Beer has been part of the human story for millennia. It helped fuel debates in revolutionary taverns, followed soldiers to war, brought strangers together in colonial alehouses and modern taprooms. From the Founding Fathers’ home brews to today’s experimental IPAs, beer has been a constant companion to our species. But why? What is it about this fermented beverage that’s kept us coming back for ten thousand years?

In this episode, I step inside Boston’s Aeronaut Brewing Co. with head brewer Mark Bowers for a behind-the-scenes look at how great craft beer comes to life. Mark’s journey is fascinating. He’s a former PhD chemist who was in San Francisco during the mid-1960s birth of the craft brewing movement. He’s been brewing his own beer since he was a teenager, and after years working in R&D labs, he jumped at the chance to start brewing for Aeronaut in 2014, a brewery whose philosophy is “brewed with curiosity and backed by science.”

The spark for this episode came back in March when I visited The Alchemist Brewery in Vermont to drink Heady Topper, a legendary IPA that’s hard to come by in Boston. Sitting there, soaking it all in, I started thinking about the craft behind my favorite beers. That’s when I realized I needed to get a brewer on the show. I’ve been a fan of Aeronaut for years, so I reached out and Mark said yes immediately.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about the evolution of craft beer, the brewing process, the equipment and ingredients, prototype beers and wild experiments. And then we tasted everything, from lagers and IPAs to seltzers and sours.

What struck me most was a theme that kept bubbling up: beer is really about bringing people together. It’s about being social, having fun, discovering new flavors, and sometimes even sparking ideas and getting things done. As Edward Slingerland wrote in Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, alcohol “helps us be more creative. It helps us to be more communal. It helps us to cooperate on a large scale. So it solved a bunch of adaptive problems that we uniquely face as a species.”

Now, I know some younger drinkers are moving away from beer toward cannabis and other alternatives. And there’s nothing wrong with that; plenty of people report better sleep, more energy, and lower health risks when they cut back on alcohol. But I want to make a little case for enjoying beer, responsibly and in moderation, because it’s been part of our story since the beginning.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Mark’s journey from PhD chemist to brewmaster and how science shapes great beer

• The evolution of IPAs and why they’ve dominated craft brewing

• What happens behind the scenes at a modern brewery: equipment, techniques, experiments

• Aeronaut’s philosophy: “brewed with curiosity and backed by science”

• Why we sampled lagers, IPAs, seltzers, and sours (and what I learned)

• How beer has brought people together for ten thousand years

• The role of beer in American history, from colonial taverns to revolutionary debates

• Why alcohol may have helped us build civilization by making us more creative and communal

• The shift away from beer among younger drinkers and why moderation still matters

• What makes a great craft beer, and how to appreciate it beyond just the buzz

💡 Learn more about Aeronaut Brewing Co.: https://www.aeronautbrewing.com/about/our-story/

💡 Read Mark’s story from PhD to brewmaster: https://www.aeronautbrewing.com/meet-the-aeronauts-mark/

💡 About Curiously: https://www.curiouslypod.com/