(upbeat music) - Episode 59 of The Bierist's podcast, recorded on May 13th, 2013. A mix of barrel aged beers. (upbeat music) - So, did you enjoy your dinner, Mike? - No, no, I didn't. - What happened? - Waterburger decided, I don't like beef. - You went to a waterburger? - Yes. - Nice. - That's not normally a terrible mistake. - No, no, it's a pretty good burger place. I mean, I enjoy it. - And you know what's great when their burgers have burger? - Right. - This did not. - You had a salad between two buns which would bake it, at least. - Isn't that a sex move? - Yeah. (laughing) - It must be. - Michael, I know you want one of our goddamn burgers, but you're not manly enough to have anything, but a salad between two slices of bread. - They saw me looking at my iPhone and then it was just like, nope, this guy doesn't like beef. - He must be a goddamn liberal. (laughing) - But somehow they still gave me bacon. - That man looking at his beard must be a hussy. (laughing) - Oh, what? A hussy? - Never mind. - So that was the second of shitty outing experiences, I suppose. - Yeah. - Freetail, I don't know what the hell happened yesterday. - I think drinking before 9 a.m. did. - Yeah, we went to Freetail Brewing Company out in San Antonio, but before we get into that, let me just introduce us, okay? I'm John Rubio, joining us today as always. - Anastasia Kelly. - Hi, how you doing, sweetheart? - I'm depressed 'cause I couldn't think of a nickname. - Oh, well, that's fine. We also have-- - Good, Mike Lambert. - Mike, how's it going, dude? - Good. - How'd you get filled up on that salad sandwich? - You know, there was one redeeming factor, and that was walking into a house that was full of meat. - I know. - And segue, dude. (laughing) - In our fourth chair today, we have a very special guest. - I'm Jake Maddox. - I brought meat. - Great. - Jake Maddox is-- - The bringer of meat. - Tell me about who you are and what you do. - I'll see, I work at Salt and Hime, butcher shop in Salumria, I'm the beer program manager there at the moment. I've been in the beer and wine business for about seven years, across wineries in Napa Valley, breweries in San Francisco, Fort Collins, and here in Austin, and all around, no, no, beer, dude, I suppose. - That's completely overqualified to be on this show. (laughing) - Oh, this sort of banter I feel underqualified. - Oh, man. Well, I'm glad you're here. Thank you so much. - I appreciate the invite. - You brought a bunch of really awesome charcuterie, and-- - Yeah, we're pretty lucky to have a great team at Salt and Hime that produces a really great product. - Oh, man. - Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Salt and Hime. - It put my burger to shame before I realized that there was no burger to be had. - What we should have done, Mike, is put the pork riet in place of the burger. - Oh, yeah. - There's still time. - A pork riet? - There's still time. - A riet witch. (laughing) - It sounds so good. But yeah, yesterday, a few of us went out to Freetail Brewing Company in San Antonio, to go to the release party, I guess, for Anonke. Anonke is one of those beers that's just really, really delicious. It's a great Texas sour. It's one of the few great Texas sours. - Consistently, very, very good. - Yeah, and we got there at about 8.45 in the morning, and there were already 90 people there drinking. - It was chaos. - It was amazing. Everybody brought tons of beer out. We had a giant bottle share. We drunk at about 9.30 in the morning, par for the course for us sometimes. - Yes. - Morning drinking is, I think, some of the best drinking. - So underrated. - It really is. - Definitely. - And we're not talking about morning, hey, through the night, hey, I'm still drunk in the morning. No, no, we're talking about starting in the morning, and having the rest of the day to nap. - Right. (laughing) - Yes. - We're like productive little Saturday, that's great. - Yeah, it's so amazing. But while we were there, we took out some of our beerists podcast glasses to taste with, and I'll let Mike tell you what the heck. - And so we're in line, and put my glass on the table, and I look back, and oh, my glass has disappeared. And it's like, oh, okay. Well, there's some waitresses that are quickly walking past, and they were doing a really good job cleaning up and trying to keep order of things. But I see one, and their glassware looks very much like ours. - It's similar, yeah. - It's a very similar shape, and it has the same sort of red color to the logo that's on their glasses. And I walk up to one waitress, and I notice that she has my glass, and I'm like, oh, hey, I think you walked away with my glasses, and she's like, no, I didn't. Well, I begged to differ here, because this is, this is logo for my podcast, and she's like, no, I took this from one of these other tables. And I was like, I didn't think that John was selling these yet. Maybe he was. I didn't know at the time, and I was like, okay, well, here's the card for the podcast. I'm pretty sure that this is my glass, and she's like, well, whatever, if you think it's yours, go ahead and take it. And I was like, well, you know what, if it's that big of a deal, go ahead and just take it back to whatever table that you assert that it belongs to. And I'll see if I can track it down later. But then I go up to you, and you hadn't sold any glasses or anything, so she was just a total bitch is what the problem was. So I'd not really ever had any type of experience like that at Free Tail before. This is my first-- - That's really terrible. - Yeah. - Well, she's dealing with guys, and it started drinking at seven o'clock in the morning. - That's also very true. I mean, I can't really put-- - It's open to her shoes. - Yeah, I can't put it all on her, because yeah, there were a bunch of us that were just horrible and loud, but still shitty. I mean, when you produce a card, it's like, "Hey, yeah, this is me," and she just runs away with your-- - No, it's not, it's not you. - Yeah. - This doesn't belong to you. - Not cool at all. Today, we're doing a show that also has beer in it, and hopefully, I don't know how to do segues. - Hopefully none of these bitches in the room will walk away with any of the glassware. - That's a good point. - Whatever. - Looking at you, Maddox. We're doing barrel-aged beers today. We got five different things from five different breweries. We got White Monkey, which is a barrel-age triple from Victory Brewing, love child number three from Boulevard, a new one from Jester King. - Ooh, yeah, very excited about this one. - Other people haven't really had a chance to hear about this yet, as far as I understand. - We'll probably be the first people who talk about it after they make the actual announcement, because they haven't announced it yet. - That's awesome. - Yeah, it's called Atrial Rube site, and I'm so excited about this one. We have Ruse from the brewery, and Kube that taught me from Lost Abbey. - This sounds like a promising line up. I know, I'm excited. - I can't wait. And usually, we do emails and stuff right about now, but we didn't get any questions over email. - We didn't know, but if you guys ever have any questions, send them to info@thebearers.com. We also didn't get any iTunes shout-outs. - What is this? - Yeah, you know, no reviews, none of that, okay. - Nobody loves us anymore. - No, there's a bunch of people who love us. I mean, we've had like 170-something of them, but then none this week, get on that, get on iTunes, leave us a review, five-star rating, and I'll thank you on the show. What about money? No, we didn't get any donations either. - What is it? - Then we got one last week, you know. We've had a pretty good amount of donations. We're almost up to $1,000 to help us get to the GABF, but nothing this week. If you guys wanna do that for us, give us a donation. Any money helps, we're trying to get to the Great American Beer Festival. In October, kick us some money. Thebearers.com, on the left-hand side, there's a PayPal, donate button, do your duty. - Support your local beer podcast. - Yes, well, a lot of these guys aren't even in Austin, so support your favorite beer podcast. - There you go. - Support the best beer podcast. - That's a good one too. So yeah, we're just gonna jump right into beers. - Yay! - I'm excited about this. - Me too. - I love sour beers. - Oh, me too. - No, it's funny, like the beer drinkers, you go from your loggers, and you start doing paylales, and everyone gets an IPAs, and you get into sour beers, and then you kinda just fall off the cliff and go back to loggers again. - I know, it's kinda weird. - And that's where I've been lately. I haven't really diggin' Pilsner lately, so I'm really happy to get back from the deep end here. - We've had a lot of Pilsner love on the show also. - Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree, it's one of those things that kinda, you come full circle with it, in a sense. I