I don't know what the fuck is in the air right now, but it's kicking my ass. Don't give it to me, whatever the fuck it is. Are you patient zero? I might be patient zero. Holy shit. I feel like I might have been patient zero. I think I got it before you did. Did you? Yeah, but no worries. It wears off after a little bit. What the fuck? I don't know. Triple kiss? No, no triple kiss. My voice is all fucked up. If you can hear, it's not in great shape right now, so it always kind of sounds fucked up. It does. But now it's a little bit more like Fran Drescher fucked up. Right. Yeah. Sounds disgusting. My friend Drescher sounded like the frontal rock trash heap. Wow. That was really good. My ears are waiting. Just what I wanted. Whoa. What the hell? I think I might be patient zero. Just kidding, guys. Yeah. Anyway, I'm John Rubio. And with me today, I'm Grant Davis. And? Anastasia, maybe patient zero, Kelly. And in the fourth chair. Mike Lambert. Beautiful. The gang's all here. Indeed. Yay. I like when this happens. Yes. Anyway, we're doing an Nebraska brewing company show because Grant was in Omaha. I did go to Omaha. Why? That's what everyone asked me first question. My wife had worked there. And since we have a newborn baby, I went to tend to our newborn while she did work there. And I just got to go to around check out all the beer going on their whole beer scene. And I happened to be driving down the road in Omaha. I got a little lost. And all of a sudden, I saw a sign that said five miles to Papillion. I think I'm saying that right. Like I corrected when I tried to say Papillon. Right. So I was like, wait a second. I think Nebraska brewing company is from there. So I drove around a little bit until I found the place, ended up getting there way too early in the day. I think I got there like 10. It didn't open until 11. So I had to wait an hour. But I eagerly waited out there and up front with my baby and got to go in and taste all their beers. Really good. And I brought back a time. Yeah, he did. He brought back what? Like seven of them? Seven. Yeah, seven, seven fifties. Yeah, we're going to be doing five of them today because I just don't have the voice to go through seven beers today. That's okay. I brought a bunch more Nebraska beers that we could probably mix those other ones in with. That would be great. Yeah. We could do an Nebraska show soon. Yeah. Awesome. But before we do that, let's get through a couple of emails and I'm going to get somebody else to read these. How about Anastasia? Do you want to read this? Okay. Greetings again, beerists. I've been listening to your podcast for about a month now and while I have learned a ton, I have also been lamenting the fact that I'll never see many of these wonderful beers you guys crack open on the show. That is until a couple of days ago, when I took an impromptu overnight trip to Philadelphia, holy shit, their bottle shops are amazing. Apparently, Philadelphia is a huge beer distribution hub and the two bottle shops I visited were stocked full of bottles I have only dreamed of seeing on a shelf. I was even informed by a friendly bartender that Philadelphia is the only other place besides the brewery that has a chance to see a few kegs of plenty of the younger from Russian River. I ended up heading back to South Carolina with a trunk full of Russian River, port older viscosity, lost Abbey Red Poppy, Prairie, North Coast, Ailsmith, Cascade, Elysian, Ithaca Flower Power, DC Brow, and Maine Brewing Co. What the fuck? Yeah. Awesome haul. Yeah. Super jealous. Yeah. This trip did inspire a question as well. I'll admit to some serious sticker shock at first, even stuff I could get at home is marked up two or three bucks in Philly and I never thought I'd be considering shelling out upwards of 20 or 30 dollars for a 12 ounce bottle of beer. Are there any beers that you guys really love but just aren't worth shelling out for? Where do you draw the line on spending for a beer? Are there brews you would shell out any amount for? As always, thanks for promoting good beer. Sean, I am not Harrelson Edelman Gurgen. Gurgen. Gurgen. Yeah. Well, first off, what are you considering buying at 20 or 30 dollars for your 12 ounce bottle? That's for real. Holy shit. Well, maybe it's like a Dreyfontainen special golden blends or something. Or any brew dog beer. That's true. Yeah, but I don't normally spend that much money on a beer I haven't had. The most amount of money that I've ever spent on a beer, actually two beers, was 40 euros each for Zomer and Lente, the Armand IV. Oh yeah, that's what I bought them for in Belgium and it was fucking worth it. I would totally do it again. Those are great beers. Yeah, absolutely. I guess one of the more expensive bottles I bought was that golden blend from Dreyfontainen. I mean, it was 25 bucks for a 375. I think that it was 25 at one spot and then like 28 at another and I bought them at both places. Yeah. But I mean, that works out for a 750 to about $50 for that beer. Right. I think I generally spend too much on beer unless it's going to be on this podcast. But down here in Texas, we have a very common beer called Lone Star, which is generally about a dollar at any bar, maybe two sometimes. Sometimes they just pay you to drink it because it's that shitty. It's terrible. I went up to New York City though and they were charging like five to seven bucks at bars for it and I was like, are you fucking kidding me? And people weren't buying it. I think it's all about the gimmick and location of certain beers that it gets marked up. Like some of those beers, you're in a big city like Philly. Maybe they're really marking up the prices, but elsewhere, if you weren't even just outside to a smaller town, they might be a lot cheaper. In Europe, I saw Budweiser and other sort of American domestics that were five and six dollars. I can't. Yeah. How about you get up to Asia? It depends on my mood. If I'm feeling like a baller. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. If I got the money, it depends on what part of the country we're in and how much time I have before we go be a shop and to work. I know that when people were selling beer on eBay, our buddy Josh would drop $300 for a really rare bottle that he couldn't get any other way and I'm not going to talk about the ethical or moral implications of shopping for beer on a eBay. But fuck, dude. I mean, it's just beer. Yeah. But you got to put in your mouth, man. You know, that one special beer. It fills a hole in some people's hearts. I know people who have spent a bunch of money on bottles that are super fucking rare only to be disappointed that it wasn't life-changing. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm usually going to spend my dollars on Cantillon Fufune. Yeah. That's a good buy. Marriage parfait. That's another good buy. That's kind of good, right? Yes. Yeah. Good beer. And maybe there's a molesi lady. Yeah. The gamverness. Yeah, Rosé the gamverness. Well, thank you, Sean. We appreciate the email. Thanks, Sean. I hope that helps out. But, man, what a fucking score that you got, man, because, I mean, they're all fantastic years. I've had beer from all of those breweries. Let's do it from South Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. I think they have a pretty good beer. And what's the capital of South Carolina? Who knows? Yeah. Okay. Nevermind. Pips. Pips. I'm making words up. Boise. Boy. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's a Boise. So our next email. Grant, do you want to take this one? Sure. Okay, cool. Hello, beerists. How are you? I'm great. I've just finished drinking a bunch of Firestone Walker Union Jack with my boyfriend and some friends. My boyfriend and I brought a six pack of the same beer to our pizza party, awkward. And someone noticed that they had different dates. One was produced on seven, three, twenty, thirteen, and the other six pack on nine, five, twenty, thirteen. Upon realizing this, we decided to do a taste test, and the results were shocking. Bum, bum, bum. These could have been, essentially, two different beers. The more recent smelled crisp, slightly astringent. It's tiny. It's got sexy in here. The older beer, well, this is up for a debate. I thought it smelled like an old fart stuck in a couch. Sexy, all right. Someone sort of agreed, but mostly everyone thought it was just muddy. Much less piney, sweeter, and overall, was less fragrant. The older beer was definitely less carbonated. It was sweet, mild, not bitter, in that IPA-y way, and had an earthy, slightly funky blue cheese aftertaste. The taste was also muddy and just unremarkable. It was an okay, basically run of the mill, not bad beer. The fresher beer was so delicious, like a truly awesome beer. It was crisp. It was piney. It was effervescent and bright. It saved my relationship. You're in the like IPA, and I love this. I'll drink it all the time. Just try and stop me. Come on. Try. In the end, I'm left with a question. Why aren't more breweries bottle-dating? I guess that's it. Oh, and I'll be visiting Texas for the first time in October, specifically awesome. What? Thanks again. Anna Rose McLachlan from Jersey City, New Jersey. Bad ass. Thank you, Anna Rose. I don't