A glass ceiling is a figurative barrier that seems invisible right up until someone ambitious crashes into it. You hear about it a lot in politics and in the corporate world, but this podcast isn’t about either of those things — not directly, at least. Glass ceilings are everywhere, and the beer business is not exempt. Even in the merry band of tinkerers, obsessives, and flat-out nerds that is the American homebrewing community, such subconscious gratifications can and do exist. It takes an extraordinary person to smash them.
On this episode of “Taplines,” we bring in longtime homebrewer and the self-avowed Queen of Beer Annie Johnson to talk about her first-place win at the American Homebrewers Association in 2013. There, Johnson shattered the “pint-glass ceiling” as the first Black woman to win the whole thing and the first woman to do so since the early ‘80s. Annie has been brewing her own beer since the mid-’90s, and winning first-place ribbons for them nearly as long. The woman has enough these days to make a damn cape out of ‘em — and she did.
Today, we’ll chat about her successes, but also how the relationship between homebrewing and commercial craft brewing has evolved since the ‘90s, the rise and fall of the carrot-for-beer style startup she worked at last decade, what it is about homebrewing that keeps her hooked after all these years, and malt liquor. It’s 2013 Homebrewer of the Year Annie Johnson, it’s her best in show “Mow the Damn Lawn” light lager, it’s shattering homebrewing’s pint-glass ceiling, and it’s all right here on VinePair’s “Taplines.” Tune in for more.
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