About Craft Beer & Brewing

Craft Beer & Brewing

Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine is an American craft beer magazine and media company based in Fort Collins, Colorado, serving brewing professionals, homebrewers, and beer enthusiasts. Founded in late 2013 by Jamie Bogner, John Bolton, and Steve Koenig, the magazine occupies what its founders call the "space between" existing beer publications — bridging brewers with consumers through brewing techniques, beer styles, industry trends, recipes, and reviews. Its website is BeerAndBrewing.com.

The Late-2013 Founding

The magazine has been around since late 2013, when co-founders Jamie Bogner, John Bolton, and Steve Koenig — a group of homebrewers and beer enthusiasts — launched the company from a second-story downtown Fort Collins loft, between a bar and a liquor store. The founders invested between $500,000 and $600,000 in the business. "We weren't afraid that the product we were going to put out might not resonate or get distributed," said Koenig. "It was just a matter of how fast we were going to be able to get the word out about it." The company printed its first national quarterly magazine in April 2014, then ramped up toward six issues per year.

The Founders

Jamie Bogner serves as co-founder and editorial director of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine and host of the Craft Beer & Brewing podcast. A craft beer fan since 1995 — when he turned 21 and could legally drink in the United States — Bogner is the magazine's editorial voice and chief content officer. John Bolton serves as CEO, and Steve Koenig as the third co-founder. From a staff of nine in the Old Town loft, the team built a three-pronged company: publishing (magazines and books), digital media (web and apps), and events such as beer retreats and festivals.

The Space Between

The magazine's editorial positioning was deliberate: its content lives in the "space between" other publications — Zymurgy, which targets brewers, and Draft Magazine, which appealed to beer consumers. "We're bridging brewers with consumers," Bogner said. Content spans from beer recipes and food recipes to national beer reviews and "beercations" — beer-focused travel. Readers can sign up for the company's own online beer school, read about "beerslang" in the magazine, and purchase how-to DVDs — a full educational apparatus for the craft beer curious.

Fort Collins: A Beer Mecca

The magazine's Fort Collins location is no accident. Bogner describes a town of 150,000 to 180,000 people with 25 breweries, producing about 10 million brewers' barrels of beer per year — most of it from a large Anheuser-Busch brewery, but with very large craft breweries including New Belgium Brewing and Odell Brewing alongside very small craft operations. "It is a wonderful place for us to be located with many, many smart brewers," Bogner said. At 5,000 feet of elevation with the Rockies rising beyond, the city gave the magazine both a testing ground and a talent pool.

The Magazine

Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine publishes articles on brewing techniques, beer styles, and industry trends — the technical and cultural substance of craft beer. The magazine's blind review panels taste thousands of beers per year: beers submitted for review, beers tasted at festivals, and beers shared on brewery visits. The reviews span brewing techniques, beer styles, and industry trends — the technical and cultural substance of craft beer, evaluated by palates the magazine has trained over thousands of tastings. Once a year, the editors compile their Editors' Picks for the Best Beers of the Year, polling readers and listeners for favorite beers, breweries of various sizes, and breweries within styles.

The Podcast

The Craft Beer & Brewing podcast, hosted by Bogner, extends the magazine's technical coverage into long-form audio conversations with brewers. Episodes feature figures like Jack Hendler of Jack's Abby Craft Lagers on dark lagers, Jeff Erway of La Cumbre on hops, Adam Avery of Avery Brewing on quality and innovation, and brewers discussing barrel-aged barleywine, hazy IPAs, and blending science. The podcast's deep technical dives — with GABF and World Beer Cup medalists — made it essential listening for serious brewers. Episodes run long and technical: designing and brewing ingredient-forward stouts, the mathematics of blending stock at different ages, lager discipline matched with brewpub ingenuity — conversations for brewers who measure in degrees Plato.

The Digital Presence

The company maintains BeerAndBrewing.com with daily updates on brewing tips, gear reviews, and beer-related news, engaging its audience through social media channels and fostering a community of craft beer enthusiasts. The site's daily cadence — brewing tips, gear reviews, beer news — keeps the community returning between print issues, and the social channels extend the magazine's educational mission to the feeds where brewers actually spend their time. The company's plans from the start included a new app and website alongside the print magazine — the digital prong of the three-pronged strategy. The company emphasizes customer satisfaction, offering refunds or replacements for subscribers who are not satisfied.

The Business Model

From the loft days, the company's approach was three-pronged: publishing with magazines and books, digital media on the web and in apps, and hosting events such as beer retreats and festivals. By the end of 2015, the plan called for six issues a year, a new app, a new website, a book or two, and a national festival — the startup loft’s ambitions made concrete. "None of us are pining to build this media empire or anything like that," Bolton said, "but I think it's just natural if we see opportunities, we'll want to pursue them." The founders were turning a profit within the first year — a rare feat for a startup magazine — on the strength of a product that resonated with both brewers and drinkers.

The Blind Review Panels

At the heart of the magazine's authority are its blind review panels. "We taste thousands of beers per year at Craft Beer & Brewing," the editors explain — between beers the blind panel reviews, beers sent in for general coverage consideration, beers tasted at festivals, and beers shared on brewery visits. Once a year, the staff pools its collective judgment into the Editors' Picks for the Best Beers of the Year, while readers and listeners vote for their favorite beers of the year, favorite breweries of various sizes, and favorite breweries within styles. The combination of blind-panel rigor and community polling gives the annual picks unusual credibility: professional evaluation checked against popular taste.

The Online Beer School

Readers can sign up for the company's own online beer school — a structured educational offering that turns the magazine's brewing knowledge into curriculum. Alongside the school, the magazine's "beerslang" features decode the industry's jargon, and how-to DVDs let readers learn at home. The educational layer reflects the founders' homebrewer roots: a media company built by people who learned by brewing, teaching others to do the same.

Official Website

Craft Beer & Brewing's official website is https://beerandbrewing.com, offering daily brewing content, the magazine, the podcast, the online beer school, and subscription information. The company is based in Fort Collins, Colorado, and can be reached at 1-888-875-8708. Founded by homebrewers and beer enthusiasts, it remains dedicated to the craft beer industry — its professionals, its homebrewers, and its avid enthusiasts alike.