Transcript

Restarting Craft Beer Radio: Take Two

Shannon:
[0:05] Welcome to Craft Beer Radio, episode 509, take two, August 4th, 2023. I'm Shannon. I'm Jeff. And I'm Greg. Hi.

Jeff:
[0:12] Hello.

Shannon:
[0:13] We are back.

Technical Difficulties and Introduction

Jeff:
[0:20] We did a show, but it got eaten by the computer.

Greg:
[0:24] Yes.

Jeff:
[0:25] So we're, we have a backup recording this time, and we're both fresh back from vacations and tonight's going to be a haul of mostly hoppy stuff that we brought back from New England because we went to like the heart of hazy IPAville.

Greg:
[0:43] Okay so that should be interesting to see then what we get back if it's all going to be IPAs or if there's going to be some mixture of some stuff.

Jeff:
[0:52] We have one mixture.

Greg:
[0:54] One one mixture.

Jeff:
[0:56] Maybe I'll call an audible later on. Oh and we're We're using a different mic setup tonight.

Greg:
[1:00] Yes. We're using lav mics. We're doing an attempt here.
And I'd be curious to see if this is any better. I mean, it sounds a little bit weirder for us, but this is before any of the audio post-processing.
So we'll see.

Jeff:
[1:16] All right. So we are going to start with a brewery.
I forget exactly where we ran into this one.
Meredith, New Hampshire. So in the middle of our trip we spent some time in New Hampshire and this is Twin Barns Lake Cruiser Double APA.

Greg:
[1:39] Twin Barns Lake Cruiser.
Okay 7.8% alcohol by volume.
They just say Imperial and don't have much else on here. So you guys were way north, right? Way north.

Jeff:
[2:00] Oh yeah. Yeah. So the label has some information here. The hops are Citro, Mosaic, Amarillo, Simcoe, and Centennial.
and marketing speak talks of grapefruit, pineapple, passion fruit, things like that.

Describing the appearance and aroma of a beer

Greg:
[2:22] Okay, so this looks like grapefruit juice, and it smells like grapefruit juice.
It does. Yeah, it's an orangey, tan color, super hazy, and yeah, like grapefruit juice with all the pulp in it.
But of course, it's got a head, so it ain't grapefruit juice.

Shannon:
[2:45] But when you go on to the nose, it's very cold, so I'm getting a chance to warm up here.

Jeff:
[2:50] The first thing you get is grapefruit juice.

Shannon:
[2:54] But while we're letting it warm up, we can talk about our trips a little bit.

Greg:
[2:57] Yeah, that's what I was going to mention, because New Hampshire, you guys were north. You guys were far north. So tell me about it. What did you guys do?

Shannon:
[3:03] Everything.

Jeff:
[3:06] It was so much fun. The whole show could just be about our trip.
It was the best trip. We had so much fun. So we drove and we started, we were supposed to leave Saturday morning, but we knew we wouldn't be able to sleep Friday night. So we left Friday evening. So we left around 7 p.m.
Pittsburgh and we got to the main state line between Maine and New Hampshire around quarter to seven in the morning.
And we decided to, from there, kind of just drive the coast up to Portland because nothing was going to be open for the next several hours.
And man, we found some of the most beautiful shoreline. We stopped a whole bunch of times, took tons of photos, and it was just such a place.

Shannon:
[3:49] The photos don't do it justice.

Jeff:
[3:53] Then we went to Portland. It was kind of just like an easy day.
We stopped at a couple breweries and whatnot. But the next day we had the Cellar Tour to Allagash. Wow.

Shannon:
[4:03] And that was awesome.

Jeff:
[4:05] So, you know, Allagash does cool ship beers, so they have, you know, their whole funky fermentation.
It's basically the, like, back behind the big brewery is where, like, where they started out is where they do their cellar stuff.
And yeah, we got to peek and look into the room with the cool ships and mountains of barrels, and we got to see the Allagash winery, which, because of state laws or maybe federal The winery has to be separate from the brewery and they only have a winery so they can sell ciders, make ciders and sell ciders.
So there was this little red like velvet rope around like three fermenters in like a stainless steel vessel and that was the Allagash Winery.

Greg:
[4:53] Okay, so let's go back to this beer. It should be a little bit warm now.
cruiser and we'll continue with this the vacation report as we meander through the show I wasn't picking up much of a nose on this one. And flavor-wise...
I mean there's lots of grapefruit in here.
I just had a candy which is kind of maybe making some of the sweetness a little bit. Okay. It's just minimizing some of the stuff in here so I may need to just get some water in here. What do you taste?

Shannon:
[5:35] Yeah I just brushed my teeth so mine's messed up too.

Jeff:
[5:38] You're all messed up. Okay.

Shannon:
[5:39] I didn't think about it.

Jeff:
[5:40] I guess I'm bleeding here. So for me, for the aroma, it is as kind of citrusy and pungent as grapefruit juice.
And then onto the flavor, grapefruit juice is the big contributing the flavor.
There's a little bit of an apricot thing going on in there.
It's very, very juicy in the mouthfeel. It feels citric acid-y.
It feels like fruit juice, just as it looks. I don't believe there's any fruit juice added to this thing, but just the way the hop acids are playing in there, sure feels juicy to me.
The bitterness is coming after all the grapefruit stuff. It's kind of moderate high, but not, it's not dank. It's kind of piney.
It's kind of, um, yeah, I think I'd have to go with piney for the...

Greg:
[6:34] Yeah, I mean, if you look at the hop labels, so the hop bill, Citra, Mosaic, Amarillo, Simcoe Centennial. So nothing that is, you know, far outside of the box or anything.
I think that, you know, that edge you're getting at the end is, to me, a mixture of Centennial and Simcoe, maybe with a little Amarillo in there, too. Yeah.

Jeff:
[6:55] Once again, a little onion-y versus garlic-y at the end, though, like kind of from Big Citrus.

Greg:
[7:00] The sulfury stuff, though. I mean, Amarillo can definitely give that, you know, Amarillo. Yeah, yeah. Tasty. And yeah, Simcoe, especially if you ever do it. And then Centennial is just, you know, it's such a classic one.
But that's pretty typically pine.
So I'm not getting much like resiny pine.

Shannon:
[7:22] I don't taste any pine.

Greg:
[7:25] I think it's more just there is like a very basic backbone.

Jeff:
[7:35] I'm just overall impressions. I'm enjoying the spirit feels so weird not having a mic to lead into So weird, I feel like I'm off mic Being just stretch out like this.
Yeah She couches for in here Yeah, that's an enjoyable beer very juicy Kind of on the refreshing side, you know, cuz it's not kind of dank and It's super drinkable, yeah.

Shannon:
[8:04] Yeah, do either of you taste any lactose in it?

Greg:
[8:09] I don't know.

Shannon:
[8:10] It must be from brushing my teeth.

Jeff:
[8:12] It has such a full body. I mean, it has an unusually full body, but I don't taste any kind of milk sugars or anything in there.
Right, let's go. I'm trying to figure out the order here.

Greg:
[8:28] So you guys went to, you know, upper America. Yes. The lower part of what was New England. I went to kind of the, New England itself, I suppose you could say, I was in Cape Cod.
So that was, for me, a very nice week, a very nice way to get away from all the stuff. I've been looking forward to this for a while.
I think I saw water twice. I didn't go to any beaches. No, okay.
Because my, my vacation was, okay, I get to be around all this amazing seafood and have a really good kitchen and just, I'm going to cook up a bunch of stuff and have, you know, six people to cook for. So I don't have to worry about like trying to portion it.
Like I can make some, some cool, some cool shit. And that was my, that was my vacation.
So I spent a lot, I spent just, you know, days and days, um, I guess I didn't really spend days. you know, a couple hours in the kitchen for most nights cooking something.
And every day a different dish, every day some new fish, and every day beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Jeff:
[9:42] Yeah, we had some seafood when we were up there. I think in the first three days we had four lobster rolls.

Shannon:
[9:50] And I don't even, I can't even count how many oysters.
Two and a half dozen, probably, maybe three dozen. we did more than that?

Greg:
[10:01] Let's see. Let's see, I think that in terms of the total oysters that I bought...
So something like, yes, 56.
Because it was 48 one day, and then there was eight the previous day.
Of course, I didn't eat all those. This was, you know, but I probably ate, I probably ate 18 of those.

Jeff:
[10:23] Yeah, there's a couple places that there's just so much to talk about.

Shannon:
[10:32] We could do post-show.

Jeff:
[10:34] Yeah, I guess the post-show.

Greg:
[10:35] Post-show is a good chance for us to read all of the, you know, all the nitty-gritty about our shows. Yep.

Jeff:
[10:44] You can find the link to the post-show in the show notes on our website.
And I do know I was introduced to Google Podcasting.
They have something goofed up where they aren't working with the post-show feed.
Extras feed tries to work, but then it just shows the main feed.
So just saying, if you have a Google Podcast, I will try to get that resolved.

Greg:
[11:04] But having those Google problems.

Jeff:
[11:06] Yeah, it's not like they give you a phone number, you know.

Greg:
[11:10] Or you could get on our Discord and find the links to everything there.
This is a first and last thing from Hill Farmstead Brewery. Okay.

Jeff:
[11:19] You want to rinse your glass since this one's gonna be pretty different from and probably more subtle then.

Difference in opinion on favorite breweries

Greg:
[11:30] You know, one thing that we didn't get to last time, or we did get to last time, but I don't want to bring it up, was there's sort of a difference in opinion about what is our, I think, local favorite in terms of breweries that you can get.
You guys are really on the team hitchhiker, and I'm sort of on team hop farm.
And I think that that's probably a yeast thing. Like looking back to it, like I think the hop farms all have a flavor to them, and I really like it, but I can totally see how you guys don't.
And I also think that all of the hitchhikers have a flavor to them.
And it's not that I dislike it.
It's just, you know, you and I, Jeff, we see very similarly on a lot of things, even flavor-wise, but not enough that we're gonna marry you.
So maybe that's part of it, right?

Jeff:
[12:35] Yeah, for sure.

Greg:
[12:36] On even a more close level on that, so.

Jeff:
[12:41] Yeah. Yeah. And we feel the same way. We don't like hate hop farm.
It's just we don't find them to the same level of deliciousness that, you know, like we find a lot of hitchhiker beers.

Greg:
[12:51] So just one of those cool things that you can sometimes explore with your friends and breweries that are near your diversity.

Shannon:
[12:58] Yeah.

Greg:
[12:58] All right. So this guy is a first and last things.
India Pale Ale brewed with Motueka, Nelson Savine and Simcoe Hop.
So finally, so we're into a slightly more than just Just a standard hop profile.

Jeff:
[13:14] Yeah, so we showed up at Hill Farmstead about 10 minutes before they opened on a Wednesday, was it? Thursday? Wednesday?

Shannon:
[13:21] Thursday? No, it doesn't matter.

Jeff:
[13:23] Yeah, it doesn't matter. And there was people waiting outside already.

Shannon:
[13:26] I think it was Friday, actually.

Jeff:
[13:27] They have this beautiful, like, front yard with picking tables and awnings and stuff.
And then inside the tasting tap room, you can overlook the brewery.
They had some cuckoo crazy, like, sour barrel aged beers on.
Oh my goodness, it was awesome.
Hill Farmstead is worth the drive.

Shannon:
[13:52] Yeah, for sure. Cuckoo.
Cuckoo. And they had amazing barbecue out front. Yep.

Jeff:
[14:04] All right, so this one.

Greg:
[14:07] It was an amazing barbecue.

Shannon:
[14:10] Like, what did they have?

Jeff:
[14:11] Did you have barbecue?

Shannon:
[14:12] Actually, we didn't even eat the barbecue. So I was wondering how you knew it was amazing. I just got it a side, because we had already eaten earlier.
I got a side of mac and cheese.
But it smelled amazing. Yeah. And they were really nice people.

Jeff:
[14:29] Amazing smelling barbecue.

Shannon:
[14:31] Amazing smelling barbecue. I'm tired. I worked.

Greg:
[14:35] Me too. I just got back yesterday. I am I'm still out of it a little bit you got back. Yeah last night, At least all my beasties were taken care of.
Damien was able to come in and change the water every day, or every three days, which is all they needed. That's the beautiful thing about reptiles, you don't really need to do much.

Jeff:
[15:00] So the first and last things, this one pours a kind of whiter, cloudy, hazy, almost not quite as white as whipped beer, but similar to it.
The aroma for me, I'm getting like a creamsicle kind of thing.
I'm getting kind of vanilla notes. I'm getting orange notes.

