Episode 165 - Meadmaker Ben Starr from Starrlight Mead and Thomas Vincent from Compass Rose Brewery!

We lucked out with two guests for the price of one this week getting both our friend Thomas Vincent from Compass Rose Brewery and his buddy meadmaker Ben Starr from Starrlight Mead! We hear the latest from Thomas and then learn all about the incredible mead scene in Pittsboro, NC from Ben! Plus we get to try some stellar meads: Traditional Off-Dry, Traditional Semi-Sweet, Sourwood and the really cool Mead-a-Rita. We then have the awesome collaboration Braggot Double Rye Brown, and at the end Thomas lets us try his delicious Tartty!

Once again the news is overwhelming! MegaMergerManiaTM leads us off with two items - Bring Me the News reports that Minnesota Senator Klobuchar continues her push to protect craft beer choices, while The Chicago Tribune reveals that Lagunitas is buying a stake in three smaller brewers and that founder Tony Magee isn't done! Next up Mashable demonstrates BrewArt, an automated brewing system that's like the Nespresso of beer followed by The Lansing State Journal’s piece on MSU’s century-old barley which has been revived to make Michigan beer, then The HuffPo UK shows us men recreating maternity photos in German beer ads, and we close with Science Alert discovering a 5,000-year-old artifact showing ancient workers were paid in beer!

Last week’s #caskquiz was “who will release the first pumpkin/fall beer and when?” and this week we want to know “do you listen to the show at a speed other than 1x and if so which one?”

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