Publisher @allaboutbeer. Drinks bourbon. Plays broomball. Loves to polka. #DefendPilsner.
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Articles by Andy Crouch
Andy Crouch
Technology, idolatry, time, and habits. Andy Crouch joins the gang to talk about technology, work without rest, and rest. How radical is an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year? How does rest make us better at work? Is anybody a digital native? Golf, magic, acorn (not cogs) metaphors. It’s a wild ride.
Can Christian Community Work for Both Married and Single?
From Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People, this week’s featured book (ebook free for subscribers). Christian community made my years as an unmarried person very rich – so rich that marriage snuck up on me. I lived for four years in a household on Mount Auburn Street in the heart of Cambridge’s Harvard Square. Depending on the year, four to six post-college twenty-somethings ate together, prayed together, and entertained friends together.
Craft Brewers Conference 2026: Brewers Eye Reset in Philadelphia
The Craft Brewers Conference 2026 makes its return to Philadelphia at a time of great uncertainty in the industry and the country at large. One of America’s great beer cities, CBC Philly hopes to get back to the roots of craft beer, reconnect with its foundation, and plot a course for future growth. I recently spoke with Bart Watson, President and CEO of the Brewers Association about the conference, its commemorative beer, and his first year running the organization.
5 Can’t Miss Seminars for the 2026 Craft Brewers Conference
The Craft Brewers Conference is packed with ways to run smarter, sell more, and keep drinkers coming back. Here are five seminars worth your time. The Fresh Hop Beer Toolkit: Brewing, Logistics, and Consumer Insights Regional Brewery Production Track Fresh hop beers remain one of the brightest and most popular spots in the craft beer calendar but they are remarkably fragile, difficult to do well, and create challenges from sourcing ingredients to treatment throughout the process.
Expert Topic - January 2026 - Packaging
From the smallest of breweries that only sell beer at the brewery or brewpub to larger breweries with multi-state distribution, packaging is a critically important component in offering a quality product to the consumer. Whether it is cans, bottles, kegs or draft at the brewpub, there are many details to ensure that you have the proper equipment, packaging design and handling methods.
How Cambridge Brewing Company Went Out the Right Way
The sweeping wall mural tells the story of Cambridge Brewing Company. The hand painted piece depicts a fantastical night at the brewpub, where famous Cantabrigians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mindy Kaling, and Matt Damon, rub elbows and share beers. What makes the colorful mural special is not the inclusion of dozens of well-known faces, including many who’ve likely never visited the pub (Jimmy Fallon, Gisele Bundchen, and Tom Brady), but those whose names you wouldn’t know.
How a Surprise Gift Keeps The Memory of McNeill’s Brewery Alive
When McNeill’s Brewery burned down three years ago, it left people heartbroken. They grieved the tragic death of owner Ray McNeill in the fire, the loss of a much loved communal space, and the disappearance of a defining staple of downtown Brattleboro, Vermont. There was little chance for reflection, remembrance, or goodbyes. Because of the extensive damage, city officials immediately condemned the building and tore the pub down.
The Lie That Goose Island Loves To Tell
Goose Island has spent years crafting the legend of Bourbon County Stout, pitching it as a 1992 breakthrough. Executives often recount how brewmaster Greg Hall supposedly created the first bourbon barrel aged stout to celebrate the Clybourn Avenue brewpub’s thousandth batch. The tale has been polished and retold for decades, becoming a central piece of the brewery’s crafted identity in American beer. The trouble is that the tale almost certainly is not true. And the brewery probably knows that.
Allagash Brewing Celebrates 30 Years of Growth, Quality, and Purpose
Allagash Brewing Company closed its thirtieth year with hardware, healthy momentum against a tough market, and a sharpened focus on purpose. On a recent media call, founder Rob Tod recapped national wins, local recognition, sales performance, and a disciplined plan for 2026.
From Monster to Mini: Cigar City Brewing’s Wild Plot Twist
Joey Redner is going to be back in charge of Cigar City Brewing again, in a roundabout way. Founded in 2009, Joey Redner built his Tampa, Florida brewery into one of the region’s power players before selling it to a private equity firm in 2016. Ten years later, Cigar City Brewing, like a boomerang kid returning to his parents’ basement after college, is moving back into Redner’s house—sort of. “CCB will be leasing from me,” Joey tells me.
From the Brewhouse to the C-Suite: The Leadership Challenge
Making great beer is one challenge; running a successful brewery is another. As today’s industry faces tighter margins, shifting consumer trends, and economic uncertainty, many brewers find themselves taking on new roles as managers and executives.
All About Beer Scores Five Wins at Annual Writing Awards
All About Beer Magazine earned five honors from the North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW), including recognition as one of the Top Publishers of the Year in the beer world.
