Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

• 414: Hill Farmstead at 15—A Conversation with Shaun Hill

  Few breweries in the 21st century have been as influential as Hill Farmstead (https://hillfarmstead.com) on American craft beer. This rural Vermont brewery, built on the family property just outside Greensboro Bend, captured the beer world’s imagination upon opening in 2010, and enthusiasts have flocked there from all corners of the world ever since. Their IPAs helped to change the trajectory of the style, and their saisons—trademarked as Farmstead Ales—have received numerous honors, including a Beer of the Year nod from Craft Beer & Brewing in 2018 (https://beerandbrewing.com/the-best-18-beers-of-2018/). Founder Shaun Hill has a reputation as a philosophically driven brewer who isn’t afraid to speak his mind on a broad swath of subjects, and in this episode he covers a wide range: changing Edward from an IPA to pale ale 10 batches in defending hazy beer in the early 2010s while making contributions to the development of mouthfeel and texture making the jump from Conan to London Ale III yeast using New Zealand hops effectively the origin of the term “Farmstead Ale” early iterations of the brewery business plan with a focus on Brettanomyces beers finding a Hill Farmstead voice in mixed-culture saison acid contributions from Chad Yakobson’s Brett strains building beer that maintains peak flavor at 10 years in the bottle process refinements while getting back on the brewdeck during the pandemic intentional sustainability in the brewery balancing consciousness and presence in a demanding brewery environment developing a manufacturing philosophy weighing needs of the self versus feeding the business machine employing a “best known way” philosophy rather than standard operating procedures reassessing what creativity looks like And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don’t. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Lórien seamlessly combines traditional elements of European noble hops with an elegant twang of American modernity. Learn more about Lórien and the rest of Indie’s varieties at www.indiehops.com. Indie Hops — Life is short. Let’s make it flavorful. Steel Chill Cups (https://SteelChillCups.com) Steel Chill-Cups are the perfect promotional tool! Crafted from 100% recyclable steel and proudly made in the USA. Discover how Steel Chill-Cups can “Put your brand on every pour”—visit SteelChillCups.com today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com) Not only does Arryved offer a world-class POS built specifically for breweries, but they also provide Arryved Brewery Management, e-commerce, and more to help breweries scale and thrive. Visit arryved.com to learn more. Paktech (https://www.paktech-opi.com) With a minimalist design, durable functionality you can rely on, and custom color matching, PakTech helps brands stand out while staying sustainable. Trusted by craft brewers nationwide, they offer a smarter, sustainable way to carry your beer. To learn more, visit paktech-opi.com Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you’re launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

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• 413: Hop Scientists Megan Twomey and Ryan Christian Share the Latest on Virus-Free Hops

  At the turn of the 21st century, it wasn’t uncommon for a hop grower focusing on alpha varieties to replant a field every 25 to 50 years. While the plants in the field inevitably contracted viruses, the impact of those viruses on alpha-acid development and overall yield was manageable. In today’s environment, however—with new varieties bred to be high-performance, high-aroma, well-oiled machines—the same viruses have an outsized effect, and a field’s lifespan may be just a quarter of what it used to be. Yet many growers have been extending the productive lives of those fields by planting virus-free rhizomes and plugs—plants grown from cuttings taken from portions of other hops plants where viruses can’t travel. In this episode, we talk with scientists and hop breeders Megan Twomey of Latitude 46 (https://latitude46.com) and Ryan Christian of Yakima Chief Ranches (https://yakimachiefranches.com) for perspective on how viruses affect hops, how virus-free plants are produced, how long plants can remain virus-free, and more—and how all of that ultimately affects what’s available to brewers. Through the conversation, they touch on: different viruses that affect hops how viruses affect lupulin production in modern hop varieties viral impact in producing genetically true-to-type but phenotypically out-of-spec hops “cleaning up” hops to create virus-free plants how and now not to monitor fields for viruses field dynamics from new plantings over the first few years how viral stress impacts plants and their flavor and aroma expression yield benefits from virus-free plantings And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don’t. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Lórien seamlessly combines traditional elements of European noble hops with an elegant twang of American modernity. Learn more about Lórien and the rest of Indie’s varieties at www.indiehops.com. Indie Hops — Life is short. Let’s make it flavorful. Steel Chill Cups (https://SteelChillCups.com) Steel Chill-Cups are the perfect promotional tool! Crafted from 100% recyclable steel and proudly made in the USA. Discover how Steel Chill-Cups can “Put your brand on every pour”—visit SteelChillCups.com today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com) Not only does Arryved offer a world-class POS built specifically for breweries, but they also provide Arryved Brewery Management, e-commerce, and more to help breweries scale and thrive. Visit arryved.com to learn more. Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Missed the ProBrew booth and their incredible product animations at CBC 2025? You can now experience them all right now at ProBrew.com! See how our advanced solutions can take your brewery to the next level! ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer! Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you’re launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

