Jamie Bogner

The secret to making consistently award-winning cider is, of course, great fruit married to thoughtful design and flawless execution, and for this multigenerational family of apple growers from Colorado’s Western slope, anything less than the best wouldn’t do justice to their beloved fruit.

Over the past few decades, Victor Novak has earned his reputation as an award-winning brewer at breweries such as Dock Street, Taps, and Golden Road. Now, as innovation director at California’s Figueroa Mountain, he’s leaning into his love of classic lager styles as well as progressive fruit beers.

From Beachwood to Riip and now under his own brand, Ism, Ian McCall has honed his West Coast IPA craft and racked up a bunch of medals along the way. The secret? He’s not afraid of bitterness, as long as it’s properly shaped and timed.

Lager yeast is capable of so much more than many brewers give it credit for, and in this industry spotlight panel discussion brought to you by the yeast experts at Fermentis, Bob Kunz of Highland Park, Urs Wellhoener of Boston Beer, and Grant Lawrence of Fermentis explore ways to heighten expression in cold fermentations.

Minneapolis’ and St. Paul’s Fair State Brewing Cooperative both heralds the adjunct-driven history of upper Midwest lager brewing and pushes the craft beverage conversation forward with an honest approach to hemp-derived THC drinks.

As an unabashed lover of hazy IPA, Murphy Johnson doesn’t apologize for focusing a huge portion of BlackStack’s brewing program on the hop-laden crowd pleasers. His latest obsession, meanwhile, is maximizing flavor without breaking the bank, using traditional American hops in some very untraditional ways.

Since their start in 2009, Matt Cole and Fat Head’s have cleaned up in the major competitions with their German-style wheat beers, American-style IPAs, and closely related styles. In this episode, Cole pulls back the veil and shares some of the process and ingredient choices that set their beers apart.

This Cleveland brewery takes an intentionally small and sustainable approach to making creatively fulfilling beers, and it all starts with the flexibility of their 10-barrel brewhouse.

For many of us, hop aromas are just about the most impenetrable of all smells. Yet understanding more about how the brain works with aromas can help us to make and enjoy really delicious beers.

The brewmaster and the co-CEO of this Midwestern stalwart respect their brewery’s three and a half decades of tradition—but they also test assumptions while tackling new beers that reflect today’s trends.