After two decades in the brewhouse, Kristi Mathews Griner quit drinking and became, in her own words, an NA beer snob. She joins Jake, Brandy, and Jordan to argue that non-alcoholic beer has finally gotten good and to explain how brewers are achieving it with newer yeast strains, hotter mashes, and smaller batches.

Kristi started waiting tables at Hops Grill & Brewery in Alexandria in 2002 and worked her way into the brewhouse, eventually leading brewing operations at Capital City and serving as technical brewer at Beltway, where she brewed contract batches for Grimm and others. Along the way, she watched the Virginia beer scene grow roughly fivefold before the boom collapsed back toward the brewpub model it started with.

She's blunt about the haze craze. She was "very begrudging," she says, and still kind of is, though she'll happily praise a haze that earns its place. She's also full of stories, including the time Charlie Papazian tasted her Pilsner at Savor and nearly talked himself into moving to Leesburg to drink it all the time.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Go Brewing (Naperville, IL) — "The Story" DIPA and their pilsner

• Sierra Nevada Trail Pass

• Athletic Brewing

• Other Half "All-N-All"

• Wheatland Spring (Liberty Estate Ale, Consequent)

• Bottle Logic (Recursion IPA)

• Grimm Artisanal Ales;

UPCOMING DCBEER EVENTS:

• Urban Garden Brewing grand opening on Juneteenth — DC's first Black woman-owned brewery, with a ribbon cutting around midday

• Women's Brew Culture Club in July: a mahjong night at Lucky Danger and an event at Diamondback Brewing

• July beer share at Other Half on Sunday, July 1

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