The beerists podcast wants to get to the Great American Beer Festival and we need your help in order to get there. And all you have to do to help us is to go to the beerists.com on the left hand side of the page, there's a PayPal Donate link. Click on that, send us a little bit of money, $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, $75, $1,000, whatever you can afford. Now we don't make a single cent off of this podcast and we've been doing it for over a year and nothing will make us happier than if you guys helped us get to the Great American Beer Festival in October. And every penny counts, we're not going to be able to do this without your help. So please, if you can, send us a little bit of money and we'll try to make it worth your while with some of the content that we want to record at the festival. We appreciate anything you can do for us and thank you so much from everybody here at the beerists episode 60 of the beerists podcast recorded on May 19th, 2013, some limited release beers. Hey Ryan. Yeah, what's up, man? So you're leaving, right? Ah, yeah. I'm really sad about that. I would be too, but it's going to be 113 degrees here next week. No, I get it. I get it. Are you taking your girlfriend with you? No. You want her? Yeah. How long are you going? $5 a day. That's not what he has. That's not what I got. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to get straight to logistics. No, okay. I mean, how long are you going? I'll be back in September. September. So that's like three months. Three months. Times $5 a day. I got five on it. Shut the fuck up, Lionel. We're not. They don't take like 150 bucks. Okay, sweet. All right. Sorry, babe. Yeah. I was going to ask how does she feel about it? It's not like she has an opinion. Look, I'm John Rubio with me today. You're going to start a show somehow with me today's city straight across from me. Grant. Pimpin' Pete Davis. I don't remember what that meant. Okay. Pimpin' Pete. Such a good name. Smooth Pimpin' Pete Davis. Where's that from? Pimpin' Pete. I don't remember the actual name, but I watched this whole psych. Okay. Doulay Hill had a character where he was a night line, smooth Pimpin' Jazz or something. And that was... Ryan Allen Mesh. That's good, Ryan. It's going great. Yeah. I'm really sad that you're leaving for three months. I am too. Yeah. You know who's not sad? Yeah. Dale. Oh, like he's going to fill in. Oh, and our fourth chair. Mike accomplished a human trafficking Lambert. The deal's done. Dude. You don't have to. He and this at all. He barely wants a cop voice. Come on. How do you do that? Oh, how do you do that? Oh, how do you do the drive the truck? Today, we're doing serendipitously a bunch of limited release beers. Yeah, we've had Ryan on for some really shitty shows this year. And he's kind of a limited release podcaster. Yes, he is. Yeah, true. He has a limited time left now, pretty much, and then he's going to be gone for three months, and then we'll probably hear from him again if he hasn't died. My goal is to amass my favorite beers of Ohio, and I'll send him down to you guys. Oh, that would be great. Yes. I know Ohio podcast. Yeah, fuck yeah, that would be awesome. They have amazing distribution. They sure do. They get a lot of different breweries in. Yeah, I can't wait. That sounds amazing. So, yeah, limited release beers. We wanted to do a show with Ryan that had some good beers in it because, yeah, I mean, we had a goosa show. Then we had him one next week for Mexican imports, which is the last show I was on. Yeah. So we're really going to drink good beer. Okay, guys. That's enough of a joke. We're doing malt liquor again. All these props on the table, all these fake bottles. We rip off the labels and it's like, "Man, dog, what was that doing there?" Shit. So he siphoned Old English into this bottle of Hill Farmstick. Okay, so let's just get straight into emails. I'm going to read a couple of these out here. First one says, "I just bought a new Belgium favor so I can walk around sounding like an idiot." Cheers. Fae-hwa. Spelt out like that. And that was from Ed Burientos. Thanks so much, Ed. That wasn't a question at all, but it had a lot of... It's funny. Yeah. The second email says, "Hey, beers." So I was wondering when it comes to aging beers, what's the ideal temperature to store the mat? I recently got some hair of the dog Adam, old stock ale, courage, Imperial Russian stout, and old Rasputin to put away for a while. I've just been keeping them in the coldest room in my house, which stays right around 65 degrees. It's wondering what your thoughts were on storing temperature, and that's from Juan Lopez. That's pretty good. Yeah, definitely some good beers on that list to start at aging with. I think when it comes to aging beers, if you're just doing it in your house, you're going to want to keep it as cold as possible if you're not using some type of fridge or some type of celery unit of some kind. If I had a fridge, normally I'd want to keep it somewhere around 55, maybe just a little bit lower, I think is a pretty good catch-all for most beer-celloring purposes. One of the things to remember is that when you're not using some kind of cooling system to keep it at 55, your beer is going to age a little bit more quickly than if you actually had it in something cold. I mean, I age beers in my house, in closets, under my stairs, cold, dark areas of my house, knowing that I'm not going to be doing that for eight years. I know that I'm going to open most of these beers up in a few years' time because I'm not really that interested in super long-term aging personally. Yeah, I keep my house about 80, and I just store them right in my house too. And if you don't care about taste, it's fine. Yeah, IPA is on the windows sales where there's room. Yeah. I have all my coronas just lined up, you know, right on the front porch. Don't listen to grand. Yeah, hopefully that helps one. I actually sent him a link with some more information on that zone. Cool. Our final email. I'm going to read the whole thing just to show everybody else how insufferable this is. It says, "Dear beerists who don't appreciate my nicknames, three drunk emails in a row, all caps, woo." So anyway, please share your most embarrassing drunken story. Mine does not exist because I do not embarrass myself except when writing into this show. What is yours? John Ching Chiang Chong Rubio? What? Why? How did he know I was buying Ryan's girlfriend? What about you, Anastasia ain't nobody got time for that. Kelly, Grant, don't taste me, bro. What is... These are just random phrases. He's putting it here. That makes no sense. And Mike Jerry Garcia Lambert who works. Please chime in. Ryan, Dr. drunk mesh, meh. Second like, what is your preferred or most had style? I have to admit, I'm a stout whore and can't get enough dark, smoky chocolate coffee goodness. On a third time note, when having a spirit, what's your preferred spirit of choice? Flunky, Harrison bourbon-brained Edelman. So you're telling me this guy's an adult? Yes. I know it's really hard. I know this is like a 14 year old kid. So hard to believe. But as far as my most embarrassing drunken email story, I'm not going to say that. It's embarrassing. That's the point. Oh, I'll tell mine. Oh wait, no, actually I'll refer you to mine. Okay. I do a show called The Greatest Drunk Stories Ever Told on YouTube. And you can check out the very first one, which was, I think I called it Ghostbusters. Yes. In that video, Greatest Drunk Stories Ever Told, Ghostbusters. And you'll see my Greatest Drunk Story that resulted in a five day hangover. Oh no. I've recorded a few of those too. Yeah, I've recorded that one for mine, also. Yeah, you guys are embarrassing when you're there. How about you guys? Don't care. My most embarrassing one happened last week. I was in Disney World with my lovely fiance, introducing her to my parents. You know, we're playing cards and stuff like that and I have to deal with my parents and you know, there's that whole situation, so I was throwing them back. That evening I decided to do some sleepwalking. I decided to take off my pajamas and pee on them and then go back to bed. On your parents? On my pajamas. Oh, yeah. I thought you could do your parents. It's like you win in life, which was the best ever I've ever heard. Yeah, so I did a little blackout sleepwalking peeing on my pajamas. My family and my fiance now lovingly referred to as my pee jamas. You're a pee jama. That's beautiful. Did anyone see you? No. But there was evidence of it. Yeah. It's not as funny, but I used to have this red mark on the bridge of my nose for a couple of years, and I don't know how I got it. I just remember waking up on the floor in my friend's bathroom from that day forward. I had this red mark for years. For years. Oh, man. It's only somewhat sort of dissipated now. Did you face plant into a DeLorean? I think I nailed the toilet or something like that with my face. That's amazing. Our most preferred beer style. I am partial to Saison's right now, but it varies. For me, my mainstays in the fridge have been Austin Beer Works stuff, so sort of generally hoppier pilsners or IPAs that's pretty much the standard in my fridge. Cool. I've been like in pailails a lot lately. Those and yeah, and Saison since this show. Nice. Yeah, I'm a sour freak. Normally, I drink a lot of IPAs if I'm just going to go to the store and buy something and drink. But if you're looking at my cellar, it's like just 60 bottles of goozes and American wild ails. Nice. And for your final question is having a spirit, which is your preferred one, I'm a bourbon guy. I love a bourbon. Absolutely. It's got to be a really good bourbon, but I love bourbon. I even like mediocre bourbon. Yeah. What's in a buttery nipple? I like a nice butterscotch liqueur. Usually we're hypnals in those. