[Music] Episode 98 of the Beerus Podcast recorded February 6th, 2014. [Music] So what are you guys doing for Valentine's Day? I don't think I have any plans, really? I'm kind of delaying my plans and I'm gonna take my wife to a cheese-tasting course at Antonellies like a couple weeks later. Ooh, that's nice. Hopefully you don't come out with getting their pregnant again. [Laughter] That's a mess. Money. [Laughter] Babies cost money. Yeah, donate to Grant's baby. [Laughter] That's probably one time a year. Okay, I need this. I know, I know. Grant needs another baby and you can't do that without your donations. How do you think he stays so young and fresh looking? He looks, he's so fresh. Now, Stacia, what are you doing for Valentine's? I'm probably gonna strong-arm a bunch of people into buying me candy. Like at the world's cutest prison that you work at? [Laughter] I'm the prison guard, guys. I'm the favorite. Oh, wow. What about you, Mike? Are you doing anything for Valentine's Day? I'm just gonna be drinking and probably having sex with some of my friends in California. So far, you've only mentioned a bunch of dudes that you're hanging out with, so... Yeah. You said Sean. Cool. We've had him on the show. You have a gangbusters time. Yeah. I'm John Rubio. Oh, my God. Grant Davis. Grant, how are you? Uncomfortable from that intro. Okay. Honestly, I'm uncomfortable from the past three intro's. We should probably... Should we redo the intro? No. Keep rolling with it. I'm glad to be uncomfortable, and everyone else listening is. That's a good point. Yes. We also have with us... Anastasia, Warden at the cutest prison ever, Kelly. You're just saying things that somebody else said. And you're not the Warden if you're wearing a prison jumpsuit. You're wearing everything. I'm trying to blend in, so they don't attack me. I'm trying to be one of them, so I can find out all their secrets and all the... Kind of genius, actually. Drugs are hidden and the toys. The drugs are in the butts. The drugs are in the butts and behind the poster in the hole in the wall. So are the toys? Yes. And so is the candy. It's all in the butts. All in the butts. Speaking of butts, Mike. Mike Lambert. How are you, buddy? I'm doing good, man. Good. You look fantastic. Oh, thanks. I heard from you that you have a new job. I do. I no longer work at the fruit stand. Yeah, I'm not going to be pedaling anymore, you know, oranges or strawberries or... I got a job at an evening. Okay. So he used to work at Blackberry. Mike. No, he used to work at Pinkberry. What is Pinkberry? Yogurt. I don't know what Pinkberry is. Don't you watch Sex in the City? Yeah. I'm pretty sure you've had. No. Well, I had Pinkberry, but then I took those antibiotics and cleared right up. You just can't let the strippers grind on your face, man. You can't, dude. And by face, you mean crotch. I mean, it's all the same when your face is your crotch. When you have a crotch face syndrome. I have crotch face syndrome. Well, thanks for the update, Mike. Yeah. Today, you guys are really interested in this. Thank you. You keep interrupting. Damn it. Today, we're doing chocolate beers. Ooh. I know. The beer of love. Perfect for Valentine's Day. For those people on Valentine's Day who would rather listen to our show than have sex. You poor bastards. I mean, they maybe have no choice. Why does Valentine's Day about sex? Yes. I thought it was about the massacre of hundreds of people. It was like 14 people. Yeah. It's like, yeah. 14 for the day. And we all celebrate the way we celebrate it. And I guess if you pull out, they're all dead anyway. Right. You're absolutely right. Okay. Hey, on that note, let's get to a couple of emails before we get into this show. And the first email says, "Hi, beerists." Hi. Michael, they can't hear you. We talked about this on the last episode, which was a tragedy. And I'm sorry. That episode was awesome. Oh, glad I missed it. There are a lot of people here that are glad that they missed it too. I can't really claim to be a knowledgeable craft beer enthusiast, although it's been more than 10 years since I purchased an Anheuser-Busch product. If I was a guest on your show, my responses would be on the order of, hmm, it looks like beer. It smells like beer. It even tastes like beer. Hey, I think this is beer. That's what Grant was like. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like. I've moved to Austin. I've made an effort to check out some of the local craft beers, and I've really enjoyed pretty much everything I've tried. I've noticed that your show talks a lot about the Belgian brewing tradition, but I haven't heard you mention much about the UK. I realize there's probably very limited availability here, but do you guys have any experience with beers in the United Kingdom or any interest? Personally, I've had the Guinness Bass harp half and half, but really nothing outside of that. Do you guys have anything you might want to share on brewing in that part of the world? Thanks for the great podcast. Keep it up. Kevin Hicks. Austin, Texas. Hey, spoiler alert. We're going to drink some UK beers tonight. Fuck yeah. Two of them. But we have done some UK beers in the past. We've had several Sam Smith beers on. We've had courage and people stout, a few other ones here and there. But by and large, we've not really done very many UK beers. I really like Meantime. Meantime's great. Yeah, they make some really, really good stuff. They're porters fantastic, and their IPA is actually really, really good too. Yeah. The next thing is UK is not actually that big. It gets a lot of pats on the back for being like this cultural mega monolith or whatever. Yeah. But you know, it's this tiny little island that's like a half of Texas, but they have a lot of good beer there. I'm not actually sure the size of it. We also have a really traditional brewing tradition, and I guess it's only traditional because we now use it and we have some very popular styles that have come from UK brewing traditions. True. We really highlight a whole bunch of stuff from Germany, even though I mean, they're the birthplace of a whole bunch of different beer styles. Yeah, and I think a lot of that also has to do with the fact that we don't get a lot of those beers here. I mean, we get some of them, but not as many as other states in the US. We get a lot of American beers. We do now. Yeah. That wasn't the case when we started the show. Yeah. It's true. I feel like we're getting those because of the show. Yeah. That was us. No, that was not us at all. That was totally us. We're involved in that who are actually important that we're not us. We're not important. You're right. We've got two podcast awards. I mean, that might do something for a nerd or two, but so thank you. Kevin Hicks. Why are you shitting on us all the time? What do you mean? You're constantly like downplaying our importance. We're not. We're not important. Like you can kill us tomorrow and nobody will care. Hey, my prisoners would care. That's true. Because I would run a muck. Our next DML says, hey, beerists, just an observation question regarding goose islands in Matilda. I've had this beer on more than a few occasions and enjoyed it quite a bit. However, I just had it recently. I'm immediately upon pouring the beer. I got a strong baby diaper aroma and not in a good way. My wife had half a bottle and she also got the strong baby diaper scent as well. It really overwhelmed the aroma and that's all I could get from the flavor as well. Now, just to clarify, this smell was a baby diaper filled with crap and not just a clean diaper. I want to know where he got his basis for comparison from. Well, he answers it in the next sentence, Michael. Yeah. Yeah. We are new parents, so we're very familiar with the smell, by the way. Anyway, to the question, could this be attributed specifically to the bread or was this probably a bottle gone bad? I know Matilda can age for years, so I'm surprised that the bottle was so bad. It was a 12-ounce bottle and I don't recall many drugs, so I don't think that was the reason. Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and always keep up the good work. Sincerely, funky in Fontana, California, Stephen Babalardo. Oh, right on. Your favorite. I know. I love this guy. Mm-hmm. So, I just real quick want to make sure that, you know, as a new parent, I imagine you're very tired all the time and you get confused a lot because you're very tired. Me? Me? Yes. He's the only one with a tiny person. Yes. So, I just want to make sure that he didn't accidentally drink the baby diaper instead of the beer. No. Maybe a state of confusion. It's happened a few times tonight. Yeah. I know. I mean, you do also drink beer up your nose sometimes. Yeah. I don't know how to drink this stuff. Really confusing. Yeah. And I would also like to point out that baby diapers evolve. You might think that that smell of a newborn baby is pretty bad, but that's actually so good in comparison to when you start feeding them food because then it really smells like a bad beer. It smells like like man-shits. