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High on Hops: Good People Brewing Co.

Lee Heidel
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Birmingham, Alabama’s Good People Brewing Co. has a mission to craft what it calls “Ales from the Heart of Dixie,” beers that can be enjoyed any season of the year, paired with a range of foods and satisfy the cravings of a variety of beer drinkers. Founded in 2006, Good People has been at the forefront of the current Southern beer revolution and was an early advocate of making craft beer available in cans.

The Good People lineup begins with a solid pale ale. Good People Pale Ale is easy to drink and aligns perfectly with the beer judging definition of the style. A combination of base and specialty malts creates a slightly sweet caramel-tinged backbone for the crisp and mild Columbus, Cascade and Chinook hops that add just a touch of bitterness.

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Every American brewery needs to produce a viable IPA to be competitive in the marketplace. Good People IPA is the staple in the collection, a cloudy, unfiltered beer that is all about showcasing an earthy and citrusy hop combination. Like the Pale Ale, the IPA has an iconic throwback can design that makes it easy to tell what you’re drinking from across the bar.

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Related Post: High on Hops – Service Brewing Co. Profile

Not content to just produce a single IPA, Snake Handler ramps up the basic concepts behind Good People IPA to make a drink that’s bigger in every way. The citrus notes coalesce into a more distinctly pineapple flavor and the earthiness gives way to grassiness. Some distinct pine notes shine through and help to expertly mask the whopping ten percent alcohol by volume.

For those looking for something sessionable, creamy and mild, the Coffee Oatmeal Flavored Stout elevates the concept of a dessert beer to an any-time drink. The medium mouth feel and effervescent body makes it a simple delight to drink a can and not feel full. The coffee and mild chocolate flavors are supported by a classic British yeast strain.

Southerners love their wheat beers. When summer heat indices are stuck in the triple digits, a bright, refreshing wheat ale really hits the spot. Bearded Lady’s alcohol levels barely crest four percent, making it a perfect choice for imbibing multiples on the beach or after a long day of yard work. The sweet, subtle orange is the star here, but there is just enough tart and bitterness to make it enjoyably complex.

Good People’s beers are currently available in Alabama and Tennessee with distribution expanding into Florida this summer. To learn more, visit GoodPeopleBrewing.com.

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Lee Heidel
Lee Heidel
Lee Heidel is the managing editor of Brew/Drink/Run, a website and podcast that promotes brewing your own beer, consuming the…
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For the record, most hops are dried. They get picked in the field, treated to some warm air, and are often shaped into pellet-like cones for use later on. Since most are grown in the northwest but beer is made all over, this is a great way to preserve a good hop and ship it all over the globe. It’s said that they can last for several years in this format (although we all know how great a fresh-hop beer is).
But a dry-hopped beer usually refers to the actual beer-making approach. Hops are added later in the process so that they hang on to their aromatic intensity. Part of that intensity is owed to the fact that dried hops tend to be denser in terms of the flavor and fragrance punch that they pack. The overall IBU dial will be adjusted, too, as hops inject varying amounts of bitterness. There are even double dry-hopped beers, which means if triple and quadruple dry-hopped beers don’t exist yet, they’re coming soon.
You’d think wet hop would be just the opposite — throwing the flavorful cones in during the boil, giving them a good soak. Nope. A wet-hopped beer is a lot like a fresh-hop beer. It’s made with hops that are not air or kiln-dried. They tend to be moist and full of flavorful oils, having just recently been harvested. The flavors tend to be more nuanced and green in nature. And if it weren’t for new hop oils and extracts, you’d really only find wet-hop beers once a year, right around the hop harvest in early autumn.
Some breweries will do a wet and dry take on the same beer, but I’ve yet to see both versions canned or bottled and available side-by-side. Often times, the wet or fresh hop version is a limited run and simply poured on draft at the brewery’s headquarters. Either way, it’s worth looking out for when sipping beer in the fall.
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