[music] Episode 91 of the Beerist's podcast, recorded December 19, 2013. Perrine Beers was Cypress Grove Chef. [music] There's a fuckin' tissues, Dr. Sniveling. It's so beautiful. He is violently jacking off over here, I've never seen anything like that. It's just... I haven't cried like this since my wife died. [laughter] I'm not even about to cry. Oh, my goodness. What's the matter? Hey, buddy. Breathe. Use your word. Hey, Cypress Grove Chef. Yeah? They said his cheese. Yeah? I can't believe that we just, like, shouted them out. No, we're over it. I mean, we're cool. I'm not over this yet. The shock has already worn off. Like, it's... No, it's just reality, and we have cheese, and it's delicious. Yeah. We're big timing now, and that's just how it is. All right, went out and bought a Viper. Oh, what? You bought a Viper. Is that... Oh, I heard Vibrator. Is that all we need to do now? Is just shout-out things like, "Hey, Viper, we love Dodge Vipers." No, yeah. They don't even make those anymore. I had to get a one vintage. Why did I think Viper was a Vibrator, guys? Audis are pretty cool. I don't know. Oh, God. I really did a car. I like shoes. Who doesn't like shoes? I don't know, stupid people that don't have feet. Good point. And speaking of people who don't have feet, I'm John Rubio. Well, you don't have feet? It's just a bad segue. It's just kind of, like, ankle-nubbins. Yeah, I'm like, guys, having a hard time with feet right now. And with me today, Grant Davis, how you doing, right? It's a weird intro. No, no, no, this is the worst. Just start it with my crying. Let's just keep on going, guys. No, turn them back. Speaking of crying, Mike Lambert, how you doing, Mike? I'm fucking fantastic. Humbolde Fog, are you kidding me? The company is called Cypress Grove Chef. Yeah, I know, but Humbolde Fog. Yeah, it's on your plate right now. I know. Oh, my God. How much restraint it's taking me to just not nom all of this cheese. I know I could see all the crumbs on your beard already. In the fourth chair, we have the lovely and talented-- I'm the third chair. Oh, OK, the third chair. I'm the second chair. OK, what chair are you? I'm chair two. OK, so you're in it. Second viola. What is your name? Oh, my name is Anastasia. We'll work for Shoes Kelly. This is a cheese episode, not a shoes episode. I mean, I need to have shoes on while I eat cheese naked. OK, for those of you who make shoes-- It's true. Anastasia loves them, and she might want some for her birthday. How about Steve and Matt? And what? That's a shoemaker. You're so cute. This is all rubbish. Wow. This is all complete shit. So this episode's going to be a little bit different than our usual stuff. Usually, we just taste beers and judge them and talk shit about the stuff that we don't like and praise the glories of the stuff that we do like. And this one, a little bit of background for this. I tweeted on the beerist's Twitter-- Twitter page. Twitter page. Twitter sphere. Yeah, yeah, on our Twitter feed, I tweeted out that I really love Cyberscript Chef, and we're just big fans of them on the podcast. And they favorited that tweet and sent me a direct message, saying, hey, I'm the marketing director for Cybersgrove, send me-- give me a call. That's why I called the guy, because he gave me his number. And he said, hey, are you guys interested in doing a beer and cheese pairing show? And I was like, fuck yeah, we are. Absolutely. I love everything that these guys have done. I'm a huge, huge fan. Fast forward about a week later, and they've sent us 12 pounds of cheese. This is the greatest story I've ever heard in my life. It's a rags-to-riches story. And it's happening to you right now. 12 pounds of cheese. Yeah, they sent us a fucking cheese. That's more than my baby ways. I know. Tastes better, too. Yeah, it's more than my boobs way. Probably. What? So yeah, we're doing this beer and cheese pairing show. And we're not going to be judging these beers. We're just going to be talking about how they pair with these cheeses. This is more of a suggestion show. So we got together Sunday night, just a few nights ago, with a bunch of people, Chris Peters, Gwen Peters, the four of us, Sarahwood, Caroline Wallace with Bitch Beer. And a couple of other friends here and there would drop in and out. And we got together at the Whippin, which has a really great beer selection. It's a bottle shop, and they have a bunch of beer on tap. And we started formulating our pairings. And we also brought some stuff from home. This is the result of that planning session. These are the ones that we thought worked out the best. And we went through a bunch of beer. Oh my god, so much beer. Yeah, I'd say we probably went through one of your 30. Yeah, probably 30 beers. Oh yeah, we split it between what? Like the eight or 10 of us. But still, it was good to have that many different palettes. It was great. Yeah, it was fantastic. It was so much fun. I hadn't done anything like that in a while. And I think we should do stuff like that more often. That's a lot of fun to figure out. I love research. Me too. Yes, research is good. It's all right. Can I felt like homework? Really? You son of a bitch. I'm kidding. I loved it. It's 'cause you ate everything. I just hated how I woke up the next morning. It's just all fucking gut cheese. Aww, cheese and hangover. I fell asleep on my couch. How's that different from any normal day? It's not. I fell asleep on my couch last night too. Oh man. This show, I was kind of worried about it going too long because it's six cheeses and six beers. So we're gonna go quickly through all of this stuff. And I'm not gonna read any emails or shout outs or donation thanks or anything for this show. We're gonna just hold that for the next episode. Sounds good. We're just gonna get right into it. Cypress Grove is in Humboldt County, California. I forget exactly what town it's in. But they are making some of the best American made goat and sheep's milk cheeses out there. They are phenomenal. They're constantly winning awards for all of their cheeses. I'm a huge fan. Like anytime that I have a tasting or bottle share at my house, I buy a ton of their stuff. Typically Humboldt fog. Humboldt fog, truffle tremor. Some of the harder. The midnight moon we'd buying a lot lately. Oh yeah. How many times have I shouted them out on the episodes? Oh, all the time. Let me have them. We've talked about them in the last probably 40 episodes. Yes. Just because we're huge fans. I mean, we're not. And you know it's gonna be good. Yeah, yeah. And just so you guys know, like I said, they sent us, they came up with the idea for the show. They sent us all the cheese that we're gonna be eating. And then some, yeah. So they sent us more than the cheese that we're having on the show. And they gave us $100 for beer money. Dude, that is so awesome. Yeah, super fucking cool. And again, I'm already a fan of their cheese. You know, t-shirts. They bought us. We're super giddy about this. I don't think this is amazing. Yeah, I feel like we should definitely put that out there. We are not trying to suck their dicks. We really do. We really do already. We really do like their products. And it was just a coincidence that they decided to-- I'd still do it if they didn't send us cheese, so. No, yeah, yeah. We'd still shut them out every fucking episode. So we're gonna get right into this. And we're gonna start out with the cheese and then talk about the cheese and then talk about the beers that we paired with it. And then go and talk about the one that we picked. So the first cheese that we're gonna have is called Bermuda Triangle. It's made of pasteurized cultured goat milk, salt, enzymes, and vegetable ash. And the description says, created with a chef in mind, the distinctive triangular shape and layer of edible black ash offers unique portion control and presentation options. Tart and tangy with intense pepper notes, the perfect cheese for any rind lover. And it took a bunch of different awards. I'm just gonna read the American Cheese Society Awards just because that's the one that I care about the most. It got first place in '98, '99, 2002, and 2013. - Of the American Cheese Society. - Of the American Cheese Society. Awesome. And there's a bunch of other awards listed here, but those are the ones that we're gonna care. So they don't even need us? No. - No. No, they're amazing. They're just being really nice. So how are we doing this? Are we eating the cheese first and describing it and then the beer? Well, I wanna talk about what this cheese looks like. And they gave us this big like triangular log of cheese. And I cut it in slices, essentially. So we each have like a flat triangular slice. And you notice their name is Burri Mita Triangle as well. And it's a shape is a triangle, it's pretty clever. (laughing) Well, I mean, the whole purpose of the triangular log is so you can take like a cheese wire and just fucking slice and slice and slice and slice and slice. Yeah, but that's what they do in kitchens and trash kitchens. - Right. That's why it's made for the chef. Right. Looking at this thing, it's got this bloom layer on the outside, it's kind of powdery white. Beyond that, as you move in toward the center of the cheese, there's that vegetable ash layer on the outside. And then it kind of has this runny, translucent part on the inside of that line. - It's kind of like a gel. - Yeah, a little gel. It would definitely be far more liquidy, the more mature that the cheese gets. Yes. And on the inside is like this crumbly, creamy looking, super white goat's cheese. Mm-hmm, I'm going in. Okay. - Holding it up to the light. (laughing) I'm just gonna taste this 'cause, I mean, I get grassy kind of notes off of it as I'm smelling it. - Yeah, I'm grassy a little bit tart and tangy. - Well, we've also let the cheese sit out for what, about an hour, so bring it up to about room temp. You don't really want to eat the cheese cold. - Right, any cheese, let it out on your table, let it warm to room temperature for about an hour, hour and a half before you serve it. It's peppery and tart. - Yeah, there's a lot of tartness on there and there's a salty, very goat milky cheese. - I also want to let it melt on your tongue a little bit. Don't just chew and swallow, just kind of let it dissolve. - And it's got this really awesome texture, which is at the same time, a little bit crumbly and very creamy. - It's like whipped cream cheese. - Kind of, right? - I really enjoy the rind on this one. Well, one, it's a texture thing for me. It's got just a little bit of give as I'm biting into it. Obviously, the center portion of the cheese just melts on your tongue as you just let it sit there, but it provides this nice fungal quality