started out really liking triples, and then went with this big beer direction with it after a bit of time. It's like, "Oh, you know what? "I like something that's really subtle, "and something where it's really hard "to hide the imperfections." And that's where Pilsner's are for me. - Yeah, but back to hiding imperfections. - Yes. - The first beer that we're having is White Monkey by Victory Brewing Company in Downington, Pennsylvania. This is a barrel aged triple, 9.5% ABV, and it's a limited release, March 2013, available in bottles and on draft. And this is malted with imported two-row malt, and hopped with whole-flower European hops, and they've also used coriander seed in this. So they can look at this beer in the light. It's a pale, kind of peachy colored. - Yeah, peach nectar. Pretty hazy too, very little head on the top. - You get that Chardonnay, pretty big right off the top. - Yeah, it smells like Chardonnay, and there's also a peach quality to the nose too. - Yeah, definitely get the peach. There's some honeysuckle. - A little bit of Belgian yeast, and I don't really smell too much by way of phenols or anything, not that much in the spiciness. - The one thing that's always gotten me about Golden Monkey, really little head retention, which is something that I'm looking for in a triple. - Same here, I want a little bit more head retention. I want a bigger, more billowy head. - But it smells nice though. - Mm-hmm. - You know, like, I haven't had it. Aside from the lack of head retention, there's nothing unappealing about the way the spear smells are looked. - Oh, no, absolutely, the smell is incredible. - Yeah, I'm getting a little bit more wood than I did when I first started smelling it. - Actually, not a huge fan of the nose on the spear. To me, it has a bit of dangness in a bad way. - Sort of like cellar, or like sort of a mustiness. - Yeah, a little bit of mustiness to me. - Sure. - You know, teach their own. - Yeah, I personally like that in small amounts, I think, and right here, I think it's working for me. - Triple to me isn't my favorite style of beard to throw into a barrel. - Right. - I think triples are best personally unbarreled and unaged. - I haven't had too many barrel aged triples that are really stellar. Curie you, I really like a lot though. - Oh, Curie's great. - From Alagash. - And tasting this one, this one isn't that bad. The mouth feel is nice. - Yeah, that's a very nice mouth feel. - And I do get a little bit of wood up front, and some, I don't know, fruity, peachy, a little bit apple skinny. - Popcorn. - Maybe a little bit, yeah. - I like to finish quite a bit. I think it finishes really nicely. - Yeah, 'cause it all goes to wood, right? I mean, it all goes to like this really nice, whiny, viniest wood. - There's a bit of booze that comes through. - Yeah, that's where it's getting to me. The boozeiness, and there's a little bit of sugary sweetness that's not really melding that well. But for nine and a half percent, this is actually a, you know, doesn't really have the heat, a big beer, 12 hidden. - Yeah, I think so. I'm getting a little bit of boozeiness in the exhale of my nose. It feels like some time would do this beer really well. - Possibly so. It'd be hard to tell, because I wouldn't want it to lose the wood character, because that's what I like about it, like right now. - Right. - I'm afraid that I'm making it sound worse than it is, because this is a good beer. Like I'm enjoying the way this tastes. It's just a little disjointed to me. - I think that this is a pretty nominal step up over the standard golden monkey. I'm digging this quite a bit. - I like to try those side by side. That'd be pretty fascinating. - Yeah, I think so too. - Popcorn. - Is that all you smell? - That's all I smell, like caramel corn, and I taste popcorn and husks and wood. - Goes very nicely with the coffee lomo. - Oh yeah? - Yeah. - Like we mentioned, Jake brought a bunch of awesome meats from salt and thyme. Why don't you tell us what's on the table? - We got this beautiful arrangement of a coffee cured pork loying called coffee lomo. - So good. - It's one of the better things I think we do at salt and thyme. Pointa petite wrote about it in the recent article they wrote about us. I also have a sajuan peppercorn crusted lardo, which is pure pork fat, which is one of the world's best treats. - And it's so good! - I know, it's amazing. It really kind of pops in your mouth. It's a beautiful flavor. I also brought some pork riette, just pork confit. Also some Tuscano salami, which has some beautiful notes of fennel and red wine. And Duyatihano, which is spreadable salami, 70% pork fat, the rest of that's pretty much chili powder. It remains soft and pliable, even refrigerated. And it's just one of the world's best treats to put on top of a burger. (laughs) - Or in lieu of a burger. - Yeah, but at salt and thyme on our burger, we put it on top of the patty and it just melts in the burger and just-- - Next level, dude. - That's good. - Yeah, it's amazing. - It's really great. You guys should come by and check it out. Take good care of you. - I will. - That was a coffee crusted lomo. - Yeah. - Okay, that was fantastic. Really, the fat helps to cut some of the sharp edges off the beer and the aftertaste that I'm getting here. That was awesome. - Yeah, I'm looking forward to when we get some of the more tart and acidic sour beers that this is going to be really a nice way to cut that. - Oh, yeah, they're coming. (laughs) Yeah, so as I keep drinking this thing, ever since you said kettle corn, like I can't not taste that in the flavor. - You can't undace that, definitely. - I mean, there are fruity notes. Like I said, it's mostly cooked peaches and stuff like that. But yeah, I'm getting that kettle corn quality to it, which is kind of weird toward the end, because it's kind of fading into what becomes that awesome woody finish to me. I don't know, it's sticking the landing, but the flips that it's doing to get there is just all fucking catty wampas. (laughs) - Well put. - Sir, I'm like Shakespeare. - What was that award you got? - Oh, no. (laughs) - Asshole, oh no, that's a different award. - Yeah. - I hope Academy you're listening to this 'cause this is poetry in motion. - Yeah, this is pure fucking something. Something, something. - Yeah. - All work and no play, make home or something. (laughs) Something. The more, you know, that damn reference of kettle corn, that's, I agree with that. You know, part of suggestions is an amazing thing, but I definitely, I get that and I don't truly dig it all that much. - Yeah. - No, that's just me. - I'm a ruiner of things. - Thank you. - You're well. - Is there a Santa Claus? Please tell me there is. - Oh, shit. - I'm sorry. (laughs) - John doesn't lick that good in a white beard. - I mean, I look great. But not as much as Santa Claus does. So we're gonna move on to our next beer. That was Victory White Monkey. This next one is Boulevard Brewing Company's Love Child number three. It's part of their Smoke Stack series. Boulevard's out of Kansas City, Missouri. This is 9.5% alcohol by volume, 13 IBUs, and it's a one-time release, bottles only. They did Love Child number two last year and Love Child number one two years ago. - Which by the way, big shout out to my friend Jeremy Danner, at Boulevard, having a baby last week. - Oh, congratulations. - Awesome. - Good guy. That is really awesome. - I made great beer. - And I'm gonna read the little ride up here. It says Oak Barrels were used to age the majority of beer used for Love Child number three, with beer aged from 16 months to nearly six years. Another portion of the beer spent 11 months in stainless tanks, souring on lactobacillus. All very tart, the sourness is short-lived, and the beer finishes dry. Blah, blah, blah. I'm tasting notes. I'm not gonna read that. - You know, something I really like about this beer, actually, in particular, not the beer, but the labeling on the back side of the label, they have three different gauges. - Yes. - And I think it really helps people that aren't familiar, but that may be turned off by sour beers to understand what it is that you're gonna be tasting, and that's really clever on their marketing guys for doing that. - I thought that was a really, really nice addition. - Yeah, so they're sour, funk, and fruitiness in different gauges, and it's mid-range on the sour and the funk, and then a little low on the fruitiness side. - Yeah, that's very helpful, because as we keep going on with beer through the years, it seems like a lot of beers are shedding the shackles of style, you know? So a triple isn't a triple anymore a lot of times. They'll call it a triple, but it's so far away from a triple, it's no longer that. And when you have something like Love Child Number Three, which is just a malt beverage aged in bourbon barrels. I mean, you don't know what to expect from that. - Oh, I love malt beverages. - Oh, me too. I