When I sat down with Sam, he was in the midst of R&D for a hard seltzer, and we spoke about what it takes to bring that kind of drink to consumers, as well as what it means to build a market for modern IPA. Like many of his peers, Sam came from outside the industry—a homebrewer gone pro—and we discuss the dramatic shift in moving from a lab job at a pharmaceutical company to the daily grind of a brewery.
