As the founder of the Boston Beer Company - makers of Sam Adams and many other brands - Jim Koch was an early pioneer in the craft brewing industry. Not one to mince words, his father’s reaction to the news that his son was starting a brewery was rather blunt. However Jim’s father was also a fifth generation brewer whose advice would be critical to…

“The ethnic cleansing,” is how top executives at Anheuser-Busch described their effort to destroy Sam Adams, Jim Koch, and the nascent craft beer industry in the 1990s. The efforts of Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser and Bud Light among many (MANY) other brands, led to 8 long years of negative growth for craft beer in the United States. This is …

Jim Koch’s impact on the beer industry goes way beyond being a craft brewing pioneer. For example, when a variety of German noble hops was on the verge of extinction due to wilt, Jim Koch spearheaded the effort to save them. When a global hop shortage threatened to extinguish the craft beer industry, Jim Koch sold tons of his hop reserves to craft …

In the early 1970s, Miller was a second tier and mostly regional brewery. That begins to change when they're acquired by Phillip Morris and by the end of the decade they were number 2 and nipping at Budweiser's heels. Miller's rise is largely due to advertising and the greatest marketing innovation in all of beer history: Miller Lite. Welcome to Th…

Schlitz was once the second best selling beer in the US behind Budweiser and for a few years in the 1950s it occupied the top spot. These two brewing behemoths were neck and neck until the 1970s when Schlitz made a few bad decisions and fell off a cliff, never to return. This is the story of the downfall of Schlitz which is a Shakespearian tale of …

Like many aspects of American life in the post war era, advertising transformed the brewing industry in a myriad of ways. Those who spent big dollars on advertising would thrive while many of those that didn’t would close their doors forever. Market share became consolidated in fewer hands with the 10 biggest breweries in the US controlling 66% of …

Prohibition radically altered the American palate. After more than a decade of using fruit juice and other sweeteners to make bad hooch and bathtub gin drinkable, Americans had no taste for anything bitter or sour. People wanted things that were sweet and crisp which isn’t good for beer. For the love of god, Budweiser’s pre-Prohibition beer was now…

In the late 1970s when the craft beer revolution was in its infancy, the vast majority of beer available in the United States was watery, yellow, and flavorless. How did we get to such a sad state of affairs? Turns out it has a lot to do with German immigration and industrialization. The temperance movement and Prohibition - which also had a lot to…

In the Season 1 finale, Bret and Mike break down what they've learned with friend, fellow beer enthusiast, and podcaster, the Gnarly Gnome. In addition to breaking down our takeaways on why some breweries succeeded beyond the founders’ wildest dreams and some crashed and burned, we also explore our thoughts on what it means to be "craft” in the bee…

Founded outside of Cincinnati in 1987, Oldenberg Brewery was the first significant craft brand in the Midwest and it was at the forefront of craft beer in almost every way. Oldenberg’s massive beer hall contained the world’s largest collection of breweriana, and the brewery garnered international acclaim for its Beer Camp, which helped spread beer …

Bill Owens found success and national acclaim for his photojournalism, particularly his capture of suburban northern California in the 1970s. Then things took a turn. When he found his career in peril and his marriage in divorce court, Owens decided to open America’s first brewpub. Not content to brew what everyone else was making, Bill is also cre…

In 1974, the Maltose Falcons became the first homebrew club in America, making illegal brews behind a wine shop on Ventura Blvd. outside of Los Angeles. Author and Maltose Falcons historian Drew Beechum tells the story this revolutionary club and how in the late 1970s, the scofflaws, hooligans, and beer nerds who comprised their membership hatched …

Today, Asheville proudly advertises itself as “Beer City USA,” but in the early 1980s North Carolina was a ruby red Bible belt state with very restrictive alcohol laws. Then a German immigrant named Uli Bennewitz naively decided that the Outer Banks was a great place to open a brewery – because they didn’t have any. Never mind that he chose a dry c…

Maureen Ogle, famed author of Ambitious Brew, one of the best selling and undeniably the best written comprehensive histories of the beer industry in the U.S. takes us back to the beginning. Together, we journey through the nascent Prohibition movement of the 1850s, the impacts of national Prohibition in the 1920s, and how our simultaneously purita…

When nuclear scientist Charlie Papazian started brewing beer in the basement of an elementary school, he was quietly turning an illegal hobby into a revolution. Founder of the American Homebrewers Association, Zymurgy Magazine, and the Great American Beer Festival, as well as the author of The Complete Joy of Home Brewing (aka “the Beer Bible”), Pa…

Ken Grossman, founder and owner of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. learned to brew at age 14 when his neighbor - a retired rocket scientist - agreed to teach him. Starting with a glorified home brew system in a northern California garage and a new strain of West Coast hops, Ken Grossman transformed the modern beer pallet. High-hopped beer became a distin…

Dr. Theresa McCulla, curator of the American Brewing Initiative at the Smithsonian talks to us about why the nation’s most important museum has an entire department dedicated to craft beer; and she shares some of the most interesting suds-soaked stories and objects that she has collected for posterity on behalf of the American people. She also come…

In 1960s San Francisco, Fritz Maytag was an ambitious but aimless recent Stanford graduate. Looking for a purpose in life, he bought a flailing 19th century brewery called Anchor Steam that made really bad beer. Faced with certain failure, Fritz brought a microscope from home, bought a book about brewing, and became the person that you would least …

In 1976 an unemployed sailor named Jack McAuliffe dropped $5,000 on a bunch of repurposed materials and built New Albion Brewing Company by hand. Childless and certain that he never wanted kids, Jack got a vasectomy in his 20s which we only bring up because this is an interview with the biological daughter he didn't know he had. Join us on a wild s…

Attorney, author, and University beer professor Michael D. Morgan, and Urban Artifact owner, head brewer, and biochemist Bret Kollmann Baker introduce themselves and discuss the fundamental question of this podcast which is, how did the US go from fewer than 100 breweries in 1980 to over 9,000 today? Why do some breweries fail while others become b…