The power in craft beer lies not in its ever expanding number of businesses (5,600+ craft breweries right now), but in the ethos of each individual brewery. At this year’s Great American Beer Festival, we wandered around to get some quick insight from a few of these individuals.
Above is our chat with Justin Carapella, a brewer with Moon River Brewing, which took home the Mid-Size Brewpub and Brewmaster of the Year award this year and the Gold medal in the Belgian-style Witbier category for its Wild Wacky Wit.
We picked Carapella’s brain on stuff like: challenges today, favorite piece of equipment in the brewhouse, underrated hops, the next industry trend and what he’s been working on the most in his career:
“I’ve been tinkering with dry hop techniques and with all of our dry hop beers, mainly pale ales, IPA. I love to try and bring more aroma and flavor out of those hops any way I can. Working with the limitations that us smaller craft brewers have, we can only get a hold of so many of the sexy hops, so we try to really get a bang for our buck out of them any way we can.”
