Announcing The Gist by Sightlines
Good Beer Hunting
We're coming to you today to bring you up to speed on some things we’ve doing since our hiatus. One of the ways we’ve refocused our efforts is on our brand. If you’re not already aware - is our industry leading insights platform for the beverage alcohol and functional beverage industry. It’s a subscription-only newsletter and consultancy run by myself, and two voices I know you’re familiar with - Bryan Roth and Kate Bernot. You can subscribe to Sightlines at , or now you can follow our weekly brief in audio form by subscribing to The Gist by Sightlines, our new podcast...
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Finding The Joy Of Craft Beer
Good Beer Hunting
Despite alarming headlines and loud proclamations that “craft beer is dead,” that’s only part of the story—and not a particularly accurate one, at that. Industry insiders can get bogged down in the depressing details (even we’ve been guilty of it at one time or another). But reporters Kate Bernot and Beth Demmon decided to see how and where the heart of craft beer still beat, and went to the 2024 Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival in Paso Robles to find out. It turns out, the craft beer industry can’t just be measured by Circana numbers or market share. Websites and social...
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The Hunt For Craft Beer's Cool
Good Beer Hunting
Beer is having a hard time these days. Category-wide, sales are down and interest just isn’t the same it used to be. But what if the enthusiasm that got us to this point—excitement that helped lead to almost 10,000 small and independent breweries scattered across the country—is still just as palpable now as it was one, two, or 10 years ago? It’s just a matter of looking. In this special episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast, beer enthusiasts from around the country explain why for them craft beer still means friendships, new experiences, and most of all, something cool at a time...
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EP-421 Kevin and Britt Templin of Templin Family Brewing
Good Beer Hunting
Brewing is famously a science and an art. There are loads of technical aspects a skilled brewer should nail down to create something special, but there’s also a point where you just have to give up some autonomy. Or, at least accept it’s OK to play a little for some R&D. One of the most important things people in American craft beer have learned in recent years is how this also applies to their customers. A diverse menu that may expand beyond just beer is becoming table stakes and creativity in what kind of styles and flavor experiences you offer—in or outside of beer—can matter...
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EP-420 Eeva and Trace Redmond of Elder Piper Beer + Cider
Good Beer Hunting
It’s a classic question asked first in a novel, then in music, and often as a half-joke pop culture reference: Can you go home again? People change over time, but of course, places do, too. What we’ve previously experienced in our hometowns and where we grew up can feel distant for a very good reason. Time and experience changes us all, whether we like it or not. But in this episode, we’re going to explore what it means to lean into this question and ask instead, “what does it feel like to be home, again?” Working through this with me is Trace and Eeva Redmond, a couple who in recent...
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EP-419 Matt Kwasniewski of Big Timber Brewing
Good Beer Hunting
West Virginians take a lot of pride in their state. As well they should—it’s one of the most stunningly gorgeous destinations in the United States, albeit one that can be hard to get to, thanks to the same mountainous spectacle that draws people there in the first place. Matt Kwasniewski is a West Virginia native, as well as the owner and head brewer of Big Timber Brewing in Elkins, West Virginia. It’s the largest craft brewery in the state, with an annual output of around 6,000 barrels last year, positioning them solidly in the “microbrewery” category. He says that West...
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On Becoming Hawk
Good Beer Hunting
# On Becoming Hawk Hi there - this is Michael Kiser, founder and publisher of Good Beer Hunting. I’m coming to you today with a difficult message—but a simple one. Good Beer Hunting—after nearly 15 years, and at least 10 of that that I would consider serious years—is going on a platform-wide sabbatical. It’ll be indefinite. It might be permanent. We have some ideas for what the future of Good Beer Hunting might look like—and soon I’ll be working on that vision with the counsel of my colleagues to see where it takes us. But the earliest vision is so drastically different...
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EP-418 Luke Bauer of Snake River Brewing Company
Good Beer Hunting
The definition of “local” can be quite different when the nearest urban regions are hundreds of miles away. That’s certainly the case in Jackson, Wyoming, where (quote-unquote) neighboring cities like Boise, Idaho; Denver, Colorado; and Bozeman, Montana all require a few hours in the car, if not on a plane, to get there. But it’s precisely that sense of remote grandeur that attracts millions of visitors to the Jackson Hole region every year. Where do they go when they want a good, local, craft brew? To Snake River Brewing Company, of course, which is the oldest operating brewery in the...