Greg:
[15:17] I'm getting like passion fruit. I'm getting more on the tropical side.
Like passion fruit and maybe like a hint of guava or something like that.

Shannon:
[15:26] Guava. Mm-hmm. But I'm definitely getting the vanilla notes.

Jeff:
[15:33] And so it was Mozueka, Nelson, and...

Greg:
[15:36] That's that Mozueka. Sometimes you can, you can hit vanilla.
It's weird that a hop can do that, but it's really cool.

Jeff:
[15:43] And Simcoe.

Shannon:
[15:43] Wasn't it this trip that I realized that Motueka is one of my favorites?
Uh, I don't remember. I think it's Motueka that...

Greg:
[15:54] I wonder if that Duclos one that made Motueka into vanilla is still around because it was the first time we ever experienced that.

Jeff:
[16:01] Now we had a couple beers that were very creamsickly on the trip.
This might have been one of them. I know we had this one on tap.

Shannon:
[16:11] Yeah, I think this was one of my favorites out there.

Jeff:
[16:16] This one has a nice, like, creamy, soft body to it.
It has that, it's not as much creamsicle in the flavor. It's a little more, um, like fruit pith, like, um, kind of.

Greg:
[16:36] See, I'm getting, it's a little bit, bit the to me.
Okay. So first is a little bit, I guess, harsher the more, more, maybe resonate, or at least maybe a bite, like more biting notes.
And I don't know whether that's maybe the carbonation is a bit finer or, or, but I think it's the hops.
The hops are a little bit more sharper here.
They are also, Yeah, there, there is a lot of tropical stuff.
It feels to me, and like the first sip, like a lot, like almost overdoing it.
Whereas I felt like the Lake Cruiser was really well balanced by comparison.

Jeff:
[17:25] More I get into it, the, I'm getting kind of a little bit more trending towards dank. I think the Simcoe's popping out a little bit more.

Shannon:
[17:35] Are you getting grapefruit?

Greg:
[17:39] I can't say I'm getting grapefruit really. Really?

Shannon:
[17:41] It's hard because the last one was so, exactly grapefruit flavors.

Jeff:
[17:48] This one's kind of, there's something there, but it's also a little overripe or a little bit.

Greg:
[17:56] It's pithy. If there is grapefruit, it's pithy. notes from the grapefruit, more than juicy notes, I guess. Hmm.
And the creamsicle stuff that we were getting in the aroma isn't really carrying through.
I'm getting some like stone fruit vibes, like peach, that kind of thing.
Um, but it, it's, it feels like a lot and, and like, I can totally see how if you had the bars, it's going to be great.

Shannon:
[18:34] But as a, yeah, no, on draft at the bar, this beer was bonkers good.

Jeff:
[18:39] And here in the can, it's fine, but.

Shannon:
[18:41] And when was it canned, just?

Greg:
[18:45] I don't see a date on it, but.

Shannon:
[18:48] Yeah, 725.
So not very long ago. They even put the time.

Greg:
[18:53] What did they have?

Shannon:
[18:54] 1128. Well, there you go.

Jeff:
[18:57] If only it was canned a little bit later in the afternoon, it'd still be good.

Greg:
[19:02] No, I think that this is a perfectly fine beer. I don't think there's any, you know, there's no problem with it, but I just, you know, it suffers in comparison to the last one, which was just really drinkable, like, really.
This is, I mean, I was not, like, looking forward to drinking a bunch of hazies, to be honest with you.

Jeff:
[19:23] In that Lake Cruiser, gotcha.

Greg:
[19:24] And then this was great.
really like this would be if I saw this on the shelf I'd be like hell yeah because that was really really good.

Jeff:
[19:36] Yeah we stopped there there was a day in New Hampshire where we got rained out so we visited seven breweries that day.

Shannon:
[19:46] I didn't keep track.

Jeff:
[19:48] Like short little visits just like you know a couple tasters and things like that but yeah we hit up like seven breweries that day So to be honest, I can't remember exactly which one was Twin Barn.

Shannon:
[20:00] Probably could look at our pictures and figure it out, but, yeah.

Greg:
[20:07] So did you guys do anything besides go to breweries?

Jeff:
[20:09] We went to some great restaurants and we hiked 54.27.

Shannon:
[20:12] Miles. Wow. Yes.

Greg:
[20:18] And Acadia.

Shannon:
[20:19] Well, mostly Acadia. in Acadia. Well, mostly Acadia.

Greg:
[20:23] Now, I should mention that I knew that, and the reason why I knew that was because of our Discord, which we never got to really properly announce nor celebrate.
We did last time, but it all got wiped out by the Internet gods.

Jeff:
[20:36] Yeah, so on our website at craftyradio.com, there is a link to join our Discord server.
It is the thing that I want to use to eliminate email to converse with people.
It allows listeners to converse with each other. We got some long time, got three Greggs on there, We got, uh, who, who else, um.
I can't think of the guy's real name. I just know it's like Handel.

Greg:
[21:04] We got other people on there. But come and join us.
We want to get people on there and talk about stuff, give us ideas.
We have a couple channels going there. We'll probably create more.

Introduction to the Transcript and Multimedia Resources

Jeff:
[21:17] And there'll be a forum channel for each show. And that'll have all of the transcript stuff and things like that linked in there. So if you want to get the most of the multimedia about the show, that's where you'll get it. So.
All right, what's next? What's next? Do you want the palate cleanser now or do you want another IPA and then the palate cleanser?

Greg:
[21:40] Let's do the IPA then and go with the palate cleanser and then we'll see what we have next.

Jeff:
[21:45] We're gonna do Fiddlehead Brewing Company.
So some of the really big name breweries in Vermont, outside of Burlington, right, is Hill Farmstead, The Alchemist, and Fiddlehead.
And we hit up Fiddlehead on the last day, and I really, really liked the place.
So this is their regular IPA.
We have another beer from Fiddlehead down, oh no, we have three more beers from Fiddlehead downstairs, one more IPA, a double IPA, and then two of their other things, spontaneously fermented one and a barrel-aged Imperial Porter.

Greg:
[22:22] So this is just their standard IPA, This is their flagship?
I think it's their flagship because they're year-round, and it's the first one on their list. 6.2% occupied volume, 53 APU.
They say it's just a hazy American IPA. It's green. The color of the can and everything around it is green.

Jeff:
[22:46] When we got this, they made sure that I was going to promise to keep it cold.
They basically said, you know, it'll change if you let it warm up. It's unpasteurized.
So we kept this cold. We went and got ice that night.
It was the same day we got the Crusher from Alchemist, which will be our next beer after the Intramezzo.
And those, you know, I'm excited for this press show. I hope you enjoy them. Okay.

Greg:
[23:16] You, So, this being so cold, I'm going to warm it up. I haven't noticed much on the aroma yet. So, let's warm this sucker.

Jeff:
[23:28] Yeah, I'm going to sit back and let Greg explore this instead of me telling you what the taste is.

Greg:
[23:33] Okay.

Shannon:
[23:36] Okay.

Greg:
[23:40] So, now I'm thinking about the beers that I had, which I didn't have that many.
I actually put them on our disc.

Jeff:
[23:47] You had that Jay Wakefield smoked lager or something, right?

Greg:
[23:52] That was probably my favorite. And I wanted to bring some of that down, but ain't again, it wasn't, it was going to be hard. But yeah, this was a Czech dark lager that was aged in wood footers.

Jeff:
[24:05] The next time we're in Florida, we'll have to, we've already talked about trying to get down to Jay Wakefield.
So we'll try to do that and bring some stuff back. Yeah. Because they're in one of the towns on the Atlantic coast, I can't, in South. I can't remember exactly where the... I don't know.

Greg:
[24:21] The beer was called Of Darkest Night, which is a Green Lantern reference.
So for all you DC Comics heads.

Jeff:
[24:28] So was it, was it funky footer? Or was it just like...

Greg:
[24:32] No, it was woody. It was really woody. I mean, it was really oaky.
And I think that in, on the show, it probably would have been overly oaky, like just as a, uh, as in putting our microscope on it, it was kind of too oaky, but, but when you just sort of ignored that and had it with some oysters.

Jeff:
[24:51] Oh, I bet.

Greg:
[24:52] Fantastic. Okay. So you're going to let me.

Jeff:
[24:56] Yeah. Stick your nose in there. Tell me what you smell.

Greg:
[25:01] It smells a little, uh, dank.

Jeff:
[25:06] It's so fucking weedy.

Greg:
[25:13] Yeah, it smells like weed.
It smells kind of like, you know, what sometimes if you're walking by—I was with Nick and Aaron and they were here very briefly and went to a place, Sao Marcado, here in Pittsburgh.
And as I was walking to where they were, there were some guys smoking weed in the alley that I passed by. And it was, yep, this is what it smelled like.

Jeff:
[25:49] Yep. This beer, these darn fruit flies keep buzzing around.

Shannon:
[25:57] Where'd they come from? They just appeared today.

Jeff:
[25:59] Yeah, I don't know. This beer seems like it's kind of, I don't want to say modeled after, but of the same vein as Heddy Top.

Greg:
[26:10] I was thinking the same thing, yeah.

Jeff:
[26:11] And when, like looking at some of the marketing speak for Heddy Topper, they talk about it just being made to be a dank IPA. Yeah. And this is more.

Greg:
[26:23] This is more drinkable than Heddy Topper.

Jeff:
[26:25] It definitely is. I had Heddy Topper at the brewery on beer engine and it wasn't exciting.

Greg:
[26:33] Beer engine, you're gonna have to explain that.

Jeff:
[26:35] A cask. Okay. Hand pull on a cask. And I thought, oh my God, if it's ever gonna be good, this is gonna be good. Disappointing.
And three-day-old focal banger was just eh.
But what was delicious was the crusher.

Greg:
[26:49] We're gonna get to that, okay. But...
Yeah, so I think that, you know, Heady Topper, it's, it's days are past it really, because it was exciting when it was something really new, and when it really helped redefine a whole, I mean, yeah, it, it, it redefined a whole style, and that, for that it needs to be appraised, but but in terms of how it lives up to the hype, no, these days people have figured out how to make Paisies so much better.

Jeff:
[27:26] You know what else is really weird about the Alchemist's tap room?
Is it's not a tap room. They had Heddy Topper on cask.
Everything else was can pours.

Greg:
[27:36] Weird. That is weird.
Okay, so this is, yeah, this feels from the same vein as Heady Topper and they have the same instructions, keep it cold, probably they would tell you to drink from the can.
It's just, it's less dank than Heady Topper.

Jeff:
[27:56] It's less of a, of a...

Greg:
[27:57] So, salt. Yeah, Heady Topper.

Jeff:
[28:00] When you get Heady Topper on cask, it kind of takes away that salt, but it kind of just, it almost makes it taste like in the middle of the road English IPA where nothing really stands out. It's kind of more malty and creamy. But it, maybe it made it.
more average? I don't know. I'm glad I went to the Alchemist.
Some of their other beers had some saisons and stuff out of cans that were really good, but the two flagships, the reasons people go, was underwhelming.

Greg:
[28:33] Well, you know, again, you have to keep that beer around for historical purposes or nothing else.
And I think as a way to see both, okay, this is the beginnings of Hazes, and we now know what they've turned into, but also as a way to see, okay, this is the line between this sort of West Coast dominant, crazy, crazy resin hop and this wacky, bright style.
Yeah. I mean, for both those reasons, it's a beer worth drinking, but it's, it is not a, it's not a crowd pleaser anymore. All right.

Jeff:
[29:21] So our next beer, this is one we got because Shannon demanded it.
I did? The Days End from Allagash.
So this is one of the beers from Portland With Love, which is the program that the employees get to suggest things, Days End, get to suggest things and some of those get picked up for small batches or big batches or whatnot.
This one is modeled to be like a Boulevardier.
So, instead of an old...

Greg:
[29:58] It's a cocktail, right?

Jeff:
[29:59] It's a cocktail. Imagine an old-fashioned, but with vermouth.

Greg:
[30:01] Okay. Brewed this beer with a Lambrusco grape must, Angelica root.
I don't even know what Angelica root is. An orange peel. Angelica root.

Jeff:
[30:15] Yeah.

Greg:
[30:15] No idea.

Jeff:
[30:16] It's, well, here, when you taste it, you'll see the, some of the character that it gives.

