Over the last few years, we've seen tons of new breweries open. While this has been going on, though, I sometimes like to take a moment to remember that some of the companies have been running for nearly twenty years! The new stuff is great, and it's very exciting to see the growth. But it's also important to look back on those who helped get this craft beer thing started...especially when they're still kicking ass and going strong! Over the years, Smuttynose Brewing Co. has grown into a Portsmouth, NH-based powerhouse and will soon be moving to Hampton, NH to continue it's growth...they're also the makers of one of my favorite IPAs in the entire world! Founder Peter Egelston is one of the main men in New England craft beer, having had a hand in founding Smuttynose Brewing Co., Northampton Brewery (with his sister, who now owns it) and Portsmouth Brewery. They've grown leaps and bounds over their twenty year life and have kept up with, and set the bar on many occasions for, innovations in the craft beer world with their Big Beer Series and Short Batch Series, the latter of which they've begun to release in limited 750ml bottles. I wanted to talk to the guy who makes all this delicious beer possible, Smuttynose's Director of Brewing Operations, Dave Yarrington.

Drink Craft Beer: How did you get into craft beer?

Dave Yarrington: I got into craft beer in college. It was the late '80's and there were some small brewers starting to appear on the scene. I went to school at Colby College in Maine and we were getting beer from Geary's by that point. My degree is in chemistry and I had a professor that encouraged me to homebrew, which turned out to be great advice.

DCB: What was the turning point (a beer or moment) that made you love craft beer?

DY: After my junior year my friend Todd and I spent the summer traveling out west visiting friends and partying way too much (oh Vegas, you evil place...) We stopped by small breweries along the way and really started to get a feel for what was happening in "microbrewed" beer. This was 1990 and supply was limited so anywhere we could find a small brewery we were stoked. The real turning point for me was a long afternoon spent at the Anchor Brewery in SF. We proceeded to be wonderfully hosted (read over served) and were absolutely blown away by just how fresh and beautifully presented all of the beer was. One of the brewers was pouring us beer and he mentioned that a degree in chemistry was probably a good entry point into a brewing career. I then went back to school with renewed focus and 20 years later I'm still at it.

DCB: You walk into a magical beer shop with every beer currently available. You can put together one six-pack. What do you walk out with? Only one beer can be from your brewery.

DY: Since it's a magical beer shop I'm going to choose beers that may not be still available but I really wish were:

Watneys Red Barrel
De Dolle Stille Nacht Special Reserve from 2000
Tokyo Ale
Alexander Rodenbach
Ballantine Burton Ale
Smuttynose IPA

DCB: What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t in beer?

DY: I don't know about career but I'd probably be a trout bum somewhere out west. I imagine I'd have moved on from my post college life in Jackson, WY complaining about the cost and the overcrowded fishing and made my way ever further north and west. I'd probably be somewhere in Alaska laughing at all the suckers lined up shoulder to shoulder on the Yellowstone River while I'm executing a perfect double haul to take a 30 lb King on a streamer. Wait a minute...why am I not a trout bum?

DCB: Where do you see the craft beer industry going in the next year? And, in that vein, can we get a sneak peak at what new to expect from you in the coming year?

DY: I think it's going to be full steam ahead in the next few years in the craft beer world. Lots of new beer hitting the market and most of it is of great quality. Consumers are going to be loving all the new offerings. Existing breweries are going to need to be vigilant about staying relevant and keeping pace creatively. For Smuttynose that's a big part of why we're building our new facility in Hampton, NH. The 13 acre Towle Farm property will house our LEED certified brewery with state of the art equipment ready to make plenty of great beer.

DCB: Great, thanks so much for your time, Dave! And we're really looking forward to checking out the new brewery and whatever else new you guys have coming down the pipeline...also, I always look forward to knocking back a few Smutty IPAs!

Every once in a while that one thing comes along that changes your idea about a product category. To be honest, Downeast Cider did that to me. I like normal cider, but I'd never found a hard cider that really did it for me. As we saw cider as a category growing, we decided that we wanted to write about it as 1) Devon is a big fan and 2) it seemed to fit in with the ethos of craft beer. Furthermore, we had a willing and ready writer in Sarah, our cider writer. I was fine with it but wasn't super enthused until Sarah brought us back a test batch from a soon-to-open cidery. It tasted just like apple cider you buy at the farm stand! It was juicy and full without being too sweet. This was cider I could get behind! That company was Downeast Cider and Sarah had met up with founders Ross Brockman and Tyler Mosher to discuss their new project.

As the last time we spoke with them on the record, they had just started operations, I thought it'd be fun to take some time with Ross and put him through our 5 Questions segment...especially being as his company is the one that helped change my mind about looking at cider again.

Drink Craft Beer: How did you get into craft cider?