know why a lot of other breweries don't bottle-date. I assume that for some of the smaller ones, it's cost inefficient because they have to buy a machine for that or a special piece of equipment. It's called a person and a pen. And it takes a lot of time. Might there be another variable about the fear that someone might not buy their stuff if they know how long it's been sitting on a shelf? It could be, but I don't think any brewer would ever admit to that. No, they're not going to admit to it, but it's more profitable if they don't bottle-date. At the same time, if you don't bottle-date and then your product sits on the shelf and maybe a certain place decides not to care anymore because it never moves, you've lost an account. That's true. Well, hopefully that helps out, Anna Rose. I'm sorry. I'm kind of glad that you got a chance to see what we were talking about when it comes to drinking old versus new IPAs and how much of a difference a fresh bottle makes. It's huge. It always makes it up. Every so often, yeah. Thank you so much for your emails. We really appreciate it. If you have an email, you want to send us a question or a comment, send it to info@thebearest.com. And we didn't get any iTunes reviews this week again. I guess. Aww. Yeah. I don't know what's going on with the USA. There's some fucking iTunes reviews. Give us five stars on the iTunes Music Store and write a review. And when you write that review, I can see your name and I'll thank you for it on the show. It really helps us out. It is a huge help. And also, we didn't get any donations, which is okay. I get it. No, just ridiculous. Just ridiculous. We did announce that we're going to the Great American Beer Festival. And that is awesome. But we're still going to be accepting donations because everything that comes out of the show, aside from listening to contributed beers, comes out of my and a couple of the other guys pockets. Reviewers pockets. Mostly my pocket. And the station brings a lot of beer also. Perstrings. Perstrings as well. And you know, we want to try to make it to other festivals and other events around the country. Absolutely. And we can only do that if we get money and we're not making any money doing this. So. Yeah, I want to be able to quit my job and drink beer all day. Yeah, me too. That's the dream guys. That's amazing. That would be a lot of fun. One other thing. Podcast awards. We've been campaigned to be nominated and by the time this releases, we might actually be up there as a nominee and you can vote once a day on it. So go to the podcast awards.com, click and vote for us once a day, tell all your friends to do it because we deserve to win two years in a row. That would be awesome. Feed out the fucking splendid table. Yeah. Fuck you. We're fucking launching an all out war against a splendid table in that category. One of the splendid table ever due to us besides be inferior. Oh. Snap. Fucking Miss Kelly launching in all this shit. That's great. You got to wear your boots if you're going to get into the shit. That's good point. Let's get into our beers. Nebraska Brewing Company. I'm going to read the description here that Anastasia put on this sheet says located in Papalya Papalya Papalya Papillians located in Papillians Hopping Shadow Lake Town Center. Nebraska Brewing Company is a relaxed dining destination complemented by incredible fresh handcrafted ails locally owned and operated. These are aimed to share our passion for beer and food with everyone who walks through the door. When your stomach's growling and you're feeling parched, head to Nebraska Brewing Company for casual American fare. Their food is great. That sounds awesome. And they also have a full bar and they offer a great time according to this. Our knowledgeable staff will assist you in creating the perfect beer and food combination. Oh, and on your way out, be sure to grab a growler of one or two of our fine ails. Does anybody else think that Grant may have written this? What do you mean? It just sounds like something Grant would write. Let me try reading this, Grant. Located in Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya Papalya. No, I guess. Yeah. He sounded just like me. He was fucking amazing. He was uncanny. Yeah. Our first beer from Nebraska Brewing Company is Apricot Apovera. It's apoev. Apricot aproev. Just have me say it. I'll read it. Apricot aproev. I still can't say it. It's apricot aproev. That's awesome. It's a Cezanne brewed with apricot and black pepper aged in Chardonnay barrels. It's 6.8% alcohol per volume. And it's a limited release available in bottles and it goes on to read our reserve series apricot. Yes. Yes. So our reserve series apricot aproev says on is an artful interpretation of a Belgian style Cezanne brewed with peppers and apricots. Another aged in California French oak third-use Chardonnay barrels for six months imparts a wonderful aromatic and light oak tannins that mesh well. No single element tends to dominate. And it says here that it's gotten some awards, the 2011 LA International Commercial Beer Competition Silver Medal for fruit and vegetable beers. Sweet. Epip hooray. Victory. Checking this beer out. It's a very hazy peach. Yeah. Looks like a Bellini. Yeah. It does. Yeah. The orange in there. The head is really nice on this actually. It's lasted at least in my glass for a little while since I've poured it. Oh, this smells so good. Yeah. As soon as you poured it, I can smell it. Yeah. I was too. I'm getting sour apricots. Mm-hmm. Sour apricots. You get the Chardonnay in there. Definitely. Yeah. And there's a funky quality to it and a musty like grape skin. A bit of earth and dirt. Yeah. As I get grass blades. Blades of grass. Yeah. Either one works. You definitely get that fibrous oak. Yeah. And maybe a dusty library book or you know like old paper. They're peppery note and smell that as well. Mm-hmm. But when I said paper, I don't mean oxidation. It's just like the quality of walking into an old library. Yeah. Mill dewy paper. Stop it, Rubio. It's making me thirsty. That tartness, the acidity and the apricots and the nose are really bright and very fresh smelling. I'm digging that. Ooh. You get a bit of a sharpness right up front and then that dives away and it becomes really really soft. But it's a lot of fleshy apricot. Yeah. I'm getting something that's like a dirty brute champagne. Yeah. Totally. And there's a bit of tartness there but not as much as the nose led me to believe there was going to be. But there is some lactic acid there. Mm-hmm. Right up on the front. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. Like fleshy apricots. And a little bit of like wet hay, that sort of farmy stuff. And I think that grassiness that Anastasia was talking about is a lot more apparent in the flavor for me. Hay grass and pepper a lot more than the apricot. It's quite a bit of pepper too. Definitely carries over the roof of my mouth. But I really love the way that the mouth feel changes on this. Yeah. From the front to the middle, it's one thing and then at the end it just softens out. For all intents and purposes, it's a pretty soft beer. Mm-hmm. And that's a really interesting thing to me. I expected it to be more bright and sharp. Yeah. But it's more kind of soft, not necessarily creamy but just soft. Mm-hmm. That tongue tingle. Yeah. I agree with that. For me, it's kind of a combination of the pepper because there's a lot of pepper there. And maybe a little bit of the hop. I mean, it's got a grassy hop going on there. I don't know exactly what hop it is but it's a very grassy, earthy one. The farmy qualities that we are already describing really remind me of what Prairie Ales is kind of doing. A little bit. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I wonder if they're using some similar components. There's a lot of similar components. That's a really accurate comparison. Because it's kind of like America but I think a little bit more, what's the green label one? Prairie hop. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think you're right. I think there is a lot of similarities there. The yeast tastes very similar. And that's good company to be in. Oh, fuck yeah, dude. I agree with you that while the nose is telling me that I'm going to expect tart, there's a little bit of disappointment that I don't get it. But I do think that there's a nice balance between the smell and the nose and what does wash over the mouth. I think those complement each other even if it's not really the same thing in both. And it surprised me how dry it was. When I smelled and I expected a little bit of sweetness, implied sweetness because I know that with the aromas that I was getting, I was expecting a very like not sweet, very dry beer but there's usually some implied sweetness that comes with the fruit and some of the wood sometimes. And I didn't get any of that when I got it was a very dry, earthy, minimally beer. Mm-hmm. I'm just nice. I like it. Hovre. I mean, Apoiv is with pepper. Oh, apricot with pepper and that's what this is. Okay. Straight forward. Man, they make it so fancy. But it's not. Mm-hmm. We're a terrible Frenchman. Why are we French again? Is it? Because I don't... Shave your pits. Yeah. We're going to do a video some day and they'll see. But it's fine. We don't look at your pits. So. Yeah. Just because if you took off your top and you put your arms behind your head, it would look like a weird alien with giant eyes and furry ears. Sorry. Good. So I keep forgetting that this is bear-laged. Really didn't get to a bad thing that it's lost? It does get a little lost, I think for me the chardonnay doesn't come out as much. It doesn't the nose, but in the flavor I don't really get a lot of chardonnay. I don't know. I mean, it's 30 years, so some of that chardonnay flavor has probably died off already. It's probably all gone and probably inert now. Yeah. Whatever it is left just kind of blends in with the fleshy apricot with the fancy French peppers. It's definitely tannic like it said in the description. But the only thing that gives away its barrel-aged ness to me is that mouth feel that does kind of evolve and change, but it still isn't as carbonated, I guess, as I would like my saissons to be. That makes a lot of sense. I think that the chardonnay I was getting in the nose, but I wonder if the flavors that they go into a saison end up kind of dominating a masking mat as well. I think they do. It's a lot. I mean, if you have a lighter beer with a chardonnay, you can get a lot more of that in it. Yeah. But again, I think after three uses, those barrels are neutral and aren't going to impart any more of that chardonnay character and are just going to add whatever yeast and bacteria are living in the wood now. But I got to say, I really dig the fruit component on this one. I thought the apricot was done pretty well. It's just kind of like a seasoning to crank up a couple of the other aspects of the saison base. I dig it. It drank very smooth. And I want more. Now, there's more. The only negative I think I saw with this beer, the only thing I could actually say was a real negative is my last sip. I got a little hit of alcohol that I really wasn't expecting. And I didn't really get for the rest of the life of the beer as I was drinking it, but I got a little hit of alcohol and I really shouldn't. And at 6.8%, the way this was drinking, maybe it was my head or something, but I thought I tasted it pretty clearly. I got that with a beer on last week's episode. I was saying I chugged the last bit of it and all of a sudden I got a big burst of alcohol. That's right. Yeah, you told me. And y'all were like, great, you crazy. You are crazy. That's irrelevant. That's my point. We're all mad here. That's true. This last beer that we just had was apricot up nice, according to Michel Lambeau. Michel. Michel Lambeau. And the next beer is called romancin zakon. Is that how you pronounce that? romancin zakon, inception series beer. It's an IPA aged in oak barrels, 7% ABV. It's a limited release available in bottles. Omaha just hit the 80s, so remancing with some just came out there, finally. They're a big Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas fans. Man, who isn't? I think I should move to Omaha because I don't know what this is that it's referencing. It's a movie, right? Now the movies go romancin the stone and there was a sequel called jewel of the Nile. What is it? They're both so good. They're so good. Is it about stone love? It's like if Indiana Jones was retarded. Anyway, this is according to the write up perfectly suited for Missouri oak barrel aging. Our west coast inspired IPA is rich in flavor, steeped in bitterness and heavily aromatic due to the use of citra hops. Oh my god, so this was the only one that I saw had a bottle date on it. The past hour 23 is fucked. 7 2013. It's kind of a muddy golden color. Almost orange. Yeah, almost bronze. What a great head. It looks like candy. Mm hmm. A little toffeeish. Yeah. Okay. And Mike, you're right. The head is just like soapy, Mr. Bubble foam and it's just sticking there. Is that why they romance the cones so they can get the head? Yes. Yes. Oh man, this smells great. So I'm getting pineapple and coconut hints of vanilla and then lots of real citrusy hop. Oh yeah. Candy. Mm hmm. The pineapple for me is almost like the outside of the fresh pineapple. Right, right. It's not the flesh. Yeah, when you start cutting into the pineapple and you rind it, like you get the rind off of it and you smell that rind, it's a mixture of that pineapple and a woody character. Mm hmm. That's awesome. Yeah, and pine. And lots of like citrus and tangerine and oranges and the coconut is interesting. I get that too. Mm hmm. I tend to get coconut out of barrel aged IPAs. Yeah. So it'll be a common theme. Smells like a musty man. Does it? I could rub this under my armpits so you wouldn't know the difference. It's the most kind of mossy, piney, musty, I don't know. It reminds me of like a flammeled man in the woods. A fat old man in the woods? A flammeled man. Oh, my what? I'm mixing up my images here. Smells like it would keep me safe. It kind of does. Yeah, it kind of does. Like he can pick me some berries and chop me some wood and kill a bear, kill a bear with his bare hands and he smells kind of bare hands because he keeps bare hands in his pocket. Yeah, they're from the last bear he killed. Man, that smells so good. There's a, I mean, it's just such a lush aroma. Ooh, it gets him a little creamy. Mm hmm. Right. That was just after he killed the bear. All those tropical notes. And then there's also a pine thing going on and some mint. It's fucking nice. That's incredibly smooth. That is really nice. Wow. Oh, yeah. I don't want to have it in my mouth all the time. I'm so glad I grabbed this. I grabbed this last minute because I was grabbing all the other ones. Every other beer that they have bottled that I saw, at least, all come from a similar series and label. And this was only one I saw outside of that and I was like, Ooh, what's that one? So I snagged this one as well. Oh, yeah. It kind of looks like a brewery label. Yeah, like the brewery from California. The brewery, yeah. Okay. So charred wood. Yes. It's kind of like a mixture of a bunch of different citrus peels in an envelope of charred wood. Just lightly charred, not super burnt or anything, but just somewhat toasted wood. Oh, that's so dominant for me. We're recording this on the first day of October when our weather starting to turn down a little bit cooler. Yeah. That's nice. They don't have to know that. I'm just saying it would be weather appropriate if we were living elsewhere, I think. Agreed. I feel like this has a lot more balance than other barrel aged IPAs that I've come across. Yeah. I was really, really worried about this one. I was too. I'm like, barrel aged IPAs, like most of the time they're not that good. And I'm really surprised at how much of the hop character they were able to retain while dulling out a lot of the other stuff, like the sharpness that it would normally have, I guess, just based on what I'm tasting in the base beer. It's all very smoothed out even and a bit creamy too. Mm-hmm. It's bitter on the front. It is. And I'm liking how it's building up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If this was a man, I would definitely romance his cone. Goddamn it. I can't help it! It's like all these flavor notes, I'm just building essentially Paul Bunyan in my brain. And I think part of that might be because, aside from all those bitter citruses, there's a very like sprucy pine, woodsy kind of... And I love it. And it goes really well with that lightly charred, oh, this is a very open clearing surrounded by pine trees. Like that's the image I get. Yeah. It's kind of in the cold when it's not as sharp smelling outside. During the winter, when everything starts turning colder, all the aromas kind of dull out. When you're out hunting wolves. Yes. From your helicopter. Grant gets it. I only hunt wolves from my bare feet, from the last bear I killed. [laughter] That's so good. It's a bit peppery too. I'm really surprised by this, I really like it. I don't necessarily get a lot of the oak. I just think that it's really harmonious with the rest of the things that are going on. It's a little bit toasted oak, just a little bit. Almost dipping its foot into a Spanish cedar like humidor wood. It cuts across the roof of my mouth on the sides of my tongue. Yeah. That's where I'm picking that up. Starts to blend into the bitterness a little bit. They go kind of hand in hand. I don't really want this to end. So Michael Douglas tried to claim that he got cancer from Kenalingas. Are you still doing romances in the stomach? Are you still doing romances in romances in the stomach? Yes, he is. So it's Danny DeVito. What? Is he in both of them? Wait. He's just enjoying the night. I don't know. But I know El Juanpo's in it. Huh? He's like, "Hey, you don't lie to them? Don't lie to them. Do you know who this is? Don't know who it is. Don't know who it is. Fuck yeah, El Juanpo." All those 80s movies, we're really trying to sell romance novels. Because in Lethal Weapon, Danny Glover's wife was making a shit ton of money under a pseudonym writing romance novels. That's true. Fuck him. Hell. They were really trying to promote all that stuff. From the decade that brought you mannequin and mannequin, too. Are you surprised they had shitty