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Saison. You're a great adult Edelman. Oh, we have a couple of iTunes shoutouts to do. One from Lopez J03, which says, listening to our show has made trying to figure out what beer to try next and what beers to age much easier. That's really nice to hear. Thanks, Juan. And we got one from definitely not Grant. That's weird because the last one was easy to guess who it was because Juan Lopez wrote an email. Yeah, this could be. So I could put that together, but definitely not great. It could be anybody that's not Grant in the world. Yeah. Anyone but me. I'm pretty sure. Okay. So it says that we're the greatest podcast ever and the driving force and helping them get into craft beer. He loves our chemistry and thinks Mike is sexy. What? You're the secret admirer somewhere, Mike. Also he's never listened to an episode. Thanks. Definitely not Grant. We appreciate the review. Please if you guys can listening, get on iTunes, search for the beerists, write a review for us and give us five stars because that's really helpful for the show. If you write that review, I could see your name and thank you for it on the show. It's going to help us get more visible on the iTunes store and increase our rankings in the whole scheme of things. I'm willing to bet that definitely not Grant wanted that read last week when he wasn't on the episode. I mean, when I was hot, damn it. We also got a donation. Oh, so many gave us money. Yes. Let's do another week, Juan Lopez. Yes, he sent us an awesome donation, wrote an email and gave us an iTunes review. He did the fucking trifecta. All of you guys should aspire to be Juan Lopez's. Yes. So thank you so much Juan. If you guys want to do that as well, it's a huge help. We're trying to get to the Great American Beer Festival and we can't do that without your donations. Get on thebearest.com on the left hand side of the page. There's a PayPal donate link. Click it. Send us 10, 15, 20, 30 dollars. Big dollars is cool, send us 50. Do that. Please help us get to the Great American Beer Festival. We can't do it without your help. Thank you so much and we appreciate everything. Let's get into the fucking beers. Yes. Enough talkie. More drinky. Our first beer is Edith from Hill Farmstead Brewing Company. This is their dark farmhouse, Saison. Hill Farmstead's out of Greensboro, Vermont. This is 6% ABV and it's a limited release available in bottles and on draft. The write-up says that Edith, who died in 1992, was our grandfather's sister in Hill Farmstead Brewery, rests upon the land that was once home to her and her thirteen siblings. In her honor, this black Saison is crafted from American malted barley, German roasted malts, European hops, our farmhouse yeast and water from our well. Unfiltered and naturally carbonated, this is the L that I dream to have shared with Edith. Aww. I really like that. This is part of the ancestral series of Hill Farmstead beers and what he does is he makes these beers that he thinks that these people who were in his family or in his lineage would have liked to drink. Really cool. This smells awesome. Oh yeah. It looks pretty badass too. Super dark, little bit of brown highlight on the edge. Light and tan head. Yeah, it had a pretty good two fingers ahead while it was getting poor. And it comes back and sticks around a little bit if you give the glass a shake. Oh yeah. Oh, what does that smell like? That's crazy. It's hard to dissect but it reminds me very much of beer to Mars from Jolly Pumpkin. Oh yeah. And that's sort of profile. Yeah. There's a tart. There's an exotic fruit there that I can't. I know. I know. It's somewhat plummy or star fruity. Yeah. I get a little bit of chocolate as well. But yeah, it's strong on the tart. Yeah. And it's definitely a saison, right? It smells like a saison. You get some of that grassiness, a little bit of the floral, spicy floral and stuff. Star fruit, right? Mm-hmm. Interesting. I don't know star fruit and guava and dragon fruit from one another memory but it's something like that. Oh wow. That smells great. That's really interesting on the mouth feel. Oh wow. Yeah. That's more tart than I expected it to be. Even though hill farms that makes a lot of tart saisons, I'm expecting this to be like that. I mean, there's a little bit of a tartness in the nose but not nearly as much as you would think having just tasted this. Yeah. And I'm having a hard time picking out the flavors because yeah, there's a bunch of tartness there and then there's some grassy qualities and some floral stuff. I don't know. And then it kind of just lingers on your palate for a little bit. Not in a heavy, oppressive way but in that oh shit, you know, I just drank a beer. It's got like a bitterness that kind of reminds me of cocoa but not it's not really chocolatey. I get a real toasty kind of note, toasted bread, something sort of akin to caramel or treading that line. Yeah. And it melds kind of nicely with that bright stone fruity fruit flavor. Yeah. The mouth feels really interesting with it. A little bit thicker and luscious than you'd expect from a highly carbonated saisons. This is pretty highly carbonate but still has a real nice thick mouth feel. Yeah. It feels like the carbonation is really fine and dense. Makes it kind of soft. Yeah. And there's actually kind of a minerality to it. I think so too. It's really weird because the fruits that I'm getting out of it are kind of stone fruity with the plum and the peach, that sort of thing. Yeah. Maybe a little bit of fig but also with a lot of acidity to it like a passion fruit or like a star fruit or a dragon fruit, something like that. This is really interesting. They just keep nailing it. I know one thing that I love about Hill Farmstead is that you never realize how good they're going to be until you taste it. I hear dark sace on and I'm like, okay, I'll give it a shot and then you taste it and it's completely different from what your brain kind of set you up for. And I've had so many dark saceons that have completely missed the mark. It does not seem to be an easy style to brew. Yeah. When I was silent, does a pretty good job with the Benaro. Oh, yeah. I agree. Absolutely. But outside of that example, I can't think of one that I've had where I'm like, oh, I really enjoy drinking this. Still water. I've had a couple of theirs that are just never aggressive to me. I really like that existent. Mm-hmm. I thought that was really good. That was one that I thought was quite incredible. But this is fucking fantastic. I'm really digging the hell out of this. As it warms up, I am getting more of that baking chocolate bitterness that Grant was talking about toward the end, which is not really chocolatey. But yeah, I understand that kind of bitterness as opposed to maybe a hoppy thing or something astringent or something. I don't know. Because this isn't even astringent. Like it tastes like it's going to be. It never quite hits it. No. I think it's also just kind of sour. It is. And I'm not necessarily liking how sour it is. I want something else to balance that. That's interesting to me. It's not as sour as like a goosa or a lambic or something like that. But I do see what you're saying. Like I could use a little bit of funkiness that I think would improve it. But I don't necessarily think that the lack of that is hurting this beer too much for me. And by the way, I got this in a package that was sent to me from Scott Adams, one of our listeners in Vermont. Ah. So thanks, Scott. Thank you. This beer, I feel like, and it's relative to the rest of it, the tartness really isn't super gigantic necessarily, but it does override a lot of the nuances that I don't really pick up until the finish. Yeah. There's not much of a middle. It sweeps in on the front with the tartness on the finishes where I'm starting to get more of the bready tones, the chocolates, more of the actual base beer sort of flavor. Right. So what you guys are saying, and I kind of agree with it, is that it might be a little tart for the delicate nature of the rest of the beer. The tartness overrides a lot of the other things that you could be tasting. What's really interesting for me as this warms up is that on the back end, in addition to the light cocoa notes, or something like that, I'm getting a lot of tobacco. Oh, sure. I don't smoke, but it tastes like when I have smoked, when I wake up the next morning. I could totally see that. Reminds me of rolling tobacco or like pipe tobacco. Yeah. Yeah. There's a spot that I kind of made in my notes earlier. There's a spot during the process of your first sip to finish around three quarters away through where the tartness and the mouth feel and some of the other flavors kind of clash. And I like it at first. I'm like, oh, this is great. And then it goes through a weird spot where I'm like, ah, something happened to my