mean, but why? It could be Mike's Heart Lemonade, you know? You don't know. But in the back, it gives you a really good idea of what you're about to taste. - I like the blurring of styles, you know, as a brewer, I really hated being restricted to stylistic guidelines. And so I like that they are not obeying guidelines, but explaining what it is without even trying it. And that's really great. I've had this beer, I know this beer, I know it very well, but their Smokestack series is off the charts, great. - It is really fantastic. - Always very good. - I love Smokestack. - That being said, I never drink, I'm sorry, Jeremy. I never drink any of the regular boulevard stuff. The boulevard wheat, awesome. - No, it's a solid wheat beer, but-- - Bully porter, great, you know? But the Smokestack stuff gives me excited. Oh yeah, I really dig that. - So checking this beer out, it's kind of a copper color, very hazy. - Some ruby highlights, a little. - Yeah, nice little layer of off-white head. - And on their charts here on the back, I'm seeing here, it is middle of the road funk, middle of the gauge sour, and about a third up on the fruitiness chart. - Oh, that smells so good. - Ooh. - Yeah, just juicy acidic cherries, some wood. - Listen to me is what I like in a sour beer. - Yeah, you get to touch a bourbon. - Plum fruit. - I'm getting bread and lacto. - Yeah, the lactic acid is really nice up in the aroma, but it's a very rich musty sort of aroma. - There's a sweetness that's there too. - Oh yeah. - I was a real big fan of love child number two, I'm glad that number three is just as good. - What style was number two? - Very similar to this, from what I can remember. - Yeah, it wasn't as hard as this though, I don't think. But yeah, the flavor notes that I'm getting out of this are similar to what was in there. I think there was a little bit more of a bread presence in the previous one. - It could be. - This is fantastic. - Yeah, this is a world-class beer. - Yeah, tons of cherry and bourbon and lactic acid, it's really not overly soured, but it's definitely there and it punches you right in the mouth and you get it. - How come it pulls the saliva from your cheeks and the insides of your cheeks? - There's no fruit in the spirit, but I love that. You get the impression of fruit. - And it's sour cherries and raspberries and you know, those really tart, round red fruits. - Oh, plum. - That's literally. - This, I imagine, look great with this Lardo. - Oh man, just dry. I can't wait. - Let's experiment. - I picked up the wrong one, but I'm gonna eat it anyway. - You can't go wrong. - We're just gonna pig out on the microphone. I hope nobody cares. - Yeah, I wish you guys could see this and try this. This is quite the combination. - Oh, I wish I could just hoard all of this for myself and not give any to anybody. - No, that is a perfect combination. - Okay, I gotta get in there. That's a flavor town, USA, and it's a Guy Fieri quote. Sorry, everybody. - That's okay. - I'm from flavor town. Not only helping to cut some of the sharpness, it's really complimenting it as well. That's fantastic. - Oh, hell yeah. - That Lardo's bringing out a bit of a lemon characteristic that I didn't notice was there before. - Yeah, that's the peppercorns. - Yeah, but I didn't really taste that until I tasted the beer some more. And it's just bringing out this really nice lemon-equality of the beer. - Should've brought more Lardo. - I can never have too much Lardo. Anastasia just offered me some and I can't say no. - Man, oh man. - You owe me. - That'd perfectly fine. - I've never seen Mike cry and drool over his tits and happiness this way. Oh man, this is such a great beer. - Again, going back to the alcohol, nine and a half percent on this. And it does not taste, to me, much above seven. I think it's very well hidden. - I think it's much better hidden than the white monkey. - Yeah, for sure. - My leaps and bounds, but this is great. The body of this beer, everything about this is just so appealing to me right now. - Yeah, and I'm really digging like the carbonation and that mild funkiness that I'm getting in the nose. It's just so well executed. And once I started eating Lardo, I'm getting a little bit of chocolate out of this, a little bit of coffee, park fat, and this beer. Just do it listeners. - Pork fat and this beer. It's gonna be the title of my first album. (laughing) - You okay? (laughing) I think that's a yes. - I don't want this to end. I'm really sad that I didn't go to the store and buy a bunch of this stuff up. My mouth keeps watering for more. - It's great stuff. - Put me in your mouth, that's what it says. - I want Anastasia to just keep describing this. (laughing) And I remember being a lukewarm about the first love child. I don't remember it very well. I don't remember enjoying it all that much. I thought it was pretty good, but number two, love child number two, I thought it was great. So much so that I went that I bought like eight or nine of them and I think I'm down to three left. And this one, I wish I could have gotten the case because man, this stuff is good. What do they run about 18 bucks per bottle for this one? - Should be like 14 to 16, 18 seems a bit much, but maybe with tax. - Oh, it's tough to find a spear these days. I missed it. It was Ryan told me that there was a lot meant that was given to central market. I just totally spaced on it. It was during one of the tastings. So my thoughts weren't on, hey, let's go buy beer after this. It was more like, I need to get home. (laughing) - Let's pick up more beer, no. Sometimes that survival instant kicks in. - You just have to get home. It's kind of what happened yesterday after three days. - Well, yeah, fantastic beer. - This beer is going to be a lot better with a few more degrees of warmth. Just cup your hands around the glass, swirl it around a few times. Really, I think helps bring out some of the funkier notes. - Yeah, absolutely. - You get, when the server is too cold, you just don't get a lot of the greatness of it. - Yeah, a lot of complexity is in stuff that kind of goes away when it's cold. - Yeah. - Absolutely. A lot like spirits too. You know, a good shirt, bourbon. You want to drink room temperature. Same thing with wine. There's even some beers. And we're just going to put this aside because-- - Oh my goodness. - Mike just poured our next beer, which is Jester King's Atrial Rubicide. We're lucky enough to get some bottles of this before they've even announced the name of it. - This nose is in fucking incredible. - Okay, hey God, Jester King is out of Austin, Texas. This beer is 5.8% ABV, and it's going to be a very limited release, 500 milliliter bottles only. And this is their first fruited barrel-age sour beer. Beer aged in oak barrels with 2,000 pounds of raspberries from Washington state, unfiltered, unpasteurized, and bottle-conditioned. - I think they somehow concentrated all of the raspberries into this one bottle. It smells like a ton of raspberries. - Yeah, and the color is a pure raspberries. It's incredible. - And I want to thank big, big thanks. - Oh, thank you guys so much. - Good job, stuffings. And the crew over at Jester King gave us a bottle of this to have on the show. - You guys are awesome. - Such great guys. - They are wonderful people. - Yeah, but this fucking beer is-- - I don't want to cry. - It's blood red. I mean, blood red, just a slight haze. It's mostly transparent. Beautiful red bubbles. - Yeah, it looks almost-- - Gorgeous pink. - Okay, it looks like a lambic. - There was a Lupepe from Boi, I think, that looked highly reminiscent of this. - That's the name I couldn't remember. This looks almost like Lindenman's fan boi. - No, I love beers that I don't want to try right away, just one keeps smelling it, you know? - Yeah, I love beers that make me just want to stop and not even drink it, just smell. - 'Cause this nose is all earthy sour raspberries. - Oh, I get some perfume notes, good floral bouquet. - Berry. - I wonder if they used aseptate puree or whole raspberries. - If I remember correctly the pictures that I saw were them stuffing raspberries into it. I'm not entirely sure. - So incredible in the nose. They should bottle this scent. - I know, I debit behind my ears. - No, because it smells like fresh sour raspberries and that earthiness is coming from the pulp. You know, it's coming from the seeds and the-- - Yeah, I was going to say there's definitely that raspberry seed quality to this, that deep down earthiness. - And there's a touch of chocolate there and you get a little bit of the wood. - This is a solid hit for me. - Oh, I know, it smells so good. - I'm so excited to be able to try this on air. The one that you had cracked open for us, I mean, that was eye opening. - Yeah. - Everybody knows that Jester King is capable of some really amazing stuff, but this is a different level, entirely different sort of thing that we're seeing from these guys. - It's