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The Maltose Falcons are the oldest home brew club in the US and over the years their members have gone on to change American beer in numerous ways.  In this episode, Bret and Mike talk to Drew Beechum who is the Grand Hydrometer of the Maltose Falcons to learn more about how this one home brew club shaped an industry. And in case you're wondering, "Grand Hydrometer" is a fancy way of saying, "club historian."

These days, North Carolina and craft beer go hand in hand - especially Asheville - but it wasn't always that way. North Carolina's journey to being a craft beer destination began in the 1980s when a German immigrant named Uli Bennewitz tried to open a Bavarian themed brewery in a dry county in the Outer Banks. In this episode, Uli tells his amazing story to Bret and Mike.  

Ambitious Brew by Maureen Ogle was instrumental in getting us started on this journey into the history of craft beer so it makes sense for her to be a guest on the show. How did the temperance movement of the late 19th Century and Prohibition in the 1920s influence modern craft beer? Listen to find out.   

Charlie Papazian is, amongst many other things, the author of The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, founder of Zymurgy Magazine, founder of the Home Brewers Association, and founder of the Great American Beer Festival. American Craft Beer would be vastly different if it weren't for his efforts. In this episode he tells Bret and Mike how it all came about. 

In recent years, hops have become a staple of American Craft Beer. That all began in the 1980s with Sierra Nevada. In this episode, Bret and Mike talk to Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman about taking American Craft Beer from a small localized phenomenon to a global powerhouse.

Dr. Theresa McCulla has what might be the best job in the world. As the curator of the American Brewing History Initiative, she collects objects, documents, and oral histories from the talented women and men who make the American brewing industry the most creative in the world. In this episode she helps Bret and Mike make sense of what they have learned about the history of craft brewing thus far and leaves them with a lot of ideas for future episodes.

In 1976 Jack McAuliffe started New Albion Brewing Company which is widely considered the first microbrewery in the US. Jack doesn't do interviews anymore but we tracked down his daughter, Renee DeLuca who filled us in on the details and wow, what a story! As an added bonus Renee talks about not knowing that Jack was her father until she was an adult and what it was like meeting him for the first time. 

When Fritz Maytag purchased a struggling brewery in San Francisco in the 1960s called Anchor Steam, he wasn't planning on revolutionizing the way that Americans think about and drink beer, but that's exactly what he did. In this episode Fritz Maytag joins Mike and Bret to talk about how and why that happened. Fritz also talks about how the 1960s happened in San Francisco in the 1960s.

Who the hell is Michael D. Morgan? And who is this Bret Kollmann Baker person? Find out in this episode while also getting a sense of what this season of the Brew Skies Happy Hour podcast is all about.