Greg:
[30:22] Aging in bourbon barrels for two months, result, okay. 9.5% but yeah, palate cleanser I should say, because this is finally not a hazy IPA.
Right, well, there's a little bit of haze in there, but it's not really an IPA.

Shannon:
[30:41] It's got a pink grapefruit tint to it, doesn't it?

Greg:
[30:50] So in terms of grains, you have your two row base malt blend, which is pretty standard.
Red wheat and flaked corn, so a variety of different grains in here to give it some stuff.
Northern Brewer, Crystal, and Europeans, that's hops. So wow, that's a, so don't expect this to be very hoppy.

Jeff:
[31:07] This was bottled a year ago. Okay.

Unexpectedly Sour Notes in the Aroma

Greg:
[31:11] Ooh, okay. Yeah, so immediately a sour on the nose.
Which I guess I should have expected with a grape musk, but didn't immediately come to mind this was necessarily going to be sour. Especially when I saw bourbon barrels, I was thinking maybe this would be sweeter.

Jeff:
[31:30] I haven't tasted it yet. I thought this was like fresh bourbon and not like funky barrels.
The aroma, the oakiness is definitely coming through. one of the first things I get, a little bit of that grape, musk kind of smell, kind of sweet, but with some tannins and things like that.

Light and Fading: Tasting a Low ABV Beer

Greg:
[32:03] Hmm. Ooh, okay.
Lighter than I expected, especially for a 9.5% alcoholic volume, right?
Kind of a light beer. Much of the flavor was like a big hit and then kind of fades.
And you just sort of get sort of the sour tart notes after that.

Shannon:
[32:30] And I don't even notice that as, I mean, it smells like a sour, but it doesn't taste like a sour to me at all.

Jeff:
[32:39] Jeff is bringing out some, so I think Angelica root goes into Campari.
Okay. And that's part of the Boulevardier as well.

Greg:
[32:50] Campari is a very potent cure, Italian.
Do you want to smell this? It's bitter, it doesn't necessarily smell bitter, but it is bitter and strong.
It is known for being, it's a key component of a Negroni.
It's one of those things that's like, especially the first time you drink it, you're probably not going to necessarily like it, but then you sort of grow to really appreciate it.

Jeff:
[33:23] Yeah. Actually, you reminded me. I described it wrong. A boulevardier is a Negroni with bourbon instead of gin.

Greg:
[33:30] Okay.

Jeff:
[33:30] So that's what I, I was confused.

Greg:
[33:34] Gotcha.

Jeff:
[33:34] You helped me get there. So thank you.

Greg:
[33:39] Glad I could be of service. All right, let me give it another taste here.

Shannon:
[33:45] I love this one.

Greg:
[33:49] So really this is another attempt at a cocktail beer.

Jeff:
[33:55] Or a beer inspired by a cocktail beer. Not really like putting in all the orange and all the thingies.
Because I mean, the way they arrive at it is with grapes and angelica root.

Greg:
[34:06] You know? Yeah. So they're taking some of the spicing of the things they know.
And yeah, I guess there is like an Aperoli kind of...

Jeff:
[34:14] You know, the grapes give you the vermouth notes. The angelica root gives you the Campari notes. The barrel gives you the bourbon notes. So it's a neat way to get there.

Greg:
[34:24] Yeah, I see that.

Shannon:
[34:25] I'm really tasting the barrel in it now.

Greg:
[34:27] So I should explain the Aperol is the like less intense version of Campari.
It's the one, I have both, but it's the one that I would prefer to use in lots of things. Although, I mean, I think you can't have a Negroni without Campari.
But I think that Aperol, in almost all cases, it's just, it's a less assaulting version.
So, in a lot – in almost all cases, it's the more useful general purpose version of Campari, I think.
But yeah, this is, this is nice. This is not, I wouldn't like, okay.
So it's funny because when I was at the Cape, it was so hard to find beers that were not hazy or some variation of IPA or just some wheat that I was like, not super interested in.
I mean, it is summertime at Cape Cod. I shouldn't expect much more than this, but it was, it was tough.
So I didn't, I didn't get any of those. What I ended up getting was like a Prairie Arden sour and, uh, uh, one other thing.
I think, yeah, a Czech Pilsner, right? So it was, it was, or no, no, no, I'm sorry. It was a, it was a, what's the Pilsner that's, uh, um, hoppy.

Jeff:
[35:55] Uh, Bavarian Pilsner.

Greg:
[35:56] Was it Bavarian? Yeah, it was a hoppy, it was a Bavarian style Pils.
So, yeah, the pickings were small because I would, but I also wouldn't have picked this out. Like I wouldn't have seen this and said, yeah, this is what I want.

Jeff:
[36:14] But this is, if we hadn't tasted this in the cellar tasting part of it, no, I don't think we would have gone for it either.
You know, and I probably wouldn't, I'm enjoying this thoroughly, but because of all the other Amaze beers that they had to buy, I probably wouldn't have bought a four pack of this, but Shannon was hooked into it.

Shannon:
[36:33] We still would have, because I always gravitate to the ones that are aged in bourbon barrels. And it says right there on the label.

Jeff:
[36:40] But everything there was aged in bourbon barrels.

Shannon:
[36:42] I know.

Greg:
[36:43] Hey, you know, you found something you like and you go towards it.
I understand that completely.

Jeff:
[36:49] When- But I'm glad she said, we're getting this, because I'm enjoying this tonight.
Definitely. Three more bottles. And yeah, it totally feels like we're sipping on a cocktail and sit here talking.

Greg:
[37:00] Yeah, you'll feel that monkey's paw curl when everything on the shelf turns into bourbon barrel aged stuff, like we did for Haze.

Jeff:
[37:10] Speaking of loggers and stuff, one of our last days in Vermont, after we went hiking one day, we stopped at Von Trapp Brewery, which is the Von Trapps from The Sound of Music.

Greg:
[37:22] I was thinking that were those the same?

Jeff:
[37:25] Yeah, they own so much land there, like, it's like 1800 acres or 2400 acres or something. I have to look it back up because...
And they, one of the sons wanted to open a brewery and he went to Austria, like they're They're from Austria, so they wanted kind of that Austrian kind of vibe.
If every craft brewery who made pilsners made pilsners half as good as theirs, it'd be all I drink.

Greg:
[37:55] Wow.

Jeff:
[37:56] It was, no, their pilsner was, I mean, I had other beers too, but their pilsner was, I never loved something so much that was so subtle.
Like, I couldn't tell you why I loved it. I just loved it.

Greg:
[38:13] It's probably the yeast. I think a big part of that German Reinheimskippen is getting the yeast right.
Because if you don't do that, everything is off a little bit. Yeah.

Jeff:
[38:23] Because there was like nothing, like nothing stood out from the beer, but the beer was outstanding.
Like, I'm like, this is, you know, you see all these Pilsners at these breweries and a lot of them are under attenuated and they're just not what you want.
You know, they're homebrew versions of Pilsner's.
And, but this one.

Greg:
[38:46] So lagered correctly, right?

Jeff:
[38:48] They did all the- Fuck man, it was so good. I had their kosh.
I had, that was really good too.

Greg:
[38:55] Now, are they taking advantage of the sound and musicness of it all at all?
Or are they bringing it like anything, any brand?

Jeff:
[39:02] There was a big like chalet type lodge where the brewery tasting room was.

Greg:
[39:09] Well, yeah, but I mean, like, in terms of like the names of their beers or whatever.

Jeff:
[39:12] No, no. You know what the beer's names are? Pilsner, Hellas, Kulsh, Goza, Hoffenweiss.

Greg:
[39:25] Yeah. So I was trying to make a joke about how they're taking the name of everyone else, but it's not really because technically you can't even copyright those things even.
So I don't know. I couldn't find the joke there, but there is one if you take enough time.

Jeff:
[39:43] I mean, other than the name of the brewery being Von Trapp, they're not parlaying. Yeah, no, they're not.
Yeah, before the brewery, I guess they, since the 60s, they have been buying, acquiring land there, but it's like some of the best cross-country skiing in the country there and things like that.

Von Trapp Brewery: More Than Just Beer

[40:01] So they were known for things like lodging and cross-country skiing before the brewery.

Greg:
[40:06] Which is basically hiking during the summer.

Jeff:
[40:07] Yeah.

Shannon:
[40:10] Or winter hiking, yeah.

Greg:
[40:12] For sure. Okay, well that was definitely a good palate cleanser.
So what are we doing next?

Jeff:
[40:18] Do the alchemist's crusher.

Shannon:
[40:19] Okay.

Greg:
[40:22] So this is the one you said this was, this was like stand out at the alchemist. Yeah.

Shannon:
[40:28] When there's a really good story behind how we obtained this.

Jeff:
[40:31] Yeah. So they only have like to go, they only have like three things to go for, or three or four things ago. They have, they always have heady.
They always have focal banger.
And then they had like, They had Redemption? Yeah, it's Redemption.

Shannon:
[40:51] Redemption.

Jeff:
[40:53] And like one other thing to go. And we really liked this beer.
So they had it for cans to sell, but not for takeout. I asked them, and they're like, no, next week.
And so we did our thing. And we went to Burlington, which is about 40 minutes away from the Alchemist.
and you know we're like okay just not in the cards to get a can of Crusher or a four-pack of Crusher or anything like that.
And then the day that we went to Von Traff we decided to go climb Mount Mansfield which is the tallest mountain in Vermont and on the way to Mount Mansfield.

Greg:
[41:29] I just think there's a such a funny thought that would never enter my mind.
Oh let's go climb the tallest mountains near here.

Shannon:
[41:35] It was a challenge and like no I respect it. Failure's not an option.
He was like, do you want to call the, do you want to climb the tallest one?
And this was the last of our hikes. And we'll talk about that in the post show, but yeah.
He gave me other options too, for the hike, but.

Jeff:
[41:57] I had to go ahead and even though I was really leery because of the dangerously exposed yeah we'll talk about it portions of the hike yeah but we'll talk about the hike stuff in the post-show real quick though we're going to Mount Mansfield we're nine minutes from the trailhead and we drive past the alchemist again we're like what okay and I'm like oh that's great because I want to go to Von Trapp we can do that and then on when we're done hiking it was alchemist before And we're like, they said Crusher was on next week.
It's Sunday. Is this next week?
We stopped, Crusher was on. It was.

Greg:
[42:36] Yes. It was next week.

Shannon:
[42:39] And they have a pull up as to the parking and going in. You can pull up, somebody comes out.

Greg:
[42:45] Is that true?

Shannon:
[42:46] You can place your order.

Greg:
[42:47] That's a little point of sale thing, and they place your order, they bring beer out to you. Now, the way, there's not a ton of parking there.

Jeff:
[42:54] There's tons of people hanging out. It's a really smart thing.
It doesn't tie up parking.
It doesn't tie up people at the counter, you know, so.

Greg:
[43:04] Okay, so back onto the beer itself, Crusher.

The Resin-y and Metallic Finish of Crusher

[43:10] Another dank one. This is particularly dank in the aroma. This is, I'm getting, this is the most aroma I think I've had today from an IPA, at least.

Jeff:
[43:21] Sure, if they divulge their hops. I know.

Greg:
[43:24] Yes, they do. Well, it says dry hopped with Citra.

Jeff:
[43:27] Okay. Fiddlehead, she told me, we do not divulge our hops.
And I wasn't even specifically asking about the kinds of hops.
I was just asking about the character.

Greg:
[43:37] And I don't really care.

Shannon:
[43:40] Yeah, we wanted descriptions.

Greg:
[43:43] I mean, that was not like, oh man, I have to know the hopping of Fiddlehead.

Jeff:
[43:50] But so the aroma on this, I'm getting peaches and vanilla again.

Greg:
[43:54] I'm getting, okay, I just had a taste and I see why you like.

Shannon:
[43:59] A lot of vanilla. I haven't tasted it yet, but just on the nose.

Greg:
[44:04] This is the more appropriate version of Heddy Topper for today, is I think the best way to think about it.
Because it's still got a pretty sharp, there's, it's almost coming off metallic to me how hoppy it is in certain areas. Oh yeah, there's almost like a burn to it, right?

Jeff:
[44:23] Like how there used to be hot burns with some of those beers in the West Coast.

Greg:
[44:26] Yeah, it ends very resiny, like on the tongue, but it is much more approachable under today's understanding of hazy IPAs than The Alchemist was.

Jeff:
[44:40] Than Heddy Topper. This is the outcome.