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. I mean, I know you guys have talked about like that ropey quality, right? That's a PDO infection. That's a really different thing. Okay. But sometimes Brett will take on characters of rubber and asphalt and weirdness. Those banded old baby diaper, I mean, I'm suspecting that it's mostly the Brett and maybe there's something else in there going on. I don't know. I mean, if you have more of those bottles, put some away for a few months and it might clear up. If you've got a four pack and you only drink one, try another one and see if it's a problem in all another bottle in that package. The internet says that it could be a bacterial contamination too. Okay. Nice. Not nice at all. But thank you, Steve. I wish you luck next time you get Matilda. I'd never had a bad bottle of it either. Okay. And good luck with that whole baby thing. Oh, I didn't want to say that on purpose. Good luck, buddy. Ugh, babies. So if anybody else out there wants to send us an email, do it at info@thebearsts.com. We really love reading them and look forward to them. Up next, we have a couple of iTunes shout-outs three exactly. And what these are are the same thanks to people who go on to the iTunes music store and they give us a five star rating and write a review for us. And when they actually write that review out with words, like long form, awesome words, I can see their name and I'll thank them for it on the show like these folks. Patty Floyd says, "I'm pretty sure this show is just John Rubio pulling a Jimmy Fallon and playing the radio show host on SNL and that he's all four of the beers at the same time." It's true. That was actually Rubio saying that in Nancy's voice. That was really good. Uh, continuing. Not sure though, either way, this is an incredible show. I listen every week and it's great for both a cheap and fairly expensive laugh. Not to mention, it's awesome for learning how to analyze beer. Keep it up, John Rubio and others. Thank you. We all thank you. That was me again. So the next, the next one's from Bill Helm. Bill Helm. Bill him. Bill him. It's not his name. It's like Bill Helm. It's like Bill Helm. Right. Bill Helm just started listening. It's Christmas extravaganza and I'm really sorry. That made him, that made him instantly hooked. I don't really. Yeah. Wow. Some people like that. Neat. Some people have terrible tastes, Bill Helm. Uh, thanks for feeding my growing love of craft beer by talking a lot about beers. I haven't had before and helping me find new appreciation for ones that I have. Y'all are awesome. Thanks, Bill Helm. We appreciate it. Yes, thank you. The third one is from IITONE. Is that IITONE or two-tone? IITONE. Maybe it's Roman numeral two-tone. But two-tone. IITONE two-tone says John Mike Anastasia and Grant have great chemistry. They know beer and they know how to make me laugh. Congrats on two podcast awards. Keep up the great work. Aw, thanks. Thanks. Two-tone. I wonder what kind of humor he's into. I don't know. His name is two-tone. Oof. I was just kidding two-tone. I love you and your name. Uh, we have some donations to give thanks for. Fuck yeah. We're getting donations again? Yes. We've gotten some donations. We've got one from William Kinney. They gave us five bucks. Thank you so much, William. Sweet. Thanks. Brettonin... No, Linsky. No, Linsky. No, Linsky. I can't read Russian. Brettonin, Linsky. Also give us five bucks. Well, thank you, Devil, for tolerating that insult. Jared Tatum gave us 10 bucks. Thank you so much, Jared. Wow. He's better than William or Brett. He's as good as both of them. No, these... Fuck you. They're great. Kevin Hicks gave us $10. Thank you so much, Kevin. Sean Keith gave us 50 fucking bucks. So he's better than all of them. He was the guy who sent us this 50 bucks while we were doing the last show. Damn. Like as we were doing the show, that was really cool. And we also got two reoccurring donations. One from Andy Hampton. Nice. He's on a $5 reoccurring. Thank you so much. That means that every month, the $5 automatically gets sent to us from him. Super cool. And Jose Rodriguez also sent us five bucks. Dude. Reoccurring. This is awesome. Fuck yeah. Well, the way to do that's really fucking easy. You get on thebearest.com and on the left hand side of the page is a PayPal donate link. Click on it and you could send us any amount of money you want. I really prefer it be like five bucks at least. That's a good solid donation. Clicking on that reoccurring box gives us that $5 once a month automatically. You don't have to do anything else. And it's the cost of a fucking Starbucks coffee. Like seriously, it's five bucks. Or if you think about it, you're spending a $1.25 per episode in a month. We do four episodes a month. It's a book 25 an episode. It's like you bought us one beer to share that month. Yeah. Super fucking cool. Thank everybody who has donated so far. You guys are awesome. Let's get to these beers. I'm thirsty. Me too. Chocolate beers. For Valentine's Day. Do you remember on the Christmas episode I had Jason Murphy on as one of the guests in the rotation? Yes. And we had Abyss. He all said and goes, you know, I don't even like chocolate. And I'm like, ah, fuck. Well, it's a very chocolatey beer Abyss. How can someone not like chocolate? Yes. Seriously. You're not even human. He's also really fat. I've seen those pictures. Damn. He's laying it on. I've seen those pictures. Jason Murphy is super fat. Nobody on the show knows who Jason Murphy is. Like nobody listening knows Jason Murphy. Do you think that but? Okay. Half of you listening know Jason Murphy. He's on rageselect.com. Check him out. Oh, I'm on rageselect.com. That's why. Crazy bugs. Anyway, chocolate beers. The first beer that we're drinking is called organic. Wow. Organic chocolate stout from Samuel Smith. Tadcaster UK. Fuck yeah. Yeah. UK beer. 5% ABV, this organic chocolate stout and it's available year round in bottles. This is brewed with well water. The original well, by the way, sunk in 1758 is still in use and the well is drawn from 85 feet, like the hard waters drawn from 85 feet underground. And this is also made with gently roasted organic chocolate malt and organic cocoa. It's the perfect marriage of satisfying stout and luxurious chocolate, according to the brewer. So taking a look at this beer, it's a, it's like a dark chocolate. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a denser cola or root beer. And it's got a really nice little bit of head, really, really fine bubbles on that head. Guess what it smells like? Hey, Michael, does this smell like chocolate to you? Yes. Yes. Very much like chocolate. Smells like Tootsie Rolls. Smells like a lot of Tootsie Rolls. It's like a caramel apple chocolate. I get some appley note. But I think I can't get that with all of the same ewels. The same is smooth, right? Yeah. Can't get that with all of them. Little bit of yuhu. Yuhu, yeah. Cocoa puffs also. Cocoa puffs. That grainy multi. Yeah. Multi thing. That sounds delicious. Chocolate. Yeah. Yeah. Chocolate and there's like a dustiness to it. Like a chalkiness to the aroma. Yeah. That sweet caramely note. Yeah. Caramel-y milk chocolate and baking chocolate and a little bit of semi-sweet. It smells great. Oh. And it also tastes great, guys. Wow. Rich chocolatey taste. Not as, well I mean it's sweet as well, but I'm not getting as much of the commonly note as it is in the nose. A lot of other chocolate beers that I've had, at least some of the more American ones, they're quite a bit fuller in the mouth feel. This is pretty aqueous. And it still goes down like really, really smooth, but you still get this rich chocolate note out of it. I do like that quite a bit. I really like the English approach to this beer. Like it is a very somewhat aqueous, more malt-forward, very light on the hops sort of beer. It's nice. It's got a slight milkiness to it. The chocolate is definitely Tootsie Rolls cocoa pops, stuff like that, like that breakfast cereal-y stuff. It tastes like when you drink your milk after you've had a bowl of cocoa puffs. Get out of my head. No, I'm in there. Inception. It's really damn drinkable. It is. And there's a floral thing that happens toward the end. Yeah. Like a floral or fruity thing that happens. And I'm not sure exactly what I'm tasting there, maybe strawberry, something from the ale used. And it certainly is caramel-y, too. Mm-hmm. I like that. I kind of get like a coffee note, but like a Starbucks artificial coffee note. I like one of the double shots. Yeah. It's a little powder-sucking. Yeah. Yeah. I really dig this. This is insanely easy to drink. And it's got a ton of chocolate flavor. I like it, too. I don't think I would like a lot more than one or two, though. Right. As it is a bit sweet, like I think that the lack of hot bitterness isn't there to cut that sweetness. Right. And that's fine if I'm drinking one or sharing one of these with somebody else. You know, this is a great dessert beer. Yeah. But after dinner beer. Mm-hmm. What? I knew someone was going to say that. I agree with them. Flavor was, I think so. But I think just because the body isn't there, depending on what you ate for dinner, what you drink with dinner, like if we had had this beer last on the show, I don't think we would like it as much. I agree. That's a good point. Flavor wise, this is amazing. Like this is super awesome. But if you're going to have it with any dessert that's moderately heavy or dense or not light as a fucking feather, it's going to blow over the beer completely and then the beer is going to get lost because of the mouth. So would you just have this with a snack or something, maybe some butter cookies or something? Not even butter cookies. Really? I'd guess something a little bit lighter. Like maybe puff pastry but without a lot of stuff on it, maybe like a cinnamon sugar puff or something. Some kicks. Cereal. I kind of want to put cereal in this because I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I kind of want to put some captain crunch in this. That would be amazing. Some rice crispies, just let them float in there and then drink it all down. What do you think of like a fruit tart or something like that? Maybe. That's the only thing that really came to mind because it's, I agree with you. I think that if there was any sort of big dessert, it would bowl this one right over. That's where some of the beers that we'll probably have a little bit later, they hire an alcohol much, much bigger in body. I think that those would stand to be dessert beers but this is, I'm trying to find a place for this one is to where I would drink it and time wise. I mean, it's good for whenever you feel like a chocolate beer that you don't want to get like, just have it be too heavy but I don't know. Here's where I would drink it. I would drink it sometime between lunch and dinner with strawberries, like fresh strawberries. Why won't fresh mint