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Today\u2019s guest has been a bit of a ghost int he GBH machine for more than a decade - since our founding really - and he\u2019s someone I think about every time someone asks me how GBH got started - and as you\u2019ll discover shortly, he had no idea.\xa0

Greg Browne was the brewer at a brewpub in Chicago\u2019s NW suburbs - a place called Mickey Finn\u2019s. He was known for brewing a hefeweizen - a recipe he inherited from his predecessor when he took over as head brewer.\xa0

More importantly, for me, he was the host of a weekly Beer School at The Map Room in Chicago - a midday gathering on Saturday\u2019s where guests would enjoy some bread and cheese and learn about beers in a thematic way - and the themes were whatever happened to be on Greg\u2019s mind that week.\xa0

It\u2019s an incredible memory for me - from a time when I\u2019d only had a smattering of craft beer experiences to rely on - and I hardly considered myself a fan of beer in any particular way. It was just causal and sometimes interesting fun. Most of my bar experiencers a the time involved $1 off specials of Blue Moon and some Golden Tee. Not exactly sophisticated stuff - but it was kind of the Chicago way.\xa0

Map Room - and Greg Browne\u2019s beer school painted an entirely different picture however. And I\u2019m forever indebted to that moment when he served me my first Saison Dupont. That\u2019s the beer that inspired GBH - and Greg is the one who created that moment, unbeknownst to him.\xa0

But that\u2019s not the real reason we\u2019re talking today - that\u2019s a story we could have shared at any point in in past decade really. Today I\u2019m talking to Greg because for the first time in a long time, I saw his name pop up as part of a new brewing project called Art History, and it recently started supplying two fantastic beers to Chicago\u2019s Hopleaf Bar. As far as I know the sis the first time Hopleaf has ever had a house beer. The venerated tap list there is a target for anyone trying to make a name for themselves in Chicago\u2019s beer scene. Brewers host parties just to celebrate getting on tao there for the first time if they\u2019re lucky enough to make the list at all. So for Greg to have a new gig - and so quickly become a mainstay on that list as a pair of house beers - is an unprecedented achievement.\xa0

And for this episode, I reached out to Michael Roper of Hopleaf for his perspective on all that.\xa0

It was a sign for me that it was finally time to get Greg on the podcast, share this story with him, and hear so much more about his own. It takes us deep into Chicago\u2019s craft brewing past - and paints pa picture of the future that I\u2019m very excited about.\xa0