Black Market Brewing Featured on The Beer Thirty Show

by Drew Kaplan · Published November 17, 2015 · Updated November 18, 2015

Aaron Heyden on The Beer 30 Show

Last night’s episode of The Beer 30 Show featured a brewery from Temecula, as well as getting to hear from a guy who makes prints custom beer glasses. The featured brewery, Black Market Brewing, located in Temecula, CA, was represented by its head brewmaster, Aaron Heyden. A humble man who had a sizeably peppery gray beard, Heyden brought several beers from Black Market Brewing for tasting, which provided an entree into hearing about the brewery. The episode can be viewed/watched in its first part here and its second part (with me(!)) here.

Aaron Heyden speaking to Dino on The Beer 30 Show

Heyden said that Black Market Brewing has been around for six years and that he has been with them for most of it. As to an identity of the brewery, Heyden said that, “We make a little bit of everything”, making some traditional styles, then sours, and even session IPAs. While one can go to the tasting room and get different beers, they have a rotating IPA on-tap in the tasting room to help them “work through which IPAs we will make.” As far as trying out different beers, Heyden said that they can make a beer for the tasting room and not deal with the labelling for cans and bottles, which is a lot easier.

Cody speaking on The Beer 30 Show

The first beer was their pumpkin beer, Superstition, which was nicely received, followed by their Tradecraft Series Cherry Sour, which is a cherry-flavored Berliner Weisse. Dino, one of the hosts of the show, said that it is a “perfect sour beer for the daytime.” Heyden said that “it’s easy to drink, it’s easy for people who aren’t sour beer drinkers to get into.” Also making it easy to consume is that it is offered in 12oz cans. Yes, you read that correctly: they sell sour ales in cans(!). The next beer shared was their Rye IPA, which Cody, the other host of the show, described as “definitely well-balanced.” This beer won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival a few years ago and “it’s one of our classic beers; we’re kind of known for it”, said Heyden.

Black Market Brewing’s 6th Anniversary Ale in a tulip glass of The Beer 30 Show by Custom-Printed Beer Glasses

Before moving on to more beers, the show featured a call-in guest who makes custom-printed beer glasses. The guest, Kevin Walker, runs a company called Custom-Printed Beer Glasses. Walker has been a stay-at-home dad for the past six years “and I needed some beer money”, he said. He had access to printing equipment and a buddy asked if they could print on beer glasses, thus began his business. He does mainly short-run specialty prints and, as he said, “I try to do quality work.” Appropriately, there were very nice-looking Beer 30 Show tulip glasses in the studio that had been printed up by Walker’s company.

The author surprisingly on The Beer Thirty Show

Following the weekly news segment delivered by Cody, he decided to take a break…leaving me in his stead. Well, there’s a first time for everything! With me newly on-air, we continued drinking Black Market Brewing beers, beginning with their Aftermath IPA, which is sort of a session IPA. It has a low alcohol content for an IPA (5.8% ABV), but was initially intended as an over-hopped pale ale, but since they feared it might be too confusing for consumers, they just called it an IPA, even though it was before session IPAs became “a thing.” Heyden said they made this beer “because we wanted to drink it.” While there was some discussion of the acquisition of Ballast Point, we then continued on with the final beer of the show, Black Market Brewing’s 6th Anniversary Ale, their Winter Warmer Ale (9.8% ABV), which was delicious. What I greatly enjoyed about their IPAs and anniversary ale is that they are all so smooth-edged and round, which was really fascinating. Also, that Cherry Sour was really cool, especially since they’re sold in 12oz cans!

It was a good show, along with a special surprise of me having gotten invited to take part on the actual show.