mouth that I didn't really appreciate. And then I really liked the lingering aftertaste. Yeah. So it's not perfect. It's really freaking good. It is really freaking good. It is super good. But there's a spot in the sip that kind of shakes me. I've seen Grant do it a few times, where he's sipping and he enjoys it and you can kind of see him kind of. I make a lot of faces. Yeah. I only have one face, just constipation always on your face. Yeah. Kind of like Tommy Arthur. As it's warming up, though, that distinctive place where they clash is kind of mellowing out. And I think I'm going to let the rest of mine just kind of sit here in the side and let it actually get warmer. I completely agree. And I really like that assessment that it goes through stages as you continue drinking it up. Yeah. I felt the same way. I really liked it at the beginning. And then something became a little bit not cloying. It's like the toast in the tartness kind of clashing. Yeah. And then the back end starts rounding out and I'm more drawn toward that than the sour on the front. I did too. I think I like the finish better than I like the start. Basically, I just said the exact same thing you said. No, it's fine. It's fine. I think this was a really fucking good beer. Like it's one of the better American Saint-Sons that I've had. Like all of the other hill farms said fucking Saint-Sons. It's fantastic. I think like for me, I'm kind of splitting hairs when I'm criticizing it. But yeah, I kind of agree with you guys. Yeah, I really, I'm just saying that this beer isn't 100% oh my God, amazing perfect. It's maybe 93% amazing perfect. I'm really still very much enjoying it. But if I had to pick out a flaw in it, that's the one area for me that bothered me. I think the more that you go through doing a beer abuse show, you end up finding even with the beers that you adore, things that you can complain about or at least discuss. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, every beer has room to get better. Yeah. Absolutely. This versus a Corona. How do I take this? Yes. Absolutely. Let's move on to our next one. Our next beer was sent to us by Steve Gonzales over at Stone. And this is Dayman Coffee IPA. Oh, my turn of the night man. That's why they named it that just for this moment. It's a collaboration between Stone, Ailman and two brothers. This is 8.7% ABV and it's a limited release, brewed once available in bottles and on draft. And the story behind this is that Jim Morehouse, Nate Albrecht and Brad Zeller, three pals planning to open a Chicago brew pub under the moniker of Ailman. The first place at last year's Iron Brew Home Brewing Competition in the Windy City judged by none other than Greg Cook, Jason Ebel of Two Brothers Brewing and celebrated Chicago Brewer designer and author Randy Mosher. Good writer, by the way, Randy Mosher. Their style bending IPA artfully marries the assertive tropical bite of citra hops with amazing coffee flavor and aromatics to create something truly unique and exceptional, they say. And there are definitely two brothers recently kicked off a new adventure roasting their own coffee beans and provided just in time freshly roasted Java for this brew. Interesting. From what I read, they did name it after the show, but it's not tied to the show. Okay. Okay. And we're talking about it. It's always sunny. Yeah, it's an amber color, which is surprising. I thought with coffee being in it, it would be darker. It's a very clear and super saturated orange copper color. It looks like any medium-bodied East Coast IPA. Smelled as fucking beer. That's really neat. I know. I never have imagined this smells so good. It's an amazing fusion of both the coffee, which is so distinct and the hoppiness. I know. So the coffee is pretty big on this. Like you're getting a lot of roast, luscious, beautiful coffee. There's certain coffees that I definitely get a tropical note out of it. Yeah. There's some kind of a tropicality. When this, the way the citra hops that you get in the aroma plays with that coffee just gives it like this green citrusy quality, which is really nice. There's a little bit of malt there also, which amps up a little sweetness in the nose. How old is this beer? It's fresh. This is fresh. Yeah. This is a new release. That coffee note is just huge. Yeah. Together, they come across as chocolatey to me. Oh, wow. It's really, it is chocolatey. Wow. You're absolutely right. That is totally chocolatey. It's almost like a mocha with orange or something, like juicy orange in a mocha. Yeah. This is so much better than I thought it was going to be. Wow. Slow clap for this beer. Yeah. No kidding. How did this work? It is all right. Wow. I am really impressed. Wow. That's crazy. I didn't think that these flavors would work together at all. They don't make sense, right? But you taste it and there it is. You get a lot of coffee. There's a very light malt presence, like it's not overbearing. It's not super sweet. It's a very clean beer and mainly you're getting this delicious roasted coffee with a little bit of sweetness, some chocolate and citrus. I totally get the IPA. Yeah. And then the coffee separate, but they're melding so well together. That's quite a feat. They were called crazy. People said it couldn't be done. It's somehow stone, ale, man, and two brothers came together and made this masterpiece. It's crazy to me that I've had other beers that you would think would be more coffee esque, big imperial stouts that are married with coffee. And they don't capture the coffee notes quite as well as what I'm getting here. Yeah. And this almost comes off like cold brew coffee or fresh roasted crushed coffee beans. It's very clean. Oh, super. Absolutely. I mean, I'm still taking with the nose. It's so bright and refreshing. It's like walking into a nice coffee shop right in the morning and you just get that fresh ground, crispy right in your nose and every time I sniff this, it's amazing. Thank you, Gonzalez, for sending this out to us because I'm kidding. I probably would have seen this on the shelf and been like, coffee IPA, I'm probably not going to like, I don't have money to throw at it. It sounds like it's not going to work, but it works fucking awesome. It really does. This is a marvelous fucking beer to me right now. I don't think I've been this excited about a flavor combination since I tried that ballast point, Andrew, that blew my mind because it was like, Oh my God, cayenne and curry and kaffir lime leaf and coconut and all these things are working so well together in a beer with, you know, I guess it's an export stout, that style of beer. And this one is wowing me in the same way of taking two things that I really wouldn't think would work, coffee in an IPA and making it not only work, but working well, like I'm enjoying the hell out of this. Yeah, they did an incredibly good job either reproducing the recipe or whatever the case was at stone. All the flavors, the hops, the amount of coffee, the malt back, but all of it is masterfully well put together where nothing's overplaying on anything else. They're all complementing each other. And thinking about the journey of this beer, like you taste it, you immediately get a burst of coffee and the chocolate comes in secondary, which kind of melts into orange chocolate. And then it fades out into this really clean finish with just the right amount of booze. Like there's a slight booze burn at the end that is, I think, perfectly placed, like it's a really well executed beer. And this is 8.7%. Oh, man. Damn, I'm going to buy the hell out of this if it ever comes around to me. I know. Do they not sell this here in Texas? Oh, yeah. There were bottles sent to Texas. I'm not sure how much I haven't seen it on the shelves, but it might still be out there in some stores. It is probably out there in most other states that received stone. That's the great thing about stone. When they make something, they make a shit ton of it. I wish we knew someone who worked at stone and maybe sponsored by stone on our show. He sends us so much beer. I know. It's amazing. I've got two shows worth of beers that we're going to start digging into in a couple of weeks that are legitimately brought to you by stone. I know. No, no. They're brought to us by a stone employee, Steve, and he's awesome. He sent us a bunch of stone beers and he sent us a, he sent us a, he sent us a beer for an Ailesmith show. Like, I'm super excited about that one too, but yeah. This is great. I think you see this. I don't want to finish it. I know. This is so good. I never would have expected that this is going to be so good and it is awesome. I don't find notes on her A plus plus plus. Well, you got the third plus on this one. Three pluses. Wow. Yeah. You can't just write those willy-nilly. No. No. John doesn't give us good enough pens to do that. There's only so much ink. You can't even review the other beers at this point. My pen peered out in the third plus. That's good. Well, I love coming to the beer. I don't have to pay for this beer. And I get to try amazing beers like this that I probably normally wouldn't. It's really nice to still be surprised by awesome beer. I agree. It's funny because a lot of times that I'm surprised by a beer on this show, it's because of the context, right? It's because, oh, we're having five of the same style of a beer that I've never