Welcoming New Partners: pFriem and Reuben's
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I am excited to reveal two new partners for the blog today—and you will be, too, once you hear our plans. As regular readers know, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the blog generate revenue to support my writing in ways that strengthen rather than cheapen reader experience. No small challenge! Taking a page out of the brewer’s handbook, this year I’ll be doing collaborations with two of my favorite breweries: pFriem Family Brewers and Reuben’s Brews. Instead of just sponsoring the blog in exchange for banner ads, we’re going to work on projects together that will result in very cool posts here. Much as the best brewery collaborations result in beers that wouldn’t have existed without both partners, these posts emerge from our mutual interests. Keep reading, and you’ll see what I mean.
Reuben’s and pFriem join my current, regular sponsor, Guinness, which has been an absolute stalwart in supporting the site, and which has, over the past 3+ years, shown me how these kinds of collaborations can work. It has already resulted in articles I couldn’t have written alone.
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 and head brewer Gavin Lord have earned a reputation of doing just that. As partners with the site, we’re going to do a fun project where Josh, Gavin, and I select somewhat obscure beers—some historical, some contemporary but regional—and then I’ll do a post on how they’re made, their background, and how pFriem implemented them. They will be commercially interesting (no Merseberger!), and you all will of course get to try them when they’re ready. pFriem also plans on doing an educational video series, and I’m helping write and research that. Finally, I will be doing an event with the brewery’s bottle club, the pFriemsters Union, and possibly others as the year unfolds. Once Covid ends, I’ll definitely make a beeline for their new Cascade Locks brewery and report back on that as well.
About the Brewery
pFriem was founded in August 2012 by Josh pFriem, Rudy Kellner, and Ken Whiteman. Josh, 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.
Reuben’s Brews
Patrick and I met Adam and Grace Robbings almost exactly three years ago, interviewing them for the podcast—and we saw immediately what a fun brewery it was. An anchor of the new-brewery renaissance in Seattle, it has helped the Ballard neighborhood become one of the hottest spots in the beer world. Their influence, though, has spread further—all the way to Oregon, which is an incredible challenge for breweries on the wrong side of the Columbia. For twenty years, Washington breweries have routinely told me the same thing: Oregonians won’t buy Evergreen State beer. Reuben’s is the exception, and has done so because the beer is so good Oregonians can’t help reaching for that cursive “R” when they see it on shelves.
With Reuben’s I’ll be doing a collaborative series of articles called Sightglass focused on those folks who support beer: hop growers and breeders, malthouses, scientists, and more. We haven’t finalized the list, but names like Skagit Valley Malt, a malthouse I’ve been meaning to visit for years, have come up. Hop breeding, at the center of American brewing right now, also seems like a juicy target. I’ll do deep, in-depth pieces, visiting where Covid allows to do on-site tours. We’ll coordinate so that Adam can interview the same folks for Reubens’ podcast, also called Sightglass. In addition, I will try to make it up to Seattle to tour the brewery and update you on their activities—as well as possibly joining them for events throughout the year.
About the Brewery
Also founded in 2012, Reuben’s grew out of Adam’s avid homebrewing hobby. After Grace bought him a homebrew kit, they poured at a neighborhood beer event, winning the people’s choice award. That inspired them to go pro, and Reuben’s has been winning awards by the truckload ever since—including two medals at the most recent GABF. Adam’s interest in styles is wide and varied, but it’s safe to say that the brewery has evolved into a hops house (both GABF medals were for hoppy ales), developing a reputation as one of the country’s best brewers of IPA. For many drinkers, that cursive “R” now signals a Pavlovian expectation for saturated, juicy hop flavors.
Guinness
I don’t want to neglect my oldest sponsor, which has supported this blog for nearly four years. 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.
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.
Keep reading, and support Guinness, pFriem, and Reuben’s when you can.