We first introduced our GBH Underwriting concept a little over two-and-a-half years ago—and since then, Good Beer Hunting has grown, both in scale and scope, in ways traditional, traffic-based advertising and sponsorship never could have supported.
Underwriting has given us a stable and secure foundation for our editorial operation without having to rely on clicks or advertorials—both of which, for most publications, end up shifting priorities away from the stories and toward the advertisers’ need for eyeballs. By contrast, our underwriting concept enables us to partner with an advertiser on mission-oriented editorial, conceived of and executed entirely by our team, and supported both financially and institutionally by the underwriter.
This has resulted in our editorial operation maintaining a break-even-to-slightly-profitable status for the last two years, all while paying our writers, designers, and illustrators a very competitive wage for the exceptional work they do. And it shows: they took home roughly 25% of all the awards given out for beer writing by the North American Guild of Beer Writers this past year, earned a number of accolades at the British Guild of Beer Writers Awards, and received a remarkable honor from the Society of Professional Journalists. Many of the stories supported by our underwriters were among the best, and most-decorated, in the country.
In our Mother of Invention series, underwritten by Guinness, we’ve published monthly stories about the innovations shaping the beer industry. New Belgium’s Into the Wild series has given us the chance to explore all things mixed-fermentation across multiple formats, while our Beer and a Shot underwriting partnership with Miller High Life has shifted our focus to the handcrafted spirits and blossoming cocktail cultures found in cities all across the U.S.
Now, we're thrilled to announce our latest underwriting series: From Barons to Barrels, made in partnership with Pabst Brewing Company and its new Captain Pabst series.
Today, Pabst is the kind of iconic American beer brand that’s as at home in dive bars and stadiums as it is at house parties and cookouts. Its story goes back centuries, to 1848, when Frederick Pabst immigrated with his family from Germany to the American Midwest. After settling in Milwaukee, he bought a fateful stake in the brewery that would one day become the Pabst Brewing Company.
With that legacy in mind, From Barons to Barrels will offer us the chance to step back in time to a specific, and pivotal, moment in brewing history: the rise of Milwaukee, in the mid-1800s, as a brewing powerhouse. So much of what beer has become in America was first imagined long ago, and in some ways still pales in comparison to the place it held in our lives in the 19th century. This series will unpack the long, legendary history of Milwaukee’s brewing culture, will look at how it intersected with our wider culture, and how it might point to a long, frothy future.
So much of our coverage on GBH focuses on the present and future tenses—from breaking-news stories to pieces forecasting what’s next for the industry. But this partnership will enable us to do something we’ve never done with this much focus: dig deep into the archives, with a series of expert historians and academics as our guides.
Our first story, written by the Seattle-based historian and writer Brian Alberts, is out next week, and will look at the relationship that sprang up between Milwaukee breweries and Chicago saloons from the 1850s onwards, and which came to define the future of American drinking. Later in the eight-part series, we’ll publish an investigation into Wisconsin hop cultivation by UW-Milwaukee sociology professor Jennifer A. Jordan, an essay by UW-Milwaukee historian John Harry on turn-of-the-century breweries’ expansion into entertainment venues (such as hotels and concert halls), and other revelatory examinations of this transformative time and place in brewing history.
As much as these stories will involve illuminating lesser-known corners of American beer history, they’ll also reveal how straight and true the connection is between the 19th century and today—and how much contemporary brewers, drinkers, and business owners can learn from the past. We couldn’t be happier that Pabst Brewing Company is making this mission possible for us, and encouraging our coverage to expand to ever new areas of inquiry.
Words by GBH Staff 
