How did you start your brewery? Hildegard: I was working for the technical University in Ghent as an industrial engineer. I also did projects for breweries, and one of those was Konigshoven, the only Trappist brewery in Holland. I went to Konigshoven for half a year to work, and Bas was doing some marketing there.... View Article
I’m Irish, so I talk fast. First generation American: My father’s from Tipperary and my mother’s from Wexford. I grew up in the Sunset District of San Francisco. It’s a great place to live. Shhhh—don’t tell anyone. How’d you get into brewing? It was that first six-pack of Coors that I shared with my buddy... View Article
What’s the history of the Schlenkerla tavern and brewery? The building dates back to 1405, so it’s a little more than 600 years old. At the time of its first recording, it was owned by coopers, people who make barrels. In Bamberg, coopers and brewers were united in one guild, so very often the coopers... View Article
You’re practically synonymous with BridgePort Brewing Co. Haven’t you been with the company since the very beginning? Yes, I basically built it. I got out of UC Davis with a BS in Fermentation Sciences in 1983 in June, and I hired on with Dick Ponzi at Ponzi Vineyards in July. The very first time I... View Article
You have a true farm brewery, on an organic farm. What’s unusual about your brewery? B: I thought about putting together a diagram: it would start with us growing the hops—it’s less than 30 feet away from the brewery. So we bring the hops into the brewery, we use them, then we put then back... View Article
Most of your generation of brewers begin by homebrewing. Not many start out with a background like yours in food science or brewing chemistry. What were you going to do if brewing hadn’t come along?
How did you get into brewing? I was fortunate enough to go to Kalamazoo College, in Kalamazoo, MI in 1990. By that time Larry Bell was fairly well established at his brewery, so my first microbrew experiences were some of Larry Bell’s creations. I started homebrewing shortly after moving there. I also had the opportunity... View Article
Where do you see Meantime Brewery in the modern UK brewing landscape? In terms of the modern landscape, we are unique. There are probably 400 micros in the UK. We’re the only one who brewery-conditions all of our products. We’re very much more like an American microbrewery, in that we brew and produce styles within... View Article
I know your roots in Northeast brewing go way back. What got you started? Peter Egelston: Like most of us, I got started by drinking a whole lot of beer, back in the early seventies right through college. None of it was very good: it was a matter of quantity over quality. I was living... View Article
