The Modern Times Beer Blog

First of all, I can’t thank Tom enough for inviting me to speak today. If you had told me 4 years ago—when my brewery was just a stack of paperwork and a bunch of naïve dreams—that I would be delivering the keynote address at a CCBA conference, I would have said you were out of your goddamn mind. But in a year of unlikely outcomes, here I am. And I’m deeply honored to be speaking to all of you today. I feel tremendous gratitude and respect for the hard work you all have done. This industry has—in the most literal way possible—made my dreams come true. And many of the people in this room laid the foundation for that success. That interconnectedness is what I’d like to talk about today.

We are stoked out of our frickin’ minds to announce the next major research facility in our ongoing investigation into the art of partying: Leisuretown. Prepare your mind, body, and soul for a garden of earthly delights that will span over 31,927 square feet in downtown Anaheim.

We’ve been covertly working with the geniuses at The LAB (the urban development masterminds behind the Anaheim Packing District, LAB Anti-Mall, and the CAMP) to create a mind-bending craft beer mecca such as the world has never seen. Here’s what we’ve got planned:

Anheuser-Busch InBev is in the midst of a PR push, the goal of which is to soften resistance to their craft brewery acquisition strategy. Sadly, credulous beer writers aren't asking any of the right questions, so I feel a need to respond.

The sacrificial lamb in this takedown is Aaron Goldfarb's recent piece for Serious Eats entitled, "What 'Selling Out' Allows a Craft Brewery to Do.” I'm picking this one because it covers most of the bases on this issue, which makes it convenient.

Releasing 3 new year round beers was a thing. A major thing. A thing that consumed much of the time, energy, and brainpower of many of the people in this building. These beers also embody our collective approach to decision-making better than anything else we've made. Let me explain.

City of the Dead represents the divine union of our barrel-aged coffee program and our relentlessly inventive brewhouse. "WTF is barrel-aged coffee?" Good question, here's how we make it.

When we started realizing the incredible depth of delicious complexity we were able to get out of barrel-aged coffee beans, it was a pretty short step to: "We should totally put this in beer." A couple of casks of Black House w/ barrel-aged beans later, and we were convinced that this definitely had to be a thing.