Greg:
[44:41] Yes. Yes. Heddy Topper is what I mean. Great. Um, in terms of color, it kind of looks the same, right.
In terms of everything else about it. So this is like, yeah, this is the more modern Heddy Topper.
I still don't think it's, it's, it's that great because I think that the, it's too resiny at the end. That, that is, When I get things at Virgil Metallic, I don't know.

Jeff:
[45:09] Surprisingly, this was canned on 7-12. I wouldn't have expected it to be so old.

Shannon:
[45:13] Why they wouldn't sell it until last week.

Jeff:
[45:18] They want to have scarcity.

Shannon:
[45:19] They want artificial, yeah.

Jeff:
[45:25] Yeah, I'm surprised about beer. The prices were surprisingly good for that, for to-go beers at the office.

Shannon:
[45:30] Oh, yeah, they were.

Jeff:
[45:32] It was four, we got just four, four packs, right?

Shannon:
[45:37] Yeah, for like $56 or something.

Greg:
[45:38] Okay, well, so there's something on the back here. There's a little bit of a story, I guess.
Crusher is an American double in the apparel aisle that I started making years, this is John Kimmich, who's the brewer, that I started making years ago at the old pub.
Hop heads were constantly asking for more hops, which is kind of hilarious to me, because have you tried any tobacco?
So in the words of Frank Zappa, did you say you want more? Well, here's some more.

[46:10] While I enjoy Haas with the rest of them, I still try to maintain some semblance of balance and drinkability.
Beer is oozing with Haas flavor and aroma with a very dry finish.
I think that's all true, but I also think the finish is very resin-y and bitter.
So it's, I think like, if you ask the question, what would Hedy Topper be like more drinkable?
This is the answer. If you ask what, I also kind of think if you ask what, what is, what is a stone, like if you take out some of the more offensive parts, it's still kind of like this.
they're still about crushing you with hops.
Yeah, so this is, you know, this is a, this is a hazy, arrogant bastard, but a drinkable version of it.
But I'm not a big fan, I'll be honest. How about you, Shannon?

Shannon:
[47:10] I just had one of these the other night.
And I'm wondering if it's because I've brushed my teeth and Remember, we're probably because we're paying such good.
Yeah, this is Perfectly drinkable beer that if you had it, you know, just while you're doing something else you'd be fine with it but if we're Really putting our analysis, you know our hats on and going telling that there's it's a little bit of a disappointment tonight um It's still a great beer, but there's a lot of that resin-y, I don't know, it's just that metallic kind of taste that just lingers.
It's the lingering, I think, that makes it so weird because two days ago, She and I both had Crusher and Phil Lead, and they were just way more delicious in the setting where we drank them two days ago than right now. Yeah.

Unexpectedly Impressive Cruiser

Greg:
[48:18] I get it. That's something that can happen. I bet you did not expect this late cruiser to be shining heads and tails over everything else. That was just a starter.
But it's, it's funny how things, you know, what, what happens when you, when you put that microscope on, when you, when you change your mode.
Well, why, at the end of the day, we, you know, we crossed you. So what does that say?

Jeff:
[48:52] Exactly.

Greg:
[48:54] All right. So what do we have next?

Jeff:
[48:57] Another Vermont beer. This is from Foam Breweries in Burlington.
And this is, um, that was another rainy day trip.

Shannon:
[49:05] Yeah.

Jeff:
[49:05] Built to spill.

Shannon:
[49:07] Built to spill.

Greg:
[49:12] I can't type right.
Built to spill is a rock band. It is. What does anything to do with the rock band?
They're an American indie rock band that formed in Boise, Idaho in 1992.

Jeff:
[49:26] Probably not, unless they're in Burlington now.

Shannon:
[49:33] Alright, well, I didn't write that down.

Greg:
[49:38] What's the brewery?

Jeff:
[49:39] Foam Brewers. F-O-A-M?
Is it possible that Built to Spill is the line of beers and the beer is called Jackson Tupper? No. No? Okay.

Greg:
[49:57] This is literally called Built to Spill. Okay. And it is 8% alcohol by volume.
The artist's name is Jackson Tupper, the artist of the label. And let's see.

Shannon:
[50:13] This is Candle on My Birthday. Birthday. Oh, and there's a time stamp on this one, too.

Greg:
[50:20] What's the day? So I don't know your birthday July 19th, July 19th Happy happy belated birthday.

Shannon:
[50:25] Thank you and He took me to a amazing restaurant While we were out there and cool main after we hiked, We went home and showered.

Greg:
[50:41] Yeah, we went home of course, right but so we're probably like I'm like, could you give me something to eat?

Shannon:
[50:51] 9.08. It doesn't say AM or PM, so I'm not really sure if it was...

Greg:
[50:57] Probably not running at 9 PM. Probably not. So I don't see anything indicating that it has anything to do with the band.
But it was just funny that Built to Spill was by far the first thing that came up.
So none of this has anything about, like, I'm going to first Build to Spill just on Google and none of this is anything about the beer.

Shannon:
[51:16] What's the description on this?

Jeff:
[51:17] There's none. parallel.

Describing the appearance and color of the beer

Greg:
[51:27] So color-wise we have a very light straw color. Very.
It's a hazy, so you know that we're not going to be able to, it's, oh, it's not opaque. That's the word I'm looking for.
One where you can see light through it.

Jeff:
[51:43] Uh, translucent?

Greg:
[51:46] Translucent.

Jeff:
[51:47] Uh, the smell on this one's not fruity. It's stay away from fruit for me.
But I already, I already mouthed it.

Shannon:
[51:57] And I have to admit, I love that phrasing.

Greg:
[51:59] I already mouthed it. That's wonderful.

Jeff:
[52:01] That's from the whiskey tribe. You two, they don't drink. They mouth it.

Shannon:
[52:08] I have to admit.

Greg:
[52:09] Hat tip to the whiskey tribe.

Shannon:
[52:10] It is definitely fruity.

Jeff:
[52:11] Oh, yeah. OK, so, yeah, the aroma is super closed off for me.

Greg:
[52:18] I'm getting lemon, orange, and again, like the lemon orange oils.

Jeff:
[52:29] Take a sip, because it'll confirm what your nose is telling you.
There's definitely a lemon oily thing.
It's like number one for me.

Greg:
[52:38] Yep. Okay. Okay. Yeah, this is different.
Because this is like, with that oily thing, you get sort of that resin or whatever that is up front, but it doesn't leave you with a lingering resiny.
It leaves you with sort of a lingering somewhat spicy, hoppy note, I guess.
Yes, a little bit, a little bit.
Maybe even merging on Piney, but the big resin notes are right up front. Yeah.

Jeff:
[53:19] Yeah, it's almost like one of those lemon hard candies. You get flavors from that.

Shannon:
[53:24] What is that hard candy? Because that's what I was thinking of, the lemon hard candies.

Greg:
[53:30] I just know they're like grandma candies. I don't know what else to say about them.

Jeff:
[53:38] When you get little cough drops, but without all the menthol.

Greg:
[53:42] They used to be like hot candies, right?

Jeff:
[53:45] Yeah. We probably made them here in Pittsburgh. There was probably other ones, but a guy made them here in Pittsburgh, and we had a handful.
They were only, it was so far back that they were just made with Cascade and Chinook and things like that. They were mildly interesting. I bet you they'd be a lot better today.

Greg:
[54:01] Yeah, it'd be cool to be able to get a hit of some hops without having to drink a beer to do it, without having to get a bunch of alcohol in you to get a nice flavor of hop.

Jeff:
[54:16] There are the hop seltzers that are, but like the, the Laganita's a good one.

Greg:
[54:20] I liked them, but- I've never had one actually. I don't think I've ever had a hop seltzer, but that feels like, it's still a whole drink you have to do as opposed to a little can of it.

Jeff:
[54:30] I liked them, but they weren't at a price point where it could be like the thing in your fridge to drink.

Greg:
[54:35] Sure, sure. Like, it's not going to be like a LaCroix or something.
Yeah. Okay, this is, this is definitely one of the more interesting beers we've had tonight because in terms of IPAs doing something I haven't really had before.

Jeff:
[54:51] I almost put this one back on the shelf so you didn't have to drink yet another IPA. I'm glad I left it out. Yeah. I'm just really worried that if we sit on the IPAs for too long, they're gonna fade.

Greg:
[55:03] No, I totally get it. No, I understand the motivation.

Shannon:
[55:08] Believe me, there's a much larger variety of stuff down there. That's not all I think.

Greg:
[55:14] Let's get something.

Jeff:
[55:15] Yeah, we can get a dessert beer. I'm going to grab a dessert beer. Yeah.

Greg:
[55:21] In the meantime, we will stall.

Shannon:
[55:23] We will stall or we will talk.

Greg:
[55:29] Oh yeah, it's a whole new feature of the show. And there is, and hopefully those mic sounds you won't hear because the AI will take care of them all. Let's hope so.

Shannon:
[55:40] And let's hope the recording is perfect.

Greg:
[55:43] Oh, God. Yeah. Well, I haven't seen you for a month. It's good to see you.

Shannon:
[55:46] I know. I missed you. Although I have to tell you.
I love Maine.

Greg:
[55:55] How could you not? I love Cape Cod.
And there's nothing it's a beautiful place, and there's things that you can't get there that you can't get here, which is nice. Bye.
I think it's also nice to visit a place and to be a little sad you didn't get to experience everything you wanted to, as opposed to being just, all right, I'm done.
I can go back now. Yeah.

Shannon:
[56:22] I don't know. I felt like this is the place I need to be.

Greg:
[56:28] I think that it's good to have that pull, because I felt like that when I was in Seattle. It was just, it was such a beautiful place. And just everything about it was amazing. It was like, I, I, man, if I could live here, that'd be so cool.

Shannon:
[56:43] Yeah. I remember loving Seattle and I've been there multiple times, um, and San Francisco.
And, uh, I went to, gosh, I can't remember the beach that I went to right before I left San Francisco, but, um, Half Moon Bay. Right.

Greg:
[57:07] Right.

Shannon:
[57:08] Yeah. And I remember how beautiful that was.
And I've been longing for that ever since, you know, because I grew up in Florida.

Greg:
[57:19] Sure.

Shannon:
[57:19] I love the beaches, but I also love the mountains. So, when we got to Maine, I was just like, oh my gosh, this is the best of everything.
Everything that we love, or I love, but Jeff loves too, you have the Four Seasons.
When it's cold, it stays cold. So you're not falling out and then trying to readjust.
But you've got those mountains and the ocean and the...

Greg:
[58:02] You also happen to be in an area of the United States that is not as grossly affected by climate change as the rest of the country.

Shannon:
[58:11] It is the least populated state. It has the best air quality of all the states in the U.S.
Um, and, oh, what are, we tried to find some reasons not to want to move there, and we really couldn't come up with any. And we even talked to Mainers, and...

Greg:
[58:41] I would think that one of the reasons would be winters can be just a empty landscape of of white and feet of it. Yeah, for sure.

Shannon:
[58:59] The nice thing about it for us, we have those hobbies, you know, the woodworking, these things that we can do indoors, and we can do those in the winter and not feel guilty about not being outside, you know, and that will keep us occupied and keep us from going stir-crazy in the winter.

Jeff:
[59:22] Or at least we hope.

Shannon:
[59:24] I mean, that's the thought, like, ugh.

Greg:
[59:27] We can talk more about this on the post-show, because I do also want to talk about sort of what advantages Pittsburgh has, which you don't necessarily always think about, but which I think that we, the fact that we live here is not necessarily a coincidence.

Jeff:
[59:47] All right. So I brought two. I'll let you choose. Maybe we have one, maybe we have both. I don't know, I don't make the rules.
We have one from Lone Pine called Holy Donut.
It is a beer with cacao nibs and toasted coconut aged in bourbon barrels.
Sure. And then we have Foul Mouth Brewing Company Grand Cru, which is a barrel-aged strong ale.
Uh, three years aging, careful blending.

Greg:
[1:00:16] So the line here is both of these are barrel aged. Both of these are around what, 10% you said?

Jeff:
[1:00:22] I didn't say, but I'm sure they're, this one was bottled in 2020.
This one was bottled a year ago.
Um, looking for the ABV, 11.3.

Greg:
[1:00:33] Versus, I think it was 10, 10 and a half.

Shannon:
[1:00:39] I'll be right back while you all decide.

Jeff:
[1:00:43] I don't see it. Do you see it?