Ros Brockman: I have absolutely no idea. One day I was studying to be a lawyer, and the next thing I knew I was checking fermentation cycles and cleaning kegs. It was like Will Ferrell in the debate scene from Old School, I blacked out, don't know what happened, but I think I kinda killed it...

DCB: What was the turning point (a cider or moment) that made you love craft cider?

RB: It was definitely a beer that made me turn the corner in my beverage selection. During our freshman year of college, I had a...not-so-honest...ID that I used to use to go to Wal-Mart Thursday through Saturday to buy 5 30-racks of Beast Ice (Milwaukees Best Ice). We would put them in a ski bag to drag across campus and then unpack that into our mini-fridge, which conveniently held 150 cans of beer. One day Keystone Light (seriously) went on sale and turning point number 1 clicked: "Beer doesn't have to suck, it can taste exactly like water!" Skip forward a couple years and I think it was Dogfish Head 60-Minute that was turning point number 2, the real one: "Beer can be...good?!" Soon after that I had the same realizations with hard cider.

DCB: You walk into a magical beer shop with every beer currently available. You can put together one six-pack. What do you walk out with? Only one beer can be from your brewery.

RB:

1. Un-named Downeast grapefruit cider/mead (soon enough...)
2. Savannah Dry Cider (more of a nostalgia thing)
3. Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
4. Westvleteren 12 (uhh...monks)
5. Stone IPA
6. Bud Heavy (because this isn't Russia)

DCB: You’re going out for one big night in Boston. Where do you go (it doesn’t all have to be beer).

RB: I'd probably get pretty liquored up with some Downeast in my apartment beforehand because I can't afford to buy our cider in an actual bar. Then I'd meet my friends at some overrated, creepy place in Faneuil Hall at which point my memory would duck out and I'll wake up with my head splitting open and, what is that, whiskey on my breath? Where the hell is my cell phone...Sorry, that didn't go as planned, I'll head over to the Salty Pig tomorrow night...

DCB: What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t in beer?

RB: I'd be pursing my childhood dream of pitching for the Red Sox, playing QB for the Patriots and PG for the Celtics, all at the same time.

DCB: What do you drink when you’re not drinking craft beer (or beer at all)?

RB: Bud heavy, fresh grapefruit juice, or cheap whiskey with a splash of club soda.

DCB: Where do you see cider industry going in the next year? And, in that vein, can we get a sneak peak at what new to expect from you in the coming year?

RB: I think cider is going to continue to skyrocket. I can also see a lot of experimental ciders blossoming, just as you see craft beers getting wackier and wackier. In that regard, we've got a few tricks up our sleeve that we can't reveal. As far as a more conservative offering, we hope to be done with our dry cider pretty soon here.

DCB: You can make any cider you like, no matter the cost and consumer demand, what would you make and what dream ingredients would you use?

RB: I'd make Downeast Original Blend, because why would we have started this thing and not made our dream drink? And if you twisted my arm, I'd serve it over ice from another planet, because that would be pretty neat...Downeast Over Space Ice!

DCB: Thanks so much for your time, Ross. What can we do to get you make that Downeast Original Blend over space ice?!

As many beer lovers in Massachusetts know, the Boston area has been a hot bed for new brewing companies lately, be it nano breweries with small set ups or upstarts leasing time on the equipment of another established brewery. Backlash Beer is the latter, although Massachusetts residents have taken note that this is one of the faster growing of this type. Helmed by founder Helder Pimental, they've already spread distribution across the state and show no signs of looking back now.

Helder didn't come from a commercial brewing background but, rather, quit his job in finance to focus on his dream, which was brewing beer. At the beginning of this journey, it wasn't unusual to see Helder show up to tastings in a suit and change (or with his suit in a bag already), the detrius of a day working for "the man." Well he's freed himself of that encumberment now and has moved on to running Backlash full time. Luckily, he was able to give us a few minutes to talk about Backlash Beer, the craft beer industry and what he likes to drink.

Drink Craft Beer: How did you get into craft beer?

Helder Pimental: I started down the craft beer path by becoming a homebrewer when I was in college. It was really all downhill from there.

DCB: What was the turning point (a beer or moment) that made you love craft beer?

HP: I'd say taking the first sip of the first beer I ever brewed (a brown ale). It was borderline undrinkable, but that beer really lit a fire in me to better understand the ingredients and procedure that make great beer what it is. While learning, I discovered some amazing beers and completely fell in love with craft beer.

DCB: You walk into a magical beer shop with every beer currently available. You can put together one six-pack. What do you walk out with? Only one beer can be from your brewery.

HP: To be honest, right now I'd probably walk out with a 6 pack of Heady Topper.

DCB: You’re going out for one big night in [the city your brewery is in or closest to]. Where do you go (it doesn’t all have to be beer)?

