking again to a lot of different brewers and
and I I think I I have a different opinion than most of these
folks. I think what we're really gonna start seeing a proliferation of is,
NA beers and session beers. Beers under 4%.
Mhmm. NA beers 2%, you know, or
less. I will interject right
now and say, good point, Richard. The only positive
growth trend in the whole pie right now for all of
beer is NA beer. Yes. Yeah. So that's factually
accurate. And more and more brewers, I mean, we know DC brow, there's a
lot of local other half, who are making high quality
tasty NA beers. Like, I'm lumping
it all together. Like like, beers so I was I was
recently in a brewery who, in East Tennessee who had
just brought in a new head of brewing operations and they had sort of
a meet and greet and I went and and the the new head
of brewery operation said, hey, everybody who's here to meet me, what
do you want? And I was shocked at the number of people in the room
who were like, I want a session beer. Please make session beer. Stop
making beers that are 7% and nothing else because it's great to come
here for a beer, but, you know, like, that's all I
get to do. If you make a 2 a half percent or a 3% beer,
I can come here and have 4 beers. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I
think that that just from an economic perspective, more and more breweries are gonna start
doing it. Out in the middle of nowhere. So so Greg, Parnas in the audience
asked if that was because the the craft beer demographic is aging.
No. I don't think so at all. I think it's because
if you're gonna go to a brewery and drink beer, you're gonna go
somewhere and have a beer as opposed to bringing it home. Right? You can drink
4 7 percent alcohol beers at home
and that makes you a bad parent. Yeah.
But that's Mhmm. Tastes like the kids are putting themselves to bed. Exactly. But
if you go out to a brewery and do that, that makes you a danger
to the community. So it's we we
talked about community all night long, and that's the
difference. It's it's literally people saying, I I I can come here and have
1 beer and then I have to go home and take a nap.
But if if you have lower if there's lower ABV
beers, then I can come and hang out and play Yahtzee all night long. Right?
Or do trivia or whatever it is. Erica, what do you have for us?
So I will suck at smoked beers, which I yelled
from the back, but maybe you didn't hear me. But, the question that I have
for everyone on the panel is,
admittedly, after I close the store, I've sort of zoned out, not
paying a whole lot of attention to things, which, you know, you need.
But recently, some other store
owners in other parts of the country mentioned
that THC and CBD
beverages were accounting for 20% of
their sales. And so I'm wondering if you can talk
to that a little bit, if you see that happening here in
DC. 1. And,
yeah, what the effects on beer will be for that.
Is this a safe space? Next
place. We Yes. And are still recording, Jordan.
Yes. And I know. I know. I know. But I'm I'm only asking
because we might have a representative
that knows of that. Matt's not allowed to speak on that. So,
nevertheless, there are breweries, I think,
that are shifting to that space. Right? I think there's been a concerted effort to
to to do more seltzers, to do more NAs, and also to incorporate some CBD,
THC beers. He's gonna talk, y'all. No. No.
I have them in this. Someone take a picture.
Alright. I don't know if y'all know this person.
But he keeps me, hydrated on Wednesdays.
When we do other half, trivia, I wouldn't be able to do what I do
without this gentleman here. So I'm giving him all the flowers.
Oh my God. I'm a bumper thing so hard. Hey, guys.
So as other half, we
have started working with hemp
THC. We, as a company, recognize,
you know, the industry is diversifying and
not everyone wants 8 to 20
double IPAs a week, which We do.
So we realized, like, we gotta, we gotta refocus. And and part of it is
a, if you look at, like, Other Half's draft list, we're
adding new brand or styles to our our draft list
that other half's not known for. Hefeweizens, seltzers,
coffee milk stout, whatever it is. Mix firm. Mix firm. Well, we've been
working on that. But, you know, that takes years till you can start putting it
out. And we're now Cider. You know, putting that out.
But with that in mind, like, we realized, you
know, you know, Richard said a minute ago that, like, as people
get, you know, age, they don't want lower alcohol.
But as the industry ages, the younger
generation's more calorie conscious and they want, you know, they wanna
watch what they're drinking. They wanna watch what they're eating. They wanna watch what they're
putting in their body. Not everyone wants alcohol in their body. And that's fine.
And with the marijuana movement across this country, more people
wanna smoke. Whoop whoop. And not to say that they wanna smoke more than they
wanna drink, but, you know, there is now something for everyone.
And if a brewery can make something for everyone,
it helps their bottom line. But it also
is, creates a safe space for the whole community in that area
to, you know, come and consume or come and buy. You know, so as a
company, available in the DC tap room, but it's available to order and have delivered
in DC.
It's available to order and have delivered in DC.
And in the future, once, you know, leg- legislation changes,
like if marijuana becomes legal across the country,
well, we won't be using hemp anymore. We'll actually be using bud. Stuff. The
real, the good stuff.
But outside that, like, you know, like as a company, we're focusing
on, you know, every consumer. So, you know, I forget who
mentioned it. Like, we have a great NA, and it took us over
a year to perfect that recipe. And we're still
now, you know, invested in pasteurization tables. So, you know, now,
now, you know, invested in pasteurization tables. So, you know,
now we can start canning our, you know, NA beer. And in, you know,
couple months down the line, we will have that available in cans. We've
got other non alcoholic options coming down the line.
We've got seltzers that don't have THC in them coming down the
line. So, you know, other half, I think, as an
example in this case, they recognize the double
IPA, the triple IPA market, which used to be
so big, has shrunk. And you know, we
want to stay, you know, where we are. So, we want to focus on
every step in that market. And so, it's not only you know,
session IPAs, it's pale ales, it's single IPAs. It's
the seltzers, the alcoholic seltzers, the hemp seltzers, the
THC seltzers, you know, hot teas, hot
water. Like, you know, I just talked with the guys from hot
water and I see Los Jones carry them now. And when I told them that,
oh, we're already working on our own because of what we did
with, Poplar. Thank you. They were like,
oh, shucks. So, but yeah. So, like, you
know, we're as a company, we are focusing on, you know, each level of
that. My friends, the time has come.
Thank you so much for joining us. We need to wrap the show
up because I wanna go have another drink with you guys. So we're
gonna we're gonna say a couple of last words,
closing things, thoughts and such. And you know who does that?
Mike and Jake. Mike and Jake, please take us out. Oh, no. I got nothing.
I end up with, we are dcbeeracrosssocialmedia. Dcbeer.com/patreon.
I wanna thank all of the Patreon members, the industry
guests who are here, Lost Jen, Emily and Andy's Pizza.
We could not do this without you. There would be no DC beer without
breweries and beer drinkers. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank
you. I wanna say thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Go support all the small business owners who are literally in
this room. So many small businesses owners here. We have Lion
Hall, Liquid Intrusion, Dynasty, lost lager.
Mesa Blendery. Vieza. Hey, Alex back there. Like, we have
Sapwood here. I mean, really at Ravenhook, we
have my my beer my bread buddy over there.
Please go support local businesses.
Cheers. Thank you. Oh. Hey,
Josh Chapman. We see you too. Love you.