Craftbrewer Radio - Homebrewed Entertainment from Downunder
I have a confession. I’ve turned into a beer podcast junkie. My intentions were honest enough in the beginning. I merely wanted to report on what Internet radio had to offer for the beer-curious reader of The Spirit World. But while doing my research—which consisted of listening to real beer podcasts—I started liking some of them and now they have become as much a part of my week as the periodicals I read, or even more so since I can listen to these beer podcasts while I’m driving or doing the dishes.
In my original article I mentioned four beer podcasts: Basic Brewing Radio, Craft Beer Radio, The Good Beer Show, and Big Foamy Head. Well, I’ve found another beer podcast since then that I want to tell you about. It’s called Craftbrewer Radio.
Every other week Graham Sanders and his cellarman, Ian, tap a keg, switch on their mics, and record a lively craftbrewing show that in terms of entertainment value gives Click and Clack of Car Talk a run for their money. (In the photo, Ian is on the left and Graham on the right.) Sanders’s brewing show is called Craftbrewer Radio because the show and its host hail from Australia where homebrewers are called craftbrewers, a term which I’m quickly starting to prefer. Graham and Ian’s show (audio quality aside) is an entertaining Internet radio broadcast with lots of detailed information for the craftbrewer. One of the segments of his show that I find particularly interesting are the interviews with craftbrewers all over the world. One of the interviews was with a craftbrewer in Japan who talked about the brewing culture in that country. Graham has also interviewed brewers in South Africa and New Zealand.
Craftbrewer Radio started six years ago as a terrestrial broadcast on a local, community radio station. By 2003 Graham and Ian moved into the new territory of Internet broadcasting, before the term “podcast” was ever introduced. The reason for moving to the new virtual format was not just to reach a larger potential audience, but so they could spice up their content and more importantly actually drink the beer they brewed while “on the air.”
I asked Graham Sanders about how he came up with his show’s present format. He said: “I used to do years ago what everyone does now. [Beer tasting and evaluation of commercial beer.] I quickly changed formats to the current one, solely realising I could never compete with USA shows, where they can drag in and interview a host of brewers, authors etc. So I changed to an area of the market I know few Yanks are good at — entertainment factor… Plus I thought, …all the shows are USA based, lets give one on Aussie and world culture, something no-one is doing. Combining beer and entertainment I saw was the market I could dominate.”
Objectively, I’m not certain that a mainstream audience—even the mainstream beer lover—will be drawn to this show since its focus is the craft and hobby of brewing beer at home, but then again who would have thought that Tom and Ray Magliozzi of Car Talk would have been able to make a radio show about car repair entertaining? Good talk radio is all about entertainment. So even if you don’t brew your own beer at home, Graham and Ian still might tickle your funny bone.
As the Australian craftbrewer resident in Japan who Graham interviewed, I would like to say, please, for God’s sake, don’t tell him you wrote this profile. Townsville just won’t be big enough for the size of his head after this.
I would also like to clarify one point. The only reason that homebrewers in Australia are called craftbrewers is because Graham almost single handedly forced the term upon the hobby around about 1999 when he together with a couple of other dodgy characters launched the Australian Craft Brewer web site. Before that we were homebrewers, and “homebrewer” and “home brewing” hasn’t exactly died out. But yes, craftbrewer is a far superior term. The great thing about it is that it upsets the commercial craft breweries. But we assert our right to make beer that is the equal or better of theirs