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• 412: Colt Carpenter of Pax Verum Sources Intentional Ingredients for Nuanced Beers

  Over the past two years, five beers that Lapel, Indiana’s Pax Verum (https://www.paxverum.com) sent to Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine for review have scored 95 or above. That naturally piqued our interest, so when we planned our Craft Brewers Conference itinerary we made sure to visit the hip outpost an hour north of Indianapolis. Head brewer and co-owner Colt Carpenter cut his teeth working in a homebrew shop before making the jump to the world of professional brewing, and his embrace of high quality and diverse ingredients tracks with that experience of assisting home brewers with their own ingredient choices. Now, he embraces everything from traditional English styles and European lagers to cutting-edge IPAs, but always with a slight contemporary edge. In this episode, Carpenter discusses: building a wider understanding of and familiarity with beer ingredients by working at a homebrew shop sourcing ingredients intentionally with flavor in mind designing robust porter around a specific specialty malt managing challenges with craft malt like increased friability and seasonal variation focusing on freshness while managing color swings with specialty malts avoiding over-oxygenation cool pooling IPAs with flowable hop products building depth in hoppy beers without T-90 pellets finding hop lots that meet flavor goals, without selecting unique flavors and aromas from Michigan-grown varieties And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don’t. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): It's time to revisit Old Orchard's flavored craft juice concentrate blends, where the latest additions include Fruit Punch, Guava, Kiwi, and Pomegranate. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Lórien seamlessly combines traditional elements of European noble hops with an elegant twang of American modernity. Learn more about Lórien and the rest of Indie’s varieties at www.indiehops.com. Indie Hops — Life is short. Let’s make it flavorful. Steel Chill Cups (https://SteelChillCups.com) Steel Chill-Cups are the perfect promotional tool! Crafted from 100% recyclable steel and proudly made in the USA. Discover how Steel Chill-Cups can “Put your brand on every pour”—visit SteelChillCups.com today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com) Not only does Arryved offer a world-class POS built specifically for breweries, but they also provide Arryved Brewery Management, e-commerce, and more to help breweries scale and thrive. Visit arryved.com to learn more. Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Missed the ProBrew booth and their incredible product animations at CBC 2025? You can now experience them all right now at ProBrew.com! See how our advanced solutions can take your brewery to the next level! ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer! Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you’re launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

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  1:08:43
• 411: Matt Warner of Parrotdog Takes a Counterintuitive Approach to Hops in Classic, Bright, and Hazy IPA