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EP-417 Jon Renthrope of Cajun Fire
Good Beer Hunting
We’re squarely in the midst of political season—presidential debates have begun, campaigning has kicked into high gear, and November elections are closer than we think. Amongst it all, there’s an adage this episode’s guest once shared that likely sounds true, whether your a deep-in-the-weeds politico or fair-weather voter: If you want to make the biggest impact in politics, you go into business. Well over a decade ago, Jon Renthrope did just that, opening up Cajun Fire Brewing in his hometown of New Orleans. Enticed by what he found in the world of homebrewing, Jon took a degree in...
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EP-416 Kristen Sumpter of Red's Beer Garden
Good Beer Hunting
It's easy to find examples of what success in entrepreneurship looks like. There are dozens of TV shows, thousands of books, and millions of blog posts that are meant to share tips, secrets, and let us into the minds of people who've made it in all kinds of business. But the fact of the matter is that the only ones who can truly understand what it's like—the many failures that typically come with a breakout win—are the people who've taken a leap of faith without any idea of how their attempt to launch a product or start a business will turn out. You're as likely to be built up as broken...
info_outlineWe're coming to you today to bring you up to speed on some things we’ve doing since our hiatus.
One of the ways we’ve refocused our efforts is on our Sightlines.news brand. If you’re not already aware - Sightlines.news is our industry leading insights platform for the beverage alcohol and functional beverage industry. It’s a subscription-only newsletter and consultancy run by myself, and two voices I know you’re familiar with - Bryan Roth and Kate Bernot.
You can subscribe to Sightlines at Sightlines.news, or now you can follow our weekly brief in audio form by subscribing to The Gist by Sightlines, our new podcast weekly summary, available wherever you listen to podcasts. It has its own dedicated feed - it won’t be published here. So you should probably pause and go search for that and subscribe now before you forget. It’s called The Gist, by Sightlines. Here's the link to Spotify and Apple Podcasts
We’ve been building Sightlines in the background for a couple years now, getting our product-market-fit tuned in just right. What I mean by that is - we’ve know there’s a desperate need for new perspective on the business side of alcohol and functional beverage - everything from the future of IPA to energy drinks to hydration to cannabis - it’s a wild wild world out there and not everyone is a billion dollar company with an insights and marketing department who can discern what’s happening and why.
Well, that’s where the ingenious data analysis and insights development if Sightlines comes in - making sense of a seemingly senseless world of beverage that’s usually inundated with anecdote and narrative that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny - and costing small companies a fortune, not to mention the opportunity costs of missing the mark time and time again.
But how do companies sift thought all the data to make decisions about what’s next? Well, at Sightlines, we’ve found a way to level-set with our audience to provide the most critical information - often counter to the prevailing narratives - about what’s driving certain trends, categories, and value chain decisions. Some things are inherently consumer-driven, as they always have been. The pursuit of flavor, function, and feeling in peoples lives through beverage is timeliness even as it’s constantly changing. But in regulated industries, consumers don’t always get what they want - and producers have to navigate a world of legal grey areas, retailer priorities, and wholesaler consolidation that both stifles competition and creates unexpected white space.
Sightlines is exceptionally good at helping companies navigate all that, with what we call actionable insights. It’s not research for research sake - it’s insights that help you make decisions about what’s next for you and your most important audiences.
So, first of all, you should subscribe - there’s a monthly and yearly subscription package that gets you multiple reports a week in your inbox. And if you’re wondering if it’s for you - let me tell you, everyone from Boston Beer to Beat Box, to Martinelli’s Apple Juice, to Reyes rely on Sightlines to stay ahead of the competition. But small producers like Highland Brewing in Asehville, Allagash Brewing in Portland Maine, and 503 distilling in Portland Oregon rely on Sightlines to accelerate their growth. Wineries, distilleries, THC companies, and RTD and FMB producers all look to Sightlines for the uniquely cross-category insights we can deliver.
Some have even brought us into their innovation process to partner on their portfolio optimization and pipeline development.
And this week, for those of you who voraciously consumer podcasts as part of your knowledge gathering process, we’ve launch The Gist by Sightlines, a new podcast series you can find wherever you listen to podcasts (Here's the link to Spotify and Apple Podcasts) where Kate and Bryan and myself break down our recent reporting to give you a sense of what we’re working on and why.
If you want to get the insights, you’ll need to subscribe to the newsletter on Sightlines, but if you need another way to keep up, this podcast called The Gist by Sightlines will be a great weekly listen and keep you up to speed.
Here's the link to Spotify and Apple Podcasts