Selling Lager in the Age of Moderation
The Year of the Lager has been predicted for decades, and it is finally coming true. And the timing couldn’t be better. Drinking habits continue to shift and younger audiences are increasingly embracing moderation or even alcohol abstinence. The craft beer industry finds itself at a crossroads. After decades of solid and sometimes explosive growth, craft beer faces both a challenge and an opportunity.
Hard Times Can’t Kill Craft Beer
The Great American Beer Festival is 43 years old and feeling every year of it. For decades, the craft beer industry’s signature event was a raucous celebration, drawing brewers from across the country for multiple sessions of the world’s biggest beer selection. But in recent years, Denver’s streets have grown eerily quiet during fest week. The local buzz feels muted. Flights to the Mile High City, once packed with brewery hoodies, hats, and T-shirts, are now noticeably devoid of brewery swag.
When Do You Need A Lawyer?
It’s rarely fun calling a lawyer. But here’s a free piece of legal advice: it’s better to call an attorney before you need an attorney. Expert Topic sponsored in part by Berkeley Yeast When you first start to contemplate opening a brewery, you should consider getting legal advice. From the outside, it may seem all malts, hops, and pints, in truth the beer business is about sanitation and regulation.
Asking For Help: Hiring a Brewery Consultant
It’s a little ridiculous all the hats a brewery owner has to wear just to keep their business going. Even before you first fire up the brewing system, you have to make hundreds of decisions, small and large.
Brewing with Exotic Teas and Botanicals
Tea has a bit of a reputation in the American alcohol trade, one that is ingrained and challenging to change. While tea is the world’s second most popular beverage, when it comes to its combination with alcohol, the image of the ready-to-drink hard tea brands dominate. Expert Topic sponsored in part by Keg Logistics With the most flexible payment terms even the smallest operation can get the highest quality German-made kegs with our rent-to-own and short term keg leasing programs.
Getting To Know Your Local Maltster
The popularity of local maltsters has exploded in recent years. Yet brewers still confess some trepidation over how to incorporate locally produced malts into their beer portfolios and brewing operations. We talk with Andrea Stanley, co-founder of Valley Malt in Hadley, Massachusetts, to explore the benefits of building a relationship with your local maltster. 1.
Taking Another Look At Brewing With Corn
Chris Lohring once called corn “the most vilified grain in all of American brewing.” He also argues that it is one of the most traditional and historically important brewing ingredients. As the founder of Notch Brewing in Massachusetts, Lohring has long fought against such unjust brewing notions, has brewed multiple beers with corn, and offers some advice for those who may be interested in exploring this historic often ridiculed ingredient.
Best Practices For Brewing With Fruit Purees
Fruit beers are having a moment. Once subjected to derision among serious beer geeks, often due to the abundance of sickly sweet versions, modern fruit beers often employ a steadier hand and seek to achieve some balance. The days of adding blueberry juice to a bland base beer are in the rear view and the technology fruit infusions employ have substantially improved from the days of having to hand juice fresh fruit.
Why Craft Beer Needs a New Generation of Beer Bars
Michael Roper knew this would happen. In 2018, the publican saw his once packed beer bar, the Hopleaf Bar on Chicago’s North Side, start to lose customers. He knew why. “What started as humble tasting rooms, places to have a sample in a plastic cup after a brewery tour or growler fill stations has morphed into something much more sophisticated and tavern-like,” he wrote at the time. With more than 80 Chicago breweries with taprooms operating at that time, he saw direct competition.
Changing Your Corporate Culture: Promoting Sustainable Practices In Your Brewery
Sustainability once felt like a New Age concept, one uttered by the impractical with little appreciation for the logistical challenges facing businesses. Those days are coming to an end as brewers acknowledge the impacts of climate change on their businesses are serious and require substantial efforts to combat.
Featured Expert Topic - Sales, Marketing, and Distribution - 2025-08 - ProBrewer
It’s one thing to make great beer. It’s a whole other discipline to get that beer to the consumer. This month’s Expert Topic focuses on the many hurdles craft brewers face in getting beer to its final destination – the consumer’s hand. Whether it’s direct sales at the brewery brewpub or satellite location, or navigating through the arduous wholesale tier, small brewers face a challenging and evolving landscape to sell beer in today’s marketplace.
Hop Water: The Next Wave of NA
The wedding was mid-day, held outside, the sun was blaring, and I had a long drive home ahead of me. While those staying locally enjoyed round after round of craft lager and IPA, I sipped my Victory Pils before switching over to review the thoughtful non-alcoholic options available to guests. Among the sodas and sparkling seltzers, one option caught my eye and captured my attention for the next few hours: Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refresher.