HP: Haha, Oh man - Holyoke, what a town. I think Maggie and I can both agree that we've (ironically) had the most fun out in Holyoke at - wait for - a Chili's. Last winter we spent the coldest day of the year at the brewery all day wax dipping bottles, and afterwards we were famished. We sat at the bar at a Chili's in Holyoke, had margaritas and watched the Patriots beat Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. I have a lot of nostalgia about that night and that Chili's in general now.

DCB: What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t in beer?

HP: Probably being a shmuck in a suit like I used to be, and hating my own face/existence.

DCB: What do you drink when you’re not drinking craft beer (or beer at all)?

HP: I'm really into bourbon. That sounds bad, but oh well.

DCB: Where do you see the craft beer industry going in the next year?

HP: Well I don't think it's a secret that there are a ton of new breweries and new beers coming to market, so I think we'll see a huge increase in the number of products out there and probably some increased pressure on retailers to carry them all. It should really make things interesting as people start to compete more and more for shelf space.

DCB: Thanks so much for your time, Helder! Cheers!

When we heard there was another brewing company opening up in the Boston area, with a German trained brewmaster, we knew we had to go check it out. It was in a small bar in Camrbidge, MA's Harvard Square that we first tried Portico's beer in early 2012, and we knew we had to have more. They've been growing around Boston since then, adding tap handle after tap handle and putting out some seriously delicious beer. They joined us at both Drink Craft Beer Summerfest: A Celebration of Farmhouse Ale as well as Drink Craft Beer Fall to Winter Fest and we always look forward to getting another chance to drink some of their delicious beer. Somehow, between making and selling beer, we were able to get a hold of head brewer Alex Zielke to ask him some questions.

The Portico team at Drink Craft Beer Fall to Winter Fest. Alex Zielke is second from left.

Drink Craft Beer: How did you get into craft beer?

Alex Zielke: I wasn’t really into craft beer until I took a ‘Beers of the World’ class in college. Yes, my school offered that for credit.  I had some equipment left over from my failed attempt at making wine the previous semester, so a friend and I decided to try homebrewing beer instead because, why not.  After college I kept homebrewing while I worked in biotech, a job that came in handy because I could use the autoclave to sterilize tons of bottles.  Like many other brewers, I found my weekend hobby much more fun than my weekday job and in late 2008 I decided to take the plunge and focus on brewing.  I quit my job and moved to Berlin for six months to join the Brewmaster program at the Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei (VLB).  After Germany and a short stint interning at Rohrbach's Brewery I came to Boston, met Alex and Ian, and here we are.

DCB: What was the turning point (a beer or moment) that made you love craft beer?

AZ: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was the turning point for me. That was my gateway craft beer. Growing up in Seattle, there were so many incredible local breweries to choose from.  My friends and I used to spend Sundays going on brewery tours, usually first to Red Hook, then over to Mac and Jack’s.

DCB: You walk into a magical beer shop with every beer currently available. You can put together one six-pack. What do you walk out with? Only one beer can be from your brewery.

AZ: Off the top of my head, I'd say:

1. Troegs Nugget Nectar
2. Zunft Kolsch, Erzquell Brauerei
3. Left Hand Milk Stout
4. Southern Tier Unearthly
5. Alchemist Heady Topper
6. (and of course) Portico Fuzzy Logic

DCB: You have one night in your favorite beer city. What city are you in and where do you go (it doesn’t all have to be beer)?

AZ: My favorite beer city is still Seattle, and this adventure would be all beer.  I would start out in the burbs on the eastside (Woodinville) and hit up Dirty Bucket and Triplehorn brewing.  Last time I was in town I had a great Dirty Blond Ale and IPA at their respective places.  Next, and assuming I am not the one driving for this escapade, I’d head one town over to Redmond to stop at Black Raven Brewing for some of their amazing cask ales and then over to Mac & Jack's, for posterity's sake.  Then out to Seattle to the Pike Brewing Company just off the waterfront for a sampler and probably a pint.  After all the beer, grab a bowl of fresh mac & cheese at Beecher's Handmade Cheese just up the street in Pike Place Market and then head north to Fremont. In Fremont a quick, or not so quick, stop at Brouwer's for some Belgian beer, and then head north again to finish off the night at Naked City Brewery & Taphouse.

DCB: What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t in beer?

AZ: I'd probably still be working in science, doing a post-doc in microbiology or maybe working for another biotech startup.

DCB: What do you drink when you’re not drinking craft beer (or beer at all)?

AZ: Maybe it's because I am from Seattle, but I'm actually a pretty big fan of coffee. Sure it gets you going in the morning but there is also a lot of depth and flavor to coffee if you get it from the right place.  I am not talking sugary frappa-whosawhatsits, but black, fresh brewed coffee that tastes like roasty, dark chocolate.

DCB: Thanks so much for your time, Alex!