with this for some reason? Yeah, that's a good call. That could be great. Like a little bit of rubbed mint and some strawberries or something. Definitely. This is a very accessible beer. Yeah. I think a lot of people who aren't really that into beer would probably get something good out of this. Yeah. It's super-quaffable even for how sweet it is. It really is. Yeah. I mean, I went through mine real fast. We all just downed it. It's not bad. I mean, I think that, like I said, it does cloy just a little bit and I think that it would get a little bit old. I mean, there is an artificiality, I think Grant mentioned that, somewhat artificial coffee or maybe even hazelnutty thing going on. I'm not sure what it is. Oh, kind of like, Phryngelic. Mount Brown. Yes. Yes, Phryngelic. One of Brown's founders. God, that sounds like a hipster band. I know. But yeah, I mean, there's something in there that's reminding me of the artificiality in that beer in a weird way. I don't know. I still liked it, but it's not my favorite. Well, let's move on to one of your favorites. I don't know if this is my favorite, but it's really widely available. It's another UK beer. Like I said, this last one was Samuel Smith's organic chocolate stout tadcaster UK. This next one is from Bedford, UK, and this is Wells and Young's Young's double chocolate stout. And this is 5.2% ABV. It's available year round in bottles and on draft, and this one is also in cans. And I believe the cans are nitrogenated. Am I wrong about that? I don't know. I don't know. But OK, it might be nitrogenated. Might be nuts. I don't know. I've never seen the cans, so I don't know. So this double chocolate stout looks a little bit denser than the last one. It's a really deep Dr. Pepper brown. Yeah, less highlights on this one. Yeah. But the highlights that I am getting are orange. Garnity, copper. It's a little thicker, swirled around. When I'm looking at the beer from the side of the glass, like the bubbles look quite a bit larger, but when I'm looking at it from the top, it looks more like latte foam. Yeah. And almost finer. So that's weird to me. And this is a lot more roasty than the last one. The last one was just Tootsie Roll chocolate and caramel. This one smells more like a traditional English stout. And I get quite a bit more sweetness off the top, personally. I get some marijuana. What? Really? Yeah. I get some bitter notes. Let's talk to our local resident marijuana enthusiast. No. OK. I don't get any of that. I get some hops. I get some noble hop type aroma. A little bit of grassiness, a little bit of floral hop. Like maybe your buddy has some in their pocket, and they didn't triple dog baguette, whatever. And you can faintly smell it. Right. It smells kind of green and luscious, and like you want to smoke it. That's kind of the smell I'm getting. I get a little bit of your glass from the back. Yeah. Mike's like, I want to smoke your beer. I mean, it's definitely far back in there. But it's there. There. But this does smell really like a stout. I mean, it smells like a stout. Yeah. Roast-mole. Grassy hop, roasty, a little bit of chocolate on the nose, not very much at all. And the chocolate is a little bit different in the nose. It smells more like a dark chocolate, you know, not a lot of aroma, just a little bit more bitterness. So if we move into the taste, I get a lot more dark chocolate, can have a little bit more bitterness. That's like a smoky cigar-type taste to it. It's a little bit more acrid. It's acidic. Yeah. And it's acidic in a way, in the same way as dark chocolate is acidic, I think. And in the way that some roasted molds are acidic. And it's got a little bit of astringency there, too. It's acidic, like bad gas station coffee. Yeah, but it's not overtly coffee. It's roasted grain, like it tastes like roasted grain, but maybe a little bit too roasted or not. Neither is gas station coffee. True. It's like watered down sadness is what it is. It doesn't taste that bad to me. No, it's not a bad beer at all. It doesn't taste bad necessarily, but I don't like it as much as the first one that we just had. Oh, yeah, sure. That one was delicious. I wish there was a little more chocolate in this double chocolate stout to justify that kind of medium mouth feel that leaves a film on my tongue. Yeah, they should rename this to Young's half chocolate stout. I mean, they should call it just Young's Stout. Really? Yeah. I mean, it doesn't really come off as a double chocolate stout. Yeah. I don't get a lot of that. Maybe they just used a lot more chocolate malt than they do in another one of their beers? Who knows? And seriously, that's all a marketing gimmick, I think, for these guys because I order something like this. I expect to be drinking brownie batter or something. Right. And instead I get this stout. And it's a good stout. I mean, it's not very hoppy. The hops that I do get are a little bit of grassiness, a little bit of floral, a pretty good amount of roast. And, you know, there's a weird astringency and a bit of an acritity. And there's a little bit of a chocolate there. I mean, there's some pretty things going on and some fruit. I don't know what kind of fruit. Well, I'm getting too much fruit out of it. I mean, I'll go back and taste it, but not anything that I'd be able to place my finger on. Maybe like a generic jam. Yeah, some kind of grapey thing or a chutney of, yeah, grape or fig or some raisoning. Yeah. It's a great beer to bake with. Yes. I bake with a spear very often. We both said that with enthusiasm because we both love when you do that. I want you to do it now. Yes. I'm not as huge a fan of this one as I was the last one. Neither am I. It's a stout. It's a pretty decent stout. It's not going to ring any bells in your brain. It's not going to make you go, oh my God, try this. It's just a serviceable beer, I think. And again, widely accessible. Very widely. This is probably the chocolate stout, I think is most common to most areas. Yeah. And if this is the only one you've had, you've been missing out. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, especially if it's something where you're like, oh, I can really taste the chocolate in this. No, not compared to all the other ones. I'm trying to think of what food this would go with. Stew. Stew. Some short ribs or something like that. I think you could probably get like one of those gas station hot dogs that go over this gas station. Yeah. I don't know what to offer there. Would be like a shepherd's pie or a... I mean a meat pie would be good, but I don't know, I'd rather cook with this than drink it. Yeah. I'd rather make stew with this beer. I'd rather make meat pie with this beer. You know how to just make meat pie with meat? Oh God, I love meat. I so love meat. I got this deep fried chicken cheese hot dog from 7-Eleven though. What the fuck? Well, actually when we went out to the Grey American Beer Festival. Oh my God. And it was spicy and it was kind of good, kind of discussing the fact that they made it. All the best stuff is. Yeah. And I could imagine having that beer with this. Okay. Oh, chicken and waffles I could see being not terrible. True. I don't know. I mean it wouldn't be the best pairing, but it's not going to be the worst. I don't think any of us were necessarily that enthused with this beer. Yeah, I'm just, I don't want to move on to the next one. I think that I've said enough about this. I think we've all said enough about this. We're really just reaching now. We're just killing time while Mike Pores, really. Yes. And the beer that we just finished is Young's Double Chocolate Stout. The next one, and the final one before the break, is chocolate indulgence. It's a Belgian Dark Ale from Burioma Gang, Cooperstown, New York. This is 7% ABV and it's a rotating release available in bottles and on draft. And this was introduced in October of 2007 at Omega Gang's 10th anniversary party, which was waffle and puppet themed. It wasn't that. Is that what that means? I think that's what that means. It says it in the notes, waffles and puppets. Well, I also had other notes on there too, but. Sure, but waffles and puppets, I'm pretty sure that's a theme and not just the name of two people that were there. Okay. Cool. This beer's really dark. Really dark. It looks very indulgent. Holy shit. There's no highlight at all. Yeah, barely. And you kind of have to put the light above your glass. Yeah. And there's a nice pillowy head. Like that head is gorgeous, finger and a half's worth the head and it's super spongy looking. It's pretty potent right on the first smell. Yeah, it is. So I definitely get notes of chocolate, but then there's something like floral and. Very floral, yeah. And a niece-like. Yeah. And minty. I got a lot of booze right off the first waffles. I get Belgian yeast. Yeah. I get quite a bit of Belgian yeast. And there's a spiciness to that too. There's. Like a nutmeg-y spiciness. It's like lavender. Some stone fruits. It reminds me of like an amaro or like, huh, I was going to say maybe like very distantly absinthe-like. Yeah. I can see that. But the main thing is chocolate-dulgent yeast. Yeah. It kind of smells like a candle shop. Oh, weird. Yeah. I get a little bit of like a soy wax. Oh, wax, yeah. Okay. Okay. I thought you meant like literally like candles. Yeah. I mean, it just smells like a bunch of different floral scents and I guess the waxiness, yeah. Yeah. I can see that. I get a little bit of like a biscuitiness as well, like a breadiness. It smells good. I mean, so far, aroma-wise, I think it's the most complex. There's a lot going on here. It's not just chocolate, that's for sure true. Oh, I just got a really amazing set and I can't remember what flour that is. Shucks. I was going to say at least on the aroma, there's a flouriness that reminds me of like a saison or something like that. Sort of. Like just with that Belgian yeast. You know what? There's a bit of that in the flavor too. And it's a very light-bodied Belgian beer and there's a saison-like