all the time we, kind of this NLS, next level shit. - Yeah. - This is next level. - It really is and tasting it pounds that down. I mean, yeah, this is amazing. It's exactly what I want in a frambour, essentially. It's so much tartness, barely any sweetness at all, really. And it's just ripe, fresh raspberry. And barely any funk, there's just a touch of it. - Yeah, very little funk. - But then it goes away almost immediately and gives way to that gigantic sour raspberry thing. Like, that's what it is. And it's that in aces, it's amazing. - Earthy. - Yeah, fuck yeah, it's earthy. - Green. - Is this bottle conditioned? - Yes. - Yes, there is definitely some stuff at the bottom. - I'm interested to try the dregs of this, actually. - Me too. - Yeah, how gorgeous is this beer? It's just so... - It pleases me greatly when I taste things like this coming out of America. I don't toot the America horn very often, but we're making some incredible beers. - Not only that, but the Texas Hill Country. - Yeah, absolutely. It's a great thing for Texas beer in general. - Absolutely. - And it thrills me to no end to see that this is where just your king is headed. Just makes my eyes bug out of my head and go, holy shit, we did this in Texas? - It's great because you can tell that this is not a happy accident. - No. - There's a lot of sours that I've had out of Austin and out of Texas, where you're kind of getting the sense they really clued in on something, but I don't know if they're gonna be able to replicate this. And this just tastes like finesse. - Yeah, you know, just your king makes a few beers that I do consider world class beers. They make some really, really good stuff. I think Boxes Revenge is one of those. - Absolutely. - Funk Metal is one of those. Lippity Prince is another one of those. - I think Noble King's one of those as well. - Oh yeah, Noble King's great. This one, however, does it to a, yeah, another level and makes it seem effortless, you know? I mean, you taste this and it just is what it is and there are no flaws and there are no seams. It's just perfect. - I'm excited to see, I wish we had on a bottle here, the label that Josh Cockrell, the label designer at Jester King has come up with 'cause their labels are some of the more beautiful I've ever seen anywhere in the world. - Yeah, and I'll probably put the label up with the episode because I have it on my phone. - And it's awesome. - It is amazing. - It's awesome. - I'll show it to you during the break. - He's a talented artist, for sure. - He nails it on this one. - I think they won three gold medal awards at the world packaging championships with his designs. - He sure did, yeah. - And well deserved. - And it's great that the beer is great to match. - Oh yeah. - I feel like I'm picking raspberry seeds out of my teeth. - I know, right? You feel like you almost have to be doing that, but oh man, this is just such a great beer. - Yes, thank you, friends at Jester King, for sharing this with us, this is a treat. - There's something herbaceous in it too. - Yeah, it kind of comes in a little bit in the middle, doesn't it? - I don't know what it is, it's there though. - It's joy, is what it is. - Pure joy. - I didn't know that it had a flavor profile, but I think that's what this is. - I know, I could drink this all the time. I really hope they keep making fruited sour beers. - And like it's also not too heavy on the alcohol, 5.8% ABV. - They do a really good job of picking and choosing which beers are high in alcohol at Jester King. I mean, they have table beers at barely eek 3%, and they have beers that are like 11, 12% as well. This one is exactly where it should be, I think. - And also really great from a marketing point of view, again, all their beers typically come in a 750 milliliter package, and this is in 500 mill bottle, and so if anybody familiar with Jester King bottles, it definitely sticks out. This is the first time they've ever done a smaller package. - Yeah, it's a cool looking bottle, really long neck, very low shoulder, almost champagne style bottle, and can't wait till this is out. I want to buy some. - I might have to call in sick whenever this goes out, because this is going to be a beer that I search out. I've missed a lot of beer releases as of late, but this is one that I don't want to miss out on. - I don't do much of this as I possibly can get a hold of. This will age amazingly well. - The first time I had this was with our buddy Walt Powell. You know, he works at Flix Brewhouse, and he's got arguably one of the biggest sellers in Texas. - He's definitely a fixture in the beer scene here. - Yeah, they ran an article about his seller a week ago, and it's just like really you have beer from 1975 in there. - Was that a hardy's? - It was, it was a hardy's. When he broke one of these out, he tried it, and he just put his head in his hands and said, yeah, I think this is the first real Texas whale of a beer, and I kind of agreed with them. - Yeah. - And every time I tried, I keep agreeing with that. It's one of those beers that's gonna be sought after. - This beer is awful, you don't want it. Don't seek it out. - Yes, no one drink this. - They hate us to say good things. - Save up for us Austinites to just enjoy this beer. Thing is, they have pretty white distribution. I mean, I think they're in Europe now. - They're in Chicago, I know. I know they're in California. - They make it to like Sweden or something like that? - Something like that. - Somewhere where McKellar goes. - But yeah, Chicago, I know, has quite a bit of an allotment. As does California, all of my friends out in California can get it there. - I don't think they'll get something like this though, because this will be a limited release, and they usually don't get the limited releases to those other non-Texas places. - So me. - Yeah, me and her near. - Suck in California. - Yes, suck it. Anyway, we're gonna take a break and finish up these two beers that are just amazing. I don't want this beer to end. I really don't know. - We're gonna weither openly. - Just on each other's backs. - Yeah. - Because if I'm on video, it'll be sobbing over the place here. - You know, I don't want to have anything of ours on video. - I don't want to be a bad idea. - Oh man. - I couldn't see this gorgeous studio we're in. - Yeah, I know, with the fucking blankets on the walls, and the one fat guy who's making all this heat. (laughing) ♪ Well, I was out, now I was down ♪ ♪ I was the sorryest kid, but round had to take a defeat ♪ ♪ Well, you never was every second world on the street ♪ ♪ I was just looking at my far friend ♪ ♪ And maybe it's the one who could help me ♪ ♪ And matter my story will get hot ♪ ♪ It takes a long while to even count ♪ ♪ Maybe it's hard if I see you right tonight ♪ ♪ I can't probably stop to get outside ♪ ♪ It's time to make my friends a studio show me again ♪ ♪ It's how we live when we got y'all to be out last ♪ ♪ Come out ♪ - Oh, Anna is so delicious. - So good. - If you're in the break, we didn't crap. - We cracked up in a bottle of Hill Farmstead, Anna, which is their honey seison out of Vermont. And man, what a great brewery and a great beer. - I really appreciate you sharing that with me. It's my first time to try anything from that brewery. - I'm so happy that you got to try that. - It was really great. And not only, you know, a great point of view, but their branding's really clever. It's simple and elegant and just, yeah, I look forward to having more beers from that brewery. - Oh man, like I said, I've had a bunch of their beers, maybe 12, 15 of them so far. Every time I have one, it just wows me how much they nail what they're trying to do. Every single time, seison's hoppy stuff, effort, I mean, is one of the best porters I've ever had. - Yeah. - They're just nailing it. - Different styles, different brewing disciplines, stuff that couldn't be further from one another in execution and every single time, they make it great. - Well done, Mr. Sean E. Hill. - Yeah, you crazy, crazy bastard. We love you. We're gonna get right into our next beer, which is ruse from the brewery. They're out of Placentia, California. This beer is 5.9% ABV and it's a limited one-time release available in bottles and on draft. And I think this is one of the beers that's only for the Reserves Society. I could be wrong about that. - So essentially it's their take on a goose. - Yeah, I'm gonna read the write up for this. Ruse is our take on the traditional Belgian style blend of lambics at different ages. We carefully select a number of oak barrels from our warehouse that have been aging our sour blonde ale for various lengths of time and blend them to what we think is the ideal flavor. - Cool. So it's kind of a hazy hay color with orange highlights. - Yeah, almost no head. - Yeah, there was barely any head when I was pouring it. - Ooh, that smells really good. - I'll do like the nose on this beer. - Smells a little funky, a little acidic. - Nice tartness to the nose. - I mean, it smells like a goose, you know. It really does. - There's a little bit of a cereal quality or there's a little bit of a sweetness in the nose. - Yeah, but I mean, for the most part, it's that lemony, peachy, sour, acidic, slightly funky nose that you get from gooses. - They didn't do a bad job here. - Oh, you're right, they didn't. - I am a bad man. - I think most of our listeners are probably pretty well aware that I'm not too huge a fan of the brewery, but you know, the one thing that I think they nailed pretty consistently well is the sours they do their take on. This one's actually pretty damn solid. - Sure is. - Please, everybody, try a sip of this and have a bite of this Tuscano salami. - You don't have to tell me twice, do you? - As soon as you said to do that, I took my first sip and I got something a little mommy or savory in that first sip that just made my mouth water. - Yeah, this is a really nice combination of flavors right here. The fennel and the red wine and the salami and the fat and the Christmas and the tartness of the beer, it works. