Podcast hosts invite Outdoor Winter Beer Festival attendees to pour another round while highlighting people and stories behind beloved breweries
By Janelle Fisher
City Pages Editor
The pandemic sparked new hobbies for many people all across the country. Some turned to crafts while others, like Cameron Teske and Jonathan Eckelberg, discovered a passion for craft beer — a passion that has since evolved into a podcast.
“We launched in January of 2021,” Teske said. “It was a byproduct of needing a creative outlet during the pandemic, drinking a lot of beer and needing to do something productive with all the beer we were drinking.”
“Cameron and I met through the tourism industry — we both have been a part of the tourism industry in Wisconsin for going on like 10 years — and were looking for a creative outlet to do something,” he Eckelberg. “Cameron had written a book, Green Bay Beer: A History of the Craft, and that kind of excited him about learning the stories behind the craft beverage scene — breweries, distilleries, etc. He called me up one day and said, ‘I have this thought and I’m wondering if you want to be a part of it’ and that was when the Pour Another Round podcast was born.”
Now, just over two years later, Teske and Eckelberg will soon produce their 100th episode of Pour Another Round and have covered breweries and distilleries both close to home and around the world.
“The end of March will bring our 100th episode, which we’re really, really excited about,” Eckelberg said. “And it’s not just Wisconsin breweries or distilleries either. We’ve featured a lot of them — a lot of the Green Bay area breweries, I live down by Madison so a lot of the breweries down there, over to La Crosse and up to Stevens Point and Milwaukee. A lot of Wisconsin Breweries have been on the show, but we’ve also reached Alaska and Kansas City and even had our first international episode a couple of months ago with 4 Hearts Brewing in Australia.”
With professional backgrounds in the tourism industry Teske said both he and Eckelberg enjoy the opportunities Pour Another Round provides them to travel to new places and make connections with new people and breweries.
“We have this tourism background for both of us,” he said. “We have a passion for travel along with a passion for beer. We have both in our professional lives made connections with breweries…but then also on a personal level as we travel, exploring whatever breweries are in the destination we’re in. We’ve made great relationships with brewers all over the state. We have episodes of conversations with breweries from North Dakota to Georgia to South Carolina, we just talked to a brewery in Australia… It’s one of those things where it’s all about the relationships that you have… People are more than willing and generous with their time to tell that story and we’re here to just hang out and get to know them better.”
Guided by their shared desire to connect with brewers and breweries, Teske said episodes of the Pour Another Round podcast are centered around those stories behind the breweries and the beer they make.
“We are a podcast that really talks to breweries to find out their stories,” he said. “A lot of people, when they do podcasting or beer blogging, they want to dissect the beer — almost treat it like wine and dive into the ingredients and the notes and the flavor profiles and whatnot. And we’re really there to talk to someone from the brewery. Oftentimes it’s the owner or the head brewer, sometimes it’s a bartender. We just want to understand the story that went into making that brewery.”
Teske said that although there is only so much variation possible between beers from brewery to brewery, each one has a story behind it that makes it unique and that’s what his and Eckelberg’s podcast is all about.
“Green Bay has eight or nine breweries at this point,” he said, “Yes, they’re all doing something unique and something different, but an IPA is an IPA for the most part. So why would I want to drink Hinterland’s beer or why would I want to drink Badger State’s or Noble Roots’? Understanding the story behind the brewery, behind the brand and behind the people of the brewery really helps you appreciate the brewery and the beer that you’re drinking even more. So that’s really what spawned the whole concept.”
With so many breweries in Wisconsin, each with something unique to offer, Teske and Eckelberg decided to take their show on the road, so to speak, and host an Outdoor Winter Beer Festival.
Their festival, scheduled to be held Saturday, March 4, at Badger State Brewing is designed to accomplish the same goal as the podcast — to connect people with the breweries behind the beer they’re drinking.
“It’s going to be a great opportunity to come hang out with the breweries,” Teske said. “We’ve learned throughout our journey and going to different beer festivals having conversations for the podcast with different representatives from the breweries that we really wanted someone from each brewery to be at our festival pouring the beers. We’ve been to beer festivals where maybe it’s a distributor, maybe it’s a field employee who’s just kind of out of the brewery at events all the time and not necessarily connected to the brewery We want someone from the brewery to be at the Outdoor Winter Beer Festival so that the people who are attending and drinking the beer, if they have questions or if they just want to know more or they just want to talk about the beer or the brewery, the person behind the table pouring the beer will be knowledgeable, they’ll be friendly and they’ll want to talk to the beer drinkers.”
With more than 60 beers from 15 different Wisconsin breweries available for unlimited tasting during the event, Eckelberg said the Outdoor Winter Beer Festival is a good opportunity to discover new beers and breweries, and even take home some merchandise from your favorites.
“We’ve got 15 breweries lined up from across the state of Wisconsin and food trucks and fire barrels,” he said. “And a lot of breweries are bringing their merchandise sales too, so you don’t have to go to their online shops — you could actually talk to them in person and get some merch from some of your favorite breweries across Wisconsin.”
Those aforementioned fire barrels may come in handy for attendees, as Eckelberg said the event will go on as scheduled, unimpeded by whatever weather gets thrown its way.
“That was kind of the whole thought behind an outdoor winter beer festival,” he said. “We go to Packer games and drink beer in really cold weather here in Wisconsin, so let’s embrace the durability of the Wisconsin people and have an outdoor winter beer festival… As long as the temperatures aren’t cold enough to freeze the beer, we’ll be okay.”
The Outdoor Winter Beer Festival will take place March 4 from 1-4 p.m. at Badger State Brewing. Tickets are $35 if purchased in advance, $45 at the gate and $10 for designated drivers. All attendees must be 21 or older. Find more details and tickets at pouranotherround.com.