Washington Beer Talk

Week 2 of the Bellingham Brewery series, we’re at Boundary Bay, one of the oldest breweries I have ever visited! We chat with Janet Lightner who has been running the brewery since ‘97. That’s a long enough time to raise a family, and indeed she did! Now the gang helps run the brewery too! I didn’t expect to be crashing into a brewery with a family history but sho’ nuff here it is! Janet’s food expertise helped to host food and beer dinners and expand the restaurant half of the brewpub year over year! This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be in Bellingham exploring the amazing scene over there. This time we’re at Bellingham Cider Co and chatting with Josh about some of the fun stuff they get up to! The cider industry is quite different than Beer and of course, brewing cider is a little bit simpler than beer, as Josh explains.This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Austin Rood, the Board of Directors President of my favorite brewery, Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery up here in Greenwood, Seattle sits down with me to chat about Co-ops. He’s not a pro brewer and he only owns 1/2000th of a brewery. Just like me. And could be you too! We talk about what co-ops even are plus hang out with a couple of beers and chat about politics, pretentiousness in beer, capitalism and bud light. Flying Bike is a cooperative brewery which means it is owned by its members. On its surface, the $200 joining fee looks like a fancy mug club membership, but it isn’t! It’s so much more. But how do you express that in a world where phrases like “so much more than a mug club” are just marketing talk for “it’s just a mug club we want you to think is good.” How did we get here and how do we move forward? Give it a listen!This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Josh Snyder and Tommy Brooks join up with the Cycling Certified Cicerone to talk about beer in a business that isnt just a brewery. These boys from Zeeks sit down at Reuben’s Brews to talk about how a pizza company can turn it’s beer program from a Dud Light to a Craftstronomical success!This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Finally getting to check out a cult favorite brewery. With brews like Bad Light, Samoa Girl Scout Ale, and Habanero Amber, they have some of the most unique beers you can get your hands on in Ballard. Jason Shrum steps up to the plate today to tell the story of the brewery’s founding. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Reuben’s Brews! What an exciting interview. I got to ask important questions like “Where did the name Reuben’s come from?” The answer might surprise you given that the co-founders are Adam and Grace Robbings. Jk it’s not all that great of a mystery, but you still have to listen to find out. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Yikes! That was a bit of a hiatus. I probably coulda started episode up last week or maybe even one week before, but nothing could be done. Thanks to a non-cicerone related bike accident, I broke my collar bone. It set my schedule back a bit, but it was kinda nice to just relax for a while. Thankfully for me, I have plenty of episodes recorded and waiting to hit the editing room. Stoup is the first of those! So to all those waiting patiently, here we go!Stoup is a fantastic brewery in Ballard, in the region of Lucky Envelope, Populux, and Reuben’s. Known for nailing a wide variety of styles including their German styles especially, they hit the ground running in 2013. The three founders, Robin, Brad, and Lara (who I spoke with today) came to the table with a good assortment of experience and skills and were relatively early to the scene, a hand of cards that has served them well as their brewery continues to grow rapidly. Give it a listen!Thank you to Hans Peng, my newest Patreon member! He gets some stickers and coasters and will get to choose a question that will be asked in an upcoming episode all in addition to access to the real feed with every episode!Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!

I was on my way Beer Now, a conference in Great Falls, Montana for beer bloggers, when I decided to stop by Missoula for a quick pint. There, I found Greg Howard, one of the two brothers responsible for the creation of Great Burn Brewing. He and his brother decided to open up a brewery after the death of their fire fighting 3rd brother, and in a way created a memorial to him and his work as a fire fighter.The Great Burn was a huge wild fire that devastated a huge swatch of Montana in 1910, a fitting event to inspire the a brewery! Hopefully nothing here ever catches fire like that!We sat down in the noisy taproom to chat about Greg’s family and past and get the scoop on this 2014 brewery that has to compete with Montana power houses like Big Sky and Bayern. Be forewarned, my travel kit for recording is a little sparse, so please forgive some shoddy audio. I feel shame.Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!