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. What I'm tasting here is a pretty well executed take on a goosa, right? It's got a lot of the similar flavors, the giant sourness up front. Got a little bit of funk. It's not really that funky. It's kind of more along the funk lines of like a Tilcan or something like that, right? Not quite a tree fontanin or something like that, but it's got such a great mouth feel and nice amount of carbonation. There's something a little tinny toward the end, but that's not really taken away from the beer for me. - This is salami, right? - Yeah. - This made this beer so much better. - Oh, I know. - This is great. Those herb notes that I was getting in the salami really brought it more towards that Belgian tradition where there's a little bit more of a slight herbaceousness to it. Man, that was fantastic. The bite of salami that I just took with this beer perfectly paired. - It's like we're in Europe, Christ's sake. How cosmopolitan. - I haven't taken a shower. Yeah, I have. (laughing) - Why don't you shave my armpits? - That's true. - This salami is not gonna last much longer. - I know. - The acidity just hits you right before it goes down your throat. That's what it does. - And that's what's great about the salami. The salami is that that fat just really helps to cut that down. - It also brings out a little bit of saltiness in the beer. It ups the minerality of what you're tasting. - God damn it. - Man, that's a really nice beer. And you do make a good point about the brewery and their sours because yeah, me too, I'm not really that big into a lot of their well-regarded gigantic limited beers. - They're diabetes bombs. - Yeah. - They tend to be. - They're like the black teas day of the chocolate rain, the melange three, the fruit, you know, those things. - They're a beer called chocolate rain. - Yeah. I had a condition called chocolate rain once. (laughing) - Chocolate rain. - Yeah, but those beers, yeah, there are some interesting flavor profiles to them. They've got some really good flavors to them, but for me, a lot of them are very sweet, very-- - Or the top. - Well, sweet in the wrong way, you know. It seems like they're under attenuated rather than purposefully sweet, which is one of the things that I like about JW leaves their harvest sales. You know, I really like the sweetness there because it's balanced out by a lot of the other flavors. It feels like it works. But these other beers to me don't come off like a good port or anything like that. They just sweet for sweet sake, it seems. Their sours, on the other hand, are just fantastic. - Phenomenal. - Yeah, the filmish-mish that we had yesterday. - Motherfunker, hot and rough. - The hot and rough is delicious. - Even part of darkness. - Motherfunker, that's a great name. - Yeah, they have to go out of clouds. - The sour and the rye. - That was great. - That was great. - That's a great name. Well done. - I think those are all really outstanding. But then like you said, you get into their darker stouts, their Belgian strong darks, and I feel like they miss the mark so much on those. - Yeah, and there are a lot of other beer freaks and beer connoisseurs that will disagree with us. - Of course. - And that's totally fine. I mean, I think that maybe that palette might be a regional thing. The fact that we are in Texas doesn't help us liking those sorts of beers because yeah, it's hot as fuck over here. - Yeah, like nine months out of the year, so it kind of makes it difficult. - Yeah, I mean, I've had people say, are you fucking crazy? You don't like black Tuesday? Like no, I don't. I've had it so many different times, different ages on that beer. And every time it just feels like it's an accident that it's that sweet. - I don't know, but this fucking beer is delicious. It really is. This is one that I'd go out of my way to get another bottle of. - This is wonderful. One of the better things that happened in the brewery. - Absolutely, and as it warms up, I'm getting a little bit more of that funk. It's getting a little bit more minerally. And you know, the one thing that kind of sets it apart from other gooses, this is really full bodied. - Yeah, it is really full bodied for a goose. - Yes, but it's still working for me in the flavor profile. I still really enjoy what's there and just the way that it washes over the tongue. It's doing a pretty good job there. It's a little bit thicker than I would normally expect, but still damn tasty. - Sure is, and it feels like there might be a little bit of residual sugar there. And I don't think that takes anything away from this beer for me at all, but it does contribute to the body, I think. And that's really nice. - Going in for more salami, go for it. And I don't know if it's because I ate the salami. A little bit ago, wait, that sounds really weird. I don't know if it's because I ate the salami. - Welcome to my life. - Tell us more. - You know, next time you come to a whole lot of burger, I ain't giving you meat. (laughing) But I'm getting some more herbal qualities out of this. There's something basil-y or something green there that I'm getting now that it's warming up a little bit. This is a fun podcast here, I'm a great time. - Good, man, you're welcome back anytime. Anytime Grant can't make it. (laughing) - I sense another baby. - I might have to get his wife pregnant. - Again. - So that he messes some shots to have J-Con. - Happened to beer. - Just with a needle and punch a bunch of holes and condoms that they have and love child number one. (laughing) - They're actually married to each other. (laughing) Yeah, this is delicious beer. - Delightful is what I think of. - Yeah, it's very, very nice. Good job, Patrick and the team, Patrick Roo and the team at the brewery. - Yeah, spelled B-R-U-E-R-Y. - Off of their name. - The Roo. - Off of his name. - Yes. - And I guess we're gonna move on to the next one. - 'Cause why the fuck not? - What you said. - Yes. - You have to say fuck at least once. Oh, there goes two times. - I know. Hashtag why the fuck not. (laughing) - So our next beer is Kovei the Tomade from the Lost Av. You said Marcus California, it's 11% ABV and this is a limited winter release available in bottles and on draft. And it's hopped with German Magnum. It's also brewed with raisins, dextrose and sour cherries. And I'm gonna read the write up here. It says, once upon a time, it was the most award winning pizza port beer of all time. Now it's found in New Home at the Lost Abbey. A massive brown ale base that is made from four fermentable sugars including malted barley, raisins, candy sugar and sour cherries. This beer is fully fermented. Sometimes before being placed in bourbon barrels where the beer ages for one year with the sour cherries and the wild pretendomiasis yeast that we inoculate the barrels with. So there you go. And then that little jab is because this beer's completely flat again. - Oh, is it? (laughing) - Aw, wow. - I didn't even notice that when I made the jab. So yeah. (sighing) Yeah, that's the thing about Lost Abbey. A lot of times their beers will either be completely flat or over carbonated or just wrong in one way or another. But they usually taste very good regardless of the level of carbonation. - The QC issues though, I mean seriously, for the amount of money that they charge, it becomes inexcusable. - Well, it becomes a joke, it really does. - Zero bubbles in this. - No, there's no carbonation at all. This is completely still, absolutely a wine. - Looks like muddy water. - It does. (laughing) - When holding it up to the light, that's exactly what it looks like. - I can only hope that we're getting an off bottle on this. - It's off and on. All of these beers are kind of off and on. - They should have gone on a short stack, I think. - Yeah, short bowls. - You know