Look around beer today and it’s easy to find lots … beyond it. Breweries are making hard seltzer, canned cocktails, wine, or opening up restaurant extensions. Whether it's over the counter at a taproom or in a store, the challenges to sell beer have never been more unique and plentiful as people can now choose to drink just about whatever they want in a variety of formats, flavors, and experiences.
Which is part of the reason why the growth of New York City’s Grimm Artisanal Ales shouldn’t come as a surprise. The company was started a decade ago focused on beer, but the curiosity of its founders, Lauren and Joe Grimm, has helped it expand beyond it. Just over a year ago they launched Physica Wines, a wine-making spinoff focused on low-tech, spontaneous fermentations with regionally-sourced grapes and other fruit. Then more recently, it was Lala’s, a New Haven-style pizzeria. All three businesses and their products share a similar passion and purpose and represent what Lauren and Joe see as natural extensions of their past decade of work.
If you’re a beer fan, you may know Grimm as a once-nomadic brewery making beers beloved by enthusiasts, whether IPAs for Wild Ales. But in this conversation, we’ll get into what drives Lauren and Joe’s interest in doing more beyond beer and how they go from experimenting with food and beverage at home to serving their creations for customers.