About the Authors

Fal Allen grew up in Hilo, a small town on the island of Hawaii. He graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1984 and moved to the Northwest that same year.

Fal had an inordinately large interest in beer starting at an early age. This fascination continued through college and led to further investigations into the realm of beer styles and brewing. He started homebrewing in 1985 and has been a professional brewer since 1988. He has held his current position as head brewer for the Pike Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington, for the last eight years.

Fal has authored many articles about beer and brewing but is most proud of the five-part series on microbiology and laboratory procedures that appeared in Brewing Techniques and of his collaborative effort with Dick Cantwell and Kevin Forhan on how to produce cask-conditioned beer in America. Fal currently writes a regular column in American Brewer under the title “I, Beer Thrall.”

Although it doesn’t seem like it at times, Fal does have a life outside brewing. He also enjoys camping, ocean activities, gardening, motor bikes, and traveling (hopefully to somewhere that has good beer).

Dick Cantwell was born in Germany and raised in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He has lived all over the place, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Madrid, Boston, Michigan, and western Montana. He has lived in Seattle for the past eight years, where his professional brewing career began as head brewer at Duwamps Cafe/Seattle Brewing Company. Since then, he has worked at Pike Place Brewery and served as head brewer at Big Time Brewery. With partners David Buhler and Joe Bisacca, he began Elysian Brewing Company and Public House in 1996. In addition to brewing, Dick has written two novels and various stories and plays. These days his writing mainly has to do with beer, in the pages of various magazines, including a regular column in American Brewer. He has two frequently wonderful children, Lucy and Nap.