  Parrotdog (https://parrotdog.co.nz) has been a craft-brewing mainstay in New Zealand for nearly 15 years, and with national distribution and a production brewery and taproom steps from the beach and Wellington’s airport, they reach a broad audience of consumers across a range of styles. While their core line features everything from a classic C-malt IPA to pils with “vivid passion fruit and white-wine notes,” they also constantly iterate and experiment on the brewery’s five-barrel pilot with everything from fresh-hop lagers to saturated hazy IPAs. This week, cofounder and brewing director Matt Warner joins the podcast to talk hops (of course) and how they employ both domestic and Pacific Northwest varieties across a range of styles. Along the way, he discusses: growing from a contract brand to a small brewery to a regional production brewery scaling from homebrew recipes to commercial batches in the early days designing “zingy” New Zealand pils that snaps across and cleans the palate rebalancing blends of Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin yearly to adapt to crop-year differences how Motueka changes over the picking window with a bit of “ginger crunch” character instability in Motueka after pelletizing using hops to build bigger mouthfeel in otherwise dry beer new Bract Program experimental hops that show promise And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don’t. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Strata, Indie’s original hop release, is now available in cold-side flowable hop oil form—Strata HyperBoost—in coordination with Yakima Chief Hops. Learn more about Strata and Indie’s more recent hop releases at www.indiehops.com. Indie Hops—Life is short, let’s make it flavorful! Steel Chill Cups (https://SteelChillCups.com) Steel Chill-Cups are the perfect promotional tool! Crafted from 100% recyclable steel and proudly made in the USA. Discover how Steel Chill-Cups can “Put your brand on every pour”—visit SteelChillCups.com today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com) Not only does Arryved offer a world-class POS built specifically for breweries, but they also provide Arryved Brewery Management, e-commerce, and more to help breweries scale and thrive. Visit arryved.com to learn more. Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Missed the ProBrew booth and their incredible product animations at CBC 2025? You can now experience them all right now at ProBrew.com! See how our advanced solutions can take your brewery to the next level! ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer! Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you’re launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

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  1:09:10
• 410: NZ Grape Ale? All-Riwaka Pils? Fork & Brewer’s Brayden Rawlinson Applies European Influence to Local Ingredients

  In Wellington, New Zealand, the Fork & Brewer (https://forkandbrewer.co.nz) has to live up to a reputation, and head brewer Brayden Rawlinson is up for the challenge. Under the leadership of previous head brewer Kelly Ryan (now with Freestyle Hops), the downtown brewpub garnered numerous awards, and the expectations placed on his successor were huge. Yet Rawlinson brings his own style and swagger to the role, alongside a deep love of fermentation in all its forms, and he’s continuing the legacy with different takes on beer that are equally medal-worthy (https://brewersguild.org.nz/2024-nz-beer-awards-winners-announced/). In this episode, Rawlinson discusses: pressure fermentation at warmer temps for faster, pub-centric lagers that win medals brewing pils with 100 percent Riwaka hops added everywhere, from mash and first wort through a dip-hop addition and dry hop achieving a more herbal, Noble-like character with Riwaka sculpting a slightly drier NZ pils applying Italian-style method to beers made with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc grapes and Nelson Sauvin hops balancing the acidity in wine-grape beers with low pH but not overt sourness And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don’t. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Taste the modern flavors of Indie Hops at CBC, this year in Indianapolis. Join Indie in Indy for 14 incredible collab beers. Check out the full CBC beer lineup at www.indiehops.com and plan to stop by their booth #3122. Steel Chill Cups (https://SteelChillCups.com) Steel Chill-Cups are the perfect promotional tool! Crafted from 100% recyclable steel and proudly made in the USA. Discover how Steel Chill-Cups can “Put your brand on every pour”—visit SteelChillCups.com today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com) From taproom to distribution, Arryved gives breweries the tools to streamline operations and boost profits—all in one powerful platform. Want to see the latest innovations in action? Visit Arryved at CBC 2025, Booth 1865, where they’ll be pouring beers and showing off the future of brewery tech. Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) If you’re at this year’s CBC 2025 in Indianapolis, there’s one place you must check out—ProBrew at Booth 2801! See ProBrew’s solutions in action, chat with our experts, and enjoy a perfectly poured beverage—on us. So don’t miss it—ProBrew, Booth 2801. ProBrew, Brew YOUR Beer. Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you’re launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

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