to it. It's also very hay and grassy. - Oh yeah. And it's got a little bit of an astringency that rind does, almost like a piece of wood or something, like valsa wood or something. It's a really nice cheese. It's got a little bit of funky quality, like that translucent kind of runny part has a little bit of a funkiness to it, which is just amazing. A lot of people don't eat the rind on cheeses and I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you're doing that with this one. It's a lot of the flavors coming from for me. - Can I go back and forth with the rind? I like to have a lot of it without the rind when I kind of save the rind 'cause I know it's gonna be a more powerful flavor and I'm not always on the mood for that. - Grant, you look like you're an ecstasy right now. It's so good. - So what beer did they recommend we pair with the Bermuda Triangle? - Okay, so they're recommendations. They've got three levels of recommendations for young cheese. So the young cheese is when it's not really runny yet on the outside. - I would say this is pretty young. - This is pretty young. Ripe cheese is another level of this where that outer translucent layer gets more runny and it starts encroaching on the center of the cheese a little bit more. - What's a little wrinkly? - Yeah, yeah. And the mature one is where the outer edge is very runny and you don't know what you're gonna get until you cut into it. That's what the guy was telling me. Like you have no idea what age it's at until you cut into the cheese. So the ones that we got are all young. The young one for them, like their suggestion is an IPA. If it's ripe, you should pair it with a pale ale and mature, you should do it with a stout. And we tried several different beers. We tried their recommendations. Some of them were pretty good, you know? But the ones that we thought were the best that paired the best with this were prairie hop, which was awesome. - Yes. - Perot was also very, very good, which is a Belgian IPA, Schneider Vice, Adelweiss as well. But the one that we landed on that we thought was amazing was Atrial Rubesite from Jester King. Atrial Rubesite from Jester King. If you guys don't know about it, it's this raspberry sour, barrel aged. It's really, really fucking great. It's a sour barrel aged beer from Jester King. It's a limited release. And they are just this weekend releasing the third batch of it at the brewery. And it's a brewery release only. You have to go to the brewery to get it. - And this is batch one. - This is batch one, yeah. Mike's had this for like, what, five, six months now? - Something like that back when they released it that first time and they were so kind as to give us a good handful of them. - So Jester King's out of Austin, Texas. This is 5.8% ABV. It's made with Hill Country well water. And the grains are Pilsner malt and malted wheat. And it's topped with organic golding. And fermentation is done with farmhouse yeast, wild yeast from the Texas Hill Country, Britannicaes and souring bacteria. And it also includes a bunch of raspberries. - So what was the proper etiquette for pairing cheese and beer? Do you dip the cheese in the beer? - Nope. (laughs) - Do you take a bite and then take a sip and then swish them all around all adorably? - Well, the way that I like to do it is I'll get a piece of cheese and start mass rating it a little bit in my mouth and then take a sip of the beer once they start tasting the cheese and see how they kind of play off of each other. And we've talked about atrial rubisite before. It's a really beautiful red color. I mean, it's almost blood red. - Transparent blood red. - Yeah. It looks almost like a wine, like a cab. - Pink burgundy highlights to it. - It still smells fucking amazing. - Yeah, it smells a lot more jammy and grassy than it did when it was fresh. - Right. It smells awesome. - And like raspberries. And it tastes like raspberries. - Yeah, this thing ages so well. I know, this is amazing. We've talked about this a few times. We've had it on the show. When we featured it, I forget what episode that was, and then we had it when we were at the GABF, when we were talking to Steven, 'cause now this is, I think, the third time we've had this. And I'm just gonna go ahead and start with the paring. I'm gonna put some of this cheese in my mouth and then take a sip of this. I love this cheese. This cheese is fantastic. I only had it the first time right before we had gotten the call from Cypress Grove saying that we were gonna be doing this. And I took it out to the Friendsgiving event at Jester King. - Oh yeah, which was a lot of fun. It's a private Thanksgiving potluck thing that they put on. - Yeah, and these two, they work so well together because they compliment each other and then they kind of contrast a little bit. They both have that funky barn yardy going on, a little bit of tartness. - Tangy. - Yeah, definitely tangy. And then the raspberries just make the cheese pop. - Yeah, and the cheese, it seems, when I eat the cheese and I drink the beer together, the cheese seems to take on a slightly grassier note. - Exactly. - And the atrial rubricite, the beer, gets this lemony tartness, which is different from the tartness that it already has. - But they both have a barnyard quality to it. And that's where the complimentary nature of it comes into play for me. - It turns it so buttery for me. - It's buttery, caramely sweet. The cheese that is, but the tartness just seems to amplify for the atrial. I love the play on the tongue where the carbonation, like attacks and just starts dissolving the creamier part of the cheese. - Oh yeah. - It just feels neat. - You know what kind of reminds me of is, like when you have a strawberry drizzle on a goat smoked cheesecake, you know, that sort of thing? It's a great pairing. - A lot of approval noises this episode. - Oh yeah. - You know, even in the finish, I get, a lot of those raspberries and a lot of the sourness is still in my tongue, but there's a little bit of a salty, grassy thing. And it's almost like fresh grass clippings. - It was pretty awesome when we were going through and actually sampling all of the different beers. And it was difficult for me because all of these cheeses were so great and all the beers really tasted pretty well together with the cheeses and it was really a matter of what tastes best. And when we stumbled across this one, and I remember that night we had a difficulty trying to figure out which beer this was going to pair well with in terms of this cheese. - I think we were pretty split because it was Prairie Hop as well. - Yeah, Prairie Hop was a big contender for this. - Not for me. - Yeah, the only thing about the Prairie Hop, like it was really great until the finish. The finish had this sharpness to it. - Right. - It amplified the hop a little much toward the end. - That's why I said no to it. - Right, and that's why I favored this a lot. - I like the Edelweiss better than the Prairie Hop. - Really? - The flowers, I think it needs a little bit of floral to kind of tone down that savory, tart, tangy, funk it's got going on. And the Atro Rubicide has a little, not too much, but more of like a grassy floral note along with the raspberries. - Yeah, and I think you're right. I think you're, you know, now that I think about it in hindsight, the Edelweiss did go very, very well with it. And Grant is dipping the cheese and the beer. - God damn it. - I thought he was going to be more drunk when he did that. He could be more drunk. - The dress seems like it's something you should do. You guys are looking at me weird, but in this decision, don't ever underestimate stupid. - It's good that way. - Thanks, Dad. - I'm not going to do it. - You should dip it. It's like an Oreo. I love this pairing so much. - Man, this is so exciting. - I know. - We've always wanted to do my food pairing episode. I think this is a good first step kind of experiment into how we would, you know, use our show format to deal with something like that. - Yeah, this is really us cutting our teeth on a pairing episode. Absolutely. - Help the listeners like this. - They probably will. But, you know, doing a full food pairing episode would be a lot more difficult. We'd have to do it on the weekend because we'd have to pair food and- - I mean, it would be done differently obviously, but still. - Or do it on location someplace. - I'm getting to do this with my second favorite cheese company out there. - Is your first- - I can't wait 'til our first one. Crafts, cheese. - American Crafts, single. - Yeah, I know, 'cause it's my favorite. - If you're listening, craft. - We'll, we'll, we'll. - Okay. - You know what Alveda goes well with. - Yeah, everything. - And that's it. Oh yeah. - What are we gonna do next? I don't know. I don't care. What in my mouth? - Well, the next period that we have on the list, actually that was Bermuda Triangle with Atrial Rubesite Yum. The next pairing that we have, or the cheese that we're gonna pair next, is Humboldt Fog. If you guys have never heard of it, it's a very delicious cheese. It is tattooed across Mike's chest if you ever meet him. - It says Fog Life. - Yeah. (laughing) - Everybody reads it wrong though. (laughing) - It looks like an egg. - It's in that old English script that's kind of hard to read. (laughing) - Humboldt Fog is made with pasteurized cultured goat milk, salt, enzymes, and vegetable ash. You know, it looks just like the last one. I believe that the only difference between this one and the last cheese is the shape. - That's what I was hearing, but it's interesting because they taste very different to me. - Well, it's like batches. I mean, they're different batches, but they're essentially the same, just the chef-friendly shape as a triangle versus the big, delicious wedge that Mike is gonna shove in his mouth. - I'm gonna read the description. It says, "The subtle, tangy flavor and distinctive layer of edible vegetable ash are a prized combination in this iconic American original. You'll enjoy buttermilk and fresh cream complimented with floral notes, herbal overtones, and a clean citrus finish. As Humboldt Fog matures, the layer of proteolysis just under the rind will increase developing a more intense flavor. And this is one of fuck ton of awards, and American Cheese Society took first place in '98, 2002, and 2005. So take a look at this cheese. We got two small, one-pound wheels of Humboldt Fog. They look kind of like the small birthday cake. If you cut it like a birthday cake, you cut a wedge out of it, it's got a layer of vegetable ash going down the middle like a layer of frosting would be separating the two little layers of cake. It's a delicious looking cheese. I mean, it's gorgeous. And as it ages, you can tell based on the condition of that vegetable ash that's running through the center, it will start to warp the older it gets. It's not a uniform lateral layer of ash. Yeah, and this one is just straight across. Yeah, this is definitely a young version of this cheese. Yeah, like the last one, it's got that translucent outer layer just on the inside of the rind. Yeah, it looks pretty similar, except for the notable line of ash in the center. And it's just that nice, fungal quality just across the outside of it. Gah, I'm already eating this one. Keep cooking. No, you're good. I can't even say anything. Not vegetable ash in the middle. It just takes it up a notch, you know? It's such a beautiful presentation. It looks like a little piece of birthday cake. It's my favorite cheese on the fucking planet. It's so good. We should get Mike a piece of this with all candle in it for his birthday. Yeah, and it looks a lot like the last one, right? Mm-hmm. It tastes similar. Yeah, and again, it's the same cheese, essentially, just in a different shape and a different batch and different age. And there's a little bit of variation here. Like this is a little bit grassier, I think. It does, just a lot grassier. Yeah, than the Bermuda Triangle we have. The other one, when you put them side by side, you really get a lot more of the tart and the Bermuda Triangle than the... Yeah, I was going to say it's a lot more tangy in the Bermuda Triangle. I also think the humble fog is creamier. It is. It melts. Oh, man. There's sort of a saltier quality to it too. