Ansari, Omar and Smith, Benjamin "Ben"
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Brewers Association
label: Collection Interviewer
content: Harry, John
label: Collection Interviewer
content: Johnson, Paula, Curator
label: Collection Interviewer
content: McCulla, Theresa
label: Collection Creator
content: National Museum of American History (U.S.)
setName: label: See more items in
content: American Beer Brewing Oral History Collection
label: See more items in
content: American Beer Brewing Oral History Collection / Series 1: Born-Digital Interviews
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 523.65 Megabytes (Total Running Time: 00:51:53, audio/wav
)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 2019-10-19
container: label: Container
content: Item NMAH-AC1595-BDA0002
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Audio
label: Type
content: Megabytes
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Oral history interview with Omar Ansari, founder and president, and Benjamin "Ben" Smith, head brewer, at Surly Brewing Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Topics covered include Ansari and Smith's childhoods; Ansari's parents' work as entrepreneurs and small business owners; Ansari beginning to homebrew in the mid-1990s; and his founding of Surly Brewing Co. in 2005. Ansari and Smith also discuss the homebrewing scene in Minnesota; the legislative and regulatory environments in the state in relation to small brewers; the beginning of Smith's brewing career in Montana and his study at University of California, Davis; their strategy to introduce Minnesota beer consumers to higher ABV IPAs and other then-unfamiliar styles; consumer enthusiasm for Surly beer releases; their recent construction of a large beer hall in Minneapolis; Surly's approach to recipe development; and their projections for the future of craft beer.