quality to it too. Very dry. Yeah. Cherry as well. Like cherry skins, flowers on top of the chocolate. It's kind of a dull chocolatey, bitter chocolate, not really sweetened chocolate flavor. And then it's a lot of grassy note at the end and the Belgian yeast gives a lingering taste at the end that I don't really care for, but I often don't care for that as much. For sure. Real quick, I was reading the bottle and it says they use pearl hops and apparently those are supposed to be really herbal. They're supposed to go off an herbal nose. It sure does. Yeah, definitely. It also gives a bit of an herbal flavor to it too. Because yeah, this is a very herbal dandeliony, similar to a lot of dark farmhouse beers that we've had. Earlier. We had Spencer. Yeah. That new Trappist beer. Well, don't talk about that. Don't talk about that because we're going to have that on an upcoming show. I was just going to say that the yeast profile to me is very similar. Okay. We can cut that. Yeah, we're going to talk about that in an upcoming show, Jonathan Murphy, one of our listeners. Oh, nice. Yeah. Super cool. I was kind of expecting a little more chocolate in the flavor. Yeah, it's called indulgence. Right, yeah, I was expecting something similar to the first beer, to that Sam Smith organic chocolate. I was expecting something decadent and a little creamy with lots of caramel and deep chocolate and deep chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate. Yeah. And it does say it uses real Belgian chocolate, but I guess Belgian chocolate's a little more subtle. I'm just so amused that our first beer, everyone was kind of like, yeah, I mean, it's okay. I'm really looking forward to these other ones. And now everyone keeps going back. And we're on that first one. Like actually, this is like chocolate and these other ones are kind of like, what the hell? Where's the chocolate? Yeah, it's weird. The very first one that we had while aqueous was had some really rich chocolate flavor. And it wasn't that boastful about its chocolate in its name is organic chocolate sound. Right. And then no one's double chocolate sound, chocolate indulgence, chocolate coming out your pores. So for this, well, it's very dark. It's very aqueous, but there's not very much chocolate flavor that's going on here. At least it's being, I mean, there's chocolate flavor here, but it's being dominated by that Belgian yeast. I almost want more body out of this one just to match that Belgian yeast note that's here. Yeah, it's interesting because it's similar to if you got an Abbey beer, like just a regular Belgian single, you know, and you put a little bit of chocolate malt in it, maybe. Yeah. Kind of, yeah, maybe a little bit of orange and then fermented it all the way down to where it was a lot a little bit drier than normal, maybe different hops also. It's somewhere between that and the say song for me. I like it. I do too. I like that weird, is it a say song? Is it an Abbey? It's, it's not at all off putting like I thought it was and it first sip. I was kind of skeptical, but you know, fear of four sips in, it's definitely coming around to me. I really like this beer. I would never call this chocolate indulgence. Right. I would never expect this beer in a bottle labeled chocolate indulgence. Right. I think that's what's turning me off because I never, I've had this beer a number of times before and I've never really been into it and I think that it's exactly that. That's probably what it is. I mean, to its credit, as it warms up, I'm getting a lot more chocolate in the nose. Yeah, me too. There's quite a bit more chocolate in the nose. Sure. But in the flavor, it's not really doing that. Now if it was called something else and the chocolate wasn't really even mentioned and then I'd just get that as a note in the aroma, I'd be like, whoa, there's a surprise. Where's all this chocolate coming from? You know, I would probably be dialing into that chocolate more if it didn't tell me it had it in there. Right. Or if it was just in small print where it's like, it's a dark Belgian Abbey, made with spices in chocolate. What would you guys name it? Let's just spit ball here. Dark stays on. Yeah. Pretty much. As this warms up, are you guys getting a lot more boozy notes too? Yeah, I don't get a lot of boozy this. Every so often, I get a waft of it. I mean, I like this beer quite a bit. I don't really care for it. I think it's kind of bland. Just all around. I don't think it's marketed well. I don't think it's that delicious a beer. I don't want to drink the rest of it. Oh. Well, like I said, I really think that for me, this beer would be a lot better served if it didn't call itself chocolate indulgence. I do want to say that it's a very pretty bottom. It is super pretty. It's a quarkton cage. They have a really great-- they've rebranded it. There is like this filigree, fancy heart going into a chalice. So if you're looking for a last minute gift for your partner or the person you're going to have sex with later, just pick up a bottle of this and put a ribbon on it and call it a day. I would do that, but I'd probably want to include something else in that gift route. Like you're taking a box? Let me know, chocolate covered strawberries or something, because if I just got that-- No, why don't you just get chocolate covered strawberries and the point is it's a beer gift. Yeah, but-- It's not a gift gift. It's a beer gift. True. And it's a one-night stand. You're not calling it back the next day. Yeah, for real. So you don't have to apologize for the shitty beer. I would rather get them a better chocolate beer. I don't know. I mean, it's a good beer. Wait a second. Actually, on my advice, I'm trying to help the people out there with some fairly sage advice, and you're just-- you're dropping your pants and you're just shitting everywhere. Okay, so let's say a guy who's kind of in to beer says, "Okay," and he takes that advice, and he goes and he buys a bottle of this for his girlfriend. How do you think she would take it if she's not really that in to beer? I don't know. She's probably like, "Why'd you get me beer for Valentine's Day?" He said it made me a say. He sucked at Valentine's Day. You never listened to me. This is like when you got me that vacuum cleaner for my birthday. What? What? Is that a sexual joke? When you went to try on that, we don't know about-- No. You know what? Bad gifts. That was what she was saying. He was talking to the ghost of his ex-wife. Happy Valentine's, everybody. We're taking a break. Do you remember when she died? Break. So, while we're on break, I got an email from listener Patrick. Patrick Floyd, too, specifically Anastasia Kelly, and there was a picture that I'll post to our Facebook page that's a side-by-side photo of Nicholas Cage with a drawing of Nicholas Cage and it's the creepiest fucking thing I've ever seen. It is the best thing I've ever seen. I'm somewhere in between you guys. It's creepy and the best. Okay, so you know that lady that got famous on the internet for painting the Jesus picture? Yes. What? No. Did you see the fresco? Yes, she was supposed to be restoring this Jesus fresco in this fucking-- Can I look this up on the internet? Yes. I'm wearing this chapel. Yeah. I mean, it was like this religious place, but she painted this fucking retard face, Jesus? What? Did you see the Jesus? Yes, I just saw him. Yeah, that's what it looks like. That's what this Pat guy sent us. Did he draw it? That's what I want to know. I really don't know. I'll email him and then I'll just be-- Yeah, you got to follow up on that. I'm still putting it on Reddit. That's fucking-- It's good. It is horrifying. You should put, hey, I just drew this. Yeah. So it's just true this, it like reposed negative karma. Okay. Speaking of high Reddit, I haven't talked to you guys in a while. You guys are awesome. I love your Reddit. Dear listeners, if you are Redditors, share us on Reddit. Yeah. Share us. Share us on Reddit. Please send me more fan mail. Oh my God, that made me so happy. I love you so much. Yes. Anastasia once fan mail. The beer that we're about to drink is chocolate ale from Boulevard Brewing Company. Yes. Boulevard is out of Kansas City, Missouri. This is 9.1% ABV, 24 IBUs. And this is a spring seasonal available in bottles and on draft. And the Malt are pale malt, cara crystal wheat, Simpson honey, naked oats. Add junks or dextrose. And it's hopped with pearl, also contains countives. One of the brightest stars in the city filled with culinary treasures, Christopher Elbow, his name is Elbow, has been handcrafting masterpieces, elbow crafting and chocolate for more than 10 years. In that time, the reputation of his artistic delicacies has spread around the globe. We joined forces to bring you a very special chocolate ale. In developing this beer, Elbow and Boulevard brewmasters, Stephen Powell, sought to harmonize the interplay of chocolate and malt with each supporting and enhancing, but not overwhelming the other. Once the right chocolate was essential, Elbow recommended a rare variety from the Dominican Republic, prized for its robust flavor in aroma and a personal favorite. More than a mere flavoring, the chocolate in the form of nibs or crushed roasted beans was incorporated into the brewing process. So just a little bit more about this beer. The last time it was released, it was released in 2011 and 2012, right? In 2012, those bottles that got released toward the end of 2012, a lot of them were fucked. A lot of them were infected. Really badly, badly done. Boulevard issued a recall for a specific date range or a bottle range of these beers. I had three of those bottles. So to Boulevard's credit, they sent me my money back completely. Wow. Totally cool. Yeah, I had like three bottles, which was crazy because that second year, that 2012 release, that got recalled, they sold out of this beer so fucking fast that on the black market, people were selling these bottles a beer for 50 to 100 bucks. How long did it take before they