Metier Brewing has taken the place of the old B-Side brewery. They have a focus on creating a strong community formed around damned good beer. In this episode, we talk with Rodney the CEO, Bob the Head Brewer, and Dreux the Manager about the business challenges they face. We talk about how to sell beer. Is it delivering a consistent, nostalgia inducing product, or does it have more to do with the values of your brewery?Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!Get more episodes on CyclingCicerone.comI’m Andrew Bieber, the Cycling Certified Cicerone

Burke Gilman Brewery is a new brewery along the Burke Gilman Trail right smack dab in the middle of the Burke Gilman Beer desert where previously only Ravenna Brewery laid claim. Thanks to their mentors at Ravenna, Ty and Kenneth along with some other founders were able to make the home brewers dream come true. Since they are such a fresh brewery, the trials of opening a new brewery still sting, which makes for an exciting episode with tons of details on the hardships of opening a brewery that a well established place has long forgotten.Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!

Metier Brewing has taken the place of the old B-Side brewery. Bob (up until about a week ago) kept brewing in the same space as it transitioned from B-side over to new ownership to become Metier. They have a focus on creating strong community formed around damned good beer. In this episode we talk with Rodney the CEO, Bob the Head Brewer, and Dreux the Manager about their beer origins and the origins of the brewery. It is part 1 of 3. Part 2 is about beer and part 3 is about my favorite: businessy stuff.

Nani Moon Meadery in Kauai is easily the best mead I have ever had. Mead brewer Stephanie is a self taught pro of the craft. In this episode we start with the compelling origin story of Nani Moon then get a walk through of the meads she has available. Finally, we wrap up with her advice on how to start and run a meadery. Some visitors assume the brewer is a man working somewhere behind the scenes, but Stephanie doesn’t mind. If any of those old visitors listen to her here, they may remove their feet from their mouths at their leisure.Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon now! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more! This is a free to listen episode, but next week won’t be so check out the Patreon for access

Kauai Beer Company is one of two breweries on Chicken Island, Hawaii. There is no way to show it in the podcast, but they brew some of the best beer I have ever had and it simply isn’t fair. I showed up there one weekend on vacation and now my life is ruined forever. Thankfully I had some podcasting equipment so we set up in the noisy office to record a little interview. Founder Jim, Brewer Justin, and Enigmatic Marketing Guy Larry all joined along with my co-host Mia and spectator Renee for the 51st episode of WBT.I am experimenting with the format of the episode. If you like (or didn’t) the sound of this episode in particular (ignoring the abysmal room sound quality (should I have mentioned that, am I the only one who would have noticed?)) then please leave a comment to say so!Also, Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon now! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!Shout out to my first Patrons, Kennan Bieber, Terri Bieber, and Claire Bieber and also CraftBeerBoot. I’m glad you love the show!

Patreon.com/CyclingCiceroneHey, Washington Beer Talk Listeners. This is Andrew Bieber, The Cycling Certified Cicerone. There is no new episode this week, instead just a quick announcement. From here on out, we’ll be switching the posting schedule from every Friday to every other Wednesday. Switching to a midweek release day is an easy choice - it will make sure you get your WBT right when you want it - in time for your commute, workday lunch, or evening bike ride, plus if I am a little tardy with posting the new episode, you don’t need to wait till Monday to get your brewery fix. Also, responding to other feedback, we’ll be shortening the episodes a bit. Our interviews tend to get a bit carried away these days and an hour or more long episode can’t quite be knocked out in a single commute, so expect to see more 30-45 minute episodes.If you are now lamenting that you don’t get your episode this week, well fear not because I have another exciting announcement! WBT has made the move to Patreon. If you don’t know, Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where fans of Washington Beer Talk can get access to extra episodes including extended interviews and multipart episodes, Cycling Cicerone swag, and other great perks like episode shout outs. This week, exclusively for patrons, is part 2 of my discussion with Will from Bosk where we talk shit on beer snobs and find out which breweries he’d marry, bang, and kill. This episode is just for those who become patrons of the show over at patreon.com/cyclingcicerone. If you want to get access to a bonus episode every other week, and maybe score a shirt, a pint glass, or more, go check out patreon.com/cyclingcicerone. Thanks for listening to Washington Beer Talk. I’ll be back next Wednesday with Kauai Beer Company. And that one is for everyone!

Bosk has made an interesting Gamble. They have opened a production scale brewery in a beer market that is arguably running out of room and in addition to that, they are choosing to focus on lager beer! Will Lefevre is the head brewer here at Bosk and he’s been given free reign to brew how and what he wants… more or less. We talk about what it’s like getting a gig like that, what it was like before when he worked at Lagunitas (now Heineken), and what is on the road ahead.