what's really funny? For as often as I've had a good bottle of Cuve de Tommie, I've had better bottles more frequently of that Cuve de Tommie clone. - The Jonathan and the Austin Zealots are responsible for. - Oh, such good stuff. - One of the best home brewed beers I've ever had, hands down, is that Cuve de Tommie clone that they do. - Oh, and it's amazing. But getting back to how this looks like pond water. - Yep. - If somebody handed this glass to me and said, "Hey, have a sip of this beer." I'd be like, "No." (laughing) - I'm side alone saying this is beer. - Yeah, I know. It's so unappealing to look at it. - It does literally look like pond water. - It smells really good. - I think actually, a pond water has better head retention. (laughing) Sorry, Tommie. (laughing) - And sometimes little frogs. You know what I mean? Who doesn't like little frogs? - Me. - Oh, good point. This smells really good though. - That being said, it actually does taste rather nice. - Yeah. - But you drink with your eyes first. - Yeah. - And they got some work to do on that. - Yeah, and I'm getting like bourbon and cherries. - Chocolate. - I get some alcohol off the top too. - Yeah, but it's coming off in the way alcohol comes off in a port. Like it's kind of contributing for me. I like that. - I set a bit of a port nose to it. - Yeah. - Red pudding? - There's a little bit of chocolate, a little bit of bread pudding. - I can't keep my eyes open when I... - Yeah, yeah. - Just don't look at it. - I'm still stuck on that. It's kind of fusily to me. There's something that just in that nose is kind of nose hair burning. - Yeah, I mean, so it is alcoholic. And it's alcoholic more in the way that rum or brandy comes off like... - Some brandy notes in here too, yeah. - Yeah, but it's like cherry cordial. You're smelling a chocolate covered cherry with brandy. - That's very well put. I'm really wishing I had some more atrial rubicide. (laughing) - I pick up a little bit of like molasses notes that are a little bit deeper down too. - Mm. - Okay, so this is interesting. This is a... - What year is this? - That's a really great question. I was just wondering the same thing. - 1894. (laughing) It's a vintage. - That's a really interesting flavor profile. - There's a lot more... I wanna say like malt notes, chocolate, brown sugar, molasses notes going on than what I remember there being in previous bottles. - Right. - There's way more of a maltiness that's here. - And more bourbon than I remember too. And the vanilla is really big too. - Vanilla is very big. You know what things you try with this? Carbonating it. (laughing) I don't know if they thought of that, but... - No, that's a good point. I'm sure it'd be lovely with some bubbles. - It's aged in American bourbon and French oak wine barrels. - Okay. - Wild yeast, sour cherries. - So that's why I'm kind of getting brandy as well is because of that wine barrel. - I always think wine barreling leads to low carbonation. - It depends on the barrels. And it depends on how they bottle condition it too. - Well, two of the ones that we've had tonight. - You don't have to bottle condition. You can force carbonate and put it in bottles. - My bottle conditioning is so wildly variable. - We actually did that with some angel share. As John kind of alluded to, it is kind of a joke with these guys. Flat abbey. - Yeah, flat abbey. - It's sort of the running joke. But there were a number of vintages of angel share. When I first had angel share, it was courtesy of Walt. - Right. - And it was perfection. Actually, the very first coveted Tommy that I ever had was courtesy of him as well. And that too was perfection. It was carbonated, everything was on point. All of the bottles that I've had since then, especially with the angel share, have been so widely varied in terms of quality control. But there were a number of them that were completely flat. But the flavor profiles were completely on point. So when we were over at our friend Jonathan's house, it felt so sacrilegious doing this. But we poured angel share from the angel share bottle into an empty bottle of Canada dry. And then we forced carbonated that bottle of Canada dry and served the rest of it. And it was fantastic. It was exactly as it was supposed to be. This really needs that right now. - I mean, we were here when it was dry. Stat, yeah. - Well, because despite the lack of carbonation, the flavors are really not. So I'm getting some really good flavors. And there is a lot of alcohol. It's a very boozy drink. But I think the booze goes with the flavors for me. It was a little weird at first because it kind of tasted like an overdone old fashioned, you know, with a lot of bourbon and a lot of cherry going on. And there's lime juice or something happening there. - It's far more German chocolate cake than I remember it being. - True. - Ooh, nailed it. - Sort of that pecan, the vanilla, the coconut, the chocolate cake aspects of it really pop out here. - I'd actually love to make some sort of white tres leches with this. - And that would be awesome. - Like a chocolate or a cherry cake that uses this as like a soaking liquid. - That would be amazing. - Just thinking about this soaking of chocolate cake is amazing. - All right. - This beer has great flavor. It has a lot of things going for it. What it does not have is aesthetic or bubbles. - Right. - And both of which I think are important. - Absolutely. - Yeah, totally. - The best in a damn filter for Christ's sake. Plate and frame, not sacrilege. - I like bubbles. - Yeah, me too. Like I said, despite those flaws, it's a very good tasting beer. Again, it's not drinking like a beer. Yeah, there's no carbonation at all. But it's an amazing dessert, even despite the lack of sweetness. I don't know. This tastes much better than it presents itself. - Yeah, that's exactly right. - Still has a lot more sweetness than I personally care for. And 'cause I keep taking tips of it maybe 'cause I still had a little Anna in my glass, my other glass, but I keep going back to this and thinking that it's a little too much sugar. - You know, the sugars aren't bothering me so much. Usually when a beer is this sweet and it's one that I don't enjoy, it's because it's lacking other things to balance it out. And I think that this has enough flavor to balance it out, enough complexity to balance it out that I don't mind that so much. It's kind of going along with it for me. Just like when Mike was pointing out the alcohol, that worked with the other flavors for me as well. And how do you feel about it now after drinking it? - Well, I think that the actual flavors that are there, especially being is how it's more multi and more molasticy than I remember it being. - And it's really molasticy. I really like the flavors that are going on here, but God damn it, give me some texture, like give me some carbonation. It's my main complaint with these guys when they don't hit the mark, it's normally that. To me, it feels like something that's easily overcome. And why are you releasing it in this manner to people? - I want consistency from these guys. - Or at least a little bit more consistency. Because yeah, people like Jolly Pumpkin don't really have that much consistency flavor wise, but they fall within a threshold where you know that if you buy one of the bottles of their beers, you're still gonna get quality, right? - I've never had a beer of poor quality from Jolly Pumpkin. And I can't say that about Lost Abbey. - I completely agree. And you know what, if this was actually carbonated, it would rank way higher for me than, I would rate them much higher as a brewery if they could get their damn quality control issues down. - Even in this lineup, I think. - Yeah. - In this lineup, they'd probably be one of my top two or three. - Absolutely, if it was on point, but it's not. - Yes, Lost Abbey, please hire a QC manager. - I know, I know, but tell me Arthur. - I mean, you've seen this face. - This has been going on for years now, and it's sad, and it is rather humorous, I think, at this point. - Yeah. - It's just, what are you doing? - It's unfortunate, but do you guys want to get the rankings? - Yeah, let's do it. - Okay. - You're up. - This is crazy. I'm looking across the table and I'm seeing-- - Titties? - That. - Okay. - And similarities. - Well, why don't we-- - I like the way when you said Titties, we all looked over in you guys' direction, but I'll start with the rankings. - Nah. - I'm gonna start out from the bottom. Like my least favorite beer of the evening was White Monkey. It was missing some finesse, and it was missing some of the things that I really, really wanted in a barrel-aged triple. Like, I've had a few good ones, and this one, unfortunately, it was a little disjointed for me, and whatever. My number four beer was Kubei to Tommy, and I wish this wasn't my number four, and the only reason it's my number four is 'cause it's not fucking carbonated. If it was