you're listening to episode 54 of the bearest podcast recorded on April 8th, 2013, Odell Sellers series. Why is Grant here? I think it's called child neglect. I didn't even call him. What happened to Ryan? I don't know. I thought you could keep me away by getting me and my wife pregnant. I don't know how you sabotage this shit. You guys are 10 months in the planning here. Ryan thought that if he got y'all pregnant, he'd have a definite permanent spot. Look how it backfired. Yeah, and some people got it immaculate. Let's not take this any further. That sounds good to me. I'm really glad to have you back, Grant. I missed you. Thank you. I'm glad to be back. We all missed you. Hands were shaking. I was getting the sweats. I was like, what is this? Oh, I missed the bearest. No, no. That's called fatherhood. I'm a fatherhood. Yeah. Have John Ruby on with me today? I have. Anastasia not pregnant. Kelly. Thank goodness. We also have returning triumphantly. Grant, we'll see about that, Anastasia. David. Whoa. Grant's going to get Anastasia pregnant, so she misses some fucking shows. Mike's going to stand and watch Lambert. Oh, man. Does that mean you and Ryan are in kahoo hoo. Ah, hoo. Yes. Oh, shit. Is that what they're calling it today? Yeah. Kahoot. Eh, we're in Kahoot, see? We're doing an Odels seller series show today. Oh, no alcohol, huh? No, there's a lot of alcohol. I know. Great. Odels. No, it's anywhere. No, that's no duels. That's a different thing, altogether. Oh. These guys missed me, didn't you? Yes. These have a lot of alcohol, and I just want to thank Jason Straub for sending these to us. Jason Straub's a listener out in Nebraska. Yeah. You know, he came down and we met him one time. We actually did another show with several of the beers that he gave us. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's a visit. Yeah. We've been in contact back and forth since then, and he got together a bunch of Odels seller series beers and sent them to us. What a guy. I know. And I'm really excited about this. There are several of these that I haven't had. Yeah, actually for me too. Before we get to that though, I want to get through a couple of emails. The first one says, "I'm discovering I enjoy lighter beers as compared to stouts. The lighter bodied is the better phrase. What do you guys suggest on ails and IPAs? I've got some bells to hearted coming, which was inspired by your last podcast, but I'm looking for some others to try. Cheers, Evan Gundy." Where does Evan live again? Evan lives in Oklahoma. Oh, okay. So they don't get very much beer out there. They still get a couple of decent things. I'm going to come in some prairie. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. There's nothing. No, but you know, he did mention that he's getting some too hearted, so he's either trading or asking other people to send him stuff. Recent payload that I had was the live payload from Southern Tier. Oh, yeah. Just hit here. And that was actually pretty decent. One of their better regular offerings. Mm-hmm. Centennial IPA from Founders is also very good. Oh, yes. Who does all-day IPAs? Is Founders also? Definitely. Yeah. There's one of their new, like, sessionable IPAs. I haven't had that one yet. Oh, it's good. It's fairly new. I was just having a peacemaker from Austin Bear Works. It's such an easy, easy to drink beer. Peacemaker's a really good Austin Bear Works beer. Is he talking about a much more sessionable beer? What he mentions here just like Ailes and IPAs? You know, I mean, that could mean a lot of different things. There's a lot of really great saisons, which, yeah, we mentioned prairie. Those are fucking fantastic. What about still water? Still water makes a really great table beer. That's fantastic. And most of the beers that still water makes are going to be fairly light to medium bodied and effervescent. There are also a bunch of really great pilsners out there. They get great divide. But they're ideals. Oh, great divide. The IPA, Titan IPA is good. Oh, yeah, yeah. I feel like we should do like a paleo episode, like maybe our second episode of Barris we should do. [LAUGHTER] No, nobody should listen to the first two episodes. They're terrible. They're awful. We should recreate those. Yeah, we really should. Then we will eventually. But yeah, I hope that helps out Evan. I wish I had more to add to that. We've recommended a lot of great light beers across the history of our show. Oh. They get Jolly Pumpkin. So like, Bambier, a couple of other things like that too. Oh, yeah. Bamb ones, right? Mm-hmm. The next email says, "Hi, beers. I recently moved to Dallas from Indianapolis about a month ago. I worked at a large craft beer liquor store in Indianapolis and had no trouble getting a large number of Midwestern, East Coast, and West Coast beers. Now that I've moved down to Texas, I'm in a very new environment. I've gotten to try a bunch of new beers down here and during South by Southwest got to visit Jester King. He didn't email us. I would have totally gone hung out with him, totally. I was wondering if you could suggest a few beers that I can try here that I can't get it anywhere else or if you knew any liquor stores in Dallas that you could recommend that I visit. I love the show and pretty much always agree with your judgments. Thank you for the great show and the great beer recommendations. Your fan, Anson. Shop specs. The place to go. Fuck. Specs is a, you know, the place to go. Well, I just know it's up there. It's down here. It's got a really huge, respectable beer selection, I think. Yeah. I