Greg:
[1:00:45] Did I hear it? I thought, yeah, it's right there in the middle, right?

Jeff:
[1:00:48] The middle. Oh, 10 and a half.

Greg:
[1:00:50] Whoa. Whoa.

Jeff:
[1:00:51] Yeah, you can't put your headphones next to the microphone.

Greg:
[1:00:54] I'm sure the AI will take care of that, so you don't hear that.
Unless we're stuck with the backup recording that you then don't process at all.

Jeff:
[1:01:03] You hear it every time.

Greg:
[1:01:03] Right. Okay. I think, Hmm.
Like I say, if we were only doing one, then I probably would go for the foul mouth. But if we're doing both and we might probably do a long post show.

Jeff:
[1:01:17] So probably we don't make the rules. Yeah, rules are made to be broken.
All right. Holy donut from Malone Pine.
We visited the taproom in Portland, Maine. I think their main brewery is outside of Portland and Gorham, Maine.

The Holy Donut Collaboration with Lone Pine

Greg:
[1:01:35] Okay, so Holy Donut is a place in Portland, Maine. So I imagine this is...

Jeff:
[1:01:41] It could be a collab?

Greg:
[1:01:42] Collab, Holy doughnut beer.
Lone Pine.
They also have a blueberry glaze version.
Wow. Okay. I mean, if something says doughnut on it, you should expect that kind of aroma.

Jeff:
[1:02:10] We're going to be drinking bourbon barrel aged and sour shit for the next six months.

Greg:
[1:02:15] Oh, great. But I mean, legit. Great, because that's always awesome stuff.
But OK, so is there anything else on this holy donut?
Because it seems like all of the holy donuts, there are a bunch of comparisons and there are a bunch of collaborations and they all have flavors.

Shannon:
[1:02:32] It says, caution, beer in this bottle is delicious.

Greg:
[1:02:36] May I see it?

Jeff:
[1:02:37] Is the cocoa nibs coconut?

Greg:
[1:02:39] That's what I was looking for.

Shannon:
[1:02:41] All right. What are we looking at? The Holy Donut. Now that I'm back, this is from?

Jeff:
[1:02:46] Lone Pine.
Actually, Lone Pine.

Shannon:
[1:02:51] Lone Pine. Where was that?

Jeff:
[1:02:52] That was the day that we were after kayaking. Okay, so it was the one, remember there was the one in the front and then the back above it, it was the one in the front.

Shannon:
[1:03:01] Okay. So this is their first one.

Greg:
[1:03:03] Holy Donut. Their dark chocolate toasted coconut.
And it's taking a little bit to load.

Jeff:
[1:03:12] It was bottled May 13th of last year.

Greg:
[1:03:17] Well, this is the first time they're showing up on their list, but I don't know whether it's the first one. They released it, it was April 2019. This one was bottled in 2020.

Jeff:
[1:03:27] Interesting. Interesting.
That smells good. The aroma is a combination of barrel aging oak and bourbon and it is of toasted coconut.
The cocoa nibs don't really come through in their own but the coconut does.

Shannon:
[1:03:45] Definitely the coconut and the barrel.

Jeff:
[1:03:49] Little raisiny, like the imperial style part of it is kind of that like kind of raisiny kind of of barley roasted malt kind of aroma.

Greg:
[1:03:58] Okay, so this is made with Columbus hops, really classic, just there to add a little bit bitterness to counteract the sweetness, not really flavoring much at all. Yep.

Jeff:
[1:04:09] Use them early in the boil, so they just provide the bittering components.

Greg:
[1:04:14] In terms of malt, we got pale carapil, roasted barley, chocolate malt.
And in terms of other, Main potato donuts from the Holy Donut.
Toasted coconut and cocoa.

Jeff:
[1:04:29] Potato donuts, huh?

Greg:
[1:04:31] Potato donuts.

Shannon:
[1:04:31] Potato donuts.

Greg:
[1:04:32] So the Holy Donut.

Shannon:
[1:04:33] Oh, we did. We read that. Yes. And we never had any. No, we didn't.

Jeff:
[1:04:37] Before we left, we read about potato donuts. I'm like, we should try those.

Shannon:
[1:04:41] I mean, potato bread is really sweet and delicious, so I don't see why potato donuts wouldn't be.

Jeff:
[1:04:45] But we forgot about them until you just made us realize, now we have to go back.

Shannon:
[1:04:49] Shoot. Next week?

Greg:
[1:04:57] The Holy Donut, so when you were away, we found out, because the first result from the Holy Donut was, in fact, the Holy Donut, which is a donut place in Portland. So this is a collaboration.
And they have a bunch of different flavors, but this is the dark chocolate toasted coconut version.

Shannon:
[1:05:18] Definitely, definitely smelled the dark chocolate.

Greg:
[1:05:21] I mean, you get this, I mean, the first thing I think you notice is like, just off the bat, sweet and there's, and barely.
But yeah, when you, when you delve into it, That cocoa really comes through.

Jeff:
[1:05:37] We just pulled these out of the fridge, and these are the beers that should be drank the warmest. So we're all here clamping our hands around our Spiegel beer tulips, warming those beers up.

Greg:
[1:05:46] Yeah, and feeling that cold spot in your hands, you know, is sort of indicative of, okay, this thing needs a lot of heat put into it.

Shannon:
[1:05:54] A lot. I mean, I took a sip already, and it just tasted kind of...

Jeff:
[1:05:57] No. But it's too cold, right? So it tasted kind of sharp and monotone.

Greg:
[1:06:02] Yeah, this needs to be, I would say ideally, you need this to be probably at least 50 degrees.
Fahrenheit, which, let's see, Celsius, God, I don't know.

Shannon:
[1:06:14] I've never learned how to convert.

Greg:
[1:06:16] 12, something like that.

Jeff:
[1:06:20] You multiply it by five and divide it by nine and then that.

Shannon:
[1:06:25] Old enough now that I don't need to know. It's fine. That's what Google's for.

Greg:
[1:06:32] Somewhere in that range, between 12% and 20%, I think, is where you want it to be at least.
So I'm thinking, because, let's see, because here's the way I think about it.
OK, zero is freezing. And I know that, like, 50 degrees is, like, way too hot for people.
Like, that's like 120.

Jeff:
[1:06:52] Like, 28's a nice, like, a hot day. Right.
So yeah, probably 10 to 12 degrees, probably in the 50s. Yeah.
I would think 55 would be a really good spot for the, you know, just because we're talking about stupid things. But yeah, 50 would be good, I think up to 55.
Getting up to 60s, probably going to get a little too warm. Like, yeah.

Greg:
[1:07:19] Apologies to everyone who's not in the US that we're using these weird ingredients.

Jeff:
[1:07:22] Maybe Maybe the AI will fix it for us.

Greg:
[1:07:25] But, I will say on the other hand, come on guys, you all know that you have some stupid things that you continue to do too.
This is our thing, let us have it.

Shannon:
[1:07:39] It's still not warm enough. I don't wanna taste it yet.

Jeff:
[1:07:42] It's getting there.

Greg:
[1:07:45] I agree, from the taste it is still not warm enough, but.
I know when you did. There's a lot there, there's a lot there.
There's, ooh, there's caramel.
There is, mm, that's real good.
That's like a brownie, like a caramel.

Shannon:
[1:08:04] Oh yeah, it does have a big like, like fresh out of the oven brownie type thing.
Yeah, one that's not fully cooked, that's still kind of doughy.

Greg:
[1:08:15] A little walnut in there even, but yeah.

Jeff:
[1:08:20] That's a good call, the walnut, because it makes me think, the walnut bitters that I have for old fashions and stuff, I love that stuff, love it, love it, love it. And as soon as you said walnut, I'm like, oh wait, that's in there, yeah, I get it.

Greg:
[1:08:33] That's probably because I had a walnut maple ice cream, there's plenty of great ice cream places around Cape Cod, and so I had some walnut maple ice cream, and I was like, that's a good combination.
So Walnut was kind of like recently in my mind.

Jeff:
[1:08:50] The palette drips kind of stuff.

Greg:
[1:08:51] Yeah. Already, the nice thing is I can feel that, you know, my hands are transferring at least less heat.
So there, so this is at a pretty good spot.
Color wise, we have a very dark brown with, I don't know, I mean, you could probably call them tannish highlights, but it's pretty viscous.

Jeff:
[1:09:16] It stains the side of the glass when you spilled it. It's not dark lord viscous, but it's pretty viscous.

Greg:
[1:09:20] It's, you see the lacing. Lacing definitely occurs here.

Shannon:
[1:09:25] I'm gonna go ahead and admit that I'm ignorant to this. What, viscous? Mm, thick.

Jeff:
[1:09:31] It sticks to the glass.

Greg:
[1:09:32] Viscosity. So like honey is more viscous than water.

Jeff:
[1:09:38] Okay. So, like, the glass is brown after you stand it back up.
The brown is sticking to the glass.

Shannon:
[1:09:44] I should have known that.

Greg:
[1:09:47] Hey, we all learn things almost like legs.

Shannon:
[1:09:49] I mean, yeah. I mean, we called them... that's what I always referred to when I was drinking wine.

Greg:
[1:09:55] We had legs. Yeah, it's similar on the, glass to legs, but I don't think it's necessarily from the same right?
That would add to it. I don't know. It's hard to say.

Jeff:
[1:10:32] I've never looked into it. But I mean, when I want an imperial stout that brings the things, I want roast.
I want booziness. I want it to stain that glass brown after I tilt the glass.

Greg:
[1:10:46] I would say that if you're looking for that perfect roasted stout, this is just a little bit too sweet.
But it's nearing that. Like it's hitting those notes that you really, really, really want.
So it's up there. But I think that, especially in the front of this, it's a little sweet. I mean, it's a donut beer.

Potato Donut Beer: Sweet and Impressive Dessert-like Brew

Jeff:
[1:11:11] A potato donut.

Greg:
[1:11:12] A potato donut beer. It's gonna be sweet.
So you wouldn't expect it necessarily to hit that perfect note, but it's getting close, which is impressive.

Shannon:
[1:11:23] So when we're rating these at the end of the show, It's going to be really hard because this is more of a dessert type of a beer.

Jeff:
[1:11:37] But you make the rules.

Greg:
[1:11:39] You can rate however you want.

Jeff:
[1:11:41] Whatever you thought was the yummiest, whatever you think was most representative of the style, what do you think just deserves props? I mean, whatever you want.

Greg:
[1:11:49] We don't tell you how to grade it. We just tell you you have to.
But you're, how you want to do it is, that's all you.

Jeff:
[1:11:58] But you must stress over it. You can't just be flippant about it.

Greg:
[1:12:02] We let it happen occasionally, and it's never fun unless you use something.
It could be the one that's the most red, right, of them.
But you've got to come up with it. But you've got to figure out why this one's more red than that one. Once you do, yeah, everything works.
But if you're just flipping about it, we've tried it.

Jeff:
[1:12:25] You'll break the show.

Greg:
[1:12:26] It doesn't... It just... Yeah. If you break this show, the whole thing falls, and it's worse than deleting it. I don't know about that.

Shannon:
[1:12:38] That's pretty devastated about episode 509, take one.

Jeff:
[1:12:42] She was so mad. Not mad, sad.

Shannon:
[1:12:43] I mean, not mad.

Jeff:
[1:12:44] Sad, yeah.

Shannon:
[1:12:45] Sad.

Greg:
[1:12:46] Because it was a good show.

Shannon:
[1:12:48] It really was.

Greg:
[1:12:48] It was a good show that you have missed.

Jeff:
[1:12:49] There's a lot of things we talked. We talked about Anchor Brewing and their shutdown. It's been so long now.

Greg:
[1:12:54] Yeah.

Jeff:
[1:12:55] If you've been under a rock, Anchor Brewing, They were sold to an investor a long time ago, and then to Sapporo after that, and Sapporo said, F you guys.
And then the employees tried to buy it, and Sapporo was like, you ain't got enough money.

Greg:
[1:13:11] So that's where we're at right now. Yeah, no, there was great stuff in that show. There were discussions, and there were revelations about each other.
It was great. But we all know it's all more personal than anything else now because you guys missed out on it. But maybe if the AI had recorded it, we could have had it written down.

Jeff:
[1:13:31] Here's what I, well, so the recording, the SD card was bad. So, like.
10% of every 10 seconds was lost.
No, and I'm not saying you should have posted that. But I had the transcription of what it got, and then I was hoping I could find a free place to feed the transcription back into text-to-speech. Oh, God.
And then have us, like, have text-to-speech us, that'd be fun, at least a laugh.