had five of in a row or something like that. And every so often, a beer will come along like this one that just makes me go, what? In life, not even realizing that these flavors would work together this well and just make me completely rethink my assumptions, you know, about what would be good together. And your conundrum, like you said, is another one that did that for us? Absolutely. That's badass. This is awesome. Do you guys want to move on to the next one? Sure. No. I never want to move on. And you're not even a big coffee fan. How's this for you? It's great. That's so good. I don't hate coffee. That's a little strong. Yeah. When someone said that it was like an orange mocha. Yeah. Yeah. There's only a couple of other IPAs that I've had that evoke that chocolate note. And this one just did it so well. Meantime IPA. Oh, yeah. There's another one of those beers. It's an English style IPA. Yours totally comes across as chocolate. I love that beer. Yeah. That's a really great beer. And it's been a really long time since I've had it too. So our next beer is Anankei from Freetail Brewing Company. Anankei is an American wild ale and Freetail is in San Antonio, Texas. This is a 6.4% ABV beer. Last year I think it was a percent lower on the ABV. And this is a limited annual release available in bottles and on draft. And both of those things are only at Freetail. You can only get this beer at Freetail Brewing Company in San Antonio. Oh, is that the home of a Glascate? Yeah, Glascate. Man. Yeah. All right. We'll get into that. Ingredients include Pilsen, assiduated malt, raw wheat, flaked rye, and pearl hops brewed with top fermenting yeast, wild yeast, and bacteria. The write-ups us rarely released in its purest form, Anankei is the backbone of our wild ale program, a base beer used for blending and fruit infusion. Named for the ancient beer goddess of inevitability and personification of destiny, necessity and fate, Anankei helps bring order to an otherwise chaotic universe. Such as her namesake, this delicately sour ale's presence is felt throughout all of our barrel aged beers, brewed October 23rd, 2012, and aged and used wine barrels until March 6th, 2013. Yeah, we picked these up two weekends ago. Hey, Ryan, do you like your glass? This is a really nice glass. Can I keep this glass? It's not fucking yours. Just wanted to put that out there. It actually belongs to Freetail, but I'm on this podcast of the same name. No, you're not, but my best friend. No, he didn't. What? You're a piece of shit. Give me that glass. So yeah, we had our glasses stolen by a fucking bitchy waitress at Freetail. It happened to Mike and it happened to somebody else. She came over and was like picking up glasses and Mike said, oh, that's mine. And she said, no, it's not. Wait, what? That's my glass. No, no, it isn't. It's not over there. I didn't know John was selling these glasses already. Well, if you think that's not mine, just take it back to wherever you got it from. And she walked off with a glass and he comes over and says, hey, did you sell some glasses? I'm like, no, bitch stole my glass. But yeah, she did. She stole your glass. It's like the worst thing to happen since like the Iraq war. I know. It really is. I mean, the level of oppression that a sort of middle class white guys. Oh, did I say glass? I meant Mike's leg. She took Mike's leg. It might as well have been these glasses are fucking beautiful and wonderful. On sale today. No, not yet. Okay. I haven't figured out the thing. Probably. I'm taking this beer on the line. It's a hazy pale straw color, just slightly sort of orange or tangerine highlights. And it's that. No. Touch of head. Oh, the nose is serially and sour. Yeah, it smells like straight up cereal. Oh, there's a bit of like a baby vomit smell into it too. There it is. Absolutely is a little bit of a vomit stink right at the front. Yeah, Grant. It smells like. How old would you say that a big vomit is on that note? Smells like. Right. Shoulder. I can just rub this on there. They wouldn't know the different like a cereal and vomit. But yeah, there's a bunch of cereal equalities like orange tangerine. Yeah. There you go. Get a touch of wine. Some white wine. Oh, absolutely. It smells really good. I mean, it all comes together into something that's desirable. That's not like, Oh, baby vomit time. This smells good to me. This one smells a little bit more vomiting than I'm ready for. I'm hoping the flavors of it cancel it out for me because I think they do. I'm afraid. One of the things about a donkey, this was present in the, the raspberry one that they did as well was very farty, I guess, like it was first released. There was something that was a little off putting about it going back and having one of those bottles now is really, really incredible. And all of the bottles that I've ever had of this that I've aged have all ended up getting much better. I think this one is kind of young right now personally, but when I first take a sip, there's a bunch of sourness, right? There's a bunch of, yeah, lactic sourness mainly. And there's also something akin to maybe super sour raspberry is just a light bit there. There's a lot of cereal, a little bit of peach. Yeah. And I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying where it is. But yeah, you're right. It is stinky, farty, weird, and that in my experience with this beer goes away in a few months. I was really waiting for you to say caramel corn because, man, I was going to say diacetyl. Dude, caramel corn and diacetyl. Okay. There isn't for that in there yet. There's definitely, and I'm not normally sensitive diacetyl. I kind of like it, but, yeah, but I get a lot of caramel corn. The citrus burrs at the front and then caramel corn washes over, grainy, grainy and corny a little bit. Yeah. But with a sweetness. And the quick transition from the tartness to that sweetness. Really interesting. I know. And I'm not disliking that. Really? No, no. I'm still really enjoying this beer. But I do know that this beer is going to get better in a few months. I still don't think it's bad right now. Like it's fucking quite tasty. Man, I can't untaste that kettle corn. Kettle corn. Okay. That's better. The caramel corn. Definitely. It's kettle corn. I agree there. Holy shit. I'm still going to down this entire glass. I'm having a hard time with this bottle. It smelled so much like baby vomit. And now I'm just like corny and diacetyl. I'm, for whatever reason, it's like, it's not hitting me right at the time. I definitely get the comment. But it's like, if I took a bite out of a tangerine and by the time I swallowed, I was eating kettle corn. Every time. It's like it's doing some trick in my mouth. Yeah, that is kind of weird, isn't it? It is really bright and tart and fruity right up front though, which is so nice. Oh, that's good. You know what's really good? Dayman coffee IPA. Mike just finished the rest of that from his glass. You know, if you were one of the chosen few that made it down to San Antonio that weekend they got your hands and bottles. Oh, you mean everybody in San Antonio who seemed like all the beer geeks from Texas. I would absolutely wait a good three months before opening a bottle. This has some things that it just needs to work higher now in the bottle, which none of these flavors that are bad will stick around. You have a most positive little all clear up. The diastole fate that kettle corn quality will go away. A little bit of time and therapy worth these issues. If you got a number of bottles, definitely try it at like the three month mark. But if you didn't get very many of these at all, I would give it almost six months. I would give it six to eight months. Yeah. I have one bottle and it'll be a year before I open it, I think. That's probably a good call. Very good call. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think we should probably take a break. I mean, I really don't have very much more to say about an on K except for free tail giving my fucking glasses back, or I'm going to charge you $15. Peace. Yeah. I mean, I'm enjoying this beer. I do think it has a ways to go. It needs to sit down for a few months before I open up another bottle. Despite its flaws, I like it. I mean, it still has a really good base to stand on. And like Ryan said, yeah, those flavors are going to go away and just leave you with what in my experience is a delicious, wonderful sour beer. Agreed. Absolutely. So good that shit was. Yeah, I had a pain in my throat. Oh my god. You told me to get the boys whole. Wait! Break time. Game man! Ohhh! Fights are off in eight! Man! Ohhh! Champion of the Sun! Ohhh! You're a master of karate and friendship for everyone! Game man! Ohhh! Fights are off in eight! Man! Ohhh! Champion of the Sun! Ohhh! You're a master of karate and friendship for everyone! We're back! Dayman IPA! Dude, dayman's so good. On the break, we did have Espresso Imperial Rush to stat from Stone. Another one that Steve Gonzales sent us. Man, that's a good beer too. Yeah, that was really tasty. I mean, that's a beer that's been around for well over a decade that maybe a lot of listeners who have been in a beer for a long time are familiar with. The Imperial Rush and Stout. Yeah. The Imperial Rush and Stout. One of the first times I cut my teeth on aging beers was with that series of Imperial Stout's. And I really