Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® Podcast

Fifteen years ago this week, Hill Farmstead in Vermont opened its doors to the world. In this ranging conversation, founder Shaun Hill discusses everything from the early development of hazy IPA and Brett experimentations in Farmstead Ale to intentional management philosophy and balancing mental and physical health with brewery work.

For American growers, planting fields of virus-free hops is a hedge against rapidly declining yields and the susceptibility of prized aroma varieties to viruses and viroids. But brewers have their own expectations—can these plants that get a healthier start deliver? This episode aims to answer that question, and more.

The small brewery about an hour outside of Indianapolis strikes a cool and edgy pose in its tiny town surrounded by agricultural fields, but the nuance and polish of their beer has found fans across the state (and amongst our magazine’s blind judging panel).

The cofounder and brewing director of New Zealand’s 2024 champion large brewery loves finding exactly the right places for domestic and imported hops, but he often uses them in ways you wouldn’t expect.

The New Zealand Beer Awards’ reigning champion microbrewer punches above his weight class, with medal-winning lagers produced unconventionally in a small brewpub where time definitely equals money. But he’s also pushing boundaries with localized takes—as with a tart, sparkling harvest ale that combines country’s signature white-wine grape with its signature hop.

Brewers outside New Zealand tend to associate its hops with IPA, but for more than 30 years, Kiwi brewers have been making their own kind of pilsner using the homegrown harvest. In this episode, the head brewer at Mount—home of the award-winning Mountie Pilsner—shares the keys to finding balance and drinkability in a cool-pooled, dry-hopped lager of 45 IBUs.

This fifth-generation hop farmer has watched craft beer pull New Zealand’s hop-growing industry back from the brink, and today he and his team are using experience, data, and more sophisticated tools to optimize their varieties for the different types of brewers who use them.

The molecular biologist and head of R&D for New Zealand’s Garage Project has spent his career studying yeast and coaxing them to work in more effective ways. Today, he’s working on everything from refined thiol expression to better mouthfeel and malt expression in nonalcoholic beers.

Is it the hop variety that matters most? Or when it’s picked? The soil it’s grown in? How it’s fertilized and irrigated throughout a season? Or something else? These two preeminent researchers—one from the States, one from New Zealand—debate the relative impacts of various factors on hop flavor and aroma.

The founder and head brewer for Garage Project in Wellington, New Zealand, is tackling more than just brewing these days. Garage Project’s team is breaking the fourth wall, investing in the Hāpi Research partnership with hop grower Freestyle—all for the sake of deeper hop flavor.