taste? What was that guy who was so famous because he was on cover? Fabio. Fabio. Yeah. He got hit in the face with a duck once. Like a duck face? Like a fucking duck hit him in the face. Ducks are the rapiest animals out there. I don't think they're like a rollercoaster. He's like, "I am on the rollercoaster and Fabio. I dog hit my face and there's all these pictures of money on the internet." Just bloodied, like feathered. Bloody, feathered Fabio face. He romanced that duck real fast for this face. The worst part, when he went to the hospital, the duck wouldn't even pay the bill. No. No. Cut point out. Just cut that out. That's staying in. I want the audience to understand why I hate you. No. What's a mallered with you? Oh, fuck you. What's a mallered with you? It's such a stretch. What's in it? Wow. Do you think about that on the car ride over here? Like you just have like some duck jokes in your pocket. I have a manual and I write out all these little jokes in it. Those are jokes. Those are cries for help. They're both. Oh my God. This beer's great. Yeah, I think sickness and alcohol mean drunk or grant quicker. Me too. I'm starting to feel these beers. Yeah, that was romancing the cone that we just finished from the Inception series. And this next one before you go to break is called Hop God. And this is number three in the Reserve series. It's a Belgian style IPA aged in Chardonnay barrels, also Chardonnay barrels. 1.1% ABV, 108 IBUs, boom, limited release available in bottles. And this right up is pretty interesting. It says, should I do a voice? I don't know if I can do it. Why don't you have Grant do a voice? The only voice I can do is sick. Yeah, I have Grant do a voice. Okay. I'm going to do it. Contained within this bottle. This is a voice I was going to do. Okay. Sorry. Go, go. Contained within this bottle is an artful creation, which began with our Hop God Belgian style IPA, then enhanced by a six month maturation in French oak Chardonnay barrels. This version of Hop God is a fascinating big, bold Belgian style triple, hopped in very high amounts to concentrate citrus, grapefruit, and floral aromatics in the name. You're supposed to say, ah, flavor notes and then like skip over. No, but this file. The edition of Chardonnay barrel aging adds further dimension in oak tannins to an already wonderful complex ale, bringing to mind tropical fruits and peat. Goddamn it. We know of nothing that compares and nothing that compares. Well, let's see how this works out. This looks similar to the last one, actually. Yeah. A little brighter though. Yeah, it's a little brighter, a little less caramel, less muddy, dirty. More gold. Yeah, definitely see a lot clearer through the beer. I can see the head right through this. It looks like a lion's mane. That's another one with a great head sticking around. It's almost like shaving cream. Yeah. So I actually got to try the Hop God at Papio Leon. Fucking hell. No, you guys are like getting wasted over here. Okay, so I actually got to try the Hop God when I was in Omaha. It's delicious already without being aged in the Chardonnay barrels. I was really excited, but they didn't have this one available for me to drink outside to buy the bottle. Okay. It definitely smells like a triple. You get a little bit of that clove. Hints of fruit. That's a melon. Melon. Yeah, there you go. Melon. Yeah. I was about to say mango, but it's more melon. And there's a dusty quality to it too. It's minerally granite-like. There's a bunch of juicy, kind of old fermented citrus over on top of it. It's funny because this is not what I usually smell for an IPA. It's definitely more triple in quality. Yeah, so it even has that kind of alcohol burn that you get from fairly fresh driples. There's something kind of rubbery about it too. Yeah, a little bit. I think the phenols are going from spicy and just kind of dipping its toe into rubbery. Ah, okay. And you definitely pick up a bit of that oak. And this one I can actually smell it. Yes. Yes. Okay. That is great. That's tasty. Oh, wow. Mm-hmm. Wait. Let me try it again. Any else on the nose, creamy marshmallow candy things? Mm-hmm. Okay. There is a slight band-aid quality to this. However, I really, really dig that base beer. I think the hot notes are really, really nice. It's not extremely overpowering. There's definitely an alcohol component to this one. There's a big after-bursed alcohol. Mm-hmm. Okay, these are not the main flavors. It says to me like fruit roll up and orange candies in the best way. Oh, oh, look at the creamy topical gushers. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Mm-hmm. But it's also way more bitter than that sort of thing. I mean, there's a nice bitterness component to this. It's not super overbearing, but it's more bitter than gushers. The thing that's going on for me is that the bitterness is very closely tied in with that alcohol note, so it's really amplified at the end. I mean, I'm definitely not thinking 108-IDU at all. But you're swallowing it. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't come off like that, but toward the end, I don't know, it just kind of ends like a gin, you know? Yeah, it's just like this, just alcohol, birth, like, dragon's breath kind of thing going on. Or like a slap in the face with a duck. [LAUGHTER] No, but I mean, at the end, it kind of becomes junipery and citrusy and a little bit like rotten orange peel, and then the alcohol really hits, and then there's a minty thing that happens. I don't know. It's a very herbaceous sort of ending with a lot of alcohol, but that beginning is really cool. There are some gins that have citrus, and I'm trying to remember some specific brands, but this is highly reminiscent of that. It's really amazing to me that if you told me this was gin barrel aged, I'd absolutely agree with it. I'd be like, fuck yeah, this is, of course, it tastes like it was aged in the gin barrel. Hey, Nebraska Brewing Company. You know what you should do? Send us your beer. Yeah. Seriously, do you think any beer should be aged in gin barrels? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fucking Jesterking has one. It's called Viking Metal. Oh, that one's aged in gin? Oh, yeah. I usually don't care for gin. I think Rogue has one as well. This doesn't remind me of that. For me, it does. I mean, gin is a broad sort of spectrum. You can get all sorts of different types of gin. I only drink the cheapest plastic bottle gin, though. There's your phone. Oh, good. Yes. I gotta give a shout out to Anchor Brewing Company. Oh, fuck. The Junipero, I just picked up a bottle of that a few weeks back, and it's probably the best gin I've ever had. Yeah. And it was crazy affordable. It was like 24 bucks over the 750 milliliter bottle, and it's amazing. I went over to your house, and you served some of that to me, and it was just mind-blowing. Mm-hmm. Absolutely mind-blowing. And you're not even really a gin guy, necessarily. No, not really. It floored me. Completely flirted. That's for that bottle. We did. We did. He was like, "More please." Okay, this is my last one. Maybe the next two were my last one. It was a third. Sounds like it got sexy. Mm-hmm. It was so sexy. It was crying in my tits. Yeah. It was so good. And he does that every time. Certainly. He did that night. You did come. Yeah. Okay. I can't do that almost. I'm crying. Yeah. Yeah. Man, this fucking... Okay. So... Did you hear me? Yeah, I'm going through puberty right now. Smelling this beer is really interesting, because I really can't nail down exactly what combination of fruits are. There's definitely citrus there. There's definitely some kind of peach and pear and apple. And apricot. Okay, yeah. Mm-hmm. So, does a heavy booze backbone end up coming out if it's aged too long or if it's too fresh? With this beer, and I thought about it. I thought about what it would be like to age something like this. And it's a very fine line. Because you've got a hop component that's there that I don't necessarily want it to die completely, but I do want the alcohol to fade and I do want the band-aidiness to go away a little bit. Yeah, and that's still there, but it's not very apparent. I mean, it's just barely there. Mm-hmm. So, you think that means there's like a really short shelf life on when you could probably drink this and maybe we are a little bit off? I would want to see this beer with another six months on it. Oh, okay. Just to see where it's at. All right, this is a beer that I definitely want comparison though, so I'd want to try it fairly fresh. I'd want to try it maybe three months in and then maybe after those three months, another three to six months. Mm-hmm. I mean, I got to try the regular hop God like I was saying previously. It's just great. It has such finesse. I didn't get any of this boozy note at the end of it. And the more I drink it, the more apparent those hops are because it's becoming less of a fruit bomb like it was earlier and that bitterness and those hops are really kind of coming to the forefront. Uncle and mating. I don't know. It's just, it's a really good beer. It's a really good beer that I think, like Mike said, can definitely benefit from like six months of aging. And not really beyond that. I