Flycaster Brewery is a tiny little brewery out in Kirkland. They’ll be showcased in East Side Beer Week on one of my bike routes (TBA). Jeremy Eubanks and his wife co founded the fly-fishing themed brewery in May of 2014, making it one the oldest breweries in Washington and the first in Kirkland. It’s managed to stay small because Jeremy runs this brewery as his side hustle, still maintaining his day job in the tech world. He has some warnings for those that want to follow in his footsteps.

This is part 2 of a 2 part episode. Go back to last weeks episode if you don’t want to be hopelessly lost. In the concluding half of the Post Doc Episode, taproom manager David jumps in and gives us some more details and tells his story of how to break into the beer world.Post Doc is over in Redmond. It started with a joke - the obvious answer to what you do with your life when you are post doc is open a brewery. That is just what Tom and Debbie, along with their respective partners, decided to do. The post docs expertise in chemistry helps give capital P Post Doc the upper hand. But what do you do when your landlord tells you they plan on demoing your building when the light rail comes to town. Get the answer in this two part series.

Post Doc is over in Redmond. It started with a joke - the obvious answer to what you do with your life when you are post doc is open a brewery. That is just what Tom and Debbie, along with their respective partners, decided to do. The post docs expertise in chemistry helps give capital P Post Doc the upper hand. But what do you do when your landlord tells you they plan on demoing your building when the light rail comes to town. Get the answer in this two part series.

Spindletap is an interested Houston phenomenon. Their hazy IPA catapulted them to the spotlight and they have been living the high life ever since. Rushing from release to release, with their IIPAs making up for their non IPAs, they feature on average at least one “I” per tap handle. They use their giant space to their advantage to throw giant events. They even used their huge warehouse, shared with a friendly neighborhood oil logistics company, to stage relief supplies for hurricane Ike. True Houston super stars

Back in Texas, we chat with JJ and Paul of Under the Radar Brewery. This brewery is right in the middle of Houston and is a little special. With the founders and owners taking a step away from the brewery, Head Brewer JJ and Manager Paul, seamlessly step in to keep the beer flowing strong!

Welcome back to Fremont Brewery Part 2. Sara Nelson takes off to head to an important meeting and Head of Brewing Operations, Matt, joins in. Somewhere along the line, the cliff hanger question about different brewing waters is left unanswered so I figured I’d fill in a bit of time answering that question before Matt takes it away. Next week we return to some Texas Breweries.

I’ve still got a few more Texas breweries, but while I get those ready, here is the Fremont Brewery episode I’ve been waiting to put out! Sara Nelson is the co-founder of Fremont Brewery. A real beer MVP, she champions independence, environmentalism, and brewing high-quality beer. Sara applies one of her many mantras, “there is no waste, just resources out of place” to running an environmentally friendly brewery that is constantly looking to improve its use of resources. In the constant search for the secret sauce to create the perfect brewery, Fremont Brewery is a story about how mixing together hard work, a little cross-industry experience, and a financial downturn might be what it takes. Sara is part 1 of 2. Part 2 will be released next week!

Jennifer from No Label last week pointed me towards her old homebrewing buddy, Aaron, who now runs beer operations at Saint Arnold Brewery. Saint Arnold is the oldest craft brewery in Texas, an order of magnitude larger than No Label, and a Houston cultural staple. Aaron has been in the beer business for years shares what it is like climbing the beer ladder.I hate making excuses, but the mic Aaron was wearing was picking up some interesting background music from a totally unknown source (if I had to guess, earbuds playing softly in his pocket) and as a result, his audio is pretty doctored to have the music removed. I figured I’d get ahead of that one now so you can know of my shame.

This week is my first favorite brewery and the star of my home town, No Label Brewery out in Katy (a suburb of Houston). It’s the only brewery this far out west of and is the 3rd oldest in H-town. Jennifer Royo, co founder, joins me today while I wax nostalgic about Texas and gives us her take on the industry. She and husband Brian started a family around the same time as they started they brewery, so she also talks a bit about the juggling act of raising a young family and a young brewery at the same time.

Co founding couple Dave and Haley and brother/salesman Mike, run Peddler Brewing. They combined their two passions, biking and beer (hmm, that sounds familiar) into a bike themed brewery. We talk about the collectors market, what it’s like running a brewery right next to Heineken’s big taproom, and wholesale vs taproom sales.

In March 2013 Peter Charbonnier opened up the smallest brewery in Ballard. Even after moving out of their tiny bachelor shack brewery and into the grand place next door, they still have their 7-barrel brew house and their smallest Ballard brewery prize. Pete recounts the early days of trying to keep beer in the wall, selling out of everything, and brewing the quickest beers possible to keep up with demand. We talk about the other breweries in the neighborhood too and discuss what it means to be creative in the brewing industry.

