Craft Beer and Schlafly Beer with Jared Williamson – BeerSmith Podcast #339

Jared Williamson joins me from Shlafly Brewing in St Lous, MO to discuss Shlafly, their strategy for lower alcohol beers and trends in Craft Brewing.

Subscribe on iTunes to Audio version or Video version or Spotify or Google Play

Download the MP3 File– Right Click and Save As to download this mp3 file.

Topics in This Week’s Episode (26:28)

This week I welcome Jared Williamson. Jared is the head brewer at Shlafly Brewery in St Louis MO. Jared has nearly 20 years of brewing experience as a professional brewer, and leads recipe development and ingredient innovation at Shlafly.
We start with a brief history of Jared as a brewer, and how he became head brewer at Shlafly.
Jared explains his Pale Ale and new IPA non-alcoholic (NA) beer offerings and why he thinks NA beer is an important emerging market segment for craft brewing.
We discuss the methods he used to create non-alcoholic beer including high mash temperatures and managed fermentation. He also talks about the changes he had to make to adopt existing recipes to NA beer.
Next we discuss his line of 3% beers which are targeting more casual brewers or those who want to be able to drink a few beers without all of the alcohol. This is another part of Shlafly’s strategy to adopt to the changing beer market.
Jared shares some of the changes he had to make to create his 3% beer lineup.
He shares his advice on those looking to make lower alcohol beers at home.
We talk about the rapidly changing Craft beer market and pressures on many craft breweries as the market has declined since COVID.
Jared discusses his Winter beer offerings including Winter Stout, Oatmeal Stout and Coffee Stout.
He shares where to find Schlafly beers and also their location.
Jared provides his closing thoughts.

Thoughts on the Podcast?

Leave me a comment below or visit our discussion forum to leave a comment in the podcast section there.

You can listen to all of my podcast episodes streaming live around the clock on our BeerSmith Radio online radio station! You can also subscribe to the audio or video using the iTunes links below, or the feed address

Audio feed on iTunes – (direct: http://beersmith.com/content/feed/podcast)
Video feed on iTunes – (direct: http://beersmith.com/tv/category/podcast/feed/ )
Audio podcast on Google Play here

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the blog and my newsletter (or link at the top of the page) – to get free weekly articles on home brewing.John Palmer joins me this week to discuss brewing smoked beer styles including Grodziski, Rauchbier, Rauchweizen and two recent collaborations he did with local breweries.

Subscribe on iTunes to Audio version or Video version or Spotify or Google Play

Download the MP3 File– Right Click and Save As to download this mp3 file.

Topics in This Week’s Episode (26:28)

This week I welcome back John Palmer. John is the author of the top selling book How to Brew as well as Water and Brewing Classic Styles (full disclosure: Amazon affiliate links used for books). John joins me this week to talk about water in beer.
We start with a short discussion on John’s current brewing projects.
Next we dive into the Grodziski, which is a historical Polish beer style made with smoked malt. John tells a bit about this style.
We next discuss smoked base malts and the history behind smoked malts. Prior to the 1700’s, almost all malts were dried and kilned over wood, but malting evolved significantly with the introduction of coke fired malting in the 1700’s and introduction of lighter malts including pale malt.
John talks about some of the other major beer styles that use smoked malt including Rauchbier, Rauchweizen, Rauchbock and Smoked Altbier.
John talks about two smoked beer collaborations he did recently starting with Smoked Altbier. We discuss the recipe and also how it turned out.
Next we move to a Grodziski collaboration beer that John did including the grain bill and hop schedule. Again John tells us how this turned out.
John shares some of the lessons he learned from his smoked beer collaborations.
John shares his closing thoughts.