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I really love this cheese. I could put on any dish and it'll make that dish awesome. And it's one of the more beer-friendly cheeses that I've ever come across. There's really not too many beers that I can think of that I've had where I was just like, "Oh, the humble fog's not really good with this." I totally agree. But surprisingly, this wasn't the most versatile of the cheeses that we're having tonight. Right. Yeah, when we did that test the other night, it was the hardest one to pair because we hadn't come up with something that was as good as the other ones. This was still very good with a lot of beers. But there was another one that we're going to have on the other half of the show that went well with everything. It was amazing. Oh, we just didn't want to pick Jess what went well. We wanted to pick the best. Yeah, what we felt was the best. Yeah. For that night. You know, for the... Well, right. Resources that we had that night. Which were a lot of reasons. Yeah, it was great. So what do they recommend pairing with this particular cheese? Well, just like the last one, they make three different suggestions. One for a young version of this, one for a ripe version of this, and one for a mature version of this. For the young one, they recommend a wheat beer and an IPA and a porter. So those are the things they think will pair with a young version of this. Ripe, pale ale, and for a mature wheel or wedge of humble fog, stout. Okay. And we tried some of those. Like we thought there was a lot of really great beers going with this. The ones that stood out though were Goose Island Sophie. Oh, yeah. Dogfish Head Midas Touch both went very well with this. But the one we thought was a mind-blowing pairing was Orval. Rightfully fucking so. Oh, man. What a great beer. Yeah. Orval is a Belgian pale ale from Brasserie to Orval. It's one of the best beers in the world. It's one of the best beers ever made. Agreed. And it's also a very easy to get beer. I mean, most people will have it in their market. Brasserie orval is in Belgium, but this beer is a 6.9% ABV beer. It's a year-round offering available in bottles and on draft. The description says, "In contrast to all the others, the Orval Trappis Brewery only makes one beer for the general public." And we've actually had this here on the show before. We have in the Brett beers episode. Mm-hmm. It has an intensely aromatic and dry character. Between the first and second fermentations, there's also an additional dry hopping process. Through this, the beer acquires its pronounced hoppy aroma and extra dry taste. I do want to mention that the Orval I think might be losing their Trappis designation. I heard about that, yeah. Really? Mm-hmm. They don't have enough monks or something. Interesting. So checking this Orval out, it's a delicious golden color. Mm-hmm. Very clear and nice soapy bubbles. Great head. It's been maintaining itself, at least in my glass. My glass, too. Mm-hmm. It smells like lemony bread. And you said delicious, and for some reason, as soon as you said that, I got like a touch of delicious apple skin. Oh, yeah. And for the listeners out there, this bottle, in particular, was bottled on the 27th of June, 2013. Okay. So, yeah, it's just a lemony, fruity, pear-like tart aroma. A little bit of pepper. Yeah, a little bit. Man, the beer smells so good. I fucking love this beer so much. And it tastes amazing. How mind-blowing is this pairing for you, Mike? I am in heaven right now. Yeah, so it's really dry and funky, a little bit woody on the palate. Very delicious tasting beer. Mm-hmm. A little bit of fruit going on in there, but it's a very dry, almost like pear skins. I was going to say it's more like an everything fruit. Pear skins, yeah, but it's also kind of hard to pinpoint exactly. It's just like a general wild fruitiness. Yeah. Okay, like apricot and golden raisin. Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's a Barney Manurey woody character there, too. Rain on hay, like rain-soaked hay. Yeah, it's great. It's a great beer. Now, let's try them together. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's a little bit of cheese-able muffin. Mm-hmm. [laughter] What's crying again? Do I have a hammer, him? Yeah. Anastasia has a hammer. Those two notes, so let's talk about the apricot and the golden raisin. It really punches them up for me. Definitely does. It does. I get a lot more of the pepper notes out of the beer as I'm eating the cheese along with it. Oh, yeah, but it also evens out some of that bread. It also takes the sharpness away from some of the Barney qualities of the beer. Mm-hmm. This beer isn't overly sharp or anything. It just takes a little bit of the edge off of it. Well, these two just dance so well together in my brain. Yeah. Grant really didn't think so when we had it the other night. So, yeah, it was the dissenting opinion, I guess, amongst us. It wasn't my favorite, I guess, as far as what we had tried with it. How do you feel tonight, though? I do think it's really good. I am more impressed with the nuances I'm picking up than I think the other night. Perhaps it could have been a little bit of a fatigue of my flavor buds because my flavor buds? Yeah. No, I like it. Go with it. My flavor buds because this was one of the last ones we finally settled on. I think it was the last one. Yeah. Yeah, we took a long time to figure this one out. Mm-hmm. I think this turned out really well. But it is really good. It's a great pairing. I do want to say the minus touch was one of the beers that we found to be the most versatile. Yeah. Because it had that syrupy, honey, yeah. And honey and cheese go really well together. You always want honey on a cheese board. Absolutely. That one, and I thought Brooklyn Srirachi Ace was another one. Oh, yeah, that was delicious. That was very versatile. Yeah, but that goes with fucking every food. Absolutely. I actually finished all my beer. I didn't realize it happened. There's a little bit of jags. Okay, I'll take the jags. It goes really quickly. It does. With those cheese. Especially because the cheese does have that salted quality that you, and this beer just washes so quick now. It's good. I recommend you have a lot of orvall. Oh, yeah. Along with your cheese. Mm-hmm. And it's such a good pairing. I mean, it's at the same time fruity, and woody, and salty, and funky, and just a little tart. It's like sitting at the orvall monastery, whatever, with a goat right next to you with your feet in the river, or lake, or whatever. Oh, yeah. And drinking this out on a farm, and eating this cheese with this beer, I mean, this sounds perfect. I want to go to there. We need a re-locate. Yeah. Good re-locate to a farm. Yes. Just a king. Just a king. Bear a spot kayesh. Why do I automatically talk like that? Is that what a farmer talks like? I don't know. I mean, there are lots of hipster farmers, too. There are. That's true. But no, I want to do like an old school Texan farmer. Welcome to the Bear a spot kayesh. My name is John Rubio. I guess you know. Where's you? Elmer Davis. Yeah. You would be the laborer that, oh, God, I can't note. Well, no. Because the beer is bought. Come on, Anastasia. John Rubio's on the farm, and I-- Oh. Yeah. I see what kind of farmer there's. Anyone that cleans up the manure. Papa's going to marry me out for real soon. Nice. And that's that farm. Yeah. What's your accent, Mike? What? She's the mute. She's the mute. He's a Kyle Lambert. Oh, God. He's a Kyle Lambert with his 12 sister wives. Hi, honey. That's amazing. And a full neck beard. Show me the way. This is fantastic. That's that too. We really needed another bottle of Orval for this. We really did. But you know, this is fine. We're grown adults. And we have like four more to go. We're pacing ourselves pretty nicely, I'd say. I still have some of my atrial on sipping on. And there's still some drugs left if anybody wants more of that. I can hammer you. Again, Anastasia is a hammer. Which I have to keep telling people because this is not a video show and nobody knows you have a hammer. It's a picture. It'll last longer. No, I won't. So this pairing that we just did was Humboldt Fogg and Orval, absolutely delicious. And the next one starts out with our cheese, which is truffle tremor. And the ingredients in this are pasteurized cultured goat's milk, salt, truffles, you know, the little fungus that pigs farm out of the ground and enzymes. It's not a little chocolate. No, no, not chocolate, the actual truffles fungus. And the description says the perfectly balanced marriage of ripe and goat cheese jam-packed with Italian black summer truffles, elegant and sophisticated, you'll enjoy the heavy floral, urban mushroom notes in this earth-shaking masterpiece. It got first place at the American Cheese Society in 2009 and 2012. I also like how I have the bigger piece because it's one of my favorites. Oh, it's one of my favorites, too. I actually think I like this one a little bit more than I like Humboldt Foggle. Out of all three of the ones that we're having in this first segment, truffle tremor is my favorite. I'm a huge truffle fan. I love