John M. Verive


Gearhead: Yeast Just Want to Have Fun!

Brewers don’t make beer, yeast do—but they also make a lot more yeast. Here’s a look at some of the specialized gear that brewers use to propagate and ensure consistent pitches from batch to batch.

Stainless Steel Is Forever: A Story of Well-Traveled Gear

Some brewhouses are forever, even if they don’t stay put—and more than a few have traveled their way around the country and even around the world. At each location, that unique set of equipment and the brewers who use it must form a connection that inevitably affects what we drink.

Home (Beer), Sweet Home (Gear)

Among the many takeaways of the pandemic: Drinking beer at home can be a real pleasure. Here, our Gearhead considers some of the gadgets, equipment, and other improvements that can help make your beer-house a beer-home.

Dazed & Infused: THC in the Brewery

Legal hurdles aside, there are also technical obstacles to getting the main psychoactive component of cannabis into beverages in a stable, predictable way. John M. Verive explains the challenge, the science, the gear—and why it’s coming to a brewery near you.

Thirst Responders: Draft Beer on Wheels

The entrepreneurs outfitting classic hot rods and fire engines with draft lines and cold boxes say they’re in the business of spreading joy—and in the meantime, they’re winning new converts to craft beer.

Gearing Up to Brew Lager

Great lager depends upon exacting attention to details—and not only when it comes to fermentation, and conditioning. Here, we climb the decks of brewhouses specifically designed with lager in mind to better appreciate what makes them different.

Gearhead: You Down with PPE? (Be Injury-Free)

Arguably the most important gear in the brewhouse is what we wear ourselves: personal protective equipment, the armor that keeps us from harm amid the boiling-hot, corrosive, slippery dangers of manufacturing beer.

Recapturing CO2: It’s a Gas

Brewers are dumping their blow-off buckets and reusing precious carbon dioxide rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. The benefits include cost savings, reducing greenhouse emissions—and, some say, better beer.

The Sustainable Brewery: Making Beer on Hard Mode

It’s not easy to prioritize the planet and its people alongside the product, but even small steps taken by small breweries can have a big impact. Water use is one area where breweries can make an outsized difference.

Gearhead: American Real Ale - What Condition Cask Condition Is In

Does slow, subtle cask ale still have a place in today’s variety-driven, can-cluttered American scene? Along with a primer on the gear and vocabulary, here’s why this is an endangered tradition this side of the Atlantic—and why it refuses to die.