Today’s episode is a preview of a festival coming up in Pittsburgh on July 30th called Mixed Culture. GBH is intimately involved as partners on the branding and content side of the festival—and that’s in large part because the people behind it are both clients and long-time friends of ours at Cinderlands Beer Co. This festival is a sort of “coming of age” moment for their whole crew. On the back of so many big wins—launching their second and third locations, reinventing the Foederhouse to make exquisite wood aged and mixed culture beers, and taking a medal this year for Gregg, their saison, I couldn’t be more proud of what these folks have accomplished. And their brewer Paul Schneider is a personal friend of mine and we both fell into beer around the same time in Chicago going to bottle shares and tagging along at breweries until we could get our foot in the door. Of all the brewers who we worked with for our Uppers & Downers festival, no one took the assignment more seriously than Paul did when he was brewing at Solemn Oath in Naperville, Illinois. He’s probably made more coffee beers than any other brewer on the planet.
And for the Mixed Culture fest, he and Cinderlands are partnering with another local brewery—Trace. Trace is a very community-focused, culture-focused brewery with an incredible marketing and events team and an inclusive vocational program for aspiring professionals. So in addition to making great beer, they’re making important space within beer.
Which is part of what Mixed Culture is all about. That name is doing double duty as an indication of the kinds of beers you’ll be able to drink on this magical farm in Pennsylvania, but also about the cultural connections being made, and more importantly, how they’re being made.
In this chat with Cinderland’s Paul Schneider and Trace’s Aadam Soorma you’ll hear all about what’s going to make this new festival matter.