truffles. Me, too. So we're already already in love. He's just like digging in the dirt for his little truffles. Yeah. So similar look, you've got that same kind of waxy, powdery white rind. Grants just completely fell apart. That's great. It's more of like a translucent beige. Yeah, it doesn't have that dark vegetable ash on the outside in that runny part. It's pretty much that white rind. Yeah. And that plasticky thing is a little more beige, like missing the same. And this one is maybe because it's been sitting out longer, but it's definitely getting a little more runny around the edges and falling apart for everybody. It's slightly more gray in the cheese mass than the Humboldt Foggle or the Bermuda Triangle. Nice little spots of dark truffle. Yeah. A little all throughout it. And I fucking love this cheese smash, too. You know what? I don't like mushrooms. I don't eat mushrooms at all. I love this cheese. This is so good. I mean, the flavors. This particular wheel of truffle tremor, I don't know what it is about it, but this one seems so much more balanced than the ones that I've had in the past, like really, really nice truffle notes that are going through it. Oh, man. It's so creamy. It is extremely creamy. I love how it's tart and salty like the other ones. It's got that goat's milk cheese and that goat cheese quality to it with a little bit of that farminess and grassiness, but you get this distinct, earthy, fungal mushroom equality out of this that is so good. It's stinky. It is. Well, I think in a good way. It's a good stinky. Mike definitely nailed on it. He said balance, especially for this particular one, because I think it is balanced between that earthy, mushroominess and that tangy, farm-y wellness. Yeah. They hit a really good ratio with the truffles here. The truffles can really go overboard. I think. It's just so rich. Yeah, truffles are a very strong earthy flavor, and this has just enough to elevate the other flavors in this. This is great. This is probably the best piece of this cheese that I've ever had. It's amazing. You can't stop looking. My fingers clean. Yeah. I have to apologize for the mouth sounds that are coming out of this episode because, wow. This is the fapping episode. It really is. Meaning that our fans can fap to our mouth sounds and Mike is also fapping. I'm jealous of the big-ass piece that you got. There's more. There's more. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. No, we tried this cheese with a lot of different beers, but the ones that they recommend are barley wines and triples. And we didn't try it with a barley wine. We tried it with a triple. It was the sine white, actually. Yes. And it was pretty good. But the ones that we thought worked out a lot better were the cuve de jacoben. The Roachford 10, which is their quad, Jester King's RU-55 was quite delicious too. Yes, that was awesome. That's a sour red ale. And Brooklyn's sriracha ace was fantastic with this. But the one that we all really loved was Odeo Equim from Avery. So Avery Odeo Equim, it's number 13 in their American Wild Ale barrel series. And Avery is out of Boulder, Colorado. This is 7.89% ABV. It was 465 cases produced and it was bottled September 14th, 2012. And we've had this on our Avery show. We did that barrel series show. And when we had this on that show, it was weird. Like it had this solvent chemical flavor. There was something not quite right about it. And we had this the other night. It aged so amazingly well. And just a little bit over a year, it's turned into something awesome. It's a nice clear caramel color with a red garnet highlights. That's something like a copper garnet mixture. Amber-ish type of thing. A nice small medium head. Yeah, and it's clear, but it's kind of dense in the middle. And just so you guys know, this was aged in Cabernet 7 Young barrels for 12 months. And it's got Britannia, I see some souring bacteria as well. I definitely get a lacto note. There's a sour milk quality to it, but it's in between layers of over ripen fruit and barrel. And the reason we tried this beer with this cheese, I think, is because this cheese seemed like it was begging for a somewhat sour, radish, funky beer with some lactic acid. And it's really funny too, because I'd never picked out the flavor note until I had the beer and cheese pairing together the other night. There is definitely a fungal quality to the smell of this beer. Oh yeah, I'm going to taste it. Yeah, I'm going into it. I'm going to taste this beer. Oh man, that's so good. It's very cherry, like cherry, dried cherries, cherry plum a little. Oh yeah. And it's pretty damn sour. Lots of veneous wine equalities to it. It's kind of a slightly sweet note as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a burnt sugar quality to it. Mm-hmm, yeah. So I was trying to see how badly this beer did on our Avery Barrel H1, and three out of four of us put it as their bottom beer. Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. And that was released or recorded on December 2012. Wow. It's been a year. Yeah, this had just come out when we did that show. So we got that beer fresh and it tasted like hell. I mean, it was just a mess, but a year in the bottle has done this beer wonders. Yeah, this is fantastic. So good. And now I'm going to go in for the cheese. Okay, go ahead. Man, I just love the way this beer smells. The woody cherry wine barrel is so good. There's like a cinnamon quality to it too in the nose. Oh man, together it punches up the sweetness so much. Um, sweet decadent, mushroomy, creamy, I mean, the grassy note I think seems to amplify a little bit too. It's nice. Wow. It makes me want risotto with this beer. Yeah, no shit. Yeah. This is one of the pairings that really stood out to me the other night. Me too. This was when I had it. It was just one of those moments where things just totally clicked and it was like, oh, this is it. Yeah. Okay. So you get a lot of the tartness still. The cheese obviously adds a milky quality to the flavors and the beers. So you get a creamy cherries and all these other things. But then it cranks up this chocolate note. That's really interesting to me. It happens right in the middle and then it goes away almost immediately. It's funny how the creaminess and sort of the lactic qualities of the cheese go with the lactic qualities of the beer, it just makes sense. I like how the kind of cherry note and the wood note and the beer meld together better almost when you pair it with the truffle tremor. Oh yeah. But the wood just kind of, it's like your mouth is the barrel. Yeah. And then you're putting all the ingredients inside of it to make delicious. It's so good. I'm sorry. Sentences are hard. I know. I'm struggling all day. Kind of interesting. Try the, um, the rind itself with the beer. Just the rind by itself. Yeah. I get a little bit more, um, of a boozy note from the mixture there than I did. Oh, interesting. It's not bad. No, that's really interesting. Yeah. But it's quite different. And I do want to mention with this cheese. This one seems to be a little bit more ripe than the other ones. The translucent part of it is definitely getting a little bit more viscous. Yeah. I think it's on its way to becoming. It's gooey. It's like a young. It's like a teenager. It's not a toddler or pretease. It's like a teenager. It's starting to get juicy. Oh God. Yeah. He's so dirty. Man, this is the one pairing, actually one of the few pairings and that made everybody just flip their shit. Mm. I can mix a truffle tremor taste like it has cherries in it. I know. Just eating the cheese, having taken a sip of beer maybe 30 seconds ago and just eating the cheese on its own now. The beer just kind of lingers in the mouth and then you put the cheese in and you put the lime in the coconut. Yeah. And the cheese takes that edge off of the tartness and it's just a great burst of cherry and burnt sugar. I think Mike was pointing out. It's almost like vanilla ice cream with a very spicy sour cherry pie. Mm. You know, it's got that. Yeah. Just amazing, amazing buttery. That buttery like diastole buttery but just creaminess, the sugars and the cherries. It's so good. It evokes the same feelings of comfort when I have those things. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a warm blanket in your mouth. Uh huh. It's like a boob in my mouth. But that's like wearing a warm blanket. Yeah. I think that's just like a wool bra. Wool bra. It's being cut away. Wool bra. Fresh out of a dryer. Yeah, man. Cashmere bra. Okay. We'll probably take a break before we all just start fucking ourselves. Oh, I should have brought my never mind. I should have brought my Viper. Too late. I brought your Viper. Just not a Viper. It's a car. Shh. That's what you think. Okay. No, those don'ts. Oh, wow. That's almost as creepy as saying a white guy speak of bonics. No, that was amazing and music to my soul. Yeah. I just came. (music) Close your eyes. Make a wish. Close your eyes. Make a wish. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Make a wish. And no, I'll look in the night for tonight is just your night. We're gonna celebrate all through the night for the white. Light the fire. Girl, your wish is my common. I submit to your demands, I will do anything I need only as I may love to you. Like you want me to and I'll hold you tight. Baby, all through the night I may love to you. If you want me to and I will let me go, then you tell me to. Yeah, guys. That's it. Splish. Splish. The worst song break we've ever had. Fuckin' music we have our own. I mean, we're just so in love with these beers. And the cheese. And cheese. Guys, I mean, I love the cheese and all but my breathing is getting worse. Our singing is also worse. If people keep sending us cheese like this, I think they're shortening our lifespan on this show in general. I think by another like five, ten years. I'm pretty sure the listeners can hear us getting fatter. Yes. They could just hear me stay in the same. And we're gonna move right along. And our next cheese is midnight moon and it's made with pasteurized goat's milk, salt, cheese cultures, and vegetarian rennet. Age six months or more, this blushing ivory covered cheese is dense and smooth with a slight crunch of protein crystals that form naturally with aging. Made in Holland exclusively for cypress growth chef, midnight moon is nutty and brown buttery up front with a long caramel finish. And it's won another ton of awards. I'm not gonna read them. Fuck it. Because that's a lot of awards. This cheese we found to be the most versatile in pairing. It went with everything. Yeah, I did. Take a look at this, it's got a, I'm already eating with cheese. It's got a dark purple or black black layer on the outside. And on the inside it's just a beautiful white cheese and you could see some of those crystallized proteins in there. Yeah, this one has that I guess flapper looking girl on the label and on the full wheel wax image. Yeah, it does. I smell awesome. The kind of girl that goes dancing at night. Yes. That's the one that goes walking by a moonlight. