Partners
Guinness • pFriem Family Brewers • Breakside Brewery
A few years back, I decided to look for a sponsor to help support this site. Guinness stepped forward and, rather than just asking me to plop a banner ad on the site, instead collaborated with me on what turned out to be an amazing trip to see nitro inventor Michael Ash just before his death. As I was considering adding sponsors later, it made me entirely reconsider the advertiser/media model popular for the past few hundred years. Why not take a page from the brewing industry and do real collaborations? Two years ago I added Reuben’s Brews and pFriem Family Brewers. With Reuben’s I did a series of Sightglass posts—some of which resulted in awards. With pFriem I collaborated on a very cool video series as well as a beer that should have won awards. In 2023 I’m excited to add a new brewery—replacing Reuben’s—Portland’s Breakside Brewery.
Much as the best brewery collaborations result in beers that wouldn’t have existed without both partners, these posts emerge from our mutual interests. I am delighted to be working with these breweries, and encourage you to explore what they do and of course, drink their beer when you can. Keep reading to hear more about these breweries.
Guinness
My oldest sponsor has supported this blog since 2016. When they initially contacted me about becoming a sponsor, I was somewhat in awe—Guinness Brewery of Dublin, Ireland? It’s one of the world’s most famous beers, one of the oldest breweries on earth (older than the United States!), and one of my first loves in beer. (I’m especially partial to Extra Stout.) Our relationship quickly turned into the first of the collaborations I’ve done on this blog, resulting in some incredible stories, including a meeting with the legendary Michael Ash in Dublin—the man who invented nitro—just weeks before his death. Later, as the Baltimore brewery came online, I had a chance to visit twice and do some nice stories about that, as well. Those were the early collaborations that formed a template for my thinking about pFriem and Reuben’s.
This year, I will visit Baltimore as a stop on the Beer Bible book tour, and there’s talk of doing a collaboration beer beforehand. Covid is seriously dampening what we can do, but I harbor a now not-so-secret wish to visit Guinness’s Nigerian brewery. So little has been written about that arm of the company, or how stout became such a fixture there. I hope our partnership continues on for years.
pFriem Family Brewers
Readers of the blog already know how much I admire pFriem. Breweries that can make lagers, hoppy ales, and barrel-aged beers with equal skill are incredibly rare, yet Josh Pfriem and his team have earned a reputation of doing just that. As partners with the site since 2020, we’ve done a range of fun projects. I’ve worked with Michelle Humphrey to produce high-quality videos about different beer styles. We have worked on unusual styles like the 19th century Vienna lager, and a světlý výčepní (Spring 2023). In 2023, we also plan to collaborate on articles, such as one looking at the Hood River watershed.
About the Brewery
pFriem was founded in August 2012. Josh pFriem, who has overseen the brewery’s direction, was inspired by the classic techniques and styles of Europe. When the brewery debuted, it was known for its Belgian-style beers—and indeed, remains famous for its incredible line of barrel-aged beers and program of spontaneous fermentation. Yet as it matured, the brewery became equally known for classic lagers like its flagship Pilsner, and an adventurous line of hoppy ales, led by its flagship IPA. In the years since it was launched, pFriem has come to be one of the most lauded breweries in the country.
Breakside Brewery
The site’s newest sponsor is Breakside Brewery, one of the country’s most-celebrated breweries. It’s also one I’ve admired since their inception, and I’ve routinely covered them on the blog and Beervana podcast. It’s a real pleasure to partner with them this year.
In 2023, we plan to launch a program of public conversations with some of the country’s best and most interesting brewers. We want them to have a more cultural focus rather than a technical one. We’ll have a few panelists join me and someone from Breakside as moderators (Ben will be a regular), and the end we’ll take questions from you.
About the Brewery
Founded in 2010, Breakside Brewery originally developed a reputation for unusual, culinary-inspired ales. In 2014, however, Breakside IPA won gold in the American IPA category, and the brewery’s trajectory shifted. While continuing to make a broad range of styles, including one of the earlier lager lines, Breakside’s fame comes from their range of hoppy American ales. As I wrote this year when I cited them as one of Portland’s best breweries, “If you want to understand what makes a classic Pacific Northwest IPA, Breakside is the first place to stop.” With five locations around the Portland metro area, the brewery has taken the place of the founding legacy breweries to become the city’s hometown flagship brewery.
Together, we’re trying something new. I have chosen to work with breweries I admire, whose products are among the best available. In these partnerships, we’re abandoning the traditional advertiser model to try something I hope will benefit you, the reader, as much as it does my bottom line. With social media and the challenges to print, longer, in-depth pieces are harder and harder to produce. I’m hoping these partnerships show a way forward that supports journalism and also enriches it.