carbonated, this probably would have been my second favorite beer of the evening, because there's a lot of complex flavors going on there. The nose, like I said, it's like a cherry cordial, dipped in brandy, and the flavor follows suit, and it's a delicious beer, but unfortunately, it looks like shit water, and in my mouth, it just doesn't feel very good. That's what she said. - And I apologize to her, believe me. My number three beer was Love Child number three, and Boulevard is doing such a great job with their Smokestack series. Love Child number three is a fantastic beer, the wood quality of its great, the right amount of funkiness for that amount of sourness, and it's a slight step up from Love Child number two. It's gonna be one of those beers that everybody just loves. Number two beer of the evening is the brewery ruse. I dug the shit out of that. I thought that sourness was just amazing, and the flavor profile was amazing, and it just had a touch of funk to add some depth to that sourness. And what a great beer. I really wish they stuck the landing, as well with their really sweet beers, as they do with their sours. My number one beer of the evening, Atrial Rubesite, holy shit, Jester King. God damn it. Jester King is doing some amazing crap, and if this is any indication of where they're going, everybody's going to give a fuck every time they release a new beer. I mean, there last several beers have been getting better and better and better with each new release, and this one jumps up a bunch of notches and puts them in this arena of super elite beers that people dream of competing in. - As Jake was saying earlier, NLS. - Yeah, next little shit, dude. - NLS, man, yeah. - Thank you so much, Jester King, and who's next? - I'll go next. - Okay, Mike. - Can we go in unison? - Okay, let's do it. - Number five, White Monkey. - No, it's just okay. - Not impressed. - Right, okay. - Number four. - Couve de Tomi. - Can we all get the same rankings? - Yes. - Oh my God. - Yeah, this is a first, I think, for us three. - Too sweet for me. - Okay, go, go. - Number three, love child number three. - Good, but compared to number one and two. - Yeah, our number two. - Ruse, from the brewery. It's one of those ones. - Amaze balls. - Yes, for their sours. And our number one. - April, Rubisite. - Holy shit. - Shit balls. - Lease balls. - They, if we had taken off the labels of Lupepe from Bois, Char's beaks, Creek, from Dream Fontaineen, and had this beer in the lineup, I think that we would have had a real difficult time discerning one another. I mean, they were all next level shit. - Awesome, awesome stuff. Nailed it, holy shit. Send me some. - Oh, shut up, you can't-- - I do really quickly wanna point out, though, that boulevard and victory have similar distribution numbers, not necessarily to the same states, but they distribute to about the same amount of states. - Sure. - And yeah, boulevard's better. (all laughing) - Oh, fuck. Oh, well, thanks guys. How about you, Jake? How did you-- - For me, my top three were pretty similar. The quality between the three was very, very close. The bottom two really just fell off the board for me. Number five, the Kubeita Tomi. I just thought it was lacking in character, lacking in the depth was good. The color of the beer leaves, I don't know. - A lot to be desired. - Yeah, I mean, it literally looks like dirty pond water. - It really does. - And that is not an attractive thing. It needed bubbles, the flavor was nice, but all that being said, overall, was a negative experience for me. Number four, white monkey from Victory. I thought it was pretty disjointed, and actually into the barrel-age triple style in general. And for me, it didn't gel very well. Number three, the ruse from the brewery. I thought that was a very, very nice beer. And that being said, from four to three, that's a big jump in quality. It's a massive jump. The ruse was a very, very nice beer. Number two, the H.O. Rubesite for me. I love Jester King. I love those guys and know them all very, very well. And that's an amazing beer. And for number one for me was Love Child Number Three from Boulevard. I thought that was a very well-balanced, beautiful, wonderful beer. - Nice. - And I look forward to having them very soon. - Yeah, what a great beer that is too, man. - It really was really great. And like I said, one, two, and three for me are just neck and neck. But if I have to rank them, that's how I would rank them. - Yeah, and all that totally makes sense. I mean, for me, my top two were really splitting hairs. Yeah, you know what, the top three, because yeah, fuck you, Love Child Number Three? That beer's great. - Three of these are great. Two of them not so great. - Yeah, and sometimes we have nights where every single one of the beers that we have are fantastic. And we have to still put something at number five, you know? So it's like, oh, how do we do this? - There's two pretty clear tears, I think, between the best and the worst. - Yeah. - At least within this show. - There's one in particular. Yeah, I think the top three are just such great beers. And the bottom two were just, eh. - I mean, if you're in an area where Kueve de Tommy is released, clearly pick it up. Hopefully it's carbonated. - I would hopefully get it on draft. - Right, yeah. But man, that Love Child Number Three, that Ruse and the Atrial Rubesite are ones that I would go out of my way to search for. - Absolutely. - You know, let me say, like as a brewer, I appreciate a brewer wanting to make a unique creation and having it be what he or she wants it to be. But the Holy Grail of brewing is consistency. - Absolutely. - And if you can't make a consistent product, then what are you doing? - Then what are you doing? - And that's one of the things that Las Abbey struggles with consistently. And it's sad to me because they've been in the game for a very long time and they've gotten a lot of accolades for the stuff they're doing for good reason. Because their beers are really good when they nail it. - When their beers are on point, they're some of the best in the world. - They absolutely are. - And when they're not on point, it's just this deep woeful disappointment. There's just so many times where we've had off bottles of angel share of Kueve de Tommy. And then when you get those really great bottles, there's something to be treasured. It's so hard to find ones that you know are good. - Right, and it's so hard to find vintages where it's just like, okay, I know that they nailed it on this one. - And the thing that makes it worse for me is the fact that those bottles are usually very expensive. - Yes. - You're paying $22 for a bottle of Kueve de Tommy. - Shit. - When I was buying it, it was $30 because I was having it shipped in from out of state. And sometimes that's the only way you can get it. - Yeah, 25 bucks for an angel share. And then A, it's still a gamble as to whether or not it's gonna have some fucking carbonation in it. - Or if it's not infected. - Yeah. - So yes, consistency is a great thing, but my friend Joe Morfeld had brew at Pine House Pizza here in town. - Awesome, Brewer. - We're having Joe on the show at some point, too. - You know, Joe has said this better than anybody I can imagine. Beers should be like a snowflake. Each one's different than the last, but a snowflake's different than a turd, I guess. (laughing) In a way, you know, I appreciate the artistic differences between batches, I mean, brewing is an art, it's a craft, but you need to make sure those snowflakes at least crystallize. - Yeah, it needs to have some consistency. - Tommy, and I'm talking directly to you, if your snowflakes end up being turds and you ruin another Christmas for us. (laughing) - Fuck. - And we have like, you know, turd men instead of snowmen. I'm gonna be pissed, and I'm just-- - I like Mr. Hanky. - Mr. Hanky's great though, you know? - Well, yeah, but I mean, he's very upbeat, but he doesn't taste good. - No, no! - No, and if you've ever had a turd fight. - Have you had turd fight? - We didn't have a lot to do on the board or growing up. - Uh, Mexican kids, that's what we do. No, that's not what we do. (laughing) Sorry, other Mexican kids listen. - Can you say that in the Mr. Waterburger voice? - If you're a Mexican kid, and you're taking a break from your turd fight, fill your bellies up with water burger. Because tacos, I don't know if that makes sense. - That's okay though. - We can edit that out later. - Yeah, I don't know, I really wish they would get a handle on what the fuck they're doing, and like I said, this guy makes some great fucking beer. I just wish it was every time, or most of the time even. - I wish that the price point justified-- - In consistency? - Exactly. - The price point should justify hiring a QC manager. - Right. - I could have sworn that I read somewhere that like, yeah, QC is really important to us, but is it? - They need to fire whoever they hired to