EP-195 Holy Mountain Brewery + Friends

The more of the beer world I’ve seen during my travels, the more dots I’ve
been able to connect between certain kinds of breweries. Not just with the
kinds of beers they make, like a Hazy IPA brewery, or a sour brewery, but
broader than that—something that sort of gets to that phrase you hear so
often amongst brewers” “like mindedness.”

Sometimes this phrase makes me queasy, as it sounds a bit familiar in the
larger context of the monoculture that plagues craft beer. But when it’s
used with intent to describe a deeper set of ideas and principles, it can
do a good job of describing why some brewers find a near-instant connection
with each other. Sometimes it’s the branding, or the tone. Sometimes is the
design of the taproom or the part of town they’re in, even in separate
cities. Every small business makes thousands of different decisions on
their way to becoming a brewery, and some of those decisions are more
self-aware than others. But in the end, you get a sort of gestalt—a
combination of factors that add up to a vibe, or a presence. Brewers can
recognize each other in a second. It’s a sort of love at first sight.

More often than not, this is at the root of brewing collaborations. A
consummation of sorts that helps prove that initial inkling.

So it is with Solemn Oath Brewery in Naperville, Illinois—longtime friends
of GBH—and Holy Mountain Brewing in Seattle. There’s plenty of commonality
between these two beer makers on the surface. Anyone who’s been to both
taprooms will see the connection. If you’ve seen the branding, you can get
that attraction, too. And so it is that these two became fast friends.

The team from Holy Mountain was in Chicago, making a collaboration beer
with Solemn Oath, so we got them all together, along with Solemn Oath
co-founder John Barley, and dug into what these two see in each other.