did the recall? Just a few weeks. Okay. And it was crazy because you get on eBay or at that time, people were still selling black market beers on eBay and this beer was listed for like 50 bucks, 100 bucks. I found out about it because somebody posted about it on beer advocate. It was ridiculous. I'm really happy that breweries will actually do that. They will take responsibility and then actually give refunds because there's not a lot of breweries that actually do that. Yeah, and every other business is also liable to that. They have to offer refunds. Yeah. I mean, why not a brewery? Yeah. Brewery should do. Well, here's another thing is not a lot of breweries will do this either and they actually took a year off in making this beer to figure out how to better make the beer. So they took last year off, didn't release it last year so that they could learn to make it better and use that time to improve this beer. Wow. Let's see how it's. How new is it? This just came out. Literally got it yesterday. The batch date looks to be 109.14. Cool. I was actually really surprised that we got it because I know there's been a few articles posted around saying that the shipment of this was going to be delayed because of all the storms going on and all like the crazy winter weather. Okay. So I was expecting it to come out a couple of weeks from now, but we're in luck. Yeah. Well, checking this beer out Boulevard chocolate ale, it's the lightest beer that we're having tonight. It's also not a stout. Right. Orange, honey, it looks like a double IPA almost. It does. And I've got a lot of floaties in mind. I got a lot of floaties in mind as well. Yeah. There's a little bit of haze. Not so much. Oh yeah. Those may floaties. Yeah. Mine looks like a snow globe. Pretty decent amount of white head. So get into that nose. Wow. Juniper? Yeah. Peanuts. Peanuts. Roasted soft peanut. Mm hmm. Now I want to say something vegetal as well on this. I'll agree with you there. I was thinking it kind of reminds me of the chili habanero beer that we had last week. No. A little bit in the chili. I think what you're picking. I don't know. I don't know. I'm kind of picking up a little bit of bell pepper, which doesn't bode well. I don't smell any of that. So they're going to issue another recall, do you think? I don't know. Well, the problem that they had last time around, I believe, was a lot of DMS. Okay. That's what it seemed like to me. Well, it was a thin body and hard core DMS. I mean, there's definitely some chocolate notes. Interesting. It's interesting because I get so much dark chocolate out of this for a really light beer. Yeah. Light colored beer. Man, I can't even get chocolate. It smells like a Snickers. It does. I mean, I get peanut and chocolate. A pretty decent amount of chocolate, but I also get something that's like Belgian Easty. I don't know if they're using a Belgian East, but there's something in here that's coming off like that to me. I got to go with what Grant said though. I'm kind of scared to taste this because of that bell pepper you know. I don't get that at all. Tasting is weird. My first reaction is to say there's chili in here, like chili pepper. See, that's what I was saying. Like a little, not like like a spice, like my first reaction to say, oh, it's a spice pepper. Yeah. Okay. But I think that's just the way I was thinking like hatch peppers, something, but now see, I am tasting hops, floral herbal hops. I'm not getting straight up bell pepper, but I still get something kind of vegetal. I'm not getting DMS though. The vegetal note increases for me as I take a sip and I'm holding the sip in my mouth and I'm inhaling the aroma of the beer at the same time. Like it amplifies big time for me when I'm doing that. That's weird, man. It tastes like a Belgian strong to me, a Belgian light strong. Yeah. So I'm getting a Belgian East there or something that's coming off like that to me. And I'm not sure if they're using Belgian East, but there's something that's hitting that in my brain. Well, moving past the vegetal aspect that I'm getting, I do get a lot of the floral notes and what's that candy that you can get in India that it's a very weird candy substance. It's like chocolatey, like stuff that they painted over a chocolate. I have no idea. Oh, are you talking about like when I go to like an Indian food restaurant, they'll have like these seeds that are chocolate covered and candy coated. It's similar to that. Yes. Okay. But yeah, if you eat those, that's kind of like this. Some of those spices in there, they take some of those and like melt them down, they'll paint over chocolate. It's tasting a lot like that to me, which is weird. I've never been an especially huge fan of this beer. And the last time that they released it, I did taste one of those really, really terrible bottles. I think it's improved considerably since then. This is still not one that's really up my alley. So you've said that a lot, but describe the beer. So what I don't really like about it, I think that the chocolate notes are kind of getting lost amongst everything else that's in the beer. It doesn't carry especially well for me, but the vegetal note is what's really off-putting for me on this one. I agree. I don't necessarily think that it's DMS. It tastes like coconibs. Coconibs don't taste like chocolate. Coconibs taste like something vegetable and earthy and almost coffee being like. I know what coconibs taste like, though. Yeah. It tastes like bell pepper. I'm with John on this one. Yeah. I don't get it. I don't hate it. It tastes like some sort of Belgian golden with a little bit of baker's chocolate and a lot of the coco nib kind of earthy, green bitter, yeah, and then the finish for me is really dry, but in the more roasted coffee kind of dry and sharp. And I do get a vegetal sort of thing, but it's the exact same vegetal I get from coconibs, seriously. That's the vegetal that I get out of this. And also just a little bit of hoppiness. I've had my fair share of coconibs, but the vegetal note that I'm getting off of this is not what I would describe coming from coconibs. Weird. Do you remember the order you poured? It was John first, and then you last. So it was John grant me. So obviously the top and bottom tastes a lot different than that. You guys own the smidge glasses and try mine. Circular saw this bitch. What? That's a new sex act that you came up with. That's really terrible. It tastes exactly the same to me. Yeah. So maybe we're more sensitive to DMS or whatever flavor is there is just a little bit more off putting into Mike and I, and you guys pull it out as coconibs and find it delicious. I just don't like this says chocolate ale, and I go, that's not chocolate to me. Right. Yeah. I can agree with that. The name is a little misleading. And I'm not going to go and I'm not going to say that I think this is delicious. I think it's pretty good, but it's not delicious and again, it doesn't come off as a chocolate nail. It comes off as a coconid beer, which is different. It's completely different to me. And the more I drink it, the more the smell is compounding with this that it's just, it's like I'm drinking a mild green chili beer or maybe a bell pepper beer, which I'm guessing is DMS. Crazy. I don't get that at all. It's coming on like crazy strong for me and hailing it and taking a sip. That's weird. I mean, you guys are getting it real strong. I'm not getting it at all, like not even one bit of DMS. And I even tasted your glass, Grant, and I didn't get any there. You're tired, buddy. Maybe. I'm either tired or you guys are wrong. I don't get any DMS. I'm going to go with their wrong. Yeah. I'd probably go with the wrong. Cool. Yeah. We have no fucking idea what we're talking about. No, I've talked to you before. So this, I really can't say that I like this a lot. I do like it. I think that it's got its place. It's better than it was last year, but it's still meh. It's a hell of a lot better than it was last year. I think it'd be interesting to see what they're saying online about this one. I mean, I don't think normally that should skew our opinion when we're tasting, but if they end up issuing a recall or a lot of people complaining again about this, it might be interesting. Maybe this is a bad batch again. No, no, no, no. Okay. It's not nearly as bad as it was last year. I think that the thing that they released last time was just this horrendous thing. It was not good at all. It was liquid baby diaper. It was liquid. It's like cooked green peas. I remember that distinctly. Yeah, it was green peas and nobody at all. How do you fuck up chocolate that much? But that's DMS. Like that's what DMS tastes like cabbage, green peas, creamed corn, some bell pepper, but mostly creamed corn. Like that's the biggest DMS indicator. Boiled corn, creamed corn, boiled cabbage. What about to say? I could say suck-a-tash. A little in this. Oh, what a suck-a-tash. It's corn and lime and beans. I don't get that at all. Well, good on you, man. Does anybody want mine? No, I'm good. I'm not gonna do this. Very divisive beer. I mean, again, I don't think I love this beer. I don't love it. But I think it's funny. I take issue with a name and I'm actually really curious as to why Boulevard made a chocolate ale as opposed to going the route that everybody else goes with and making like a chocolate stout or a chocolate porter. Just seems like with a chocolate ale, the chocolate has nothing to cling to. Right. It has nothing to ride into your mouth on. There's no like horse of stout. You know, maybe they're going for subtlety and synchronicity and maybe it just didn't work out as well as they think it did. And as he does have a good point, like, stouts and really multi beers and those are the ones you want to put chocolate in. Right. I mean, I, I maybe if you wanted to say chocolate, if that's what you're going for. Sure. Maybe they're trying to do something different, like not do a stout or a dark beer. But I feel like maybe they should have, I don't