Outlander Brewery over in Fremont is quite a unique story. Known for its strange recipes featuring tons of unexpected ingredients, it started off much like any brewery: friends Dragon and Nigel build a small brewery in an old house and brought it up from nothing. 6 years later, they are ready to get out of the game. In August of 2018, everything they’d built traded hands to friends Angela and Johnny, who found themselves thrown straight into the frying pan learning about running a business and the beer industry at the same time. Assistant Brewer, Jason, who was being groomed to take over operations at the brewery, became the senior employee at the brewery over night and an indispensable part of keeping things going. Will they figure it all out? Sounds like they have a great shot at it!

I swung through Colorado for a hot minute and popped into WeldWerks. Of the many options in Colorado (the famous Ft. Collins is not far) and the growing number of breweries in Greely I chose Weld Werks (named for the county they are in, not for their welding skills) because I had the hookup. The head brewer is a friend of a friend of a friend and I’m glad he was because Weldwerks was a fantastic choice. They have an insanely large menu of beers and while many of them are stellar hazy IPAs, they really specialize in barrel-aged beers. We talk steam boilers, barrel aged beers, and branding with Nick and Kristin.

Ryan Petz, co founder and CEO of Fulton Brewery in Minneapolis joins us today on the phone to talk about his big Minnesota brewery. That’s right we’re back in Minneapolis for one one more bonus interview from the best bike city in America. Ryan’s brewery started off brewing contract only and as the business grew, Ryan saw his role and business model changing drastically.

Founded in 2008, Chuckanut is the second oldest brewery in Bellingham and one of the oldest in Washington. This isn’t Will are Mari Kemper’s first rodeo: Chuckanut Brewery takes all that they have learned and makes it work hard as their medal wall shows. They consider themselves the parents of many local breweries who got their starts brewing here. They specialize in lager beers, recently opened a new production brew house, and earlier cracked the top 25 largest breweries in Washington. I couldn’t be more excited to talk to the folks behind so many award winning beers. It’s obvious that the know what the are talking about and put great care into everything they do.

Illuminati is a winery turned brewery. Out in the “boonies” of Bellingham, Illuminati is a just a hair off the beaten path. Bill Kimerly talks about his righteous quest to change the Washington State law to allow for a winery and brewery to exist in the same building. Before he got involved, you’d have to build a wall between your winery and brewery, really screwing the benefits of trying to make both with shared equipment. Now, thanks to him in part, the law is changed. Bill has skills from his old industry that he gets to bring over and he’s been homebrewing for longer than I have been alive so he has a lot to tell us about!Wander was an especially noisy brewery and I experimented with some new noise removal processes. Like what you hear? Leave a comment!

The family that brews together, stays together… that’s how that phrase goes right? Chad and Coleen are a brewing family. Wander is their 20 barrel brew house that is several steps larger than others just starting out. Wander was designed from the get go to be a production scale brewery. Chad tells us how he and Coleen juggle their growing family while their brewery grows into it’s bones.Wander was an especially noisy brewery and I experimented with some new noise removal processes. Like what you hear? Leave a comment!

Aslan Brewery is an organic brewery and a B Corporation focused on their triple bottom line - People and Planet then finally Profit. Jack Lamb and his co-founders started Aslan much like any other brewery, but despite the self-imposed, margin-slashing decision to go certified organic, they grew quickly to be one of Washington’s top 25 largest breweries. Lamb is on a mission to make beer be the first thing when you hear Aslan, not a lion from the other side of a wardrobe. And yes, I ask him right off the bat how a guy named Lamb went straight for the lion themed brewery.

Surly Brewery is the last brewery on the Minneapolis tour and the biggest brewery I’ve talked to yet. At well over a 100,000 barrels, they smash most of the other small breweries and blast through the legal barrel limits for selling growlers and self distribution. What’s insane though is that Surly is really only 12 years old. What sets them apart from other breweries? Let’s listen to Ben Smith, Head Brewer at their massive production facility and tourist attracting brewpub to find out

We’re nearing the end of the Minneapolis journey. This week we have Head Flyer, a new brewery at only about a year and a half old. Neil is a straight shooter who plays it by the books. I see if after a couple of beers I can goad some real talk out of him, like how his young brewery pulled together funding for their beautiful tap room or how he manages juggling his young children, running the brewery, working his day job, and keeping up with his Netflix queue. Sweat on his brow, I’m sure he was ready for a nice chance to breath, sit down with a beer, and to have an easy little chat about brews. Sorry, not today. Let’s see if we can sweat some answers out of him.

