Great Lakes Brewing Co.
By Julie Johnson
Published September 2012, Volume 33, Number 4
All About Beer: The words “environmentally and socially-conscious” appear first in a list of attributes that describe your company. Where did that commitment start?
Pat Conway: It’s been an evolution. My brother Dan and I almost immediately had a recycling effort at the brewery back 24 years ago. Now we have the three waves in our logo. The logo has barley crisscrossed at the top, centered with hop cones. Underneath the words “Great Lakes Brewing” we have three waves that represent our Triple Bottom Line: we felt it was important to emphasize, beyond the financial, the social and environmental. As it’s turned out over the years, the social and environmental aspects have gained in popularity with our consumer base.
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Big Boss Brewing Co.
By Julie Johnson
Published July 2012, Volume 33, Number 3
Big Boss has been through a lot of incarnations, hasn’t it?
It was Tom Cat, which became Pale Ale (it was really owned by the same people), then it became Rock Creek, and that’s when I became involved. Rock Creek became Chesapeake Bay for a very short time and nearly went under. We came back and started Edenton, and then, fortunately, Geoff Lamb bought it and we became Big Boss. Read More…
Boulevard Brewing Co.
By Julie Johnson
Published May 2012, Volume 33, Number 2
What was your background before you turned to brewing?
I went to art school for college, then had to figure out a way to make a living. So I became a carpenter/cabinet maker and did that for about 15 years. I became a homebrewer in the mid-’80s and was enamored with the small breweries that were popping up around the country and thought that was something I’d like to do. Read More…
Alaskan Brewing Company
By Julie Johnson
Published March 2012, Volume 33, Number 1
Congratulations on this anniversary! What’s the most surprising thing to you about the fact that you’re sitting there in Juneau, observing the 25th anniversary of your brewery?
Marcy: It went by so fast—in some ways. It seems like forever ago that we were first were trying to raise the money and all that, but on the other hand, it’s a fast 25 years when you look back.
Geoff: It’s also amazing, boy, what the industry’s gone through, what was believed to be the course to success 25 years ago. That really was a different era.
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Devils Backbone Brewing Co.
By Julie Johnson
Published January 2012, Volume 32, Number 6
What do you bring to brewing from your early background in history and philosophy?
That’s a great question, and one I’ve thought about a lot, funnily enough. My approach to brewing is…almost like a “liberal arts” approach. I like to look at different relationships. I use science and craft to help me get there, but the way my mind works is by looking at relationships that go on in brewing.
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Cigar City Brewing, Tampa
By Julie Johnson
Published November 2011, Volume 32, Number 5
I recently gave a presentation at the National Homebrewers Conference in San Diego on aging beer on exotic wood, which covered Spanish cedar—they use it to construct the humidor boxes to age cigars and they also use it in the construction of cigar inserts. I also discussed lemon and grapefruit wood aging in the Dos Costas Oeste project we’re doing in collaboration with The Bruery out of Placentia, CA. [“Two West Coasts,” since both breweries are on the west coasts of their respective states.] Read More…