know, there needs to be for me something else. I think it's a bit of a misnomer, at least in the US, to use the word chocolate and not have it have a sweet body. I mean, I know that there's bittering chocolates, there's baking chocolates, all that. But chocolate goes hand in hand with a more sweet flavor. Yeah. Or just, it doesn't really taste like chocolate. Like it doesn't, it doesn't taste like chocolate. It doesn't, doesn't even have a sweet component to it. The fucking logo, like the art on there has like chocolate stains and the name is written out in chocolate. Or shit. We're not really sure. Yeah. We're not sure. But it looks like it's supposed to taste like fucking chocolate and it doesn't. It's not a bad beer. It's not screaming chocolate to me like the label makes you think it's going to. Well, I think it's about time for some redemption. Okay. Yes. That was chocolate ale from Boulevard Brewing. And this final beer for the evening is chocolate, spelled C-H-O-K-L-A-T and this is from Southern Tier Brewing Company, Lakewood, New York. Imperial Stout brewed with chocolate and this is 10% ABV and it's a fall release available in bottles and on draft. I'll read this whole thing. The papalva, is that a thing? Like the papalva? The papalva? Okay. The sacred book of the Maya unfolds a complex web of mystery around beverage known as, and I know how to pronounce this. Let's hear it. Chocowato. No, I know it's chocowato. Like that's the fucking Mayan fucking Mexican way to say it, chocowato. Chocowato. Chantoodle. Yeah. So this is called Chantoodle. At Southern Tier, we're not surprised that hieroglyphics of the ancient Maya depict chocolate being poured for rulers and gods. Even through the many voyages of Columbus, the mystical being remain nothing more than a strange currency of the native peoples. Moving through centuries, the circular journey of cacao has been realized in our brew house encompassing the complexity of the darkest bittersweet candy together with the original frothy cold beverage of the ancient Maya to bring you our Blackwater Series chocolate stout. We've combined the finest ingredients to tempt your senses and renew the power and interrelation of history in every bottle, and they suggest some food parrots, and we'll get to those once we get to that part. Do you want to know what it's made with? Sure. Turo malt, caramel malt, barley flakes, chocolate malt, bittersweet Belgian chocolate, Chinook and Willamette hop. Sweet. Nice. And this is a very dark beer with a bit of a highlight on the edge. Some legs. Yeah. Let's see that it's a thicker alcoholic beer. A nice fine tan head. Yeah. And smelling this? What an aroma. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. This is what I've been waiting for. That just smells great. It smells like semi-sweet chocolate, non-chocolate chip cookie, Tootsie rolls, dark chocolate, like all of these things together. Fresh cut grass. Yes. Newspapers and golden retrievers. What? Happiness and sunsets. It's weird. It's like it's both a winter time smell and the summer time smell, like, melded into one. Who, like, Hot Fudge Sundays? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When do you eat them? Winter or summer? I don't know. As soon as I said Hot Fudge Sunday, I got peanut. Okay. Like a salted peanut. Like the crushed kind you put on. Yeah, yeah. Cherry. Very lightly. Cherry. Yeah. Very lightly. Yeah. Some earthiness. And that cherry's coming off a little bit like a cherry cordial. Yeah, I could also say a little bit like an orangy tangerine note. Okay. It's a Hot Fudge Sunday. Let's just admit it. It's a Hot Fudge Sunday. It smells delicious. I get a little limestone or sandstone, a kind of minerally grok. Yeah. Yeah. When you say cherries and maybe a little bit of orange, those aromas come off slightly medicinal to me. Okay. And in the sense of maybe like ludens or something like that, just there's that like, almost like a menthol kind of character to go along with it, if that makes any sense? Weird. So what I get when I smell this beer is a whole lot of that stuff. That's medicinally or less. And medicinal's not really... It's distant for me. Yeah. I don't think medicinal... I can't get in like in the sense of like maybe like a lozenge, like a cherry lozenge. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Which is kind of nice. But I guess... That's not usually what I think when I think medicinal and I think medicinal, I think the like when you chew an aspirin or when you chew or robatus and like that sort of... Yeah. I think that what Grant said is exactly what I was getting at was a lozenge. Okay. It smells like a fudge-cicle stick included. Yes. I get a lot of vanilla and marshmallows. Yes. Yeah. Totally. I get wooden stick. And we're still in the aroma. Like this smells amazing. This kind of smells like how I hoped everything else would. Right. It's such a complex aroma for being chocolate. I mean it's every layer of chocolate that you could possibly come across. The only nose that matched this chocolate was the chocolate indulgence. And even this by far surpasses it in terms of what smells like chocolate. Well, I think that the first one, the organic chocolate smells more like chocolate than the chocolate indulgence. Until later on, until later on like when the chocolate indulgence started to warm up, it started displaying a lot more chocolate nose. But this is straight up baking chocolate, hops, dark chocolate and all the other stuff we talked about. So moving on to the taste. It's good. The initial impression is that it's a lot of booze up front and it needs to warm up. When it's kind of cold like this, it comes off a little bit too aggressive. I want that silky smooth as I know comes when it's a lot warmer. Right. I take a sip of this. It's a lot of baking chocolate. A lot of dark, not like, yeah, bitter chocolate. So you know what, Whole Foods, they have those truffles that are dusted with baking chocolate? Yes. It's that dusty top part of it that I'm getting. Yeah. So it's kind of like that but with a lot more bitterness, like this is more bitter than I remember it being in the past. I agree. And I think we've talked about this previously. I do believe this is quite a bit more bitter. Yeah. And I found it to be the same way in the more recent releases of a creme brulee. Yes. From Southern Gerelle. Exactly. And I think that they did that to make it a bit more palatable because in the past, when I had either this or the creme brulee, those were almost like diabetes bombs or like there was no contrast. It was just this like full-on sweetness and it was difficult for me to get through half poor. In the past with the creme brulee, I would have shared one of those bottles with like six or seven people. The most recent release, I was really surprised when I had an entire pint to myself and I didn't feel weighed down by it and I didn't feel like I needed like an insulin shot afterward. I find that with this beer. I've had a few times since it's been re-released for the winter here in Austin. And each time it's that initial taste I just have to kind of get over because maybe I should have it at room temperature rather than colder. So I don't know what it is, but I have to push past the booze note that wants to just like aerate out for a bit first. But after that, and as it starts warming up, it's smooth sailing. It starts having all these different chocolate flavors just like popping out each time as it warms. It's so nice. So you mentioned that it's boozy and it totally is. And it's far more boozy than I remember previous releases as well. I remember previous releases being like, "Holy shit, this is 10% alcohol. Where are they hiding it?" Yeah. This one, this I totally pick it up. And I don't think it bothers me. For me, it's boozy a lot like a shot of Kalua with a shot of Irish cream. You get the heat when you drink something like that. I think I'm really sensitive though. I mean, I don't really drink liquor at all. I guess I get the booziness, but I guess I don't mind it so much. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And again, for me, with the booziness and the bitterness on this, that's just helping to cut through all the sweetness. It's not off-putting necessarily to me. Now I know that it's 10% when it's 10%. Yeah. And it does taste like an imperial stout now instead of just the super chocolatey thing. Right. Just as I hold it in my hands and agitate it to try and warm it up, I have to also blow in the glass a little bit to just let it aerate out again, and then I can take a sip. Right. I mean, I get that. But tootsie roll is coming out a lot more. Once it starts warming up, I'm getting a little bit more milk chocolatey type flavors. Mm-hmm. And the bitterness on this in past releases, it seemed like they had the bitterness tuned just right so that the bitterness came off like the bitterness in dark chocolate. Mm-hmm. And this is more than that. Oh, yeah. This is quite a bit more than that. It's a lot of bitterness here. I don't really care so much because I like the bitterness here, but if you haven't had this year's release and you were a fan of last year's release, this might be a little hoppy for you. Mm-hmm. I don't know. You can see that. The orange chocolate that you can like bang on the table and it breaks apart. I guess something like that. And it's a called Ferrero Rocher, the like cherry chocolate ones. I know. Who do you guys have with those? Oh, Ferrero Rocher. Maybe I'm confusing with it. The ones that I've had from Ferrero Rocher are like the crispy, those kind of-- Not like airy nutballs. Those are not airy nutballs. Airy nutballs. Oh. Well, I guess I mean the chocolate-covered cherries. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. The regular just cherry cordial that you can get single wrapped. Okay. That's what they're called, man. I get malted milk balls and sleep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like the first sip I took of this, I was like, hmm, sleepy, sleepy nap time. So a little hint of Nyquil in there. Yeah. I don't know. It's kind of weighing me down. Like four sips in. I'm just like-- The thing about this beer is that it's still delicious. Like, I still really like this beer. I could probably stand to age this for about a year to get some of this bitterness out of there. For me, I really enjoyed it less bitter, personally, because it was drinking a dessert, man, in a good way for my birthday a couple of years ago. I had some of this beer, and I poured it onto a thrust leches cake, and it was fucking amazing. Man. That sounds so good. It went so fucking well with that cake, and I don't think that this beer would go that well with that cake, because this beer would be far too bitter for that cake for me. The milk aspects of that cake would totally bring out the bitterness and the hops that are present here. Yeah. Like, big time. Yeah. Again, I don't think this is a bad beer. I think it is delicious, but it's not what I liked about it. It's heavy-handed in a different way than it was before. Yep. I still dig it. Yeah, it's good. Nap time? It's in nap time. Seriously, I don't know why it's weighing on me so much. What would you pair with this? I mean, speaking of food, what would you guys pair with this? Dude, when you said trestlechis, yeah, I mean, I wish this was a little less bitter, like the previous time we had this on the show, still sounds good either way. For me, it's kind of difficult to pick an amazing pairing just because it has more of a hot bitterness as opposed to a chocolate bitterness. Right. If you said anything super creamy or milky is going to amplify that hot bitterness, first thing that comes to mind though, is some sort of fruit tart, something with a little bit of tartness, but thick, so you know, like reduced berries or reduced berries. Right. Berries or berries? Berries are berries. Good choice. With maybe a little bit of mint or some sort of mild, sweet, edible flour or like some candied flour to kind of latch on to the bitterness and then make it not hot bitterness. Right. But make it somehow a little sweeter and then definitely something doughy or pastry like. I kind of want like a hard cheese plate with this. I don't see the same thing actually. But honestly, I think I just want a hard cheese plate like all of a sudden. Just in general. I love them. So, southern tier, they recommend a pairing here. They recommend a few pairings. It says particularly tasty with mint truffles, hmm, that sounds pretty good, mascarpone cheese, cannoli. Yeah. That sounds good. Angel food cake. I could see that. Enjoy alone or as a float with a scoop of organic vanilla bean ice cream. That I would agree with with the old version of this. So a group of us did that with the older version of this, right? And there is just something about pairing dairy products with beer. It just makes the hops so hugely bitter. Even when there's not very much of it like in the previous ones, I would totally not do a beer float with this batch of this at all. And I think it's a particular type of hop. I don't know because I've had a really awesome beer float done with a biz. Fucking fantastic. Like Amy's Mexican vanilla ice cream with a biz is awesome. It's amazing and the biz, you could taste some hops there, but it doesn't really amplify it with that ice cream. I don't know why, but put this beer in that same ice cream and the hops go through the roof. I have a problem with the fact that they say food pairings in this section. And then one of their options for food pairings is enjoy alone. Yeah. No, well, obviously we can just drink this without food, but you don't put that in the food pairing section. You don't eat your loneliness like I do. Enjoy this with your lonely tears. Yeah, sometimes that's the only thing that can fill me up. You too. And I hate when you guys see this. I just pretend not to listen. That's all I've got. I'm fine with that. You guys want to rank? Yeah. This is just like Valentine's Day, disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should I save that joke for later? No, that's perfect. Good. Perfectly delivered. Grant, you want to go first? I can go first. Go for it. Do it. Alright. Number five goes to the chocolate ale. Obviously. Mike and I both thought this had the vegetable taste, just very off-putting. I poured most of it out. Maybe I'm wrong on that. I don't know. No. That's what I tasted, and my taste buds don't lie. Number four goes to the chocolate indulgence. I also ended up pouring this one out halfway through, and maybe that was a little bit unnecessary. I could have drank it. It had those nice floral and dark chocolatey notes, but overall, I didn't really think that it was a chocolate indulgence. I didn't... I don't know. These Belgian notes that were in it that were a little bit off-putting to me, maybe the Belgian yeast, but I wasn't overall digging it. I think we're all tired this episode, huh? Yeah, man. Yeah, I know. It's exhausting. Number three goes to the Young's Double Chocolate Stout. I mean, we kind of said it earlier. This says it's a chocolate stout, but it's just kind of stout. There wasn't a whole lot of chocolate flavor to it, and that's what we're here for on this show. So, number two goes to the chocolate lat. Isn't that a name of a Hello Kitty character in that the cat? Wait, the cat is... Hello, Kitty. Are you like a Hello Kitty brony? Yeah, I know. What the fuck is this one? I feel like chocolate is one of those Hello Kitty... It's a Sanio chocolate cat. It's a choco cat. It's a choco cat. It's a choco cat. It's a choco cat. Move on. Okay. Yeah, dude, this... We just described it, but this was just a fun journey through a whole bunch of different chocolate flavors. I thought it was really great. It was a little bit bitter. It could have handled a little bit more sweetness, but overall, this was the second best beer I thought we had of the night that really epitomized what you won in a chocolatey beer. Number one goes to our very first beer of the night, which was that organic chocolate stuff from Sanio Smith. Damn, I thought that was actually delicious. I love the smell of it. I love the taste of it. Everything all around it, I thought the aqueous body that Mike described in the beginning was really fitting. You can knock that back and, yeah, it was just such a solid chocolatey taste. Tootsie Rolls Cocoa Puffs? Fuck yeah. Cool. Thanks, Grant. Thank you. And the way I ranked this is probably going to surprise a few of you guys. So the whole time I've been talking about this doesn't epitomize chocolate beer. This doesn't, you know, do this. This doesn't do that. I'm going to rank based on what I can drink the most of and enjoy the most of, because the beers that were most chocolatey weren't necessarily the beers that I would have a whole pint of. Your ranking should be on what you like, not on the category. And that's the thing. Yeah. That's the thing. The favorite beer, like the beer that I thought was going to be my favorite, the chocolate from Southern Interior, I can't finish my pour of this. I don't know. I wish I could. But here's how it shook up for me. Number five for me was the Young's Double Chocolate Stout. I thought it was a decent beer. I mean, it's not a bad beer at all. Double chocolate. Fuck no. Good beer. Yeah, it's a good beer, but it's not a great beer. And it's not something that I'm going to go over and tell friends got to try, whatever. For me, chocolate ale from Boulevard, I still kind of like that, don't think it was really a chocolate beer. And I've had other beers that are similar to that that I liked more. So number three for me, big surprise was chocolate from Southern Interior. Chocolate for me was so good the last few years. This year, it got overhandedly bitter. I don't understand why, but I loved it before. I really loved it before and I'm going to sit on the other couple of bottles of this that I have and hope that those hops go away just a bit to try to capture what I loved about this beer so much. But for now, I can't even finish the, what was it, six ounces in my glass? Five and a half ounces? Can't do it. Number two, organic chocolate stuff from Samuel Smith. I really dug that beer. Can I drink more than one? No, because it gets cloying for me. It really did capture chocolate very well and it's decently drinkable for how sweet it was. Number one for me, it has to be the chocolate indulgence and I don't think that I celebrated that beer so much when I was drinking it because it didn't really say chocolate indulgence to me. It's not a beer that's like, fuck yeah, chocolate, but it is one that I could drink the most of. The label's a lie. I know, the label is a lie. I really liked that beer when it warmed up quite a bit. I liked how dry it was. I liked that it was between a traditional Belgian beer and a saison. I liked the floral qualities. I wish it had more chocolate, but I did get quite a bit in the nose. So that's my ranking. Cool. Who wants to go next? I'll go next. Cool. So my number five was the chocolate ale from Boulevard. I'm with Grant on this one. This was just strangely vegetal, not at my alley at all. It's not as distinctly off as the previous batch, but it's still not where I want this beer to be at all. My number four was the Young's Double Chocolate Stout. This was an all right beer. I think it's okay. For me, there wasn't very much chocolate there. It was definitely more stout. It's one of those things. I think with a lot of these beers tonight, the marketing is what sort of sets you up for disappointment. Yeah. My number three was the chocolate indulgence. Again, the marketing, not what I would call chocolate indulgence. I thought that what was here was good. I think that if they had called this an Abby Ale that was made with chocolate and other things in it, then it seriously, for me, I wouldn't have been like, "Oh, where's the fucking chocolate?" Right. It's still a good beer. My number two and my number one, I had a difficult time ranking these two because I