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Dancing in the pale moonlight. Are you guys eating with cheese already? It's a joker for it. The first thing I actually notice is the texture. It's very gritty, granular. Crystal. Yeah, it's got those crystals inside. Flavor crystals. It's got flavor crystals. Which is definitely a Sailor Moon cheese with crystals in it. But I love it because it's so caramelly. Mm hmm. Yeah. It really is. It's got this like milky caramel quality to it. It really does come off like salted caramel to me. A little bit. Yeah. I mean, it's got a quality like that absolutely. But it's definitely still a. Oh, very much. Cheese. Yeah. And the nuttiness. It's like crackerjacks. I agree with that. This is like cheese. This cheese tastes like cheese. Humpty Greer has a very similar quality to it for me, at least in the way that as you let it sit on your palate, those caramel tones come out just more and more and more. Yeah. And there's another thing in here that reminds me of chocolate malt also, just a very light thread of that through here. And it's just absolutely wonderful. So easy to eat. So delicious. And yeah, the texture is, you know, like an aged cheddar or an aged goat's milk cheese, a firm one with all those protein crystals in there. And we tried a bunch of beers with this and the ones that they recommend are dark Belgian beers, stouts and triples. And we tried some of those and we thought those were pretty good as well. Actually, everything fucking went well with this cheese. It was ridiculous how versatile this was. We thought it was going to be humble fog, was going to be that cheese. This one is that cheese. This goes with everything so well. And the ones that really stood out like hugely, we kind of debated back and forth, which beer we're going to have with this cheese on the show, because Founders Breakfast Stout was delicious with it. Oh my God. Oh yeah. So Founders Breakfast Stout, it's an oatmeal coffee, double chocolate stout. It was delicious with this cheese. It added like this latte, caramel latte quality to the coffee, like it was so good. But the one that we thought was amazing was this beer that we're about to have with it, the duchess, the bergonia. And this is a Flanders Red Ale, people call it the duchess, you know, I'll stick with that too. And this is from Broury Verhage, Verhage, Verhage in Belgium. It's a 6% ABV beer and it's available year round in bottles and on draft. And this is a traditional Flemish Red Ale. This is a really cool beer to drink because when you take a sip of it, a lot of times it tastes like it's got cherries in it, but it doesn't have any cherries. That's all the bacteria and the 18 month barrel fermentation and maturation. And this is actually a blend of a younger eight month old beer with an 18 month old beer. And so the, you know, when it's bottled, the average age is 12 months. Got it. Have we had this one before too? Yeah, we have. So this is in our introduction to Sours show. So there's a lot of cherries and chocolate and wine on this nose. Nook. Yeah. And it's a dark red brown color. I forgot to talk about what it looked like. The bike is already just picking out. It's so good. I have no head on mine, but you guys have some. They've got a little bit of head on it. But man, that chocolatey cherry okey, a little bit of balsamic vinegar. Yeah. Yeah. Well, once you say that and I taste it, balsamic vinegar, it's a good call. Balsamic vinegar, cherries and strawberries and chocolate. Oh, good. Yeah. I just tasted it too. You could taste some of the barrel there too. And you could taste a little bit of the oak. It's really nice. This is different than what we had the other night because the bottle that I ended up bringing out ended up being one of the older bottles of this. Okay. I think it was probably about a year or two, I think by the time I busted that one out. Okay. I wouldn't say more than a year though. I remember getting that in a package for my folks. They sent me just a bunch of different sours that somebody had recommended from bottle shop. Yeah. I think that was about a year ago. Yeah. Well, the one that we have today expires in 2015. Okay. Cool. I think it's interesting because the beer itself, I don't think I'm necessarily so much of a fan. Well, because it's equal parts sweet and sour. Yeah. It's a little bit cloyingly sweet for me. Right. I want more of the tart, but once you pair this with the cheese, the harmony that's going on there. So good. Ah, it just balances it. It takes the edge off the sweetness because it mixes with the, well, I mean, the midnight moon is kind of a sweet cheese, but it's in a different realm, I think. And it doesn't overpower me with sugar so much as it just, this creamy buttery caramelliness. Oh, it's so good. I think that creamy and butteryness really helps to cut the sweetness of the beer quite a bit. It does. And the caramely nuttiness of the cheese pairs with a barely vinegar, like balsamic vinegar of the beer. Absolutely. And there's another flavor that kind of arises when these things mix in your mouth. For me, it's like this distant coffee note, which is really cool. It's a similar coffee note that I would get out of the Dayman IPA, like that really light grassy coffee. Right. Exactly. Having this beer with the duchess with the midnight moon is almost like having a pile of preserves next to the cheese on a cheese board. Exactly. Oh, absolutely. It does that same kind of thing. Like jammy too much, but it still provides that berry-like sweetness with some tartness because that cheese is so salty for lack of a better word, especially with the crystals. I think that kind of, in my mind, makes it salty, but I don't really mean salty and salty. Yeah. It's got that texture of like sea salt. Yes. I really like the way these two are kind of playing around with each other. It's a very interesting compliment and contrast at the same time. It's a lot like when you have these cheeses with like a fig spread, or like you said, with some kind of preserve. It's interesting that I think when we had the tasting a couple of days ago, you were saying that the other bottle is older? Yes. Because I remember having a much more wow experience with that other bottle than this one. I agree. I mean, not that this is bad. It made much sense. Yeah. I feel like before it was like, "Oh, of course, I just have to go together." And here, yeah, it's... The other bottle was a lot more caramelly. Mm-hmm. It was, yeah. It was a lot fuller, too. The mouth feel wasn't quite as soft and thin. Okay. So are you thinking maybe an aged bottle would go better with it? I think so. Okay. That's what I would say. Maybe sit on a bottle of the stitches for a year and a half. I'm saying, "To the breakfast set." Yeah. I mean, at this point, I definitely think that the breakfast set would be more of a wow beer. Well, do you want to try it with the breakfast set on the mic? I'd love to. I'll get more cheese if Mike gets the beer. Okay. That sounds great. Cool. We'll be right back. So we're back, and Mike went downstairs and got the, uh, founder's breakfast out. Yay. And I got more cheese. Yeah. And I see some cuddies, giant wedges, and cheese. So my song is something like this. I suck at cutting cheese, except for when and not I fart. Right. Because look at how big these, and awkward, these pieces of cheese are. They're like me. Big and awkward. Oh, man. That's the location of my beautiful soul. You just sculpted your soul four times. And now you guys are all going to put me in your mouth. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I'm going to splish so hard. Oh, this beer. Not what you're saying. Okay. So this is founders breakfast stout from founders brewing company, and we're drinking this at room temp. Right. And this is there from Grand Rapids, Michigan. And it's a double chocolate coffee oatmeal stout, 8.3% ABV and 60 IBUs. And this is with a ton of chocolate and coffee. Very dark. Very small. Small. Highlight. Yeah. And this smells like chocolate and coffee. It smells kind of musty. Mm-hmm. Just a little bit of a, yeah, a little bit of a grassy hop. Is this from this here? Yeah, this is. 2013. Because soon it won't be this year. Right. But man, how much coffee are you getting off that nose? It's quite a bit. It's huge. Anyway, so this was another one of the beers that we paired with this midnight moon that we thought was excellent. I feel like we were really torn between these two. We were fairly divided. Absolutely. Well, Anastasia and I think we're the ones that were in the camp of the Duchess and you and Grant were definitely for this one. And I think I still agree with that because I just have them both together. No, I've got to put my tail between my legs and, well, I don't know. It's like a hoppy latte. Oh, man. So good. A hoppal latte. Mm-hmm. I still stand behind the two-year-old bottle of the Duchess. Oh, yeah. Being... I thought it was one year, just a minute ago. No. I mean, who knows how long it had been sitting around for. Right. Yeah. So that four-year-old Duchess was amazing. Yeah. God, that 16-year-old Duchess was fucking too old. How crazy was it that somebody kept a 20-year-old bottle of Duchess? Dude, that bottle of the Duchess is a little bit me, guys. Yeah, that's shit. That Duchess started driving when I was born. [laughter] She's run out of the country before me. They're just really good. This is really, really tasty. Mm-hmm. Again, the caramel nuttiness of the cheese with a silky oatmeal chocolatey quality of the breakfast stout just kind of gel in Grant's words. Look at this fucking, what do cheese you cut me? Yes. It's just monster. You don't have to eat it all. Take it home in a doggy bag, put it in your pocket, save it in your beard. Mm-hmm. That's very sweet of you to call what I have on my face a beard. You're welcome. Merry Christmas. Wow. This is so damn tasty. It really is. And breakfast stout is out right now in stores. Mm-hmm. So people can go buy this exact pairing right now. And there's a few of these that they can go out and buy right now, like the Orvall duchess, this breakfast stout. And one other one that we're going to have at the end are accessible to a lot of people out there. Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. This is just, oh. Yeah, I love how the creaminess and the caramel nuts and the cheese just add that milkiness to the beard. That's just amazing. There is already a milkiness to this beer. Yeah. It's a little distant, but it totally amplifies it when you're having this cheese. And it doesn't do anything to the hops of the beer. The hops are still as bright as they are without the cheese. And it's a funny thing, too, because whenever I do like a beer float, if I'm ever pairing ice cream with beer, ice cream tends to just amplify the hops and it makes it a lot more acrid. Often, yeah. I don't get that here with this at all. No. And the breakfast stout makes it seem like the midnight moon has a coffee grind rind. Kind of, right? If that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so I still think that the breakfast stout is the way to go in this pairing. Even with the aged version of that duchess, I like that aged one a little bit more than I like it today with the newer bottle. But man, the breakfast stout just knocked my socks off when I had it Sunday night. I mean, they're both different. They're absolutely different. They're completely different. Mm-hmm. But there's something about this that takes me back to, I forget where we were. I think it was a beer tasting at the draft house. One of the bottle shares. There was a woman who came in with a bunch of different cheeses from Wisconsin. And she brought this sheep's milk cheese or goat's milk cheese, it was a hard cheese, it had coffee on the outside of the rind. It was amazing. And the coffee had this bitterness and acridity and added what this beer is adding to that. Are you talking about the barely buzzed? No, no, no, no. This was a different one. This was one that a lady brought from Wisconsin. She brought like several cheeses in these like Ziploc bags. It was on magic. This was like two, three years ago. I remember. And when Rubio turned around to ask her what it was, she was kind of like, "Yeah, so beggar Vance brought some cheeses to a tasting." It was amazing. I was really high at that tasting. Dude, you were really high at all the tasting. It's like Doug Benson's here. I just want to point out that I mixed the duchess and the breakfast stuff together. Oh, you crazy. And then I ate it with the cheese and then it was like, "I don't have to pick between my favorite shoes." That's such a weird move. The duchess and the -- no, I don't want to do it. Oh, shut up. Okay, I'll taste it. Yeah, you will, because you know I'm right. It's like cherry coffee. Oh, no. I don't like that. Oh, you're hungry. No, don't like that. Fuck. Anyway, so that was Midnight Moon. And we paired it first with the duchess, the Virginia, and then the founders breakfast out. The next cheese that we're going to do is lamb chopper. And it's made with pasteurized sheep's milk, salt, cheese cultures, and vegetarian rennet. And it says, "Age just three to six months. This cheese develops a deep buttery color and smooth texture. Made in Holland exclusively for Cypress Grove Shev, lamb chopper is a sure-crowd pleaser and a favorite with kids." So Anastasia's going to love this. Thanks, Daddy. So taking a look at this cheese, it's got a white wax on the outside of it. And yeah, it's a little bit more yellow than the Midnight Moon. Midnight Moon is like ivory white, and this is a yellow-y. Do we see colors differently? I don't know. Is that because I have a black plate? I taste colors. What's fascinating is as this cheese aged, it formed numbers on the outside of it. No, but this is from the fucking wax that you have. Oh, and this one, the picture for this, these burbs are preventing me from talking about your part. And the image for this one is a lamb in like a leather bikers jacket, riding a chopper. Yeah. You know, something I didn't notice about this cheese is it's got like air pockets in the cheese like Swiss cheese almost, but few and far between. Yeah, there's not a lot of them, but there's enough. There are a few of those in the Midnight Moon that I was finding as well. So this cheese is reminiscent of the Midnight Moon to me, but this one's got a much more of a grassy character and a little bit down caramel notes. And it's more neutral in flavor. Mm-hmm. Seems a lot more cheddary to me. And it is a bit cheddary, a white cheddar. Like I want to eat it with apple sticks and peanut butter. Right, kind of. And watch my cartoons. Well, I push up my glasses because I'm a kid. It's a really nice cheese. It's a very stripped down delicate sort of cheese. Mm-hmm. It's a cheese that you could eat with a sandwich or just like on its own or as a snack. Yeah. Texture wise, it's harder than the first three cheeses that we had, but not nearly as hard as the Midnight Moon. Right. And what Cypress Grove suggests that you pair with this are brown nails, IPAs and porters. They don't get really any more specific than just style. And we had paired this with the Boulevard Tank 7, and that was a really close second. Oh yeah. But this one I remember being a rather difficult one to find pairings for. I think it came down to the Humboldt fog in this one. Yeah. But when you busted out the beer that we ended up doing with this, it made such fucking perfect sense. And we're really lucky because this beer that I wanted to try with this cheese showed up the day before in a package in a tray that I did with a guy out in Vermont. And he sent me four cans of heady topper. Yes. The alchemist. Fuck yes. And he gave from the alchemist in Waterbury, Vermont. It's 8% ABV, and it's available year round in cans. And this is the only beer that they make over there. And it's packaged in these big 16 ounce pounders. And I'm going to read some of the description to cut some of this out. But this beer is not intended to be the biggest and most bitter. It's meant to give you wave after wave of hoppy goodness on your palate. Tremendous amounts of American hops will creep up on you and leave you with a dense hoppy finish in your mouth. So drinkable, it's scary. Sometimes I wish it could crawl right into the can. Me too. Am I right this? Yeah. We're committed to providing you with an unfiltered and impasturized hop experience. This beer is perishable and at its best when it's young, fresh and hazy. Yeah. Keep it cold. Yeah. No, keep it cold, but not ice cold. The stage is so fucking bad. I know. It's just instantly. It's okay. I've changed my name to Lillina. Y'all welcome to fuck me now. Man. That's so dirty. You're way too old for that name. Yeah. So yeah, we've had heady topper on the show once before. All right. Double IPA show. I believe. Uh huh. And aren't we so fucking lucky to have it every single time? Yeah. This is one of those ones that I think is unfiltered because there's always a little bit of yeasties in the can. I love that I can hold the glass like seven or eight inches away from my face and I can still smell every bit of it. Oh yeah. And looking at this beer, it's a lemony golden color. Very hazy. It's almost completely. Like a Deloias hazy. Aww yeah. You're welcome. Wow. And there's very little head on there, but god damn it smells amazing. You know what I'm smelling off this beer that I've never smelled before? Pinebles? Celery. Celery. Weird. As I'm holding it away from my face, that's the note that I'm picking up. Do I pour mine back into the can? Oh yeah. Hold on. I get that. I do get the celery. No, you can't pour it in the can. I like it better from the can. Yeah. I mean, as I put my nose closer to the glass, that's when you start getting just, this is very lush, deep hop character to it. That's a pine and pineapple and dank mossiness. Mm hmm. It's so good. A little bit of lemon zest on the nose. What a coincidence that it paired really well with lamb chopper, which rhymes with heady topper. Aww. I mean, this is one of those ones that when we got it, we all just went, "Oh, yeah." Yeah. It went so well. We were like, "No, we're done. This isn't." And we nailed it. Locked it in. And tasting this beer, it's such an easy drinking double IPA. I mean, it's absolutely double IPA. You have, you know, like a honey-like malt backbone balancing out this huge load of hops that is pretty bitter, but more, you get a bunch of these awesome hop flavors. Is it wave after wave of hop goodness? Yes, it is. I just got a little coffee. That was weird. Yeah, right. The flavors I'm getting are like tangerine skins, pineapple, not like this grassiness and floral quality and like a piney thing, there's so much going on. It's like, "Hey, let's get all the best qualities of all the hops and put it into a beer." I find that I do not like having this beer with this cheese at the same time, like mixing around in my mouth, but I do like eating it back and forth and back and forth. I think that's when it really complements it, did you guys actually say that? No, no, no. Oh. Well, the pairing here for me is all on the finish because it's a little discordant when you have them both at the same time, but at the very end, there's something clips right in and you're like, "Whoa, that's good." Yeah. But yeah, I think when they're in the mouth at the same time, it's like they're competing a little bit. It's strange. And I've said it before with certain IPAs. Meantime IPA comes off this way to me where I pick up a chocolate note and I get that here. And I don't normally just get that when I'm having the beer, but as I'm doing exactly what Grant said, which is I take a decent bite of cheese, make sure to macerate that completely, as I'm swallowing the cheese, I'll take a sip of the beer and just the way that one rides into the other, I'm picking up this earthy, chocolaty kind of note to it. Yeah, it's really cool. And I love how the cheese toward the end brings out this really cool tangerine juice quality. And it's strange because I mean, I'm saying that there's chocolate notes and then we're talking tangerine and then there's also this grassy character to all of it. Yeah. It's strange how all of that's riding one into the other and it's not causing any sort of cognitive dissonance for me. It makes total sense. I can't. I can't. What's the matter? So much cheese. This is a lot beer and it's getting warm in here. It is. No, I'm getting sweaty. Oh, I think I got cheese sweats. I got cheese sweats too. I don't got a cheese sweats super fucking cheese sweats. But Rubio looks like he's a little fat self happy as a chicken chest. It's just a nice sheen over there. I'm afraid if I take off my sweater, you guys will get my natural must in your beer. Stop it. Yeah. Talk about the way these things taste together tastes a little bit like I'm just sweat. Yeah, armpit. Yeah. I mean, it does. That kind of hoppy grapefruity, musky bitterness. I'm being serious. Oh, yeah. Sure. But it's such an accessible cheese, but we pair it with, I'd say like a mid-level accessibility double