mean, whatever age it's at right now, I don't know when this beer came out, but whatever age it's at right now, another six months, I think it would be perfect because that phenolic would probably smooth out just a little bit. So maybe they need to sit on their own batch. I mean, this is already age of six months in the barrel itself. And then maybe after that, they might benefit from just sitting on it a little longer before it's distributing it. It's a tough call for a brewery because whenever they're sitting on product. It's taking up space. Taking up a lot of space and not making money. Exactly. Man, what a good beer. Do you guys want to go to break? Yeah, let's do that. Sweet. I've never been to that city. It's an Oregon break organ. There's only one full city in Oregon. It's Portland. Everything else is just backward cesspool. No, dude. Nobody's here to break. I'm totally dressed for Oregon right now. Everybody's here to Portland. Nobody's here to break. You need a scarf. You don't have enough tattoos. That's going to change soon. I don't know. Wait, you need a tattoo? Of what? She's already has like 27 of them, but they're all small. Yeah. You have a sleeve? Possibly. Should we discuss this on like or out? Anytime it's fine. I prefer not to sit on mic right now. You know what we should do is we should squirt a bunch of dye or food coloring in a mics butt and then you just fist them all the way to your elbow. I'll spin them around on your elbow and then you yank it out real quick. That sounds pretty amazing. I'm so down. Do I have to pay for this? No, no, no. It's free for you. Okay. So what are you paying for the idea to happen? So let me finish. So you spin them and then whatever mark is left on your arm with all those colors, that's what you're going to get tattooed on there. But they have to wash it first. Otherwise you'll get some kind of weird infection because burning man. Okay. Let's take a break. Gross is description. It's peeved. I can't even do that. Holy shit. Have a stage. That's good. Is it amazing? I know. Oh, baby. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. And we're back. I like when you take initiative. Shut up. It's not your turn. Sorry, Nesters. This is getting funny. Please step on me some more. I'm almost there. You've been there for a while. A permastain of there. Yep. Oh, mistress black Betty. Black Betty. Yeah. That's our next beer. Oh my God. That's a really good mistress name for me. I'm trademarking that right now. Slightly brownish yellow Betty. Filipino Betty. Yeah. Filipino Betty. Oh, beige Betty. Bang, bang, bang. Yeah. Black Betty is part of the reserve series. It's their number two. From that series. Wow. My voice is fucked. And it's a Russian Imperial stout. Please let someone else read the description. Black is knight in every bit imperial. Oh, shit. No, I'm not doing that. Black is knight in every bit imperial. This RIS was originally launched to tremendous accolades. Going further, the Stranahan's whiskey barrel aged version meshes the rich chocolates. The coffee-like aromatics with the sweet whiskey nose and drying character of the oak. You had me at Stranahan's. Yeah. So behind on the palate are the hops, held in restraint by the wonderfully full mouthfeel and broad flavors, brought on by the perfect blend of so many malted barley varieties. Ready to enjoy upon a release. That's so good. And perfect for extended celery. That was pretty good. Can you say extended one more time? Awards. Extended. Awards. Silver 2009 US Open Beer Competition Imperial Stout. Gold 2010. You owe something beer competition with barrel aged strong beer sweet. You ruined it. And that was my Rubio Robobot 2009. Sorry. His voice is degraded into a robot. Yeah, it has. And this fucking beer is really dark. Really dark. It's black like my leather collars. Yeah, with just the slightest brownish red highlight around the edge when you hold it up to the light. Just barely. You can't see through this at all. Great head on this one too. Yeah. This Java head. It's dark. It's chocolate milk like head. Oh my God. Did you smell this? Yeah. I went ahead. Ooh. Oh, that smells great. It smells like Java. And... Anise. Cherries. And chocolate. Like chocolate cherry biscotti. Yes. Ahhh. And I'm getting the Stranahan's. Wait. What? Like specifically Stranahan? Stranahan's. Stranahan's. Stranahan's is very distinct. I love Stranahan's whiskey. It's been a little while since I've had it, but I... What's going on with it? What's going on with it again? Stranahan's. Stranahan's. It's not Shenanigans. I still haven't seen that movie. Damn it. I don't even know what you're talking about. Well, that smells great. Rich coffee and chocolate. Yeah, and I think Anastasia nailed it with the cherries because there's something brownie batter with cherry in it. Yeah. Or rich baked brownies with cherries. Dark cherries. Like dried cherries. I mean, not fresh cherries, but... Yeah. Oh no, not that fresh shit. And nobody got time for fresh shit. All of the alcohol that's peeking through is caramelly, very vanilla-y. Yeah, vanilla. All Stranahan's. It's pretty huge here. Mm-hmm. It's like a dark chocolate cherry biscotti dipped into a caramel mocha coffee concoction. Oh. With some coffee. Oh, that sounds awesome. Anastasia, that was such a perfect description because I just took a sip. Oh shit. Oh, man. Oh, man. Goddamn it. That's good. That's really good. Wow. Mm-hmm. And it's dry too. Mm-hmm. Just like they said. So yeah, a bunch of really rich dark chocolates and wood. Like there's a good portion of wood there, vanilla, cherries, coffee bitterness, the bitterness of like coffee grounds. If you crunch on a roasted coffee bean, it's similar to that. To me, it's highly reminiscent of a bis with less anise. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Ooh. I like my marshmallows roasted black, like crispy, crispy black. I see where you're going with this. Yeah, and it has that flavor. So I mean, they're not at that point, the outer skin of the marshmallow isn't creamy anymore. It's just as crispy, sweet, caramel, sweet, almost sooty. Yeah. And I accidentally checked on a little bit of this beer like I do sometimes. You know, the tears running down my face make it, whatever, but you're a trooper. You just keep going. Always. Always. Yeah, sometimes when she drinks her beer, it goes. [laughter] And then you take a little breather, you kind of bat your eyelashes and everything's forgiven. Ruby, I sometimes wish this was a video podcast, just to see your face doing that. But I definitely get that really like super blackened, burnt marshmallow skin and I sploosh so hard. This is so good. This is delicious. We were talking about the boozy quality of the hop god earlier and how it was a little bit off-putting. This one's boozy quality. It just comes out like kind of cinches the nose hairs as I breathe out my nose in such a delicious way. It's not offensive. No, it's perfect. And I love the fact that this beer is not sweet at all. No. It is not sweet. And you're getting all these, like I said, chocolate and coffee. It's a dark chocolate bitter nose. Yeah. And all that other stuff, but it's so dry and bitter and roasty. Yeah. Dude, it's great. Delicious. It'll go great with s'mores. Yes. Oh, yeah. So, Nebraska Brewing Company, why are you guys not here in Texas? We're just here in our mouths more. Because we would buy up all of their stock of everything in one false swoop, which is God. This is great. Please come to Texas. These two, man. This is so good. This is broken ideals. Pay all the huge fees. I was already completely won over with the Hop God two years ago, I think, when Scott Mesker busted that one out. Yeah. And I've not had any of the other ones since then. And this is phenomenal. This is over the top good. And as I keep drinking it, I'm getting like a baking chocolate. Like that dusty, really bitter, completely unsweetened chocolate powder. It's like a truffle. It's almost like a truffle. Yeah. A little less creamy than a truffle, but it still has that bitter chocolate dusting that you get on top of it. Like eating one of those dusted truffles with a mocha center, dark chocolate on the outside, and then you pop a cherry cordial without any of the syrup in there. Oh, fuck. It's so good. Yeah. We are just totally stroking this beer. These are Nebraska guys. They have a ton of other beers that are all on tap that they don't bottle. I mean, they gave me a nine beer sampler. They even had this new pumpkin beer that was really good. And none of them were the ones that they have on bottle, except for the hop god booze without a chardonnay. I guess they're just moving to canning, I think, this year. Oh, good. They opened up a new warehouse for it, and they have three designs for cans that they're about to roll out. So they're doing pretty well. I'm going to save the rest of it here. I think I've described it as well as I possibly can. So we can compare? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keep some of this, and I want to compare it to the next one. So that last beer was black Betty, this beer is sexy Betty. Oh, sexy Betty. I'm not turned on. Well, who's got a better sexy voice than I do? Okay. No one does. Nobody. No. No one has a sexy voice. Let's just go around the table and hear your sexy voice. Mike, wait, what? Say sexy Betty and your sexy voice. Sexy Betty? That's a terrible sexy voice. Grant. Sexy Betty. Dude, I didn't know a corky from life goes on. It was a phone operator this time. Is that the only mixed hand cap guy you know? Yes. Aside from my cousin, and it could be any one of the carloses in my family. Anastasia, let's hear your sexy voice. Sexy Betty! Okay. You win. You want to read the... Sweet nose creature. Adventure. Okay. Stop, stop, stop. It's like metal ocholips is reading our fucking thing. Hey, they're sexy. I'm screaming. I'm screaming. I'm screaming. Okay, so sexy Betty is part of their inception series, and it's a Russian Imperial Stout aged in brandy barrels. You like my sexy voice? I mean, this is my... It's nice. Lots of people find my regular voice sexy. I feel like NBC just lubricated your voice back to sexiness. I know. It's just... I can just feel the sexiness lubricating my throat. Mike, I don't call you the sexiness. So sexy Betty is 10% ABV, it's a limited release available in bottles. And the description says, "A sweet nose greets the Avengers and this mad about black bad-day Russian Imperial Stout and 50-year-old brandy barrels." Yeah, I'm not really good at sexy. "An elegantly sexy surprise wakes the palette which migrates from a hint of brandy into the wonderfully lingering roasted malt character." That's pretty good. And comparison to the rest of our sexy voice attacks. I gotta say, Anastasia looks completely indifferent. I'm looking at... She's looking at her phone. Sucks. And these socks are sexier. Wait, wait, your fucking sexy voice was just Rob Zombie. She didn't have enough purple links on r/sucks. So it's... I'm actually looking at a dress with Steve Bhushami's face on it, and that's sexier. Okay, I'm glad to have you as a host in the show. So... So checking this beer out in the light looks very similar. I'd say that there's just slightly more highlights out of this one than I was getting into the last one. Maybe a little bit, but the head is exactly the same, and it dissipates more quickly. Not as aromatic as the other one. No, not at all. No. And I don't know about you guys, but on the brandy barrel aged beers and the rum barrel aged beers, I think that's something that's actually pretty common. I find that a lot of times it deadens the aromatics a little bit. I mean, I get chocolate, but there's more of a boozy note that's popping out of this one. Yeah, it's definitely more muted. So something I'm curious about is this beer is actually a kind of cool get, at least for me, because when I was there, I was talking to the guys behind the bar, this guy Dylan, who's the son of the head brewer, Paul, I believe. And I was chatting him up for a while, and he was talking about how they have this new beer coming up called Sexy Betty, which was two weeks away from release. So I was able to convince him to let me get a bottle of it on the condition that we review after the release of it, and it just came out this beer. So I wonder if it's so new that it hasn't had enough time to sit in the bottle as well to release as much of the aromatics that we were getting from the... I don't know. I mean, generally with barrel aged imperial stouts, sometimes you'll lose some of the aromatic because of what happens in the barrel. Just so that our listeners are aware, the Sexy Betty has a bottle date. It's only nine days old. It was from September 23, 2013. Man, they hooked you up. Damn. Yeah, really young. Black Betty was from June 29th of 2013. That one's had a little bit more time to sit in the bottle. This other one is like maybe nine days old at max. So ignore what I said. So I'm smelling it, and the nose isn't as pungent and as big as the black Betty, but there are a couple of differences like Mike said. You don't get as much of the licorice, but instead of that, I'm getting a little bit of a maple-y character. More fudgy. Yeah. Something like that or molasses-y. Mm-hmm. Smells a little bit more sweet, but a lot more subdued. Yeah. I think you hit it with the molasses. I think that's what it is. I mean, I first said maple, but it's somewhere between maple and molasses for me. I think that the previous one had some molasses as well. I think that it's just more pronounced than the aromatics with this one. The sexy Betty definitely smells less creamy, less caramell-y. The regular black Betty has more of that creamy caramel nose. You know, I just tasted it, and the sexy Betty in the front tastes more creamy than the black Betty does to me. But then it kind of resolves to molasses and alcohol toward the end. It's a very strong in the booze. Yeah, it is. I got ginger snap cookies. Mm-hmm. But that's really good still. It's still really tasty. Ginger snaps. Yeah. Like for a split second, you get ginger snaps, like right in the middle where you drink it and it washes over the front half of your tongue and it goes up really quickly to the roof of your mouth and right before it drops back down, ginger snaps. It's like it's occupying the space that Anise did in the black Betty. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. I still think that they're both really damn tasty beers. They're both fantastic. They could put them next to each other on equal footing. There are very few differences right now as I'm tasting the sexy Betty. I'm going to go back and try the black Betty. I'm really digging the black Betty as it's warming up. I think that the sexy Betty is just way too boozy for me. It's a little young, I think. I think that's the problem. I mean, it's not a problem because fuck that's still a really good beer. I'm talking about minutia. When it comes to brandy and whiskey barrel aging, I still fall on the side of whiskey. Yeah, I mean, we're whiskey people. Certainly. But most of the brandy barrel aged things that I've had have really been dominated by fusile alcohol and just a very heavy, nose-burny aromatics. Well, like we pointed out, we got this really fresh. Yeah. And maybe as it aged, the alcoholic wane and the other sweetness might come out a little bit more. Yeah. And I think that this beer would probably keep developing over the next year or two. You know, this is a really good beer right now. I think I would sit on it for a year and I think in a year, it'll be better than the black Betty. Given how great the black Betty delivered for us, I don't know if it's going to be better than the black Betty. I don't know. I really think that the black Betty really nailed something. And I think that the flavors that are present in the black Betty, I don't know that there's enough that's going to die off in the sexy Betty to really bring it over the black Betty for me. Kind of expecting in this sexy Betty, I was expecting a little more plum or grapeiness to it almost. From the brandy? Yeah. It just seems to be a little sharp and maybe if we had the sexy Betty before the black Betty, our opinions would be a lot different, but the sexy Betty is still just a little sharp. It is a little bit sharp. It doesn't encompass my mouth all the way. Like it definitely goes through, up and down, it doesn't go all the way around the sides. I think one of the big things that I'm missing in the sexy Betty that I really loved in the black Betty was that vanilla. The vanilla from that whiskey barrel was pretty good and pretty apparent in that black Betty. In the sexy Betty, I'm missing that and it's replaced by a fruit note, like just a slight fig or some kind of dark fruit note. It makes it a little different. I don't think it makes it worse. Depends on what you like. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have as much experience with brandy as I do with whiskey. Same here. But I find that the nuances of the different whiskeys that I have are far more apparent from blend to blend and batch to batch than brandy. I've had a decent amount of brandy in my day and it's all very similar. That's what's coming into play for me here is that there's not enough nuance. It's become dominated by the brandy. And I think it's got a lot of the same base stuff. You get the dark chocolate, you get a little bit of a Java quality, there's some cream in there. There's the black Betty is more biscotti rich chocolate malted milk ball like all the milky whiskey like chocolates and coffees. The sexy Betty is a little bit more fruity, just a touch fruity. But the rest of that stuff, the rest of the decadent chocolate deliciousness is toned down just a little bit. And there's a little bit of an alcohol burn there too that I'm not really digging so much, but I know that's going to settle out with some age. I think what's interesting to me is I could be wrong on this, but I believe that in an earlier series when they're trying out the sexy Betty doing it more experimentation, they try to deal with cognac and I bet that we get a little bit more of the vanilla and the sweeter flavors that were kind of wishing we had in the sexy Betty now with a cognac rather than just a brandy. Yeah, cognac is a really interesting decadent sort of dessert whiskey. I mean, brandy's kind of also, yeah, I think brandy is sweet in a different way in that it's more fruit