Good Beer Hunting serves beer. We do that in variety of ways — through partnerships and collaborations, strategic and creative work — but our most visible, and arguably most important service, is through the stories we tell.
The articles, interviews, photo essays, and experiences that Good Beer Hunting creates were once the singular view of its founder, Michael Kiser, who now works deep within the industry as a brand, portfolio, and marketing strategist. Michael was an innovation strategist in Chicago, working for companies like Samsung, Nike, HP, and a host of technology, CPG, and social + cultural institutions. When he started building this platform back in 2008, the focus was cultural. But just around the corner was an opportunity for these risk-takers to build strong, compelling, and progressive businesses. Michael began to apply his experience where it mattered most for start-ups and maturing craft brewers alike — building strategically-sound brands that support passionate brewers of all sorts.
The perspective of Good Beer Hunting naturally evolved over time.
GBH is not a voice speaking only from the outside looking in, but rather, from the middle of some of the most rapidly changing dynamics that any U.S. industry has ever seen. The interviews go deeper and the articles work harder to balance the culture of craft beer with the businesses it supports, shifting the conversation with our readers toward the future of the industry we love and the tenacity of its ideals.
Since then, Michael has opened the platform to other compelling writers — some that are dedicated to the objective, journalistic profession of beer writing, and some that are industry voices in their own right, attempting to shed light on stories and issues in ways that no journalist ever could. Both of these perspectives constitute our worldview, and both perspectives seek to educate and challenge the other.
Today, Good Beer Hunting is many things — but it is nothing if not a critical, creative, and curious voice in the world of beer.
Our work has taken us all around the world into the garages of some of the most ambitious and irrepressible entrepreneurs and into the offices of some of the most powerful brewing corporations in history. In every case, we’ve sought to achieve a simple thing with complex results — to help each brewer see a true picture of their best possible future, and then go after it.
Sometimes we work with the people we’ve written about and sometimes we write about people we’ve worked with. But most of our stories have nothing to do whatsoever with our clients. Good Beer Hunting exists, almost entirely, in that gray area.
That’s where new ways of doing things can be explored, and it’s where we deliver the most value to both our clients and our readers with two different teams operating independently from one another. But it’s also something of which we are continuously mindful. We limit advertising in our stories, choosing to take on a minimal number of Underwriters instead. We do not publish incognito sponsored content. And we do not pull punches on issues we care deeply about, regardless of those impacted. Because in the end, we fight for a better future for beer, and that benefits everyone, including us, as professionals in the industry. In short, if it's progressive, we're here for it.
But most of all, we are a group of people with a diverse set of opinions, skill sets, and a common goal — to serve beer. Aim true, pour liberal.
Want to know more? Just ask.