Just a bit about me:

Hi, I’m Ethan Siegler. I’m a beer professional working for Goose Island, a dream come true! I get to apply my engineering skills, my business background, and passion for beer into a career, all the while bringing awesome products into the world. I love how beer combines artistry and technical prowess to create the best part of someone’s day. As the person in charge of so much great beer, I endeavor to share this passion and create a few ‘cheers’ along the way!

How it all started

My beer journey started like many others, with a homebrew kit in my dorm room at University of Rochester. At the U of R, I applied my engineering mind from researching the antioxidant activity of beer to perfecting my chai-ed porter, all the time reveling in beer as a social beverage by hosting guided beer tastings and helping people discover a great beer for them. Since undergrad, I’ve traveled the world, speaking to brewmasters, brewery owners, servers, consumers, and friends about beer. Upon moving to Florida, I started an event series for my friends called “Beer Book Club.” This event series taught me the value of building community through a great beverage.

My next stop on this journey was Los Angeles. As an MBA student at USC Marshall School of Business, I focused my studies on the beer industry, writing reports on Genesee Brewery’s strategy, branding strategy of Anheuseur-Busch InBev, new product development of Miller’s Two Hats, developing disruptive business models for beer retail, and a capstone consumer research project on LA Beer Consumers. Through this project, I interviewed local consumers to understand what drives their beer decisions and I worked with local brewers to use these insights to better market their brewery and beers.

One of the final pieces of the puzzle occurred during a year of great change for all of us. In the ‘before times’ of February, 2020, I was headed out on a national park road trip to celebrate my birthday and I figured I needed a camera a bit better than my cell phone. As a beer lover, naturally I decided to bring some beer along to enjoy and photograph. The end result were moments that captured the grandiosity of our country and my relatively miniscule place that I (and my beer passion) occupies. This fateful purchase of a DSLR kicked off a love of photography, especially beer photography.

Where I’m at today

To me, beer has always been a fusion of art and science. Beer is liquid art. Beer is an idea. Beer is a vision. And most importantly, beer is a brewer’s imagination incarnate. However, beer only lives in a brewer’s mind until they can create and share it. This is where the science of brewing comes in. At AB, I’ve managed bottling lines where we’ve broken production records through this technical execution, I’ve rolled out 16 new brands in under 6 weeks, I’ve managed a fermentation department, and now I’m in charge of the quality and production almost all the beer Goose Island makes in North America!

When I’m behind the lens, I’m doing the same thing. I’m using my technical abilities as a photographer to try to make people feel the way I feel about the beer. By putting the beer on a pedestal (sometimes literally), I can express my deep passion for the beverage in the can (or bottle), thank the artist who designed the label, use beer to interact with the environment, or just make a lame visual pun. The blog section of this website is mostly dedicated to my photo phun these days. Feel free to scroll through and check it out.

So what’s next?

Throughout my journey, I’ve loved bringing people joy through beer. Sometimes, I’m bringing friends together to explore a new style, suggesting a great non-alc beer for folks who are sober, or crafting the latest sold out product. I’m a Certified Beer Server and am working towards my Cicerone certification, so you can find me studying, sharing, and photographing beers! Want to come along?