think that they're both really, really tasty. My number two, I ended up going with the organic chocolate stout. I think that's a great beer. Still easy to knock back, had a really nice, rich chocolate flavor. Definitely on point. My number one was the chocolate from Southern Tier. I really enjoyed this beer. Just when I think chocolate stout, there's something about it for me. I want something rich, want something a little bit thicker, I want something hefty to bowl my taste buds over, and this one does it. I agree with you, Rubio. I think that this one is quite a bit more bitter than the last couple of years and maybe a little bit more alcoholic. I still think that it actually suits this beer pretty well and in fact, I think that that makes it just slightly more drinkable in a way just because it does provide a little bit more contrast. But that's me. That's my ranking. Oh, the other version of chocolate, like the version of chocolate before this year. Oh, it was so killer. I could finish two bottles of that by myself. I couldn't do that with this. I really couldn't. I mean, sure, it was sweeter before and it was less hoppy and less balanced. But for some reason, those flavors really hit me in the right way that this one doesn't. I think that chocolate indulgence really missed out on branding themselves as triple A WTC AOT, double I, like Mike said. What does that mean? I missed all of that. What does that mean? That was his acronym for that long-ass name he gave that beer. Oh. I didn't even pay attention. I was doing other things. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, sir. Was he the one that just went? Yeah. Okay. I remember. I don't remember anything. Anastasia? Hey, you remember my name? Yes. Oh, it's so sweet. I'm going to go next. Number five was a chocolate ale from Boulevard. Yeah, it was confused and I was confused because it was confused and then we were just confused together. I'm sure there's a movie in that somewhere. It's a rom-com. Some sort of prison movie, never mind. Like the Green Mile? Sure. Sure. Like the Green Mile. I love you Philip Morris, I think. It's a good one too. Prison rom-com. Okay. Number four was the Southern Tier chocolate. Okay. I like the sweetness and the chocolate flavors that are there, but that hot bitterness is just... Mm-mm. I hope you don't play that. Number three was the Young Double Chocolate Stop because it wasn't necessarily the best, but found out it wasn't the worst. Right. I could see myself drinking that one again as opposed to my bottom two, which I couldn't really imagine drinking again. Number two, chocolate indulgence, AKA liar. But delicious. He's charming. It works. Yeah. I'm not going to complain about it because it goes down easy. Number one, the organic chocolate stout. I'm glad we had it at number one. If we would have had this one last, I still don't think I would have ranked it as high, but it was delicious. It tasted like yoo-hoo and zeros and it wasn't cloying and it didn't suck. I wonder if we had this at the end if it wouldn't reaffirm what we were seeking chocolate from the rest of them. Having the organic chocolate stout after this other day or chocolate, I think our pallets would have been bold over just because the mouth feel of all the other beers is so medium to heavy and the mouth feel on the organic chocolate stout is so light. Yeah. Well, thanks, Anastasia. Anytime. We appreciate the rankings. Mm, sort of. No, no. That was good. I mean, you had a lot of good reasons for doing it that way. This episode brought up something interesting that I don't know if we've addressed before. What? The potential inappropriateness of branding and marketing of beers can just throw off how you taste a beer. I mean, here we're specifically looking for chocolate flavored beers and some of them weren't delivering and therefore we're pissed off at the beer because that's a pretty bold thing, I guess, to say, "Hey, this is a chocolate beer and if it's not that, even if it might be a good tasting beer, it's hard to get past that." I agree. Absolutely. Totally. Because when I stripped away the idea of chocolate beer, my favorite beer the night ended up being one that was less chocolate-y than a few of them. The chocolate indulgence, all right? Yeah. Yeah. Because as a beer, I thought it was the best beer of the night. I thought it was the best made and executed beer the night, not necessarily chocolate. I thought it was terribly marketed. I thought it was one of the more complex ones, but once again, I have an aversion to Belgian yeasts, I think, sometimes. Oh, fair enough. So that's why I still rank low for me because I didn't want it. I poured it out. But I understand that because otherwise it seems like it's a really nice, delicate, well-executed beer. Oh, yeah. It just wasn't jiving with my flavor palette. I wish I liked this group of beers better. Yeah. I do. I mean, and we had other beers that we were going to do as well and some of them I wonder how they would have ranked in this group because we had rogue chocolate stout as one of them. Or double chocolate. Yeah, double chocolate. Either one. That's sombrero, which I've had before, and it was actually pretty good. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. Classic. Classic. But how would that have gone against this group? I don't know. Would this group have also uncovered faults in that beer? Like it did with some of the beers in here, or would it just highlight how good that beer is? I'm willing to bet, among that list, you would find a couple other beers that claim chocolate and maybe they're just using some chocolate malts in there and hoping that balances out an actual chocolate flavor, but it's not necessarily the case. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout doesn't use any chocolate, but they use chocolate malt. Yeah. See, that's a problem. And you taste that and you're like, but how do you taste it? Yeah, because that is a fantastically chocolaty beer. Like, that's a classic chocolate ale as well. But there are other things like Sam Adams had that chocolate bock at one time that I thought first time I had it was really fucking good. And then I had it after that. I was like, oh, fuck, this is terrible. You know? So I don't know. Maybe it's context. I kind of had similar problems when we've had certain fruitier beers where they're claiming they have certain fruits in them, like, yeah, we're not really picking that up and you put that on your label. That's not driving with us. Right. Right. That should be the thing that I taste. Yeah. And so maybe there's some merit to just naming a beer Hyperians chicken nuggets or something that has nothing to do with beer. If there was a beer called Hyperians chicken nuggets, I would buy that immediately. Oh, shit. I should not just riff on terrible beer names. I don't even know who Hyperian is, but I want a chicken nuggets on that note. Good night, everybody. And good luck. Thank you for listening. Fucking so much. And thank you for sending your donations and giving us iTunes shout outs and sending this beer. Like you guys have been great. And fan mail and Nicholas Cage pictures. Oh, wow. Nicholas Cage pictures. Wow. Patrick, did you draw that? I don't know. I'm going to email him. I'll find out. Ruby. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. Thanks for the beer. I'm really bought by Anastasia. Anastasia, thank you. Well, I'd be my bought it and then you wouldn't let me buy it. Right. I paid you money. The listeners paid me money. Yes. The listeners gave you money for this beer. Thank you listeners. Oh, not wait. All the way, wait. Thank you listeners. Wait. That's your wink of approval. Ah, okay. Anastasia, thank you for being here. Thank you for picking up the beer shorts. Sure. Yeah, they're really heavy. No one helped me. So whatever, guys. You got muscles in the strong back. Mike, thank you. Have you seen it? It's like a pickup truck. I'm always on it. Ding. Wow. Michael, I don't know why I'm so sleepy after this episode. Dude, it's that last, it's warm in here and that last beer was really sweet. Oh, my God. I feel like we were all very low energy this time. Yeah. Like, we're just tired. It's been a big week. I wouldn't be surprised if this episode just ends with us falling asleep and then it goes another, like, three hours. I mean, that's a possibility. Maybe you should edit at these episodes eventually. No. If we get big enough, do you think maybe we'll have time to actually edit these episodes? I am big enough. Look at me. I'm fatty mettrader. Yeah. We talked about a statue from the last episode. You didn't know what, Michael. You're not slim good body yourself. I mean, you're slimmer than you were. Yeah. But you started out as a tragedy. Yeah. I'm still a tragedy. No, no, no, no. You've lost a lot of weight in that. You've lost a lot of weight. A lot of baggage. Oh God. This just got really weird. Grant, you never are the one to make the main jokes. I'm sorry. Because he's smart. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sorry. I wanted to defend you. I was like really, like, we're really tired. Wow. Yeah. All of us. Holy shit. I just want some more milk and a thumb to suck on. That's no thumb, baby. Where is thumpkin? In my pants. I'm feeling very, very sweet. If you suck on a long enough, it will give you milk. Why is it? Why is it? It milks for him. He found him. I don't get it. I was talking to Michael. Give me a gun now so he can go. That could not have been more obnoxious. I was hoping you would end it after that because you didn't want me to do it again. I'll keep doing it till you end it. Oh my God. No. What are we doing? Hey, man. You can see that thing. Nothing's out. It's gonna stand now. Nothing's out. It's gonna stand now. Nothing's out. Nothing's out. Nothing's out. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. It's gonna stand now. Oh my God. I'm John Rubio. Thanks again for listening. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. [Music] [ Silence ]