Tom and Dane are the “Burning Brothers,” a pair of fire eaters turned brewers. Burning brother is no ordinary brewery, though. You see, it turns out that while eating fire is child’s play, eating gluten turned out to be the real fire. Burning Brothers is a 100% gluten free brewery in Minneapolis. Sales manager Dominic stands in for Dane and together with Tom, we get the full scoop on just how they juggle the unique demands of going gluten free.

Holly and Mark Irhig join the Cycling Certified Cicerone at Sumerian Brewery. They are in the middle of growing their brewery into a production brewery powerhouse of Washington. They aspire to rub elbows with the likes of Georgetown, Fremont, and Mac and Jack’s and they talk about what it is going to take to make Sumerian a household name in Seattle and Washington as well as getting in close with distributors. If you want to make your brewery a production scale brewery, this is what you want to listen to, but beware, you’ll be picking up some rough competition!

How to start a brewery in 2018 - get $10 million dollars and a time machine. If we were to do this again, we would buy a 7 barrel system, two 14 barrel fermentors for your IPAs and four 7 barrel fermentors for everything else. Tips like this and more from Matt and Matt of Lake Monster in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They talk about their experience opening a brewery and share some great insights as well as banter in this week’s episode of Washington Beer Talk. If you want to make a million dollars in the brewing industry, start with $10 million.

It's Everett Beer Week so I'm gonna pause the Minneapolis Episodes again to bring you a brewery in South Everett. Middleton is a brewery I've discussed at length in previous blog posts and now they get their very own episode. Known for Kona the brew dog and their newest addition, Gravy the Corgi, Middleton brews infused beers like the Cereal Series.

Whooo eee, it has been one hell of a month for the Cycling Cicerone. We just wrapped Gigantic Bicycle Fest (#GBF18) and now I'm exhausted. Thank you to all the volunteers who came out and helped me make it all possible. I couldn't have done it without you. We've got lots of remaining beer so that will be making its rounds to everyone to helped out. The party isn't over yet, the Everett Bike and Brew ride is still coming up on September 9th and Vashon Island Oktoberfest happening on September 22th. There's still more beer to drink!Next up in the Minneapolis beer tour, I popped into Lakes and Legends brewery for just a minute to talk with whoever I could find. Luckily for me, brewer Jason Glowinski was around to take some time with me. We shoot the shit for a bit and get the scoop on Lakes and Legends. It is a much shorter than a normal episode, but I consider it a lucky get. At first, Lakes and Legends wasn't on the agenda but thanks to some stars aligning, I was able to get in a short interview and a couple beers!Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.

Back in Minnesota again, we find ourselves in St Paul, one of the twins of the Twin Cities. St Paul's Flat Earth is a brewery that has taken up residence in the shell of the old Hamm's Brewery. We got the tour of the spooky, unused floors that are currently, slowly, being renovated. The history of the brewery is more than the history of the building though, and our boy Franco gives the low down. Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Indeed Brewing CompanySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/Tin Whiskers BrewerySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This is a special bonus episode of Washington Beer Talk! For the Gigantic Bicycle Festival, coming up soon, I got the opportunity to interview Casey Neill of Casey Neill and the Norway Rats, a local band! It's not a brewery and I think you'll be able to tell that I keep using my brewing knowledge to guide the conversation with some measure of success. There's also lots of Cycling Cicerone events in this one including The Beer Bloggers conference, The Everett Bike With The Brewers ride September 9th which I am hosting along with Everett breweries Middleton, Lazy Boy, At Large, Crucible, and Scuttlebutt, and The Vashon Island Oktoberfest coming up September 22nd which I am hosting along with Vashing Island Brewery. There's a lot going on over here! Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This year I am hosting the beer garden at the Gigantic Bicycle Fest! Among the several breweries that have been invited to join, a winery also snuck in! This gave me a great opportunity to dip my pedals into a realm of alcohol that I am only passingly familiar with! It was a great joy to hang out with the fellows of Wilridge Winery, Seattle's oldest winery! This was especially true because they are major bike fans. This interview was recorded to showcase the folks coming to the festival, but it makes for a good episode too so here it goes! Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