like whereas cognac is more of the wood, the vanilla's and all those other things. I think the sexy Betty would go better with food and I think the black Betty would go better with parties, parties, maybe parties, but I want some bread pudding with the black Betty. The black Betty makes me crave more decadent desserts or some really rich cheese. The sexy Betty makes me crave more entrees, proteins, something maybe smoked like a smoked bacon type thing or like a smoked pork, which is essentially just whatever. Well, to extend what Mike was saying, the black Betty, yeah, you're right, I want some bread pudding. The sexy Betty would go better with something like a blackberry pie. I think there's a difference in the intent of each of those barrel finishes that lends themselves more to, yeah, something like a sexy chocolate milk butter dessert for the black Betty and the sexy Betty is more fruity and can also be more umami and more protein meaty as well. Am I wrong for wanting smoked salmon with the sexy Betty? No. That sounds great. Yes. Okay. No, I remember to be like, that's kind of what I crave. But then I think about how the sexy Betty would kind of overpower the salmon just a little bit. They would be competing a little too much. But the salmon has capers. He didn't mention that part. And then John would die. I'm allergic to capers oddly enough. So I was thinking something a little gamey, like a smoked game, like you don't want something as delicate as a fish and like, yeah, like a, like exactly like a smoked lamb with some sort of chutney, like an apple chutney. Oh, do a venison sausage with a raspberry glaze. Exactly. Oh my God. And that's the kind of thing that I crave when I drink a sexy Betty. I'm like, I want some sort of strange meat with something a little fruity in it to bring this beer out, like draw out the fruit flavors and you give the beer a food that has a little smoke and it's going to draw out the dryness and the brandy a little bit more. Like you just want to go out into the woods and kill something. Yeah. Like, I want, I want my boyfriend. From romantic. Yeah. Yeah. I want my Paul Bunyan. Pull out his hatchet. To pull out his hatchet and make me some fucking food so that we can eat something with sexy Betty. This is getting insufferable. Let's go to rankings. I got it. Mike. Yeah. I'm really excited. I'm in. Okay. Go. I must say we did not have a bad beer at all this evening. No, they were all very, very good. And we say that often, but this time it's true. That's absolutely true. No, it's true every time. But this time, this time, I think the beers were of a higher quality than the other times that we say something about that. Well, now it's down to personal preference. It is. And the bottom beer that I have, it's still delicious in its own right. The apricot applause, the fruit notes in this beer were just phenomenal. I really, really dug it and I dug the mouth feel. I thought it was really interesting. Really kept me wanting to go in and continue to drink more. There were a couple of things that maybe set it off from the other ones. I wish the Cezanne aspect was maybe just a little bit more prevalent. My number four is what we're drinking currently, the sexy Betty. I think that this is a really delicious beer. In comparison to its sister beer, the black Betty, there were certain nuances that were killed from the brandy barrel. Beryl aged beers to me take on a very similar tone and they're very boozy. It's good, but it doesn't lend the nuance that maybe like a whiskey barrel or some other type of barrel would lend to it. My number three, hop god, man, oh man. It had been a while since I had this beer and I still thought it was absolutely fantastic. I loved the base triple that was going on there. It was really good. And I really love the way that it was hopped. Nothing was necessarily out of balance except for that booze note that came in there. My number two, probably one of the better oak aged IPAs that I've ever come across. Balance was the name of the game with this one. Oh yeah. I really thought that Anastasia had a pretty good description of it where she was thinking of a clearing on the edge of like a pine forest that made a lot of sense to me. Pineapple rind and the coconut and the other things that were going on with that one. I could drink that entire bottle by myself easily. My number one was the abyss of the Midwest, the black Betty. That was right up my alley. It had everything that I wanted in a barrel aged imperial stout. I don't know why this one isn't rated higher or isn't on anybody's radar. You heard it here first. That beer is fucking incredible. It's awful. Don't buy it. Don't buy it. And send it to us. It's a special fucking beer. It really is. Nebraska send me a message on Facebook. I kind of want some more of this black Betty. We need more black Betty. Hey, my birthday is coming up. Well, thank you, Michael. I appreciate your liking. Thanks, Mikey. I'm going to go next. Oh, side note. What? I'm drunk. We now, well, congratulations. I don't know how that's different from the rest of your life. I'm going next and I'm going to start with my number five, which is apricot opera armor. So the apricot was actually really good. I was a little bit disappointed in the fact that it wasn't sour, like I thought I was going to get when I smelled it. It had a little bit of a tartness there. There might be some rogue lactobacillus floating around in there, but it wasn't a sour and as bright and as fruity as I was smelling it. But the flavor that I did get was really good. It was this earthy seison with a little bit of apricot and this roundness and creaminess to it. I really dug it. Number four for me was hop god. And that was a really delicious beer. Really liked all the flavors that I was getting there. I wish it didn't end as boozy as it did, but for the most part, the triple base and the hop quality fucking great beer. Really, really good beer. These beers were so fucking good. I have no big complaints about any of these. This is all minutia. Number three for me was sexy Betty. Damn, I really like that beer. I wish that the brandy didn't take away some of my favorite parts of the base beer or the beer as it was finished in the whiskey barrel, which was, you know, the vanilla and some of those other really rich decadent flavors. This angled a little bit more to the fruity side, but they are so close and so similar that I could still drink sexy Betty anytime and be absolutely pleased. Number two for me, romancing the cone. What a fucking badass beer that was super balanced, very soft. All the corners were chiseled off of it. I really liked the pineapple outside of the pineapple thing that was going on there. So good. I would see like there was that foresty sprucy back off my man. Oh, well, it's fine. That beer was badass. I dug the hell out of it. And my number one of course was black Betty. What a badass beer. This stellar. Yeah. Abyss of Nebraska. Like it's a really good description of what that was and high marks. It was different enough that it could be held in its own category, but that's the closest comparison that I can come up with. And it's great in its own right. I agree with that completely. I would love to try that beer side by side with abyss. Yeah. And I'd love to see that. I don't even know which one I'd like more, but they are different enough. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Nebraska, for all your beers. I still have two ounces left of the black Betty. I was just nursing it. I have a sip left of the black Betty and about an ounce or two of the sexy Betty. Hey, how the stage are you going to go next? Yeah. Sweet. Go. I'm not going to try this. Apricot Pepper. Apricot Pepper. I'm not going to try it. I'm not going to try to. Apricot. I'm not going to try it. Apricot. Apricot. Appwav. Whatever. Frenchie. I actually thought I was going to like that the bestest, the mostest, forever in all ways, because I say songs. One, I smelled it. I thought I was going to like it the best immediately. Yeah. Yeah. Then I got over it real quick. Flash in the pan for you. Number four is this God of Hop. Hop God. I was really impressed and very surprised. I did like it. I was like, every time I had one of these verses, "Oh my God, this is good." Then I had another one and I was like, "Oh my God, this is better than the last one." Yeah, exactly. Then I had almost like, "Oh my God, better than the first two." Usually I can kind of rank while we're drinking, but this time I had to wait until the last one. Yeah. Because I definitely feel like these are all very quality beers and I usually make it up when I say that they are all good because I'm trying to be nice. What? I'm a bitch. Breaking news. That's not breaking news, go fuck yourself. Number three, sexy Betty. Not sexy enough. That's cool. That's cool. That's super cool. And number two, I don't know if you've ever been a fat person, but that's kind of offensive. I mean, I'm continually a fat person and yeah, no, that's fine. All right, carry on. It all goes to your tits, so I don't know what to put this. I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm a sexy bitch. I don't care what you think. Okay, go. Number two, my