Greg:
[1:14:04] It'd be novel. It would be novel.

Shannon:
[1:14:07] We did that whole skit, too, in the end in the post-show. Oh, shit.

Jeff:
[1:14:11] Yeah.

Greg:
[1:14:12] Yeah, we did. We did the whole thing in the post-show about a, well, you asked AI to write a Crafty Radio episode. Oh, we can do it again.
And we did it, but we kind of didn't do it right, because we just improvised off of it.

Shannon:
[1:14:27] We did. And it was great. We can do it again.

Jeff:
[1:14:30] I still have it.

Greg:
[1:14:31] Yeah. That's the advantage of Discord, because I I think we're probably going to do it again, and we're probably going to do the same thing.
But you'll be able to see the original transcript and what we riffed on, because I think Jeff wanted us, your original idea was just straight, which was just, you can read it if you want that.
I mean, it's a little like, because I think that, I think we all felt like there's not enough of us here.
We have to, like, using this as something we can put ourselves into is a lot more fun than just, uh, reading it straight.

Jeff:
[1:15:07] I wasn't against it. It just, yeah, if I was doing it with just my input, I would have done it straight, because it's just ridiculous on its own.
But it's fun, so we have to do it again.

Greg:
[1:15:20] So check out A Part Show, and you'll be able to find the transcript on Discord, which I'm sure we'll say a bunch, but we do want to remind everybody, Discord, the Discord.

Shannon:
[1:15:26] Discord, everybody.

Greg:
[1:15:30] Yeah, that was another thing, is we had a month without people joining Discord, because that wasn't out there.

Shannon:
[1:15:37] And we have the channels in there that you can send us recommendations.
If you want to hear a particular song for the intro, or you want anything.

Jeff:
[1:15:48] Yeah, we did all this pitch last time. Yeah, give us intro songs.
Yeah. Give us things, I don't know, give us pitch projects. You want us to talk about.

Greg:
[1:15:55] Topics that you'd want us to talk about.

Discord Recommendations and Post-Show Skits: Join the Fun

Jeff:
[1:15:59] Speaking of topics I want to talk about, we talked about Justified recently, And there's this- It's a post-show.

Shannon:
[1:16:04] Yeah, it's a post-show. Yeah, it's a post-show.

Jeff:
[1:16:06] But I wanna shit on it so bad here in the main show.

Greg:
[1:16:08] I know, but look, I waited till post-show to do my Puckard rant.

Jeff:
[1:16:14] Okay, all right. Oh, justifying seeing Primeval in the post-show.

Shannon:
[1:16:18] I think the post-show is gonna be long.

Greg:
[1:16:21] Yeah, it always is. These days, post-shows are about, Probably longer than the main show.

Jeff:
[1:16:29] All right. Just remember, you have a commitment in the morning.

Greg:
[1:16:37] I'm still exhausted, so I'm not going to stay forever.

Jeff:
[1:16:40] No karaoke tonight. No, no.

Greg:
[1:16:41] All right.

Jeff:
[1:16:44] So this last one is.

Shannon:
[1:16:46] We're having another. We're drinking both. I thought we were choosing between the two.

Jeff:
[1:16:52] No.
I need to drink. The only rule is there's no rules.

Greg:
[1:16:54] The thing is, it's going to be very long, Pochette.

Shannon:
[1:16:57] Crap.
You have to chug it, you're going to dip out of here and go to sleep and not even say goodbye to the listeners.

Jeff:
[1:17:03] No.

Shannon:
[1:17:05] I did that once.

Jeff:
[1:17:06] Twice. Did I? Yeah, you did it the last time.

Shannon:
[1:17:09] No, I didn't.

Jeff:
[1:17:10] Yeah, you've done it twice.

Shannon:
[1:17:12] I've done it twice.

Jeff:
[1:17:13] I don't know which times, but you've done it twice.

Shannon:
[1:17:15] I'm positive I've only done it once.

Greg:
[1:17:16] Nope.

Jeff:
[1:17:18] I don't know, I feel like you bailed last time at the end.

Shannon:
[1:17:21] Last time was episode 509, take one, and I was here. The whole time?

Jeff:
[1:17:27] The whole time. No, it was 508, I think, and then a couple before that, maybe.

Shannon:
[1:17:32] You guys are just throwing me under the bus, thanks.

Greg:
[1:17:35] Hey, that's the show. Deal with it.

Jeff:
[1:17:37] It's fine. You want to be an equal part of the show, you got to take the shit too.

Shannon:
[1:17:40] I didn't ask for equal partnership in the show.

Greg:
[1:17:45] Well, you got it anyway.
So this is Foulmouth Grand Cru, right? Yes.

Shannon:
[1:17:51] This looks like...

Jeff:
[1:17:54] Pilgrim Quad, kind of thing.

Shannon:
[1:17:55] But color is...

Jeff:
[1:17:58] Think of like a Belgian strong ale, Belgian Courland.

Shannon:
[1:18:02] No, I'm just trying to analyze the color.

Jeff:
[1:18:05] So we hit up Foul Mouth when we were in Portland. I think it was the first day we were there.

Shannon:
[1:18:10] It was the first day.

Jeff:
[1:18:12] And they had some decent stuff. I don't think there was anything to totally write home about.
But they had a bottle of beer to go called Grand Cru. So I figured, yeah, okay.

Greg:
[1:18:25] So this is, at least on untapped, it's classed as an out-brewed.

Jeff:
[1:18:30] Ooh, it does smell a little funky, a little wild.

Shannon:
[1:18:33] Funky is for sure.

Greg:
[1:18:34] 11.3%. Grand Cru. Grand Cru.

Shannon:
[1:18:39] Grand Cru.

Greg:
[1:18:40] So it's been a while since I had an out-brewed, for sure.

Shannon:
[1:18:44] A special place in your heart, though.

Greg:
[1:18:47] Yes, I think that was one of my first like, whoa, this is what beer can be type beers. What was that? Which one was that?

Jeff:
[1:18:56] Boy, I can almost picture the label, but I can't.

Greg:
[1:18:58] Yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but it was like, wow, this is a special type of beer.

Jeff:
[1:19:04] It's less sweet tarts than a Flanders.

Shannon:
[1:19:09] Although it is a Flanders style, it's a Flanders Brown, then a Flanders Red.

Jeff:
[1:19:13] But there's totally, Cosmic Motherfunk Grand Cru totally feels half to two-thirds old brew.

Introduction to the Beer Discussion

Greg:
[1:19:24] Was it Petrus? Was it the Petrus Urb? Yeah, probably. I have no idea what you're all talking about.
We're talking about a beer that way back in the day was like still, was this sort of sourness that no, like even as drifters in the craft beer world, we hadn't experienced yet. Or not.
I don't recognize that. So I don't know.

Shannon:
[1:19:51] Legitness.

Jeff:
[1:19:52] Legitness.

Greg:
[1:19:53] Legitness. Yeah. Do you know what that's from?

Jeff:
[1:19:55] Not really.

Shannon:
[1:19:57] Okay.

Greg:
[1:19:57] That sounds good. So yeah, I've never heard that one before.
Okay. But okay, so what are we talking about? We're talking about basically, so if you've ever experienced a Flanders Red, which one was the Flanders Red that we had?
The one that was the... I mean, there's Rodenbach.

Jeff:
[1:20:16] Rodenbach is the main one.

Greg:
[1:20:17] Rodenbach, yeah.

Jeff:
[1:20:18] I mean, some of the fooder-aged beers that you've had, right, where they're kind of sweet tarts, you know, like that's Flanders Red.
Flanders, an old brun is fooder-aged as well, usually, but it doesn't have that sweet tarts as much as it, but it's more of that culture, of that kind of lactic, pedio, funky thing.

Greg:
[1:20:36] I mean, this is a lot less, like, lactic dominant, right?
There's, that's the thing about the Flanders style, is that it's more of crazy, crazy bacteria stuff as opposed to just like pure lactic, which is like, for example, the the goes out or, you know, simple sours or stuff tend to be, you know, in just just pure lactic.

Jeff:
[1:21:08] Um, it has a pear flavor.

Greg:
[1:21:12] Like, it's really good.

Jeff:
[1:21:13] It's tart, but it's kind of like a underripe pear.

Shannon:
[1:21:16] Pear? Pear.

Jeff:
[1:21:20] Like, well, those yellow pears, but like, they're not like super sweet, like when it's still a little bit tart and kind of firm in the flesh.

Greg:
[1:21:31] Shannon's making faces.

Jeff:
[1:21:32] I'm trying to get... Too acidic?

Shannon:
[1:21:35] Well, I guess I've never eaten an underripe pear.

Greg:
[1:21:39] See, to me, weirdly, I'm not getting the huge acidic under here, I'm getting a lot of maple.
Yeah, um Maple dark maple Sour apple.

Shannon:
[1:21:53] Mm-hmm has to be sour.

Greg:
[1:21:55] Yeah, like but for some reason my brain is Going around this hour.
I don't know why because it's definitely there and it's strong Like why why is my brain just like oh, yeah the sour maybe it's just I'm used to the to the style that I'm just okay to be dialed in.
I don't know why I'm not noticing the sour because it's strong and it's absolutely there. But for some reason, I feel like my brain is just sort of jumping around it.

Jeff:
[1:22:21] Yeah, that's strange because it's a big part of the flavor. It kind of eats away any kind of body that the beer has.
Like the maltiness is like kind of pushed out of the way because of this pear juice, this like tart pear juice flavor.

Greg:
[1:22:36] But all I'm focusing on is the end and the- I can't get to Maple.

Jeff:
[1:22:41] I can't get there.

Mixed Reactions and Flavor Associations

Shannon:
[1:22:45] I don't like the end.
I don't like what I'm tasting on the end.

Greg:
[1:22:53] What are you tasting?
I even get notes of celery at the end there. Do you get that?

Jeff:
[1:23:00] Celery seed?

Shannon:
[1:23:00] Celery. Celery seed? Yeah, celery seed is good.

Greg:
[1:23:03] That's good.

Shannon:
[1:23:05] I was going to say tannins, but...

Greg:
[1:23:10] Yeah, like, yeah, there's definitely that.

Shannon:
[1:23:12] Or just that metallic...

Jeff:
[1:23:16] There's a big woodiness, too. Like, there's oak is a thing in this.

Greg:
[1:23:22] Yeah, why is my brain skipping past those?

Jeff:
[1:23:24] As we talk about this, like, it's going to help us, like, either lead each other astray and be just stupid about it, or help us dial us in.
So, like, I think if you take a sip and think about how it's like a stringent oak, that it might take away from some of the acidity. Like, that's where I'm at right now. Okay.
This is the foul-mouthed brand crew.

Greg:
[1:23:54] It's weird if you could approach it different ways and your brain will notice different things. Yeah. That's pretty rare.

Jeff:
[1:24:03] Well, that's kind of like the placebo effect. But that's the thing with blind tasting, right? With blind tasting.

Greg:
[1:24:09] Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. I guess it's rare in that the beer will make you want to do that.
But in terms of being able to do that with anything, it's just probably not rare at all. Just to think of something, devote your thoughts to it, and that's what you're going to notice, that's not rare at all.

Jeff:
[1:24:25] But if I'm thinking, okay, ocean spray, sea salt, and take a sip, right, I'm probably going to get more brininess, you know, so.

Greg:
[1:24:32] Sure. That's a good point. Um, and maybe why my brain was skipping past.

Jeff:
[1:24:39] Do that.

Greg:
[1:24:40] Do that.

Jeff:
[1:24:41] Think about like ocean spray, sea salt.

Shannon:
[1:24:44] That's what I'm doing right now.

Jeff:
[1:24:45] And it definitely tastes more briny.

Shannon:
[1:24:47] I taste the sea salt, the brininess, yes.

Jeff:
[1:24:53] Yeah, I can taste, oh, okay. And it makes it seem less acidic.

Shannon:
[1:24:55] Less tart. Yeah.

Jeff:
[1:24:56] Wow. It's all in your head, man.

Shannon:
[1:25:00] Yeah.

Greg:
[1:25:02] Do we define our own reality?

Shannon:
[1:25:03] It's a mind.

Jeff:
[1:25:04] Yeah.

Shannon:
[1:25:08] Right. Not allowed to say that word.

Jeff:
[1:25:17] What is that?