IPA. Yeah. And I say mid-level just because, you know, it's fairly difficult to get if you're not in the area and it's also, it's not super balanced, but it's not super aggressive. Right. It's a really easy to drink beer though for what it is. I think a lot of people should really search this one out if you've not had it. I agree. Can we take a nap break? Mm-hmm. No. No. We got one more to go, guys. We got one more to go. Let's just move on to the next one because that was absolutely delicious. The lamb stopper and heady topper. And I feel like we didn't really talk about it all that much, but I think we're getting tired. I feel like we didn't do justice to the lamb popper, heady chopper joke. Right. It's right there. Okay. So the next cheese and final cheese for the evening is called Sergeant Pepper. And this is one of their herb cheeses. So they have all these little pucks of goat cheese with a bunch of herbs mixed into them. This is incredible kind of. Yeah. And this one is made with pastures goat milk, salt, pepper, garlic, spices, chili threads, cultures and enzymes. And you can see the chili threads. Yeah. They're really cool. Like little chili zest shavings almost as as a secret combination of exotic spices and pepper threads result in a complex and visually pleasing experience with the kick. So this thing, yeah, if you look at it, it's kind of a yellowy off white crumbly goat's milk cheese. And it's got these red threads running through it. I think that's always so secret and they've told us. Yeah. They just said chili threads. They're like, are we talking about chilies to go, chilies, car side. Wow. That's my fit. I'm sorry guys. It's so cheesy. I'm surprised I didn't say it. So cheesy. You're so good. This is like the cheese that I would have on a sandwich. You know, like one of those kind of spreadable cheese and cracker, like it looks like whipped cream cheese and it has that kind of super soft and spreadable consistency. It's the, the puck of cheese that you would eat when you're just lonely and depressed, you're stalled by yourself. Right. Whatever. Why do you think I always fall asleep on my couch with cheese wrappers and knives next to me? So this afternoon I made some pasta and I just took the rest of the leftover surge of pepper cheese. I hadn't put it right in there with it. Bit of work. Oh, you son of a bitch. Of course it worked, right? So good. Yeah. This looks amazing. I'm reading on cracker, so excuse the crush. So good. It was funny because it really didn't have all that much heat to it. There's maybe a tiny little kiss of heat. Yeah. It's just pepper essence. Mm hmm. It's more black pepper to me, like fresh, cracked black pepper than it is spicy pepper. I get more chili flavors like cumin actually in there. Mm hmm. Right. I mean, it comes off as a Mexican sort of thing with a cumin and garlic and maybe some celery salt or something with these threads of chilis in there and that adds a little bit of an earthiness and a bit of a fruit quality and I'm not sure what kind of fruit. It's just a distant fleshy pepper skin that's not really nice and I'll pick up fruit flavors in a lot of those types of things. Oh yeah. But it definitely does taste like a Mexican or Tex-Mex food inspired sort of like border Mexican inspired spice. This is good. This is really good. Yeah. And the beers that they suggest that we have with them are porters, stouts, and chili beers. All really great choices. Oh, we're not going to do that, are we? We didn't try it with the chili beer. We tried it with porters and stouts and yes, they went great with porters and stouts. But the one that we thought it went really, really well with is sriracha ace from Brooklyn Brewing. Yeah. Sriracha ace is a single hop saison. It's 7.6% ABV, 34 IBUs and it's a year round offering available in bottles and on draft and it's made with German two row Pilsner mold and hopped with Washington grown sriracha ace. This is a single hop beer made with Brooklyn's special Belgian strain and their primary and champagne yeast as a secondary fermentation. And they're using brewers white sugar in here as well. The description says a large Japanese brewery first developed the hop variety sriracha ace in 1988, a cross between the British Brewers gold and the Czech Saa's varieties. It exhibited a quality that was unexpected. It smelled really lemony. The unique flavor of sriracha ace was bypassed by the big brewers, but we thought it was pretty cool. So we made a special beer with it and added the beer to our brewmaster's reserve special draft beer program last year. Actually, it was a few more years. Most brewmaster's reserve beers are only available for a short time and then they're gone. But we like this one so much we decided to bring it back and give it the star treatment. As well they should have because this beer's fucking phenomenal. Can I say that I just love that I put this in a saison as opposed to doing like a single hop IPA? Oh yeah. Yeah. That was such a good call. I'm going to do a saison and this is seriously my go to beer with food like no matter what kind of food, if a bar has it, I order it. And it looks really great next to food. I mean the slightly hazy bright golden color, that fluffy white head, it is just sunshine. It is sunshine in a glass. It really is. And a lot of the better restaurants in town, barley swine recently, odd duck, ouchico, ouchico. They all have sriracha yace because it goes really well with a lot of really, yeah, it goes well with fucking tapas and sushi and it's just a very hazy, hay colored beer with orange highlights. And it smells wonderful too. It's got this lemony, orangey, dry, spicy, a little bit peppery and somewhat milky sort of aroma. Like Fran said. Orangina. Oh yeah. It's so much. I don't know if anybody's ever had any of that. Yeah. It's like very reminiscent of that. Yeah. Totally. Definitely. When Fran said sunshine, I got a little bit of sun panellition. Marshmallow. Wow. So like a kind of creamy coconut? Marshmallow. So if I remember correctly, I think it was Gwen Peters that pointed out that we needed to try this beer with this cheese. Yeah. She yelled at us until we listened to her. Yeah. She was such a gem that night. Oh. I was so happy that she was there. She just made everything better. Well, she is a cheese buyer. You know, she buys a lot of different stuff. Food purvey around town. Yeah, for sure. Yes. She provides food for a bunch of different chefs. I know. I know. But it was just absolute wealth of knowledge. It was really great to have her there. Yeah. She was just so helpful. We love you, Gwen. Yeah, we love you, Gwen. Fuck yeah, Gwen. I'm really glad that she pointed this one out to us because holy crap, it's so good. The spirit tastes like sunshine. It really does. And together with the cheese. Now I'm just going to skip the beer. It tastes a lot like we just grabbed the aroma, but I just want to have this cream so bad right now. The beer actually tastes more peppery than it smells. It's so great. It's almost like it's the wildflower honey compliment to this cheese. Yes. There's a bunch of, yeah, a bunch of really great floral qualities in this beer. And citrus. You know, and citrus. That lemon quality. Yeah, definitely. Well, not just lemon, but I mean, there's tangerine and orange and all of those things. I still get a couple of coconut. A little bit of coconut. Yeah. Totally. And what it does with this cheese, I mean, it makes this fucking delicious combination because these peppers are a little bit citrusy already and the way the citrus in here in this beer and the pepper in the beer complements the peppery citrus of the cheese. Awesome. And this beer is so light on the palate and the sergeant pepper is so creamy and garlicky. Do you guys find that it amplifies the spicy quality a little? It does. It totally does. I was thinking, is that a product of the fact that I've just been really eating this cheese rapid fire or is it because of the drinking, but I think it's a beer. It almost feels like there's a cayenne quality to the cheese now that I'm having it with the beer that's just that sort of nondescript amplification of the heat. Yeah. It's like the carbonation. The carbonation lifts the spice off of your palate and like, washes it everywhere. That tears it into your gums and just pain that's so good. Delicious pain. Delicious pain. I love this pairing quite a bit. Yeah. I'm sorry. We completely skipped over the flavor portion of the beer, but I just had to get the pairing immediately. I mean, the flavor was very similar to the nose. It's very lemony, very citrusy orangy. Yeah. Extremely dry. There is that kind of slight marshmally note that that Mike was mentioning. Yeah. There's like a hay note also, grassy and sweet little peppery. Yeah. I mean, just a really nice compliment to food. I mean, it pops flavors out. It's nice because it's one of those beers where the aroma. It's right on point with the flavor. Yeah. It goes with fucking sushi. It goes with pork belly. It goes with everything. And wait. It seems kind of like a very simple, easy beer, right? But it's got a lot of small, delicate nuance to it. Oh, it's complex as fuck. I love that about this beer. Yeah. I haven't. Wait, we just got a bit of lavender. Like I had some creamy cheese left in my mouth. It was ready to be gone. And then I took a sip of beer to kind of wash all the cheese down. And this lavender was just like, "Hi." Yeah. It's right at the back. Mm-hmm. I love it. Oh, yeah. I'm a love. So you think that's a great pairing? Oh, yeah. But what's your favorite pairing we've had tonight? I don't know. We're not going to do rankings, but nah. I do want to do a favorite pairing. And for me, I'll definitely say that was Truffle Tremor in the audio app one without a doubt. That was just such a fucking amazing pairing. I'm torn. I'm torn between that one, the Truffle Tremor in the audio and the Sargent Pepper and Serace. I was going to say that this is a very close second. It's a little too. People were having the Sargent Pepper and the Serace Ace. It's like summer. It was really like, it tastes like summer, the way the fucking peppers and spice lift off the tongue. But that audio ECOM with the Truffle Tremor, it just kind of tasted like... They were fucking made for each other. Yeah. Like, soulmate. Yeah. I would totally go with the Sargent Pepper and the Serace Ace. Yeah. Love this combination. To me, it was the audio ECOM and the Sargent Pepper and the Serace Ace. And then I really dug the atrial rubricite with the Bermuda Triangle. Oh, yeah. That would be my second take. I really liked the way that those things went together, but this is really, really nice, but man, oh man, that audio ECOM. That was so good. I