boyfriend. Romance in the comb? Yeah. Our mens is coming all day. If someone better than your boyfriend? You're right. There is. There is. And it's a woman. A big blue lox is about to ravage her. It's going to be like Mr. Hands. Ransing the comb was amazing balls, super delicious. And again, really surprising, the things that they do with barely jing, that's either really subtle or really unintentional, whatever it is, it's delicious. Number one is this mistress of the night, black Betty. That's what I like my mornings to taste like. Like vanilla and whiskey, and sometimes I put whiskey in my cold brew in the morning. Oh, shit. And maybe that's why I'm so happy. Some clackwise now. I didn't get a single hint of cum from that beer. I did. Came like cum doesn't taste like sperm, so we're cool. All right. Are you done? Now I am. I'm going to rush me like that. I'm just going to go finish in the bathroom. I just got tired of hearing Mike moan. That's my problem. I'm sorry. It's everyone else's cleaning all the water and stuff. Thank you, Anastasia, Grant. First off, I would love to thank all the wonderful people at Nebraska Running Company for their hospitality when I went there. Thank you for treating Grant like a human. Yes. Yeah. Even though we had a baby. Because we know that you didn't have to. Not everyone treats a person as a baby like a human. It's kind of fucked up. I mean, that's just me. It is. Thank you, everyone at Nebraska Running Company. I thought you guys have all great beers. That's really exciting what you guys are doing. We fucking love you. Yeah. And that said, let me go ahead and jump to number five. I apologize to Fannie. This is a little offensive. But number five went to hop god. Awesome. This tastes like tropical gushers. But man, it had a boozy aftertaste that I, that needed work. And the rest of these guys here on the podcast are saying that this might be a little encouraging. They're saying that it just needs a little bit of time. Maybe a little bit. But the windows really narrow it seems. It really is. It's a weird balance trying to do a barrel age, I think, with an IPA. I get that, but I was a little taken aback by that because Mike was your certain hype man here on the episode that was just who's going to be the best. I was like, man, it was a little bit much. Now that wasn't initially my fifth choice. My fifth choice was going to be sexy Betty, but it moved to my fourth. Okay. And that's because as the beer warmed up, it got better and better. And I wasn't noticing that boozy quality as much. I thought this was a little bit metallic, but aside by side with the black Betty, you can't help but draw the comparisons and black Betty is phenomenal. And this one was not hitting the mark as well for me. Number three is the romancing the cone. This beer was fucking delicious. It's so good. Oh man. Everyone's heard about how good this is. And it was a shame for me to have to put it at number three, but only because I found two others even better. I think romance in the cone with age way better than Kathleen Turner. Oh man. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Name something the age is worse than Kathleen Turner. That girl from Weird Science. Kathleen Lebron. Don't know you won. You win. You win. How'd you do it? You win. You belong in Omaha with your 80s knowledge. Actually I don't win. You can be a man from the future. Kelly Lebron is marginally less good looking than Kathleen Turner. Still very disappointing. Go. Number two goes to the black Betty. I think that we all raved enough about this. We can't say enough good things about this. How was your number two such an amazing beer? Okay. But, oh yes, this goes to my number two because unlike the rest of you and especially unlike the rest of you because I think you guys put this all at number five and I was the only one who put this as number one. Wait, the apricot of plough? The apricot of plough. What? I loved that beer. That's totally valid. Fair enough. Fair enough. The nose I thought was just beautiful and it had all this promise and I agree with you guys that what it promised was different than what it tasted like. When I got to the taste, there was this beautiful harmony and marriage of the mouth and the nose on that. I didn't mind that they weren't the same. I thought as I was inhaling and then taking a sip, it was just so balanced overall. I love the beer. I could have drank so much more of that. We did say that this all really comes down to personal taste. Yeah, I was going to reiterate that on- Clearly, all of our taste is better than grants. I was going to see that on most of the other shows that we have done, I would have been like, oh, fuck Grant, what are you doing? But this one, yeah, I kind of get it. There was not a bad beer to be had on tonight's episode at all at all. Really? This was nitpicky. Except for maybe the Sex Betty and the Hop God Roll Too Busy. Okay, that's why I put them on your fire anyway. Which is what made you're fired. Thank you guys. Yeah, thank you all. This is fun. Thank you Grant for fucking picking all these beers up while you're in Omaha. Thank you, Grant. I am drunk. Well done, sir. Well done, sir. They both thanked me. I think you have something to say. Thank you, Nebraska Brewing Company, for making the beers that you make. Because if those beers were never in existence, Grant would never have gotten them, and then we would never have had this show. Fair enough. God damn it, anesthesia. Ice and philosophy. You did. I said you philosophy, by the way. I mixed it. It's all logics and shit. What did your degree get you? I've also once put an open philosophy book on a rock, and it really sucked a debate in me also. I've done that experiment before too. It's really entry-level shit. Come on. Every day. Snap. I know. She snapped me. Thank you guys for listening. What a bitch. I prefer the word cunt. What a cunt. Man, Ruby has such a cunt. This is a show for families. No, maybe Irish families when the kids can drink. Do you remember that story you told before the break about the fisting tattoo? You know? That happened. Can we just agree that we're all cunts? Yes. I'm yes. Yes. You are. I don't know if you know how elastic family colons are, but thank you for listening. Everybody, you guys have been so fucking awesome and super supportive. We really appreciate everything you've done for us. Send us emails at info@thebearers.com and send us money and give us iTunes reviews. Holy shit. Give us those. Yeah, do all of that. If you're doing your friends, post us on Reddit, post us on Twitter, post us on Facebook. Tell everyone else about how great we are. Get other people listening to it. What are you doing right now? You're just listening to like shit. Promote us. Yeah. Do something. Send me your used boxers. Wait. What? Whoa. Don't do that. Man. This is when I'm talking on us. Ew. Oh man. Don't we ever like our address posted like somewhere like like we're getting it flooded with terrible things. That's my address. I love it. Do me a favor and when we get nominated, I'm going to say when we get nominated for that podcast award, everybody please go up and vote once a day for us for as long as they take votes. Do it. Do it. Do it. They only take it for about a month, I think. If you don't do it, we're going to stop. No, we'll be overbearing with our promotion of it, but please do go vote because it really, really helps us. Yeah. Fuck. Splendid table. Fuck you NPR. That's not what I'm saying. I mean, well, that's what Mike Lambert's saying. Support independent podcast. When you guys vote for us. Yeah, we're completely independent. Like I said, most of the show comes out of my pockets and they're not deep at all. They suck at money. My pockets. When you vote for us and we win that thing, we get trips to Vegas. No variety. Like that day that we won that. We doubled our audience. That's a big deal for us. Oh, yeah. I mean, I went to Nebraska Brewing Company. I was like, guys, I had like one of those bottles of sex a bit and they're like, it's not after two weeks. I was like, well, I kind of won in a podcast award. That didn't happen at all, did it? Well, I was like, well, I kind of won in a fucking, I can't say that sentence. I was going to try and fix it. I see many just put one in a podcast award. One in the podcast. Yeah. That's English. Anyway, good night and bottoms up bottoms up. Cuts down. Did you say cuts down? No. I said bottoms down. Wait. Am I hallucinating? What are your parts right now? Probably. You're probably hallucinating body parts in front of your face. Cuts up. Mike. She said cuts down. I don't know. What the hell? Is it bottoms down? Mike, she always says cuts down. Like he always hallucinates and she says that he's like, what's up? This podcast has gotten so, so blue. Remember when we were like, hey, is this $2.30 for you all? And then we were like, oh, dirty Sanchez. And then we're like, oh, I'm like, I'm a bop dick with your juices. Oh, look. I love you. I love you. Dude. What? Dude. Yeah, too much. No, it's not enough. Review this disgusting. Guys, we're going to be OK. Sometimes I'll be the kind of get away. More information on the Beerist's 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 ]