The Room: A Cult Classic Worth Watching

Greg:
[1:25:25] The only thing I can think of that maybe is somewhat comparable to that is the kid who's It was like, do you ever, do you ever, do you know, do you have a, you know what kid I'm talking about, where it's just him trying to say, I even forget what he was trying to say, but it's something about a dream, I think.

Jeff:
[1:25:44] Yeah, I remember that.

Shannon:
[1:25:51] That's a classic which of course you don't recognize but I think you did you understand we missed it did you see they just had a Showing at bottle rocket.
I don't know of the 20th anniversary of the room I I wouldn't end up and mock was there who mock?

Jeff:
[1:26:12] Or mark mark mark mark mark mark Is Massachusetts now no So yeah, it's a difficult thing to explain, or even why you'd want to care, unless you've seen it already.

Greg:
[1:26:26] And I think you should only see like, you should really just watch like a Riff Trax version of it, because then you'll get as much as you need, and at least it will be entertaining.

Jeff:
[1:26:36] Watching it in a room full of people, that'd probably be a lot of fun.

Greg:
[1:26:42] Sure, but like Rocky Horror Picture Show, you have to know what you're getting into, and know what the things are. It's not doing it on your own for the first time. It's just that's not going to be that interesting.
But it's just going to feel like everyone's in on a joke and you're not.
Which is the case.

Shannon:
[1:27:01] Mm-Hmm.

Greg:
[1:27:03] So, yeah, I would not recommend. Yeah. Good candy, right?
I got some I got some candy. These were, I think, what, some kind of, some tropical flavor.

Jeff:
[1:27:22] They look like they're Canadian.

Greg:
[1:27:23] They're not.

Jeff:
[1:27:24] They have a red maple leaf right there. Oh, right.

Greg:
[1:27:27] Yes, that's right. A red maple leaf.
Somehow, I managed to find them in Pittsburgh, and we're having them, and they're tasty.

Shannon:
[1:27:46] Kind of tart a little tart just like the beer we're a little tired.
Yeah, I think the right kind of very right I mean, that's why I decided to mm-hmm Okay, so I guess we got a ramp now, I think we have I think we're at the we're at that edge All right, who was the first Rochambeau?
Well, let's let's put these in some order Alright, so twin Barnes was first Okay.
Hill Farmstead was second.

Greg:
[1:28:16] Okay.

Jeff:
[1:28:17] Are you talking the drinking order?

Greg:
[1:28:18] No, the order that we drank them.

Shannon:
[1:28:20] Then was what?

Greg:
[1:28:21] First and last things, right? Fiddlehead.

Shannon:
[1:28:22] Fiddlehead. Then...

Greg:
[1:28:23] Nope. Oh, fiddle? Yeah, no, fiddlehead.
I got fiddlehead next.

Shannon:
[1:28:30] Hill Farmstead was second.

Greg:
[1:28:32] Oh, oh, wow. Okay. Wow, I messed that up.

Jeff:
[1:28:34] Okay.

Shannon:
[1:28:34] Okay. And then Alligash Dazen. Right. And then we had the Alchemist Crush.
crush. And then we have phone breweries.

Greg:
[1:28:45] Yes, I think Jeff got it. Okay, so I'm gonna take a picture so that we can have this.

Jeff:
[1:28:49] She has notes.

Greg:
[1:28:49] I mean, no, no, it's absolutely wonderful that you have notes because yeah, but the picture is for discord and get on that discord.
Give me a give me a smile.

Jeff:
[1:29:01] Give me a D for discord. Is that backwards? That's backwards.

Greg:
[1:29:08] That's fine. No, it's only this part.

Jeff:
[1:29:11] Yeah.

Greg:
[1:29:12] And do it even lower. So just you're barely in it, Jeff. Okay.
And now Shannon's in it. Okay. Wait, let me, let me go back a little bit. Okay, cool. Got it.
All right. All right.

Shannon:
[1:29:25] All right.

Greg:
[1:29:26] Rochambeau. Does he go first? Oh, fucking hell.

Jeff:
[1:29:33] Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, one, two, three. Again, one, two, three, shoot.

Greg:
[1:29:38] Okay.

Shannon:
[1:29:38] One, two, three, shoot.

Greg:
[1:29:40] Shannon wins. Shannon wins. Oh, shoot.

Jeff:
[1:29:43] Both.

Shannon:
[1:29:46] Wasn't ready to go first Well, you know you won the red one, which means I get to choose.

Jeff:
[1:29:53] Okay, where I want to go Okay, you get to you to choose you You pass the order.

Greg:
[1:29:58] Okay, you pick who goes first. Yes, you tell us who go first. All right Greg go for it, Okey-dokey All right hmm In last place of first and last things That was as I remember it just I Didn't I didn't like it.
I Think it was too much it overdid what it was trying to do and and There were other things that were overdoing it a bit but not as much as that one So in second place in next to last place I'm gonna go fiddlehead.
All right I think a somewhat modernized Heady topper but still a little just kind of Not what you want out of the full thing.
I'm trying to remember Build to Spill to see where it goes.

Shannon:
[1:31:11] That was the one, the lemon oil one.

Greg:
[1:31:15] So Crusher would be next.
Crusher is a modernized heavy topper with a bit of a dank overtone.

Ranking the Beers

[1:31:33] And I appreciated the approach, but I also think, you know, take it down a notch and you'll probably be better. Okay.

[1:31:44] All right, I'm gonna put Foulmouth next. This is the ground crew.
This is the Alden Bruin that we are having right now.
I think that the ability that we have to just change it based on what we're thinking about is very interesting, and that it supports all that is cool.
But in terms of enjoyableness, which is what I'm sort of going by, probably it's kind of middle of the pack here with, I think, I think I'm going to go the Allagash next, um, because also I liked what it was trying to do, but didn't complete the circle.
It didn't, it, it, I love a great cocktail beer and this was sort of like half of one and I would have liked it to just go all the way, to take that really big swing. And it sort of just took half a swing.
So, you know, it got a nice double out of it, but you could have hit, a triple, or even have a ground one, who knows.
Belt to spill comes in next. I think this was the.

[1:33:08] I might even throw this down some. I'm not sure. I don't remember it that well.

Jeff:
[1:33:13] That was like the lemon candy one.

Greg:
[1:33:15] Yeah, I seem to remember I liked it, but it feels too high.

Jeff:
[1:33:17] Okay.

Greg:
[1:33:19] Um. Maybe, maybe I'll put it after the Grand Cru and before the...

Jeff:
[1:33:24] I mean, you did like it when you were drinking it.

Greg:
[1:33:27] I did, but...

Jeff:
[1:33:29] You were more excitable about the Built to Spill than the Days End.

Greg:
[1:33:32] Okay, then that's probably true. All right. I'll go with your recollection, because I can't quite remember it.
Holy Donut comes in next. Yeah, really close to a perfect Creole Stout, but a little kind of sweet on the front.
And but captures a lot of what you'd like. And believe it or not, I mean, this Twin Barns, this was a wonderful way to start off. Yeah.

Jeff:
[1:34:00] And it's like this brewery that we didn't know about.

Greg:
[1:34:03] And I felt like this is an all-timer in terms of, yeah, I would just buy packs of this, absolutely.
This would be a go-to, and you don't find a go-to very often.

Jeff:
[1:34:15] So that's why this is number one. Snap a picture of your lineup, so it'll just make it easier posting the notes.

Greg:
[1:34:21] Sure, all right. It's funny that of first and last things is the last, i.e..

Jeff:
[1:34:26] First. We do the rankings, right? and the beerists, they kind of just put them into buckets. They do like worth it, kind of worth it, not worth it kind of things. They have better names. I can't think for me. But we should do like Merry Fuck Kill.

Greg:
[1:34:45] It's not enough to do it right. But okay, so, okay, so Merry Fuck Kill of these.
fuck kill of these. All right. No, no, no, no. I get it. I get it. Um, Hmm.
This is kind of weighted, I think.

Jeff:
[1:35:04] Okay.

Greg:
[1:35:06] But I'm going to say...

MFK Rankings: Marry Lake Charles, F**k Holy Donut, Kill Fiddlehead

[1:35:14] I'm gonna be a little, a little different than you might expect.
But I'm gonna say, marry Lake Charles. That's the one I want to be with.
Fuck Holy Donut, because damn.
I want to I want to try that out.

Jeff:
[1:35:34] It's moist, man.

Greg:
[1:35:36] Look at that body. Look at that. Look at that. And and kill.
Kill Fiddlehead, no, no, stop it, stop it.

Shannon:
[1:35:47] All right, do you wanna go next or you want me to go? Nope, I want you to go next.

Jeff:
[1:35:52] All right, so I'll do the traditional ranking then I'll do my MFKs.
Greg, you're pretty dialed in here.
It bugs me that the lens of the show causes me to not enjoy beers that I just enjoy. Like, that is so weird.
Every beer on this table is a delicious beer. But tonight, with the lens, they weren't all delicious.
I am going to have to put first and last things in last place.
It just wasn't bright enough. It was delicious. All right, hold on a minute.
It was a, I enjoyed it for being a dry Southern Hemisphere styled hazy IPA, but it didn't bring it like the rest of the beers did.
Fiddlehead, where I thought, oh, this is deliciously dank just two days ago.
Today it was meh, dank, weird.

Greg:
[1:36:59] So second to last place.

Beer Rankings: Greg's Train, Crusher, Grand Cru

Shannon:
[1:37:10] You need to place them in order so you can take them to pitchers.

Jeff:
[1:37:13] They're still in the order. I think I'm going to keep going Greg's train.
I'm going to put the Crusher in third from last place.
No, they're getting to a place where every beer beyond this was...
Actually, you know what? I'm going to change it. I'm going to put the Grand Cru in third place. I can see that. Because there was...

Greg:
[1:37:34] Entirely reasonable.

Jeff:
[1:37:35] It was that that pear acidity and everything. It was less yummy than the Crusher.
The Crusher still had good yummy to it.
So the foul-mouthed Grand Cru was a little over-sour.
I did enjoy the pear flavor, but it was like under-ripe green pears. Like, I don't know.
Ones that grew in my neighbor's yard back in my old place.
Well, I'm not sure about this yet, so I'll grab the phone in a minute.
Crusher had a great juiciness to it.
I enjoyed what it was giving. I didn't classify it as dank as Greg did.
I also, I think I see it a little bit different than Hedy, than a modernized Hedy, but it's small little things. I'm just mentioning here to fill some air.

Greg:
[1:38:31] Because we need filling, right? Because this isn't long enough.

Jeff:
[1:38:33] I am going to put the Bilt-A-Spill next.
That one was different. It was thin body. It had a light broth to it.
Had that lemon drop type flavor to it.
It was in a show where we were doing all double IPAs and IPAs.
That one stood out in being fool, and whatnot.
I'm going to put the Holy Donut next. The Holy Donut, there's lots of things I really liked about that.
I liked the barrel, I liked the boozyness, I liked the coconut, I liked the sweetness, and there was a little metallic note in there.
It kept it from being like a 9.9 on my scale, right?
There was just this one little thing. A little bit drier, a little bit more boozy, and damn. Damn. Damn. Day's end, Shannon's right.
Thank you, Shannon, for making me buy a four pack of that.
It really hit the spot as our palate cleanser tonight. It really hit the spot just feeling like drinking a boulevardier, like a, you know, a...
It's Brittany, bitch. Really like the... That's my Shannon tribute.

Greg:
[1:39:58] Yeah, that's...

Jeff:
[1:39:59] And then, yeah, I think I'm gonna have to grease Greg and put the Lake Cruiser in the top spot.
It was just grapefruit juice and yummy grapefruit juice.
Presumably not added grapefruit juice. Didn't taste like it. Super good.
Marry, fuck, kill. I'm gonna marry the Allagash.

Shannon:
[1:40:27] I am going to fuck the crusher and I am going to you have to do it now kill the grand crew, Mary consummate it's about that which one do you want to fuck Shit.

Greg:
[1:40:49] Guys.
Like, I was lately, I guess in, in, in, in, in marriage, maybe it's, it's on your list, right?
Which one of these is like, you're not going to leave your husband for that, but they're on your, your what was, what's the list name?

Jeff:
[1:41:08] The, the, the, the hall pass. The hall pass.

Greg:
[1:41:12] Yeah.

Shannon:
[1:41:13] Yeah. I have my hall pass. All right.

Jeff:
[1:41:17] I don't have any hall passes.