liked how the Espresso changed that beer. Whereas the IRS is usually kind of hoppy, first out. This, at the end, was all coffee, but in the front there wasn't as much, and it wasn't as much in the nose, but it brought a more subtle, soft note to the beer. And that was really enjoyable. Yeah, it was really nice. They didn't overdo it on the Espresso at all. Like it was just there as a seasoning just to amp up a couple of the other aspects of the beer. And really we were talking about how aging that beer might not necessarily be a great idea. The subtleties of the coffee that are present now would be lost over time. And maybe, like I said, I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, because even if you do age coffee, you're left with some of the aspects that the coffee brings to the beer. And I'm really curious to see that when the aromatics and those interesting volatiles of the coffee go away, how what's left over changes the beer. Like I really want to see how that works out. Yeah, and if you're familiar at all with last year's IRS with Anis, don't be hesitant to buy this year's with Espresso because it's really, really good, especially in comparison to. Well, most things are. That was weird. Awful beer. It's so weird. I'm not around to trying that, or if I did, I accidentally dodged a bullet. That wasn't very good. You got very lucky. Thank you. Again, Steve Gonzalez for sending us those beers. Fucking amazing. Yes. Our next beer for the evening is the 30th anniversary grand crew from Sierra Nevada. Sierra Nevada is out of Chico, California. This beer is an American strong ale. It's 9.2% ABV, and it's a limited release, brewed once, and was available in bottles back when it was available in 2010. Sierra's reserve is a special ale highlighting our pioneering history and the innovative spirit that has carried us through all these years. It's a marriage of our three most acclaimed ales, Oak aged Bigfoot, celebration ale, and fresh pale ale blended together and generously dry hopped. This is one of four beers that was released for the 30th anniversary in 2010, including Fritz and Ken's ale, which is great imperial stone. Amazing imperial stone. Charlie Fred and Ken's Bach, which was an imperial Hellesbach. It's one that I didn't even try. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. Sweet. And Jack and Ken's ale, which was a black barley. That was awesome. That was a fucking cool one. And after a year and a half on it, it was really good. And I really tried any of those beers in the last two or three years, I want to say. And I'm really excited about this one because this grand crew, back when it was fresh, I really enjoyed it. I was too impatient to age mine for three years. This is pretty exciting. And Mike keeps his beers really well, so I'm even more excited about this. But checking this beer out, it's a very murky, brown, dark copper thing, some ruby highlights to it. And nice bit of head. I'm really impressed by the amount of head that's still here. Slightly off white, Tannish head. Oh, my God. And it smells like a fucking great barley one. Yeah. There's that papery oxidation that perfectly melds in with those big caramel molds. And citrus. Lots of citrus. It smells like a big foot does. But without the alcoholic, right. And there's a bit of vanilla that's going on there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's that oxidation, that little bit of papery-ness that Ryan was talking about. Touch of mint or basil. Mm-hmm. That's a beautiful nose. I mean, it's barley wine through and through, but the refinement on it's really nice. Yeah. As soon as Mike poured and I got my glass, I was like, this pumping while Jon is doing the introduction because it smells so fucking good. It still smells like, I don't know, there's a freshness about the aroma here. It's very bright and still very present. It doesn't feel like it's been dulled with time. But you do still get the oxidation that comes with time in a very good way. Oh, yeah. Has anybody tasted this yet? Yeah, I did. No, but on the nose, as you were saying earlier, Jon, there's a bit of orange, but it's a dried, sweet orange peel. Yeah. It's almost pulper-y-esque. Okay, so I just tasted this. This is awesome. You know, I was smelling it and expecting it to be way more bitter than it is. There's very little bitterness, but you do get a lot of hops there. It's so smooth. Fuck yeah. It's slick without being oily. That flavor profile, it's really delicate, honestly. It's hitting on all different parts of my tongue in the flavor palette. Yeah, and I'm going to say this before I forget it, but at the very end, it resolves to this slightly bitter, minty honey. Wow, yeah. Yeah, and it's really weird. Like all these really multi-crazy, somewhat oxidized and alcoholic, like this is a pretty alcoholic tasting beer, very barley wine, but not very bitter. There's a lot of hops, but not very bitter. You know, you're getting a lot of caramel and multi-goodness. I mean, it's a delicious, citrusy, awesome beer. But yeah, at the end, for some reason, in the finish, this viscous honey quality peaks his head through and then dives back in. It's clover honey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I have like a really long-lasting orange peel, kind of like a bitterness orange peel all around the outside of my tongue, hanging on there that just has an immaculate aftertaste. No, you have thrush, I think. What's great about throwback for listeners? Yeah. What's great about the level of oxidation that's present is coming off, especially in the flavor, more like toffee, then really that nasty cardboard brown paper, wet paper tone that you would get from an age big fun. Right. What was that beer that we had at the last tasting that was just oxidized to fuck? Oh. It was some barley wine that was from like 2003. Thanks, Walt. Yeah, Walt. Hey, big gups. Yeah, it wasn't good, but this is fucking good. This smells more oxidized than it tastes, which in my opinion is an awesome combination. Yes. Because I kind of like that oxidized smell. I'm like, I'm getting into a big, old, strong ale. As long as it's not total cardboard, which just has almost no flavor of whatsoever, it's just, you know, I just took another sip and I got just a very small hint of milk chocolate right in the beginning. I can see that. Which is really interesting to me because it's not a flavor that I usually associate with barley wines. I think we picked a really good time to crack this one open. Yeah. This is drinking phenomenally. If there's anybody out there that's listening that has bottles of this still and hasn't tried one in a while, crack it open. It is drinking awesome right now. I find that you get a lot of the caramel notes, the coffee notes that are kind of washing over. It has this citrusy bursar at the front, but there's this bitterness that seems to be compounding on my tongue and I think I have the same problem when I had the Bigfoot previously. Right. It's really aggressively bitter. Bigfoot at least is. I don't even notice the bitterness so much when I'm drinking it, but it's just my tongue feels it needs to be scraped at the end of the day. Right. The accumulation more and more. In the finish. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I have a sip of this, I'm reminded at how not bitter this beer is. But after I put the thing down, after I put the glass back down on the table, I still feel it on my tongue. It creeps. Yeah. But I don't think I dislike that though. It's making me feel like here's what Bigfoot wants to be when it grows up. It's so much smoother than Bigfoot is by itself. By far. By far. And at this point in time, it's less hoppy than celebration or even the paleo. Oh yeah. But I like what hot flavor has persisted. Yeah. It is present there. And it hasn't gotten dusty. No. Neither. Like the hops still feel like present. It's just peculiar to me because I find that I'm drinking this and like, ooh, I love this chocolate cocoa type notes. And then also I'm like, wait, when was I chewing on a pine cone? Yeah. What is that? Where's that? Oh, I need to just wash it down some more. It's a really interesting amalgamation because of the oxidation to me that says aged beer. Yes. But then there's so much of the flavor profile that's screaming just fresh. Yeah. Like, or not aged at least. Right. And that's another good point the grant made is the hops are very piney and great fruit and hippie and resin. Yeah. Absolutely. It very much feels west coast tall pines. I would say the underlying flavor to me though is plums and oranges. And I'm just getting this really rich plum flavor that mellows out into a bitter orange note. Man, I'm just super psyched on this. And that's just really. That's interesting that you say plums because I didn't even think of that. I mean, as I was drinking it. But when you mention it, yeah, there's a very slight plummy thing. But the citrus, like the orange is the most dominant, like it just comes in and dominates that part of it. But when you bite into a plum, there's kind of like a mouth feel to it and there's a sweetness and there's like a darkness to it that I think starts out the very beginning of this sit before it gets overwhelmingly citrus. Yeah. There's something very orange marmaladey that I tie in with that plum note. It's sort of muddled fruit if you guys will. I will