Select Featured Expert Topic
As sales of traditional craft beer continues to slow, many brewers are looking at ways to diversify. From RTD’s to CBD/THC infused beer, hard teas, kombucha, gluten-free and even sake, we examine how brewers can infuse these non-beer products into their portfolio to build their customer base and bottom line. Diversification can be as simple as adding non-alcoholic beverages in the tap room to adding a distillery to your brewery.
Understanding Your Water Footprint and its Impact on the Climate
When it comes to sustainability, one issue rises above all others: water usage. Without water, there is no beer. And as any brewer knows, water doesn’t just comprise more than 90-percent of the final product, it’s also used in nearly every step of production. Cold water cools down wort, hot water cleans and sanitizes equipment, water rinses floors and bottles and cans after filling. All the way down to employee hand washing and rinsing glasses in the tasting room, water is ubiquitous.
Episode 111 | Our Souls on Technology with Andy Crouch and Jonathan Haidt
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5 Can’t Miss Seminars for the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference
The Craft Brewers Conference continues to offer brewers an opportunity to learn more about how to efficiently and effectively operate their businesses and to increase sales and consumer satisfaction. Let’s look at five seminars you should consider attending. Craft Beer Isn’t Dead: It’s Actually Where You Want To Be Marketing & Branding and Statistics & Trends Tracks Despite recent headlines, craft beer continues to show strength in key areas, if you know where to look.
Headed to Indianapolis for the Craft Brewers Conference? Here’s What You Need to Know
The 2025 Craft Brewers Conference arrives in Indianapolis on April 28 and the Brewers Association is deep in preparation for the thousands of industry attendees. The welcome reception will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, and you can go down on the field and try to kick a field goal. I recently spoke with Ann Obenchain, the BA’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, about the upcoming event and what the nearly 10,000 visitors can expect at this year’s CBC.
School, thuis, kerk: waar vorming plaatsvindt moet AI buiten de deur blijven, vindt schrijver Andy Crouch
Dat gold voor Steve Jobs bij de dageraad van de smartphone (‘It’s magic!’). En het gaat nu ook op voor de nieuwste techgolf. Sam Altmann van Open AI begint een recent essay zo: ‘Over een jaar of twintig kunnen we dingen doen die voor onze grootouders pure magie zouden zijn geweest.’ Als je eenmaal let op de verbinding tussen technologie en magie, vind je die bijna overal. Nog verbazingwekkender is hoe vaak het weer gaat over een specifieke magische traditie: alchemie.
5 Can’t Miss Seminars for the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference
The Craft Brewers Conference continues to offer brewers an opportunity to learn more about how to efficiently and effectively operate their businesses and to increase sales and consumer satisfaction. Let’s look at five seminars you should consider attending. Expert Topic sponsored in part by Lotus Beverage Alliance Lotus Beverage Alliance unites expert manufacturers and suppliers to empower your craft beverage business.
Craft Brewers Conference 2025 Curtain Raiser
The 2025 Craft Brewers Conference arrives in Indianapolis on April 28 and the Brewers Association is deep in preparation for the thousands of industry attendees. The welcome reception will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, and you can go down on the field and try to kick a field goal. I recently spoke with Ann Obenchain, the BA’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, about the upcoming event and what the nearly 10,000 visitors can expect at this year’s CBC.
Cocktails On Draft
As the landscape of craft beverage service evolves and breweries and bars change their menus to attract consumers with shifting interests, the face of the tap list looks different. Beer has long dominated draft almost to the exclusion of all others. Post-pandemic, bars continue to reduce their draft beer offerings but that doesn’t mean the lines are sitting empty.
It's not me, it's you - on breaking up with the internet
For those of you who prefer to read off paper rather than the screen, I have converted the post into an easily printable pdf file. It's not me, it's you - on breaking up with the internet 856KB ∙ PDF file A few days ago our car broke down. I was in the grocery store parking lot when the steering wheel froze, and I could barely manage to pull to the side before the battery completely died.
Brewing Equipment
The brewery is the heart and soul of the brewer’s business. Whether you are setting up a new brewery or maintaining an existing system, the process of buying equipment should be well thought out; not just to save time and money, but most importantly to make good beer. From budgeting to space limitations, thinking ahead, and having an appreciation for the art and science of brewing, the process should be detailed and careful to get the most out of your brewing equipment.
5 Quick Things #352 šŖ
Hey there, This week we had ice and āsnow,ā just enough to close schools for the day āĀ the one day I happen to teach. So, it ended up being a week of cozying up at home and staying put, and I have to admit it seemed to be just the thing our household needed. Thereās little else more delightful in our modern world than a string of calendar squares with almost nothing on themā¦ It so rarely happens, it seems.