know. That was so good. I am just so grateful for CyberScrove Chef, for what they did for this episode, for what they did for us. Oh my gosh. For real. Ombled fog is my favorite cheese, hands down, and for them to send us all of that cheese for us to be able to do this. I feel like we've made it, guys. I feel like we've made it. We're kind of big time. How are we? Yeah, we're big deals now. I don't give a shit about getting recognized at J.A.B.F. CyberScrove sent us fucking cheese. A bunch of it. A bunch of it. All because we mentioned them and said that we liked it. Just like we like Rolls-Royce cars. Yeah. We really like that. I also like money. Lots of money. Hey, U.S. Treasury. We're big fans of money. Do you guys just want money for the show? Yeah. I like La Perla, Mimi Holiday, Ferfau. Oh, you're going to get so much La Perla. Are those shoes? A Jean La Provocato. What are you talking about? Laundry. Goddammit. You know what I love? Dispensaries. Don't mail his pot. That's a felony. Don't mail Rubio pot. You have a mail you said X though. Mailing Laundry is completely legal. I'm super sexy. You can mail marijuana as a fruit stand. Stop it. Attention to Mike Lambert. Hey, you guys. I'm out of Sergeant Pepper. Anybody want to trade? No. I've got some midnight moon and some lamb chopper. Well, yeah. I have some of this. There's plenty more. You can have. Okay. I may have eaten it all downstairs. I'm trying. What? Nothing. I'm trying to thank Cyberscript Chef. Jason Baxter was the marketing guy that we love you so fucking much. Jason, we love you. He actually came back and said that he listened to several of our episodes. And he was going to market us on their website, but said we were just a little too, quote, unquote, real to put on their website, which means we say Dick Pussy and cut a lot. And the same sentence of Cyberscript Chef. Yeah. Cyberscript Chef Dick Pussy Cut. No, but the best, the best Dick Pussy cut you've ever had. Like any of those things are bad, right? But, you know, I think he was a little bit happy with the amount of times he heard us talk about on both fog and their cheeses on the few episodes he listened to, Cypress Grove, tight butthole. I don't know what that means. Yeah. Don't ask. It goes together. Did he just offer like Saratius? No, no, don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask. You just offer them. No, no. Okay. Okay, sorry. You didn't. Don't ask. It was a complimentary comparison. Yeah. Anyway, I was going to say thank you guys for being here. No. Thanks, Cybers Grove. I was going to thank you guys for being here, but really it's your pleasure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Privilege. It is, it is to be here. It's my birthright. We could have sold our spots on the show for quite a bit of money, I'm sure. There were so many people who were like, let me be on that show. I suppose like six times. Oh, you have no idea. Yeah. There were so many people that were just so angry. I don't think there are friends anymore actually. I think they, they dropped us as friends because we didn't invite them on. I'm okay with you. Don't you just go up to them and be like, no, but you suck on Mike. You can't be on there. No. This is just one or two guys. Yeah. Only one or two guys suck on Michael. They're both named Bill Break. But yeah, this is just kidding, Bill, I love you. This is such a delicious episode. Thank you so much, Cypress Grove Chef. And thank everybody here for listening. Thank you listeners. Listeners, you guys have been awesome. I hope we didn't make y'all too jealous. And if we did pause the episode, go to the store, buy some Cypress Grove, come back and then listen because I guarantee you your mouth will water, you will drool, you'll probably get tingly in your nether regions. Oh, yeah. And also, one of the things you should do is write to us. If you guys decide to try your own little parry and exercises, write to us and let us know what you thought of the parings that we had on the show and what you may have come up with on your own. I'm always looking for a better parry because we did three beers that are readily accessible, pretty much nationwide. The other three might be a little bit harder to come by, but make your own parings. Let us know. Let us know how you liked this format. Yeah. You know, we might do another paring show at some point and yeah, tell us if this worked for you. If not, tell us that it was garbage. But if you don't hate us, how can they support us? One of the ways you remember when I said I like money? Yeah. Yeah. We like money. Rubio, do the sad pitch for everyone. Okay. We really need your donations. Everything that we do for the show takes a lot of time and money and most of it comes out of my pocket and out of my life. I mean, the last episode, that fucking Christmas episode took me 18 hours. No, it was 16 hours of editing, 16 hours. It was a wreck. I spent 16 hours of my fucking life. That episode sucked. Editing. And I thought so too. Fuck those beers except for a couple I really. And the Goose Island episode cost you hundreds of dollars. That Goose Island episode cost me over a hundred bucks tonight, like me. This was all gifted to us by Cypress Grove Chef, but usually it's just a bunch of my fucking time and money and will squeeze all this shit out of me until I die and shrivel. You don't sound sad. You sound angry. I'm getting a little angry. But we could have commercials. I don't want commercials. I don't want commercials. I don't want commercials. I don't want commercials. Our fucking audience, our listeners are way better than commercials. We would never do commercials. I don't want to sell you. This episode brought to you by Cypress Grove. No. I don't want to sell you stamps. I don't want to sell you shoes. I don't want to sell you fucking everything else that Adam Corolla or Mark Marin or all these other fucking people are selling you. I don't want to sell Audible. I didn't give a shit. But what about the fleshlight? The fleshlight's great. Yeah, right? Oh my God. It's a solid project. Oh my God. It's like a BMW for your dick. The fleshlight. Next episode of the dude. We're going to get three fleshlights. Oh God. The fleshlight. Anyway, shit. Shut the fuck up. Shut up. Michael, don't even. I'm trying to say things. All the inserts. All the inserts. What? I'll let you some of mine. So the thing that I need from our listeners is I need you guys to donate some money to us. And like I said, the last episode, one of the coolest things that could happen is if on the new year, everybody sends us five bucks. If I can get a bunch of listeners to send us just five dollars a person, go to thebearest.com On the left hand side of the page is a PayPal donate link. Click it and send us five dollars on January 1st of the second. On that Thursday on the second, when we record our next that episode, I want a long ass page of people's names to read. I'm doing a rally. Oh God. Please. Please send us five. Seriously. It's like buying the show a pint. It is. It's so fucking economic. Like it's five bucks. Although there are four of us on here. So you should give us 20 bucks or that. I mean, send us as much as you want, but I at least would like to see how many people would send us five bucks. How many people care enough and have hearts enough to send us five dollars? Such a sad gamble and he gets three bucks a day. I know. Someone didn't even buy us a full pint. God damn it. Please have this money and we're going to keep making shows regardless of it. I just want it to be easier on us. Pat it. Just a little bit for Rubio. Yeah. For me. All the time. Whoa. That's not even going to happen. Don't. Don't crazy talk. Whoa. What the hell are you doing? Too far. You went too far. That's literally too far. But I want to thank you for being here on the stage. Thank you. Let's try it again. Sounds sincere this time. No, that's not all you got. This is all I got. This is all I got. Serious again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, crunchy face. Mike, I am so fucking happy to be here. I didn't actually know. I didn't actually. I didn't actually thank you. I just said your name. Dick. Yes, John? Thank you for being here. It feels good. It feels good to be fake. You know what? I'd just like to say, Cypress Grove, fuck you. What? Whoa. I'm ruined for all other cheeses now because they're so delicious. So damn you. Cypress Grove. Thank you. It's me. How late for this breath? What? I know. You know. You're so kind of winded. I'm like that wheelchair kid from Oakland in the middle. I'm like, oh my god. I'm crazy. I'm crazy. The only guy who's actually being able to walk. Just as important as a wheelchair kid. And you're the wheelchair and you're listening to this. I'm not saying that you're unfortunate. I'm saying that Grant is more unfortunate than you. Which I mean, you might be not unfortunate at all. The fact remains that he's still more unfortunate than all of us. Really. That's Ruby. Hey, you're welcome. And Mike, again, you're welcome to be in here. Thank you guys. Bottoms up. Bottoms up. Bottoms up. Bottoms down. Belly's full. How is this still bottoms down for you? Like this is fucking delicious. When I fall out of my chair, I'm going to land on my bottom. And you're going to just fart and stand right back up. I'm going to rub my belly down here and it's just a mouth full of fucking cheese still. No. It's like you're a bunch of children who ate too many fucking hoppers. It's like you're many what? What are they? What are they? What are they like? That's insane. What are they like? That's insane. Or quill. Or quill. But putting an H in there, it's siloed. Oh god. You know, Kayla was laughing at me a few days ago because I don't know how to say "dual." Do you? Do you? Do you? I've tried "dual." Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Why is that so funny? Why is that so funny? Because it sounds like you're trying to be fancy. She laughed for 30 minutes. When I was like, "Man, I challenge you to a duel." And then she just died laughing. Just like that. Why is that funny? He did it again. He did it again. That's insane. That's insane. So late. Oh. So floppers. Do you challenge us to a flopper duel? A flopper duel. A flopper duel. It's so hot. I know. You think I'm dying? I can't do it alone. I can't do it alone. For more information on the Beerists podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit thebeerists.com. Email us your feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions at info@thebeerists.com. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/thebeerists and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/thebeerists. I'm John Rubio. Thanks again for listening. [Music] [ Silence ]