definitely do that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't mean to come across as having issues, I guess, with this beer, with the bitterness compounding at the end because it's very complex and nuanced. It's very interesting. It's just, I find that it does give this wash, that's all. And it is continuing to get bigger and more oppressive on my tongue as I keep going. It seems bigger than 9.2%. Yeah. It's a good word. That's what it kind of feels like. But again, again, usually when I get that sensation on my tongue, that layering of that bitterness in the hops, it's usually from something that's very hoppy every time I take a sip. This is very hoppy, but very lightly bitter when I take a sip. But that bitterness in very, very small layers stays on my tongue. It's like a silt. Yeah, it tastes incredibly round, if that makes any sense at all. Yeah. There's no rough edges. At least for me, where this beer was when it was fresh, all of the rough edges are gone. Yeah. Everything's been really sanded down pretty nicely. I'm really impressed. This is really enjoyable. I like my breath at the end of it. That hoppy, alcoholic, bitter breath. It's basically like a bah. Of the barrel aged barley wines that I've had in recent memory, this one's probably aging the best. You know, and that's another thing to bring up, is that the barrel influence on this is not really that present. I'm not getting a lot of wood. You're absolutely right. It was never overly oppressive to begin with. I think it came across more as mild vanilla tones when it was fresh. Sure. I think the hops were still the central focus of this beer. I just love where this has gone over the last two and a half years. If anything, it seems like the barrel has given it a place to... It's like a nucleation point, so to speak. Yeah. It's something for the beer to anchor itself on, and it's not necessarily, "Hey, here's some barrel flavor, here's just a spot where you can round out just a little bit and soften up a bit." If anything, I'm getting a softening quality from the barrel. Mm-hmm. This beer is really good. This is really good. I don't know if I would want to age this beer anymore. No, I actually have one more bottle left, and I'm planning on drinking it within the next month. Yeah. I'll bring you to the taste of the drink. It's about to peak. Well, it's still got about another year on it before the point of no return, yeah. But right now is perfect. I've never had this beer better. There's a spiciness note to it, too. Oh, absolutely. Up front. It kind of falls into the marmalade note that he was talking about earlier. Yeah, maybe all spice or something like that or clove. No, not not clove. It's something... It's like some mulling spice. Yeah, it's something in that area, but without the sweetness that you would get from like an apple cider, like a mold cider, like there's none of that, you just get the earthiness and that sharp bitterness. Well, I think it's interesting is that Sierra Nevada's 30th anniversary tells me that they were around when I was born. Yeah, I'm 38. They were around before I was born, considering that this beer is now three years old. So an interesting story about knowing about ages and coming to reckoning of ages. Mm-hmm. When I first met my extremely younger girlfriend. Yes. Yes. By the way, 14 and a half. Yes, Hugh Hefner. I was on OkCupid and I had put my age as 26 when in fact I was 27 because I don't like... [laughter] I don't like... You're lying best, dude. I lied. That's my big lie on OkCupid. [laughter] I didn't lie about my height or my income. Liz. Liz got the face on right now that that's the deal breaker. She's like... Actually, she didn't know this. What? Yeah, I know. I'm in trouble. So I put 26 because 27 is a really ugly number to me. 26 is nice because two goes into six a few times and I'm a little neurotic. So 27 sounded bad. Oh my God. It's like Woody Allen and soon ye. [laughter] So... Are you dating her moths first? I found out that... [laughter] So I have a birthday next month and Leah was buying me a pair of sunglasses a day for my birthday and it was really great. And she goes, "Well, you're turning 28." And I was like... Oh shit. I think I'm 28 already. And she goes, "Really?" I was like, "Yeah, it's morning. 1984." So she did the math because she's Asian and she's like, "Fuck. You're telling me you were 26 more than birthday." And she was like, "Oh yeah, I lied about that." [laughter] My girlfriend was born in 1990. That's awesome. Oh my God. Okay. [laughter] I graduated from high school when she was three. Butterfing. Oh, I still want to be in those guts. Let's move on to the next day. [laughter] I'm so glad you're selling her to me. Let's set our free fee. Final bit. What? She's hot and she's like 12th. No, I meant her eight. Beautiful thing. Guys, her being sold to you is completely fine. Okay. Our age is creepy. [laughter] That's why it's so-- She's almost 23. Yeah. That's how old you are. [laughter] Oh, I know. When you said 1990, I was like, "Fuck." [laughter] Our next beer-- She doesn't even know who Wham was. [laughter] Wham. I'm going to go home and kill myself after this. Thanks, Grant. Okay. Our next beer is Manhattan Northwest from Cascade Brewing Company or Manhattan NW is how it's actually spelled on the bottle. This from Cascade Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon, it's 11.3% ABV. Yeah. Wham. And it's a limited annual release available in bottles and in draft. And that's really funny to me because you don't come across a lot of 11.3% sours. New. It's Manhattan Northwest is a Northwest-style sour that was until recently a secret. It's a blend of blond quad aged in heavenhill bourbon barrels on 150 pounds of sour pie cherries for five months before additionally aging on apricot. [sings] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One more time, N-O-Y-A-U-X. Apricot, Noya, for three months. Yes. Nice. Three months. And this beer is a very red color. It's like the hazy? Yeah. Red copper, a little bit of haze. Touch of brown. Super white head. Yeah. Like eggshell. Yeah. It hits a little soapy. I like the nose on this. I know. I'm surprised. Wow. There's a lot of cherries on the nose. Yeah, there is. A lot of cherries. Yeah. I'm surprised at how not alcoholic the nose is. Wow. Yeah. But what I like about the cherry is that I'm getting a really significant cherry pulp. Yes. And cherry skin. Like there's a lot of the fruit material, at least it's what I'm smelling. It kind of smells like artificial cherry to me a little bit too. It smells like sour pie cherry. You know, it's not fresh bing cherries that you buy in the store. It's like sour pie filling. And there's a little cinnamon on the nose. And I'm going to taste this because Mike did. Yeah. Please take a sip of that. He looks like his brain melted. Oh my God. It's great. Yeah. This is great. It's great. And it's so unexpected. Oh, wow. Yeah. Right. Seriously. The cinnamon that you were talking about. I totally get that flavor. It's so cinnamon. Yeah. Oh, man, that's good. It's like cinnamon-y cherries or dried cherries, maybe. There is no alcohol in there at all. Oh, it's at the end. It's in the feel. Like, I get it in the heftiness of the body. You get it in your face. I can say it. Like, I'm getting it on the inhale for sure in my sinuses, but it's not showing up in the flavor. I don't taste it at all. So, okay. When I take a sip, it's very carbonated, like the carbonation expands in my mouth. But this beer isn't very viscous, so the carbonation just kind of goes away. It's very seltzer watery like that. And then tons of cherries and cinnamon. Yeah. It's like a nice cinnamon sour cherry cobbler. Yeah. I had dried cherries. The way the cherry expresses something like cinnamon once it's dried, that's the kind of spice that I'm getting. Oh, I just burped. And that's when I first got cinnamon. I was kind of like, I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling that I burped. The entire back of my palate was just pure cinnamon. I pick up the cinnamon the same way that I pick up cinnamon and nucularis. Yes. Fruit, what is it? The Belgian bread and the raspberry tart. Sure. And this is awesome. You were saying that there was some artificial cherries when I'm actually tasting it. It just tastes like an overabundance of not quite maraschino. It's something that's like the sour pie. It's pie filling. Yeah. And beyond that, I'm getting something that's similar to what pie crust as well out of that cinnamon. There's a very slight buttery quality that reminds me of cherry pie crust. Grandcracker. Yeah. A little bit of that too. Yeah. The sweet cherry aroma, I guess, is what I was referring to a little bit more, maybe a little bit more of a maraschino mixed in. It's really tasty. Yeah. And I don't get really that much alcohol until the very end, and I don't really taste it, but I feel it. I've got a lot of heat coming up through my mouth in my tongue. Yep. Yep. I'm feeling it. Maybe I'm like the top of your palate. Yes. Yeah. Top side. It's kind of where I can kind of feel it. I was going to say that I was feeling the alcohol before the break. Yes. I don't know if I can actually articulate it anymore. I can tell just by how you articulated it. Dude, this is surprisingly light in the mouth, because when I was looking at the description of this, you know, when you