Wood Aging, A Bit Faster
In the famed Cantillon Brewery in Brussels hangs a sign with a simple message: “Le temps ne respecte pas ce qui se fait sans lui.” This translates to “time does not respect what is done without it.” The message is a warning to brewers looking to short-circuit the process of making certain labor intensive types of beer, including barrel aged varieties.
Preserving and Protecting Hops, For Today And the Future
Hop harvest is one of the most highly anticipated annual events on a brewer’s calendar. The ability to review and select hops for the next year is not only a highlight but offers brewers the opportunity to have direct influence over the raw ingredients they use in their beers. Once those hops arrive at your brewery, keeping them in top condition for future use is a priority. Here are some best practices for keeping hops in great shape and some advice if you want to age your hops for other uses.
Managing Your Brewery’s Digital Life
Tim Faith has worn a lot of hats at a lot of breweries and beverage producers. He’s run the barrel program at New Holland, been an Innovation Brewer at Goose Island, run technical services for Mark Anthony, and eventually served as the brewmaster for Octopi when it scaled its brewing and co-packing operations from 216,000 barrels a year to more than 800,000. In his work, Faith has seen breweries both small and massive wrestle with all measures of software and technology issues.
We Don’t Need Superpowers. We Need Instruments.
Adapted from Andy Crouch’s second plenary talk at the 2022 Redemptive Imagination Summit. Read Andy’s first plenary talk, Canopies of Trust. Technology is a major part of the story we are living in and responsible for as redemptive entrepreneurs. Many members of our community work directly in tech ventures, and more broadly, we all depend on technology in our professional and personal lives. And yet technology prompts a great deal of ambivalence even in those who build it and benefit from it.
Sam Richardson Of Other Half Brewing On Innovation
At Other Half Brewing in Brooklyn, New York, Brewmaster Sam Richardson and his team are constantly thinking about innovation and applying it in a thoughtful way. “When it comes to beer and beer brands, we’re always trying to innovate. We look at it from the perspective of, is it an add on for the customer? Is it something that’s going to change their experience?
Ashleigh Carter of Bierstadt Lagerhaus On Innovation
Innovation in beer meant throwing every possible ingredient into a brew kettle or conditioning tank and seeing what resulted. Breakfast cereal, marshmallows, lobsters, smoked goat brains, all have been tried, probably more than once. After decades of kitchen-sink and all style experimentation, the nature of innovation in craft beer today takes shapes beyond pushing the ingredient envelope.
Laura Lodge’s 5 Tips For Hiring A Brewery Consultant
By her own admission, Laura Lodge has had a “very interesting journey in the world of craft beer.” She started working for a Colorado beer distributorship owned by her brother, where she first did the books, collected invoices, and then moved on to loading trucks and handling supplier relations.
Laura Lodge’s 5 Tips For Hiring A Brewery Consultant
By her own admission, Laura Lodge has had a “very interesting journey in the world of craft beer.” She started working for a Colorado beer distributorship owned by her brother, where she first did the books, collected invoices, and then moved on to loading trucks and handling supplier relations.
2024 Great American Beer Festival Winners
The Brewers Association today announced the winners of the 2024 Great American Beer Festival’s beer competition to a packed audience of brewers in downtown Denver. One of the world’s most prestigious beer judging competitions, the GABF awards ceremony was held at the Bellco Theatre in Denver on Saturday, October 12, 2024. The competition follows several days of the new and revamped GABF concept, where long rows of regionally divided breweries were replaced with a new set of experience areas.
Sip the Best: Our 8 Must-Try Beers at GABF 2024
Thousands of beers from hundreds of breweries. The sheer amount of beers available to try at the Great American Beer Festival boggles the mind. Formulating some kind of actionable plan that doesn’t get tossed after your third double IPA is a laughable task. So here’s our GABF beer guide and picks for a few beers we’re going to try when our glasses hit the serving tables at this year’s GABF in Denver.
When Do You Need A Lawyer?
It’s rarely fun calling a lawyer. But here’s a free piece of legal advice: it’s better to call an attorney before you need an attorney. When you first start to contemplate opening a brewery, you should consider getting legal advice. From the outside, it may seem all malts, hops, and pints, in truth the beer business is about sanitation and regulation.
Big Changes at Great American Beer Festival 2024: What Beer Lovers Need to Know
The Great American Beer Festival was due for some change. The fest, known as GABF, first debuted in 1982 and is now celebrating 42 years. Forty-two. A craft beer festival is 42-years-old. Let that sink in. Besides growing from a few dozen breweries to several hundred, the fest has largely looked the same for decades, until now. This year, the festival will reduce the number of sessions from four to three, with the notoriously raucous Saturday session going away.
Professional Services
Now more than ever, it is essential to run an efficient and organized business to ensure profitability and continued growth. It is impossible for a small business owner to handle all aspects of running a business, making it crucial to seek the proper professional help when it is needed.
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