Goose Island’s John Laffler talks innovation in brewing

Colin Joliat Staff Writer

There are plenty of people who assume breweries come up with a few different recipes, tweak them until they’re perfect, and then just start raking in the dough. While there may be a few out there who do, any that are worth their weight in hops are doing a whole lot more than that. Take Goose Island for example.

The obnoxious video orientation notwithstanding, this is a pretty interesting talk. That’s John Laffler, the man responsible for managing Goose Island‘s barrel program. As you heard, that program is jumping from about 1000 to 4000+, which is an absurd number.

He pointed out that Goose Island currently has 100 test beers and 285 projects in the works currently. That’s lot of experimenting to get the few new beers they will actually release just right. While I could mention the awesome number of raspberries they’re buying from the great state of Michigan (imported from Detroit), that’s not really the major takeaway from this for me.

When Goose Island was bought out by Anheuser-Busch, some in the craft beer loving community swore to never drink their beer again. How could they possibly consume something that tastes the same but is owned by a major corporation? Blasphemy! Well, this is the result of that sale. Goose Island easily could have just continued using all of their capacity to make 312, Honkers, India Pale Ale, Matilda, and a few others. Those beers are cash cows and could keep the business thriving for years. Instead, they made a move that allowed the brewers to go back to work developing new and interesting beers. They obviously aren’t going to bring 100 new beers to market, but the fact that they are constantly pushing to make the next unique brew seems like the true spirit of the business to me.

If you are so fortunate as to live in Chicago, Goose Island is brewing the Fulton and Wood Series this year. This is a perfect way to make those advantages of AB ownership immediately apparent.

This series is the product of separate, small innovation groups made up of Goose Island brewers. Each team of brewers is given full creative license to brew whatever they dream up and share it with the city of Chicago. Brewed in small batches and served on draft only in Chicago each new release will honor, explore, or bend the traditions of brewing.

Old Town Yard Goose Islands John Laffler talks innovation in brewing

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