read an 11.3% sour, that is a blend of blonde quad aged in heaven hill bourbon barrels, I think that sounds like it's going to be way bigger than it is. Sure. It definitely comes across as like eight or nine percent to me, at least. Yeah. I think it's doing a much better job at hiding the alcohol content. The last few years. Whatever than a number of beers, for me, when you're talking about alcohol percent, especially when you're starting to get into 10, 11, 12, those are almost exponential steps for me when it comes to the flavor and the way that it imparts just the nuances to the beer. This is still coming across as something significantly less than 11.3% agreed. It's coming in definitely over eight, but certainly under 10 for me. Yeah. There's a certain amount that the malts, et cetera, can mask alcohol and beer. It's surprising that this one does such a good job. And I'm also surprised at how sweet it is, but it's so well cut by the sourness and by the softness of this beer. I'm picking up something briny as I'm sitting here and allowing it to sit and open up. There's a savory component that's coming through. This is distinctly different than a lot of cascades I've had to agree. Yeah. Absolutely. Similar note to them, they're like, "Oh, that's a cascade sour." I could maybe pick it out of a blind tasting of sours and be like, "Oh, that one tastes kind of cascades." One of the things that seems to me like, "Hey, this is a thing that's always in cascade," is that sweet tart, smarty's sugar. Smarty's. Yeah, that's it. That dusty candy sugar. You know what comes across in a lot of their beers, especially the apricot sour and the creak. That's my name. Right. I don't get that here. Not at all. None of that. They all age out of their beers, given enough time. Yeah. But again, not present here. This is pretty fresh, right? I mean, within the last year. This was just recently released, within the last three months, I believe. And so, I'm warming this up with my hands a little bit, and I'm getting a little touch of that bourbon barrel. Just slight bourbon hit comes in midway through, and that's really nice. You really want to drink a bit more. I was thinking some of the sweetness of the bourbon that was picking up with the sour cherry. Yeah. I didn't understand why they call it a manhattan now. I know it's really silly, but as it warms up, that manhattan-esque quality where you got the heat and a bit of that bourbon flavor, and then that cherry finishing it off, it definitely tastes like a manhattan. And that heat amps up a bit. Yeah, it does. I get the barrel in the mouth feel more than the flavor in the scent. Yes. I'm picking up more of that wood pulpiness, so to speak, there's a certain fibrousness. It's almost even like the stem on a maraschino cherry. Sure. Okay. And that's kind of what it reminds me of, for some reason. And I realize that if tying it in a knot with your tongue doesn't press the other way, you try that trick on me. It only works one. Dude, have you kissed Grant yet? It's amazing. That's what I hear. So bad. I hate you guys. Your daughter's going to listen to this one. Yeah. That's so fucked up. And by the time she's old enough to listen to it, Ryan might date her. She's, she's at least partially Asian, right? Right. I just threw up on the table or something. Did you go out on the table? Basically a spit tank, damn it. You drink water. That's beautiful. So now that we're done barfing, do you guys want to rank? Ryan, buddy, Alan, match one. Yes. I'll do it. I'll go first. Okay. Go for it, Mike. Yeah. Oh man. Dayman IPA, holy shit balls. Hey, you guys. Hey. What's up? Dayman IPA, holy shit balls. Yeah. That was so good. Yeah, I've had that. It's good. Yeah. Just the way the coffee came across so much better than most other coffee beers that have had in recent memory, in comparison to even the espresso imperial stout that we had during the break, they just nailed that. Number two, I'm really enjoying this, this Manhattan Northwest. I really like the cherry notes that are going on here. Not only are you getting cherry skin, but there is very much a cherry fruit, the actual pulp of the fruit that's coming across, and it's awesome. Very, very well done here. I hardly notice other than maybe the slight slurring that it's 11.32% alcohol. My number three, and this was a real tough toss up for me, Sierra Nevada grand crew. When it came between the Manhattan and the Sierra Nevada, this beer aged really, really well, and it was in a really great spot, dare say it was better now than it was when it was fresh. If there's anybody out there that has one still, do yourself a favor and drink it now. Don't hold on to this for too much longer. It's really close to the precipice of just kind of going over the edge. I completely agree with that. My number four was the Edith. Love me some Edith. That was still really tasty, a really great take on a dark Cezanne. I like the base flavors that were there. I think that it might have been just a little out of whack in terms of balance, but I enjoyed what was there. And my number five was the anonge. Once people started mentioning what it was, the baby vomit, the cereal, it was very difficult to get past that. That said, having had experience with this beer a number of times, at least the last three years just about, I think for as long as they've been releasing it, this beer will get better in time, but it's okay right now. It gets better, guys, but it gets better. Seriously, if you can't come to terms with yourself, you can always date an Asian girl. Or an Asian man. I mean, it's up to you. Thanks, Mike. We appreciate the rankings. Wee! Who wants to go next? Me? Grant, go ahead. My number one goes to Dayman. Yeah. I would like to say thank you to Stephen Gonzalez because I'm paid to because Stone sponsors me. No! Me too. Me too. Happening. Okay, I'm really kidding. Seriously, they don't pay us with its infusion of coffee with a fuck, this is gonna be hard because I'm drunk. I know. Go. Your infusion of coffee. I think the kinkos and FedEx are the best company going. I am. I agree. Do your best. Dayman is fucking good. It's got an infusion of coffee and IPA. I'm just reading off the paper at this point, and it was delicious. It's different than anything I've had in a long time, and I dug it. Number two, a fucking Ryan, goes to 30th anniversary, grand crew. It had a nice play on the palate. They had this burst of citrus, it had this hoppy bite to it, a really nice sweet chocolatey cocoa, as I was talking about this wash of bitterness on the tongue that wasn't harsh, but it accumulated as you sipped it, and it was nice, it was really interesting. Number three goes to Edith. Nice. I really like that one, especially in comparison to some of the other ones with the tartness of it. I thought I had a great nose on it as well, and it had a really cute story. Number four goes to the Manhattan. It was a lot of cherry, and honestly, I'm not big on cherry. If there's one fruit that I don't like, especially if I'm thinking it's coming across as an artificial, I know you guys disagree with me on this, but I thought there was a little bit of an artificialness to the cherry. No, I get what you're coming from with that. I get it. It's something that I don't really like as much as a flavor. I still thought it was okay. I obviously thought it was better than number five, which I went with a non-k. It was just weird. It starts off with tart, and then I thought it was kettle corn, as Mike pointed out. It's weird with the transition. I still drink all of mine, where I think most people poured theirs up. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I pushed through it. Nonetheless, it was a bizarre combo of flavors. Go. I'll make Ruby a girl last. No, I'll go next. You can go last. Because... It's your last show, but you like a lot. Oh, I'm digressing. You got to run right in there, yeah. My number one beer for the evening was Dayman. Holy fuck, how does that work so well? IPA plus coffee for real. Anytime you say IPA and coffee, people are like, "They're all going to laugh at you." Right. Yeah. Right. And I still kind of want to fuck sweet D, even though I feel like I have to watch. Even though you know she's disgusting. I'll have to wash my wing with turpentine afterwards. Dayman was awesome, like just the way that fresh coffee incorporated with that Citra Hop IPA, which was very, very light. Once I finished that beer, I had this empty glass and I was like, "Dude, smell this empty glass." And it was so good! It smelled like it was full of coffee beans. It's like we all just wanted to strap that to our face like a hay bag like horses wear. It was amazing. Like that empty glass smelled amazing. This beer is my number one by far. My number two, and I switched as I was going and drinking this Manhattan Northwest, I switched my number two to the 30th anniversary grand crew because that 30th anniversary grand crew was really fucking good. Like a very well refined barley wine, outstanding flavors. The hops were still fresh while there was age still in the flavor. Like it was just crazy to me. And I put that at number two instead of number three where I had it earlier because my number three of the Manhattan Northwest as it warmed up is expressing a little bit more alcohol than I want it to. That's not to say that the Manhattan Northwest is a bad