We're taking a quick little break from our Minnesota tour to come back to Washington for one episode. Crucible is a member of the Washington Bikers and Beer Drinkers Club and will be serving their beer at the Gigantic Bicycle Fest in just a few short weeks. Crucible shares a tearjerking tale of what it sometimes takes to keep a brewery running. Crucible BrewingSupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Indeed Brewing CompanySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/Tin Whiskers BrewerySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

Continuing on our Minnesota tour, we head over to North Eastern Minneapolis to chat with Kelly Moritz about what makes Indeed special. Indeed is a grandpa of a brewery at 6 years old and as such is a good amount larger than some of it's competitors in the area. With a massive team of people turning the cranks, Indeed pumps out a lot of beer and Kelly leads their marketing department. She talks about Indeed, her role there, how she got into it, and even gets real with us and talks about women in the beer industry, always a fun topic!Indeed Brewing CompanySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/Tin Whiskers BrewerySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This week we're starting our Minnesota Tour. Minnesota has the highest bike-ability rating in the country and their beer scene isn't half bad. Tin Whiskers is the first on that tour. They are in St Paul, Minnesota, one of the Twin Cities. We dive in to some of the local beer laws, which turn out to be surprisingly different than those of Seattle. We talk about what a Tin Whisker is - an interesting phenomenon that plagues electrical engineers and space shuttle engineers alike.Tin Whiskers BrewerySupport the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

The Ballard beer scene continues to grow. Lucky Envelope opened in 2015 and at the time was brewery 9 (give or take). When they first thought of opening in 2011, there were only 3 breweries in the neighborhood. Now in 2018, there are 11 breweries and the area is finally showing signs of slowing down. For the past 3 years, Lucky Envelope has been brewing consistently the best beers of the neighborhood. Barry is too humble to agree, so you'll have to take the Burke Gilman trail over to Ballard sometime and try them all out yourself. Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This week I rode over to Kirkland WA to visit Chainline Brewing, a bike themed brewery (whoa, sounds cool) with a focus on lager beers. They ferment low and slow and hopefully bike faster. A route around Lake Washington will show off many of the great trails that can take you there, The Burke Gilman, the Samamish River Trail, the Kirkland Corridor (a new favorite of mine that lets you ride in what feel like isolated woods straight through kirky) and the 520 Bridge Bike Path. Shawn (man, there sure are a lot of Shawns), Eric, and Tom are extremely knowledgable about beer. We ended up getting carried away talking about how Red Hook is skirting the line of what it takes to be an independent brewery, the value of style guidelines, and the significance of beer competitions. That wasn't all, so this is only part one of what will have to be a two part series.Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This week I rode over to Kirkland WA to visit Chainline Brewing, a bike themed brewery (whoa, sounds cool) with a focus on lager beers. They ferment low and slow and hopefully bike faster. A route around Lake Washington will show off many of the great trails that can take you there, The Burke Gilman, the Samamish River Trail, the Kirkland Corridor (a new favorite of mine that lets you ride in what feel like isolated woods straight through kirky) and the 520 Bridge Bike Path. Shawn (man, there sure are a lot of Shawns), Eric, and Tom are extremely knowledgable about beer. We ended up getting carried away talking about how Red Hook is skirting the line of what it takes to be an independent brewery, the value of style guidelines, and the significance of beer competitions. That wasn't all, so this is only part one of what will have to be a two part series.Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This week I visited Lazy Boy Brewery in Everett, WA. Everett and its stash of breweries are easily accessible via the Interurban Trail, a nice little bike path that combines some street and trail riding along I-5 to connect cities along the I-5 corridor. Lazy Boy has been around for 12 years making it one of the oldest breweries around. I know that sounds weird, but craft beer hasn't been the monster it is for all the long. Perhaps because of this breweries age, we learn of some stuff that we might not have heard of otherwise, hop contracts and using Budweiser as a distributor instead of as a nemesis among them.Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/

This week I met with Cliff of Vashon Island Brewing, a brand spanking new brewery over on (you guessed it) Vashon Island, where it is the first and only brewpub. Cliff has just taken his 6-year old production brewery into the retail space by opening up a tap room. I spotted some similarities between Chris and Cliff's beer philosophies especially regarding beer categorization, perhaps I should introduce them to each other.How to Start a Brewery - Cliff just opened this place, so we talked a lot about some of the hiccups he hit along the way while all the wounds were fresh.