State of Craft Beer

Go inside the craft beer industry with Brooklyn Brewery chairman and co-founder Steve Hindy as your guide at a live podcast recording featuring the brewers on the front lines of the craft beer revolution. Steve will be moderating a discussion between Michael Graham, co-founder and beer liaison at Austin Beerworks; Josh Hare, founder of Hops & Grain; Brad Farbstein, owner of Real Ale Brewing Company; John Holl, editor of All About Beer, and more local craft beer stars covering the controversies and opportunities facing brewers today and how those situations might play out in the future. Steve’s incisive wit and encyclopedic industry knowledge will leave no stone unturned as these beer experts tackle the issues faced by breweries around the country and worldwide.

You'll be able to revisit the evening's discussion and hear from brewers all over the world as Steve travels with the Mash through our friends at the James Beard Award-winning site First We Feast. They'll be releasing every State of Craft Beer as a podcast on their site and through iTunes so that beer drinkers around the world can find out what Steve, John and the movers and shakers of craft beer have to say about life on the front lines of the beer industry.

Michael Graham is the co-founder and beer liaison at Austin Beerworks. He is dedicated to making "beers you want more than one of", and canning them. As Austin Man says,  "Austin Beerworks took Austin by storm with its first batch of kick-ass beer, distinctive branding and plucky wit in April 2011." The brewery now brews over 4,500 gallons a week.

Josh Hare is the founder of Hops & Grain, an award-winning sustainable craft brewery. He first began to explore beer while working as a seventh grade science teacher and at Mountain Sun Pub in Boulder, Colorado. Curiosity gave way to years of homebrewing working alongside many proficient brewers before opening Hops & Grain. Since 2011, Hops & Grain has tripled production and won several awards. Josh has ensured the company maintains a focus on quality, memorability, and each beer being able to stand alone or with food. He is also the owner and Chief Baking Officer of Brew Biscuits LLC, a dog treats company that creates dog biscuits out of spent grain from Hops & Grain.

Brad Farbstein is the owner of the Real Ale Brewing Company. He first became interested in beer as a homebrewer in college, later going to work for both a brewery and a distributor to learn as much about the beer business as he could. At the time he was also helping brew at Real Ale Brewing Company, then owned by the Conner family. The company was deep in debt and looking for help, so Brad jumped as his chance to own a brewery. After eight years of running on a shoestring budget at best, Brad managed to build Real Ale Brewing Company into a thriving company. Today, they are the 54th largest craft brewery in the country, producing 600,000 barrels a year and employing 42 people.

John Holl is the editor of All About Beer Magazine and the author of the American Craft Beer Cookbook. An award winning journalist, he has visited more than 950 breweries around the world, conducting research for his beer-and-travel books as well as articles for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He has judged beer competitions around the world, regularly lectures on the culture of beer, and appears often on NBC’s Weekend Today in New York. Follow him @John_Holl on Twitter.

All About Beer Magazine is America’s leading beer magazine, dedicated to covering the people, places, news, trends, and events that define the beer community. For 35 years, it has been our mission to celebrate the world of beer culture and enrich the lives of beer lovers through education, enjoyment and events like the World Beer Festivals. Click here to sign up for a free trial.

Steve Hindy (co-Founder and Chairman of The Brooklyn Brewery) founded one of America’s top 25 breweries. A former journalist, he became interested in home-brewing while serving as a Beirut-based Middle East Correspondent for The Associated Press. Back in the states as Newsday’s assistant foreign editor in 1988, he began brewing his own beer and persuaded his neighbor, banker Tom Potter,to start a brewery. Hindy is a member of the Board of Directors of the Beer Institute and The Brewers Association. He is a director of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Alliance, chairman of the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn, former chair of Brooklyn’s Tourism Consortium and a former member of Community Board 1. Hindy also serves on the Board of Transportation Alternatives and the Alcohol Beverage Manufacturer’s Research Foundation. With Potter, Hindy co-authored Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery, Forward by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, published by John Wiley & Sons. His second book, The Craft Beer Revolution: How A Band Of Microbrewers Are Transforming The World’s Favorite Drink was released in the spring of 2014. You can follow Steve @SteveKHindy on Twitter.

We'll be pouring:
Sorachi Ace
Defender IPA

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