beer. This is a fantastic beer. Actually all of these I really liked, but I have to put something ahead of something else. And in this case, 30th anniversary, I liked more than that Manhattan. Still of the Manhattan, the cherries were awesome and that cinnamon equality was great. I dug it. My number four was Hill Farmstead Edith. Really liked that beer a lot. But yes, you guys are right part way through it. There was a weird clash that happened. Doesn't really make this not a great beer because it's still a great fucking beer. And there are very few people who can pull off a dark Cezanne as well as these guys did. True story. Number five, a non-K. And it kind of hurts my soul to put it at number five because I know what that beer turns into. Exactly. And if that beer was where I know it's going to be in a few months, I would have to put it at number three or four in this lineup. But really right now, it is still young. Yeah, you guys nailed it with a fucking kettle corn, for real. But I still dug it. I still liked what it was doing. I still liked where it was going. And I can't wait to dig back into these beers in a few months. I still have some from last year on the year before in my closet. I do too. Yeah, man, they're drinking so well right now. It would be a great beer despite bitch waitress. Yeah, that waitress is a bitch, but that has nothing to do with what we think of this beer. I didn't even meet that waitress and I hated her. Did that waitress didn't make this beer taste worse? She just made life taste worse for a little bit. Ryan, are you-- In the last and certainly most important, smooth pimp and pee here in the evening time. Yes. Don't let everybody down, don't let people down because this is your last one for a few months. God fuck. So much pressure. I got you back. It's so much pressure. Because it makes it funnier. I'm going to follow the bandwagon on day, man. Very-- That's going to keep happening. Just go. Absolutely the beer that just shocked me. I saw the list today and I was like, oh, little farm said, fuck yeah, 30th anniversary? Fuck yeah. Man, that's good? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not good. Fuck yeah. Everything just-- oh, that collaboration now, which are sometimes okay. I know what number five is going to be. I didn't expect that to show up on there. I know. Well, color me stupid or something. I don't know how you-- what that expression goes as. But that was-- Yeah. That was really, really good. Orange mocha beer. I just want to get a hold of more bottles so I can drink one every day when I come home from work. Me too. Something so good. My second one is Manhattan Northwest. And for the same reasons that John ended up breaking it later, I enjoyed it even more as it warmed up because it ended up becoming more of a Manhattan. It became the sort of-- That's also a good point. Yeah. Even that my mom made me when I first turned 21 and I wasn't that into liquor. Oh, so she handed you everything except for the good parts. Yeah. There's some more marishing to cherry in there. There's like more-- this is a very cherry for northwestern Manhattan. Yeah. I mean, that is an excellent point. It becomes much more like a-- The heat pops out and all of a sudden it becomes a fucking Manhattan. It really does. Yeah, you're right. You're right about that. It's weird. This is a very cool beer that I'm really psyched on. So this is a beer show. And they didn't let us know that it was going to taste like a Manhattan by naming it. Shit, they named it Manhattan. You're right. Cut point. Go. My third was the 30th anniversary of Grand Crew. Really, really enjoyed it. The prunes and the plums, kind of in the body feel of that, that just melded into that orange bitterness marmalade. Mm. If you have a bottle, please, please drink it soon. It's really great. Fourth is Edith, which I really, really, really enjoyed. And it's strange that a beer this good ended up fourth in our list. It's not strange because all of these beers are great. It's speaking to the quality of the five beers we drank tonight. Yes. And I mentioned it far earlier, a good 30 minutes ago. If I had to pick faults in it, these were the faults, and those were the faults that actually ended up making it fall into fourth place. When you look back at Dayman, I can't think of a single fault in it. Manhattan, there's some faults in it. It's a bit hot. There's maybe too much cherry for it. It wasn't as much bourbon that you should be in there. The apricot, I don't know why they even added that. There's some things in that that just weren't also perfect. And then Edith had that thing that was going on that I described earlier, that I wasn't... Three quarters of the way through that clash. Yeah. But again, these beers are all... If I was just at a regular tasting, man, I just had four beers that I don't want to rank. If I had Edith at any beer tasting, I'd be like, "Dude, yeah, fuck yeah, Edith, man." But absolutely. We're forced to rank these beers. So you have to put something at number four at five. And we're always drunk when we rank them, so it's hard. No, I watch a ton of Top Chef, and they always have to say, "Look, all this food is good." But we have to be nitpicky at some point, because if we're going to actually break things down into these flavor components, what we're really tasting, then we started analyzing wool nitpick. Exactly. And that's all it is. But these are all amazing. Yeah. And last was Nankay, which I've had previous versions that I loved a lot. I really didn't like this beer at all. This wasn't there. This one smelled a baby vomit, and it tasted of diastole to me. I poured out almost all of mine. I poured out about an ounce and a half. I poured out about like two and a half, almost three. I drank all of mine. [moaning] Yeah, he threw it up on his sheet. I can see it. Now, I know that this beer has been better. I don't know if this batch will ever come around. I think that truly, after another three or four months, it really will come around. I agree. Yeah. This bottle was bad. I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think it was that good, but it's going to get good. Like, it's got everything. I do think that it will be good, and I am trading for some, and I'm not going to stop those trades. I know that it will be good, and when I come back to Austin in three or four months, I'll be psyched to pop one open then. Yeah, and it's going to be great because you'll be able to drink that whole bottle to yourself because your girlfriend's going to be pregnant. So we're the Mexican baby, so thank you guys for the rankings. Mexican babies. Thanks for having us. Seriously. The Mexican babies are the cutest combinations. I'm not going to thank you. Lee is about to slip and slide off her chair over there. Dude, absolutely. Yeah. I've got so many hormones going to be right now. Black-tating. Close this up. Thank you guys so much for being on the show. Ryan, dude, I'm going to miss you for three months. We love your eye. I can't wait to be back. When are you leaving? Like, what day? Next week. I am leaving May 25th. Really? Ohio? It's going to be awesome. No, Texas is awesome. I've been to Ohio. 113 degrees for about three months. I've lived here long enough to know better. No, he's got a good boy. It'll be good to leave her this time. But everywhere here has DC. Up there, half of the places you have to go into, they have fans running. Oh, I'm sorry. They've got Hoppin' Frog. Check. Yeah. Meat. And also brew kettle and... It's bells. That heads. Bells and fountains. Oh, you fuck. Shall they pumpkin? Make me leave you. Kill yourself. What's that little known brewery in Indiana? I forget that one. That one's there too. Three Floyd's. No, it's getting him. Yeah, some people might know about them. They're there as well. Okay, so yeah, I'm going to hit you up for a bunch of beer. We have Frog. Oh, Drief on Tain comes in there. Cantillon comes in there. Dude, you're not supposed to say the name "Rockness" on this show. That was me. That was me. Oh, God. That was me. Sorry, Rogness. I don't like your beer. Um. That's thanks, Ryan. You're awesome. Grant, thank you for ruining this show. That was... Oh, it was supposed to be. Mike. Oh, God, I'm so drunk now. Dude, I'm so glad you know so much about beer, otherwise you'd be insufferable. Why am I so mean today? It's just terrible. It's all this testosterone. Just the prospect of laying waste to Asian girl. I know. I'm just going to... I get it. Lay waste to that fortune cookie. Let's say thank you to everybody who listens to you guys are awesome fortune cookies. You and me at the edge of the bed looking at the faded pictures for you to see and me to see. More information on the Beerists Podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit the Beerists.com. Email us your feedback, comments, questions and suggestions at info@thebeerists.com. Check us on Facebook at facebook.com/thebeerists and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/thebeerists. Intro music was provided by Ian Butcher in his band Deflated Balor. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ean_butcher93. I'm John Rubio, thanks again for listening. [Music] Yeah, and it's going to be great because you being able to drink that whole bottle to yourself because your girlfriend is going to be pregnant with a Mexican baby. [LAUGH] [ Silence ]