do that. - I can't imagine that they don't know. - Like their distributors don't tell them. - Right, or they open up bottles at their place and go, oh hey, hey, tell me another flat one. - I guess we need to still sell this to break even. - They have to fucking know. And they have to be doing it on purpose. - Exactly. - It's an artistic decision, I suppose. - No, that's how they keep getting people to buy it. Oh shit, is this gonna be flat? No, yes, maybe. Keep buying, keep buying 'til you get the right one. - And good luck with that marketing strategy. - Well, you know what, we talked about this a lot on the internet, when we did that phantone saison video, we got picked up on beer pulse for it. - Really? - Yeah, so beer pulse ran it. So the thing is, is that we had a taste in last week, right? And we opened up a phantone saison, and they've been having a lot of problems. - And this is the worst PDO infection I've ever seen. - This was the second bottle of phantone saison that we opened up and poured in four months that was gelatinized completely. - No shit. - Like it was pouring, like, dreno or shampoo. - It poured like those aloe drinks. - Yeah. - Where it's just the aloe pulp. It's just this very clear viscous mucus-y texture to it. It was crazy because it was still carbonated. - Yeah, it was still carbonation. - It pours like a carbonated jelly. Seriously, leaving strings of mucus. So- - Wow, that's a fascinating kind of, but- - It was insane, horrible. - And we posted that on beer advocate, and then beer pulse took it and ran with it, but on beer advocate, there was a guy who came in and started talking about, well, you know, breweries and art, especially beer small farmhouse brewery, it's just that you don't understand the art. And I was like, I get the art, I get the art, and this is shit. - Yeah, is this a performance piece? Because this is the second bottle of this beer that I've had that ended up like this. So there's this long discussion about, ah, you just don't understand the art. It's like, yeah, you know, it's like, no, you motherfucker. I understand that this beer is the best season on the planet when it's on point. - Yes. - And this was so off the mark. It's the second time that it's happened. - I responded to it. I said, you know, I'd have a little bit more happiness about the whole artistic side of it if the bottle was labeled. Hey, this is a something, it could be shit, I don't know. And then I bought it for 15 bucks, and then it was shit. I'd be like, oh, it's part of the thing, you know? But it's supposed to be a saissant. It's supposed to be at least drinkable. What we had was slime, you know? Yeah, things could go wrong. But Fantome is another one of those breweries that lately has been having a lot of problems. - And it's really sad because it's historically been one of my favorite breweries. - Same here, man. I loved a lot of the stuff that Danny was doing there. But lately, like I said, yeah, we've been getting some really weird phenolics from their beers. Some of them have been bottles of jelly, and yeah, they're having some fucking problems. But just like Lost Abbey, it's gonna make me think twice before buying a bottle of 15, 20, $25 beer. - I'm not trading for any Fantome says on any time soon. I can't either. - How about I had a Fantome to tell me? (laughing) It'd really be a disaster. - It would be just uncarbonated jelly. (laughing) - I'm gonna call it Vaseline. - Oh yeah, yeah. You can masturbate to it. - We'll call it radiator fluid. - Yeah. The greatest part about that is that after we filmed all the videos and stuff, Bill Brink, our buddy, took the bottle over to his 1930 Model A. - Yeah. - And he poured it into the radiator. - Classic. - Yeah, my buddy Ryan, who's on the show a lot, he's a chemistry PhD candidate, and he goes, I don't know what's gonna happen to that once it warms up. (laughing) I don't know what his car's doing. I haven't talked to him again. - He died on the way home. (laughing) He's a folding radiator, apparently. But let's just be honest, Bill is a walking dead man anyway. (laughing) We love you Brink, you piece of bastard. We should probably close this up. Thank everybody for listening to this. You guys are great, you guys have been so supportive and wonderful. - I'm Gals. - And Gals, yeah. - And thank Jake Maddox. - Yeah, Jake, man, thank you for coming on. - Thank you for the invitation. I really appreciate being able to share some good times and stories and meet and beer with you. - Oh, and thank you so much for the meet. - I feel threatened. - It's been a treat. And thank you, by the way, Salton Time for providing said-- - Yes. - Salton Time, thank you so much. They provided all the charcuterie and lovely meatiness for this episode. - And if you're in Austin, please come by and eat some meat and drink some beer with me. - Yes, I'm just gonna crunch into the microphone. - That's fine, where is the brick and mortar? - It's on 7th of Jaconne in beautiful hip contemporary East Austin. Home of the hipster, by the way. That is genetically where the hipster came from. - I can smell it on you. - Yeah, I think my beard and my skinny jeans give it away, but I know. - God damn it, Jake. - Actually, I'm wearing hemp pants. - Holy shit. Mike might smoke your legs if you're not careful. - Can we smoke it together? - Yes. - Oh yeah. - Sharing is caring, everybody. - Yeah, Anastasia, thank you so much for being here. - Please don't kick me off for Jake. I feel threatened. - I know, you're like so low energy today. Is it yesterday still sneaking up on you? - It's life taking its toll on me. - Are you okay? - The death is coming. - No, it's not. - He's gonna knock four times. - Oh God, we've been watching Doctor Who. - And then I'm gonna die. - So many times he knocks four? Is that right? - Yeah, we've been watching Doctor Who, and we're at a point that I think took Anastasia into a very dark place. - Very dark. - Okay, Mike, thank you so much for being here. - Please kick Anna off for Jake. No. - Hey, where else are you gonna get tits from? - Well, I just put a lot of pots on you. - Wow, checkmate, checkmate. I concede. - Do you not remember Frito? - Oh yeah. - There you go. - I had so many weird tongues in my mouth that day. I don't know what happened. - It was neat. - I had fingers. - Okay, so. - And beards. - Again, thanks everybody for listening. - Join us next week to find out who's got the STD. - Oh, all of us. - Yeah. - The same one. - Yep. - Anyway, back to the orgy. - But anyway, like I said, thanks a lot in time. (laughing) - And thank you, Beerus. I appreciate being able to be on your show today. - Dude, can we kick Mike off? - No. - And have Jake? - No. - Please, I wanna keep up. - At least wait 'til I'm not here to tell me no. - Holy shit, Jake does look like a better version of Mike. - I wanna keep up. - It's true, I understand. - No, it's funny, before I moved here to Austin, when I was living in Fort Collins, I was working at New Belgium, and I would listen to Austin Beer podcast, kind of good idea what the scene is gonna be like in Austin. And I wish you guys would have been around when I was there, but the old bod cast I heard were - Pretty terrible. (laughing) - Y'all in Aaron, and yeah, Chris at Austin Beer Guide, you said. - Well, they weren't doing it when I was listening, but, or when I was in Fort Collins, it was best do a great job. (laughing) - Yeah, those guys are awesome. - And weren't you voted like beer personality of the year in their publication? - Yes, I was. - How much did that cost you? - It's pretty cool. - Like at least, at least five blow jobs. (laughing) - Oh, God, I'm just slacking. - Oh, God. But yeah, it was very nice of them to me. - I mean, to be fair, we only gave them two. - So, yeah, you know. - Blow jobs speak words, man. - Yeah, it's a lot of words. - Oh yeah. - Yeah, talk into my microphone. (laughing) - Yeah, that was a good date. - Uh, good night, thank you, and we love you. Cheers. Bottoms up. - Bottoms up. - Bottoms up. - Oh, we always love you. Bottoms up. - Bottoms up. - Bottoms down. - Bottoms. (laughing) ♪ Don't shout out ♪ ♪ The cancer power is lame ♪ ♪ You won't know shit ♪ ♪ With you said five ♪ - More information on the Beerists podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit thebeerists.com. Email us your feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions at info@thebeerists.com. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/thebeerists and follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/thebeerists. Intro music was provided by Ian Butcher and his band, Deflated Ballet. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/Ian_Butcher93. I'm John Rubio. Thanks again for listening. ♪ Don't shout out ♪ ♪ The cancer power is lame ♪ ♪ You won't know shit ♪ ♪ With you said five ♪ ♪ Don't shout out ♪ ♪ To make you stupid, but you said ♪ ♪ To make ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [ Silence ]
