Joey Redner of Cigar City Part Two

Beer Edge

Welcome back to the Beer Edge podcast. In last week's episode, we talked with Joey Redner of the Cigar City Brewing Company about his origin story, what got him into beer, and the state of the beer scene in Florida when he started his brewery. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I’d recommend pausing this one and going back and giving it a listen.

In part two of the interview this week, we explore how Redner started to think about Cigar City’s future and what gave him second thoughts about navigating it alone. We go into detail about his thought process leading up to the sale of his brewery, his interactions with Anheuser-Busch and why that deal didn’t go through, and why going deeper into debt scared him. Redner tells us how the brewery eventually got so big that it grew beyond both his talents and interests. He always envisioned running a small, innovative brewery. And Cigar City was no longer a tiny operation. We also talk about Redner’s thoughts on the evolution of the American craft beer industry, how it has changed and changed him, his love of classic beer styles, how he hopes that Dunkel becomes the next rage.

It bears repeating that this interview was recorded about a year ago, long before the pandemic. But it remains a pretty compelling listen. Here’s the second half of our conversation with Joey Redner.

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• Host: Andy Crouch
• Guest: Joey Redner of Cigar City Brewing
• Tags: Beer, Craft Beer, Florida, Anheuser-Busch, Cigar City Brewing
• Sponsor: Arryved - Facebook: @arryved - Instagram: @arryved - Twitter: @arryved_pos