Shannon:
[1:41:18] I don't have any hall passes. Bullshit. You're lying to the audience.

Jeff:
[1:41:30] Let me just, can I just take a moment to reconnoiter and get this, play some music or something.

Shannon:
[1:41:41] How could this happen to me?

Greg:
[1:41:44] I've made my mistakes, got nowhere to run. Like.

The Quest for the Perfect Pressure

Shannon:
[1:42:10] I'm trying to find the perfect pressure that I could have wanted under pressure, under pressure, under pressure.

Greg:
[1:42:19] Wow, that was Beautiful. Yeah, there you go. Okay, wait, wait, wait. At least like a clip.

Shannon:
[1:42:27] Okay, here we go.
Wait. Oh, shit. You guys are killing me, man. Killing me. Killing me. Wait, wait. Oh.

Greg:
[1:42:39] This is exactly 30 seconds long.

Shannon:
[1:42:41] Oh, is this? Yeah, okay. That, that goes there. And then that goes there.
At least she's stressing over it.

Jeff:
[1:42:49] Yes, exactly.

Shannon:
[1:42:50] I have my list and I've been rating them as I go, but I'm trying to, shit. What's this one?

Jeff:
[1:42:56] Shannon, have you ever seen the show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Shannon:
[1:42:59] Yes. You know where the points don't matter? Oh, you being mean.

Jeff:
[1:43:02] No, but you know where the points don't matter?

Shannon:
[1:43:04] Points don't matter? Well, come on. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is so good.
Oh yeah. Oh, slow down. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Oh so good. Oh so good.

Greg:
[1:43:17] Oh, hi Mark. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, yeah.

Shannon:
[1:43:25] We got to make sure this stuff sticks in, right?

Greg:
[1:43:27] That's the whole point of having it on a separate channel, right?
So that the A.I. doesn't get rid of it. Yeah, no, it will. All these sounds have to be there because they seem to be very important to me.

Starting with the bottom of the list

Shannon:
[1:43:44] All right.

Greg:
[1:43:48] We have a perfect lead-in.

Shannon:
[1:43:49] All right, I'm going to start with the bottom of the list.

Jeff:
[1:43:56] Bottom.

Shannon:
[1:43:57] Bottom.

Jeff:
[1:43:58] She likes it on the bottom.

Greg:
[1:44:01] Plenty of new things today.

Shannon:
[1:44:05] Surprisingly, surprisingly, I am going to have to go with the fiddlehead. Yeah.
I mean, I really liked it. I actually bought a shirt from there because I really, really liked their flagship IPA, but I don't know. The show ruins everything.
I mean, we're really critiquing these- Science is a harsh mistress.
And when you really put them up against each other, I'm going to have to say Fiddlehead is at the bottom of the list.
So okay, next I am going to go with the first and last things, which was from... Tillstedt. Tillstedt Farms, which really amazes me because...

Greg:
[1:45:02] I'm sure it was delicious at the time. There was no beer here that wasn't like, oh wow, I could drink this and have a blast.

Jeff:
[1:45:10] No drain pours, yeah.

Shannon:
[1:45:12] This was Hillstead Farms.

Jeff:
[1:45:14] Hill Farmstead.

Shannon:
[1:45:15] Hill, I'm sorry. I know, I introduced that, so that's my bad name. Hill Farmstead.

Greg:
[1:45:22] I like Hillstead Farms better.

Shannon:
[1:45:23] Blew me away while I was there.

Jeff:
[1:45:25] What, isn't that the company that makes like the pepperonis and the cheeses?

Greg:
[1:45:29] Maybe, I don't know.

Shannon:
[1:45:29] Oh yes, I believe you're right. Anyways.

Greg:
[1:45:33] I still like it, I like the sound of it better.

Shannon:
[1:45:35] So, this place blew me away and- The Hill Farmstead sounds wrong.

Jeff:
[1:45:40] I thought there was- We have 12 more beers from them, which are just all big boys.

Shannon:
[1:45:46] Yeah.

Jeff:
[1:45:46] So, none of them are hoppy.

Shannon:
[1:45:48] I'm surprised that it's ranking so low tonight.

Jeff:
[1:45:51] Yeah, me too. Well, all right.

Shannon:
[1:45:53] It's the fun thing about ranking.

Greg:
[1:45:56] You never know.

Shannon:
[1:45:56] Next.

Jeff:
[1:45:57] Challenge your preconceptions.

Shannon:
[1:46:01] Falmouth, the Grand Cru.
That would be um what did I write about that because I was taking some notes but, It was just a little too briny for me. Yeah.

Jeff:
[1:46:20] Yeah.

Shannon:
[1:46:21] Um, and I was so excited.
So next, I have to tell you, I was so excited about the fact that we got to get Crusher when we went back.

Jeff:
[1:46:43] You'll enjoy it again tomorrow when we're just watching TV.

Shannon:
[1:46:46] I'm sure I will because it was fantastic from The Alchemist.
I really enjoyed it, but tonight I was a little disappointed.
It was a little more dank than um it was two nights ago when we had it so I, don't know I was really surprised next on my list would be this wait no didn't play oh well nevermind foam the Bilt-to-Spill.

Bilt-to-Spill foam, fruity and refreshing

[1:47:35] Very fruity. I really liked it. Very refreshing. I didn't have any of that dankness.
I didn't have any tannins.
So do you remember, did we have this beer when we were there?

Jeff:
[1:47:52] Yeah.

Shannon:
[1:47:52] Yeah. Okay.

Jeff:
[1:47:54] If we did, I think this can is better than what we had in draft.

Shannon:
[1:47:57] Really?

Jeff:
[1:48:00] I think this can is delicious. And I don't remember...

Greg:
[1:48:03] Did you mute me?

Jeff:
[1:48:04] No.

Shannon:
[1:48:06] No, I hear you.

Jeff:
[1:48:07] You hear?

Greg:
[1:48:09] I don't hear anything.

Jeff:
[1:48:09] I hear you. Play... I heard a couple of things, though.

Greg:
[1:48:12] You had the Wilhelms for that. Yeah. All right, I'm going to try this again.

Shannon:
[1:48:18] Huh. If we have to take a take three of episode 509.

Jeff:
[1:48:23] Because of your soundboard.

Greg:
[1:48:26] My soundboard has stopped working. They stopped sending sounds.

Jeff:
[1:48:30] Here, unplug that and plug that back in.

Greg:
[1:48:32] I will. Because I had some great, amazing things that would have just changed everything.
And yet, and I just got the USB problem.
Which is it, you put in once, it doesn't work. and twice the flipping around doesn't work you put in a third time flipping around and it finally works absolutely let me know when I should Mario!
okay so that came back so what I was trying to do well it doesn't really matter but when you were yeah you were just having the argument take me out take me out.

Shannon:
[1:49:09] It just felt like the right moment, yeah so in third What did we have one two, three, four five six seven eight What did eight night?

Greg:
[1:49:22] Yeah, I mean when you have to when you have three two people you do a different show Yeah, yeah for sure.

Shannon:
[1:49:27] So it's great so in third place we have the alagash days and and which I really thought was gonna be in first.

Greg:
[1:49:39] I understand why.

Shannon:
[1:49:40] And I'm shocked that I'm putting it in third, but I rated them and took notes as I was going along and this is where it landed.
So I really like it.
I really, really do. But I have to tell you, top two are better.
Surprise, motherfucker.
Yeah, so number two would be the holy donut from, who did the holy donut?
Lone Pug. Okay, holy donut, loved it.
Can't find my notes on it now to talk about it.
Where the hell are my notes? I do that. Oh yeah, very boozy.
I tasted the smokiness, the barrel, the roasted walnuts, and the dark chocolate.
I actually really, really, really loved this one.
And it was really hard for me to choose between first and second because, I mean, that's apples and oranges in comparison.

Greg:
[1:50:58] Yes, they definitely are. They're very different.

Shannon:
[1:51:01] And if I was looking for a, more of a dessert after, dinner.
um, beverage, then I would choose holy donut.
Um, and that would be number one, but, but if I was choosing something to go with my meal or just to drink, um, on, you know, you know, amongst us or anywhere just to have a good time.

Twin Barns Lake Cruiser shockingly takes the top spot

[1:51:39] The freaking Twin Barns Lake Cruiser, shockingly. Yeah.

Greg:
[1:51:47] You would not have expected it to be going in here.

Shannon:
[1:51:49] I did. Man. Did all three of us choose that as number one?

Greg:
[1:51:53] Yes, all three of us made this number one.

Jeff:
[1:51:54] Like, so, but which one would you marry? Which one would you fuck?

Greg:
[1:51:59] And I, and just giving a taste after it, I see why.
It makes, you give it a taste, it makes sense. You understand why when you taste it, and you're like, yeah, this is something that I'd have every day.

Shannon:
[1:52:11] All right. So which one would I marry? Well, because I don't eat dessert every day, I can't marry the holy donut.
So I'm gonna have to marry the Lake Cruiser.
I would definitely fuck the holy doughnut though.

Greg:
[1:52:30] Me too.

Shannon:
[1:52:31] Every day.
And which one would I kill? I don't, I couldn't kill any of them because.

Greg:
[1:52:45] I could kill the fiddlehead.
And you know what? I could even kill a first and last things.
I can't. I feel like I could get away We'll let you slide this time.

Shannon:
[1:52:56] Yeah, I can't kill.

Jeff:
[1:52:58] I have the outro music here. All right.

Shannon:
[1:53:02] Thank you. Yes.

Jeff:
[1:53:04] Thanks, everyone.

Greg:
[1:53:04] Join our discord. Join our discord.

Jeff:
[1:53:07] CraftBeRudio.com you'll find a link for.

Greg:
[1:53:12] Buy my book, buy my book.
That's a Simpsons reference. I think it was Krusty, right?
Yeah, oh What do you what is this you're playing pb herman, oh, he just died all ribbons.

Jeff:
[1:53:37] Yeah I feel it just played the tequila song. That's what I should have done instead of clicking the pb herman one All righty, wow, okay, well, we got there, I think.

Greg:
[1:53:50] I don't even know, is this like coming through on the... Yeah, it's coming through. All right.

Shannon:
[1:53:56] Maybe. No, I don't think it is. But we have a backup, so hopefully.

Greg:
[1:54:01] Well, I don't know, I don't even know if it's coming through on their microphone, because that...

Jeff:
[1:54:08] Oh, is it playing there? Yeah.

Greg:
[1:54:10] So I think it's gonna be cut out.

Jeff:
[1:54:12] Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Fuck. You're right. You're right. Let me. You do it.

Greg:
[1:54:17] Yes.

Jeff:
[1:54:17] I'm just, I thought I'd be all smart.

Shannon:
[1:54:19] I'm not smart. Oh, you know.

Jeff:
[1:54:21] I'm not smart.

Shannon:
[1:54:22] I'm not a smart man.

Greg:
[1:54:25] Let's see. Tequila song. Okay. Yeah. Okay, yeah, all right.
There we go.
Thank you for listening to Craft Beer Radio. Episode 509, hopefully.

Hoping for a Successful Recording

[1:54:45] Part two. Hopefully the real one. Hopefully the one that lasts.
Take two. The take two. The take two. Hopefully we don't have to do a take three.
We can move on to five ten next time.
We thank you so much for listening to us.

Jeff:
[1:54:58] Hey, I know you are, but what am I? What? I know you are, but what am I? Ha! Okay.

Shannon:
[1:55:09] That was a terrible pee we heard on it.

Greg:
[1:55:13] Okay, thank you for listening to Craft Beer Radio. Join our Discord.
Join our Discord, go to craftbeeradio.com, there's a link there.

Jeff:
[1:55:21] It's the funnest fun you'll ever fun.

Shannon:
[1:55:23] And- Show us some love.

Greg:
[1:55:25] Yes, show us some love, come on guys.

Jeff:
[1:55:27] Give us some recommendations, we're looking for them.

Greg:
[1:55:31] Give us some music to play, give us some beers to look for.

Shannon:
[1:55:34] Tell us what you're drinking.

Jeff:
[1:55:36] Tell us to keep the show under an hour and 55 minutes and 38 seconds.

Greg:
[1:55:40] Give us something to talk about in the post show so that you can hear us go on our weird rants about shit.

Shannon:
[1:55:47] Just give us feedback. We love it. Do it.

Greg:
[1:55:51] Do it.

Shannon:
[1:55:51] Bam. Bam, mic drop.