Justin Crossley’s rise to beer-media stardom on the Brewing Community started nearly 20 years in the past with a present from a girlfriend: a homebrewing equipment he didn’t know the right way to use.
“Residing within the Bay Space, I spotted I used to be surrounded by brewers,” he remembers. “And if I might ask all of them my dumb questions and document the solutions, I’d be serving to homebrewers out.”
Having studied broadcasting in school, Crossley arrange an online-streaming station in his Pacheco storage. He staffed it with beer-loving buds – a dentist who knew the science of brewing, a funny-sidekick homebrewer, his girlfriend who had the “added benefit of being German” – and began taking calls.
“On our first present in June 2005, we had so many listeners tuning in stay that we crashed my servers,” he says.
In the present day, the Brewing Community is a titan within the beer-broadcasting world. From its studio inside Harmony’s Hop Grenade taproom, the community produces podcasts, live-streaming radio and video content material about house and professional brewing, with names just like the “Bitter Hour” and “Bikes + Beer.” It’s amassed sponsors comparable to Heretic Brewing and the Beer Regulation Heart and is the official webcast of the Nice American Beer Competition. On the crew is a who’s-who of NorCal brewing, together with Jay Goodwin, cofounder of the Uncommon Barrel, and Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder and brewmaster at twenty first Modification Brewery.
Crossley lately took time to talk about homebrewing, cutting-edge hops and the perils of a job that requires you to ingest large quantities of beer. (This interview was edited for brevity.)
Q: Is the Brewing Community the first-ever podcast about homebrewing?
A: There was anyone in Australia doing it on an AM radio station, however I don’t know if there was one other podcast earlier than us.
Q: What makes beer an interesting – and financially profitable – subject to talk about?
A: I feel (it’s) as a result of it’s such a social beverage. I used to be drawn to it, as a result of individuals do quite a lot of speaking about beer. Then once I met homebrewers, I discovered they actually do quite a lot of speaking about beer. As a passion, it may be so simple as you need it to be, or should you’re a extra science-minded particular person, it may be fairly intricate.
Q: What’s your viewers like?
A: We get nearly one million downloads a yr. Over time, we’ve most likely reached each nation. Australia is often our second-largest listenership, and we undoubtedly have listeners throughout Europe. The primary time I went to Oktoberfest in Germany round 2008, I used to be in one of many beer tents and noticed my emblem on a T-shirt strolling towards me. It was the craziest expertise, being on the opposite aspect of the earth and seeing that.
Q: That’s the second point out of Australia. They have to actually love their beer there…
A: I’m advised that the Australian brewing scene is sort of solely based mostly on the price of good beer there. A single pint of craft beer in Australia can price $20, so it’s very price prohibitive to get pleasure from good beer. Therefore the rise of the homebrewing passion.
Q: What’s the primary beer you ever brewed?
A: I’m fairly positive it was an IPA and, extremely, it turned out good. However it could be the final good beer I ever brewed. My second batch of beer exploded in my closet. Then I jumped into kegging and kegged a wonderful porter. I went to mattress, and the subsequent morning, the entire thing had leaked out onto my carpet. My listeners now fondly discuss with it as “Justin’s Carpet Porter.”
Q: How did you rope in all these trade names to take part on the Community?
A: Most of them had been followers of the present earlier than they grew to become skilled brewers. There are tons of professional craft brewers all around the U.S. who discovered to brew from the Brewing Community. So a few of them reached out to me, and we grew to become buddies, and I mentioned, “Hey, you’d be nice on the present!”
Q: And the way did you find yourself establishing a studio contained in the Hop Grenade?
A: Years in the past, after my listeners’ major grievance in regards to the present was that we're tasting all this nice beer, and so they can’t strive it, I joked on an episode that I might like to stay above a bar sooner or later and do the present contained in the bar, so everybody might take part and style it. Nicely, imagine it or not, no one ever provided me that bar. So I constructed it myself with a number of companions and have since turn out to be the only proprietor.
Q: How a lot beer do it's a must to drink for this job and what does that do to you, bodily?
A: Let’s see. Over my profession, I have to’ve had 5,000 beers — and that’s the low quantity. We’ve now decreased that (consumption). As an alternative of consuming pints in the course of the present, we drink samples of what the brewers deliver. However yeah, it takes its toll. I’m now what’s often called a “skinny man with a beer stomach.”
Q: What would be the massive brewing story in 2023?
A: There are such a lot of new hop varieties popping out, and brewers are within the golden age of determining the right way to use them. There are actually Cryo Hops – that’s identical to the “shake” you used to search out on the cousin of hops, marijuana, the place all the great lupulin glands are taken off the plant as an alternative of complete plant and flower. You simply get the resinous, ganky, lovely hops matter from the lupulin glands.
Q: Every other developments to look out for?
A: I feel inclusivity is a crucial subject proper now. There’s been a stigma in craft beer often called “massive, bearded males at each occasion and bar and opening.” I feel that’s one thing the trade is working actually onerous to shake. It’s additionally taking place naturally – beer is simply actually attention-grabbing, and it’s attention-grabbing to everyone.
Q: If there’s one beer that needs to be despatched to hell, what's it?
A: There’s this stereotype of beer nerds saying, we are able to’t respect one thing as fantastically easy as a Coors Gentle or a Modelo. That’s simply not true. All beers and beer types have a spot, so long as they’re brewed properly. So no beer ought to go to hell. Nicely, my beer possibly – my beer ought to go to hell.
Justin Crossley
Age: 45
Place: Founder and president of the Brewing Community
Schooling: B.A. San Francisco State College
Residence: Martinez
Household: Has a girlfriend and lives fortunately alone.
5 issues about Justin
1. He grew up within the SoCal desert in Hesperia.
2. The primary beer he ever tasted was most likely his dad’s Miller Lite at a household barbecue.
3. He enjoys tenting and off-roading within the deserts of California and Utah.
4. One among his favourite Bay Space breweries is Oakland’s Ghost City Brewing.
5. When not consuming beer, he’s often sipping crimson wine or downing a “ton of water.”
Particulars: Beer lovers can go to the Hop Grenade taproom at 2151 Salvio St., Suite J, Harmony. Tune in to the podcast at www.thebrewingnetwork.com. Be aware that many reveals on the Brewing Community embody grownup content material and will comprise profanity.