SIPS AND SUDS
On Tap
Green Bench Brewery hosts a seminar in specialty beer during Tampa Bay Beer Week PHOTOS BY ALEXANDRIA JONES
BY ALEXANDRIA JONES How much do you really know about beer? Yes, you have your favorite big brands like Budweiser, Miller, or Heineken but are you a beer connoisseur who knows the difference between farmhouse, sour, or wild beers? This year’s Tampa Bay Beer Week will be an opportunity for everyone to learn more about beer and the local beer culture. Over the course of seven days, March 4-10, breweries, bars, restaurants, vendors, and distributors from Zephyrhills to St. Pete will throw events ranging from tastings to beer dinners to festivals. Beer is literally in Khris Johnson’s DNA. The co-owner and head brewer of Green Bench Brewing in St. Petersburg grew up watching his dad create IPAs, ales, and stouts using a home brewing kit. Once he realized home brewing was what he wanted to do, he went around to
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different places drinking and tasting an assortment of beer to see what was out there. His first beer ever made as a home brewer is the popular Green Bench IPA. “I was a home brewer in college,” said Johnson. “My dad was a home brewer when I was a kid so I thought ‘If my dad can do it, I can do it.’ When I was 21, I bought my first home brew kit and started brewing my own beer.” Green Bench Brewing has participated in Tampa Bay Beer Week for the past five years. Johnson got involved while working at other breweries prior to opening Green Bench in 2013. This year, Green Bench is hosting the 5th Annual Foeder for Thought on March 9 as part of Tampa Bay Beer Week. For those who don’t know what a foeder is, it’s a huge barrel used for fermenting and it allows oxygen to enter the beer slowly.
Green Bench Brewing is the only brewery in the Southeast to have one. Foeder for Thought is an educationfocused event that this year will highlight fermentation-forward beers, said Johnson - meaning sour, wild, or farmhouse ales (no IPAs). Throughout the evening, attendees can taste unlimited samples of the highlighted beers from participating breweries and ask questions during the panel discussions and one-on-one interviews. For this year’s Foeder for Thought, Green Bench is partnering with beer podcast Good Beer Hunting(GBH) to co-host the event’s panel discussions. Johnson has known GBH host Michael Kiser for a few years and it was a collective decision to partner together. Kiser’s huge following from the podcast on top of his respected reputation in the beer industry makes this a match made in heaven, said Johnson.