don't spend a lot of time in Dallas, so that would be the place that I would say to try because I don't know any other place in Dallas. As far as something interesting and unique to where you are, get some deep elm. Yeah, deep elm is a fucking badass brewery. They're canning all this stuff now. Looks like most of it. When it comes to Dallas for the folks that are living around here, they know that Fort Worth and Dallas, extremely close together. Yeah. However, that's a huge geographical area. Oh, yeah. So there's a lot of different places to go and really it could take a little while to get there, depending on where you are, a metal, some moth. Oh, yes. Is out in Dallas. Specs, of course, there's a few other places that have just recently opened up the common table. Yeah. I've heard of the common table. I've heard good things. Craft and growler, which is a new place that opened up in Dallas. It's like a growler filling station that has a bunch of craft beers, so you should check that out. Very cool. Roar is out in Dallas. Oh, yeah. Roar and sons. So far, my favorite things coming out of Dallas are probably coming out of deep elm. They're making some really cool, cool beers. Oh, two different ginger man's, one in Fort Worth and the other one in Dallas. Okay. Cool. So hopefully that'll get you started, Anson. And next time you're in Austin, drop us an email. We'll take you out. Yeah. A few days in advance. We'll give you a little tour. Go have some beers with you. Yeah. We're not going up to Dallas. No. No, not going to Dallas. But you come down here to Austin? Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to Dallas mainly because it's Dallas. So... Well, even Dallas already has founders. So... What's that doing? What's going on, Stasia? The flying saucer has KBS right now. The draft house. But yeah. Those are our emails. Thank you guys for emailing us. If anybody else wants to do that, send it to info@thebearest.com and we will answer you or talk about it on the show. Up next, we're going to talk about donations. Ooh, what did we get? Money, money, money. Yes. We got one donation this week. Yay! Awesome. Still awesome. One more than we had last week. Yes. It was a $5. It's from Jeff Iceden. We sent us a donation. Thank you so much, Jeff. It helps a lot. We promise if we go to GABF, we'll get super snorkered and be hilarious. Yeah. We're trying to raise money to go to GABF and I don't want to put ads on the show. I want to be listeners supported on this. So if you can find some extra money, please send us a few bucks, $5, $10, $20, as much as you want and help us get to the GABF. We want to send all four of us to go out there and to, you know, hopefully record some content for the show, do some interviews and make some connections that would make the show better in the future. And if you want, John, to stop playing Sarah McLachlan on the show. I'm not going to do that again. You can donate to the show on our website. We have a donate link on the left-hand side of the page. That's a little PayPal donate link and you can use either credit card or PayPal. And what's the site again? Theberests.com. Sweet. Thanks, Mike. I also want to send a thanks out to Rob Walsh of Libson. Libson is the company that we host the show through and we had a problem and I'm not going to get too far into it. We had a problem where iTunes took our feed off of the iTunes store for who knows what fucking reason. Like, they didn't tell me why we have no idea why they did it. A bunch of jerks. But they did. And I posted on, you know, the Apple support forum, Rob Walsh from Libson responded to me and said, Hey, contact me, I guess within about an hour, we were back up and running. We didn't lose anything. That's crazy. It was so awesome. Yeah. It was so awesome. Rob Walsh of Libson saved our asses. Thanks, Rob. Yeah. Nice asses. Yeah. We have such nice asses. Let's get to our beers. Yes. So, like I said, these are the Odell Sellies series beers. This is not all of them. This is just some of them. There's a lot of them. Yeah. There are a lot of them. This is out of Fort Collins, Colorado, and they were founded in 1989 by Doug Odell and his wife, Lynn, and their sister, Corky 23 years later, the culture of family and collaboration still thrives, fostering a brewery full of beer-centric people. It is this passion for beer that inspires Odell Brewing to create quality handcrafted innovative beers. In 2010, the brewery completed their fourth expansion, adding a wood-age seller, a 750 milliliter bottling line, and a 76 kilowatt photovoltaic system capable of providing 25% of the brewery's peak energy demand, which is really fucking cool. As a regional craft brewery, Odell Brewing is committed to serving the communities in which they distribute by sourcing local raw materials and through the charitable giving program known as Odell Outreach. The brewery's tap room is open Monday through Saturday and offers limited release pilot brews, live music on Wednesday, and daily tours, and Joe Morfeld from Pine House Pizza used to work there as well, right? Yeah, yeah. He was either the head brewer or the master brewer or something like that. Joe worked there for a good stretch of time, I believe, and now he's in Austin making beer at Pine House Pizza. Yes. Our first beer is shenanigans. It's an oak-aged crimson ale, 9.1% ABV, and it's a retired beer available in 750 milliliter bottles. I think that Jason bought this off the shelf. So they're still around, and it's an ale-aged and American oak barrels with pretendomiasis. Cute little label. Yeah, it is pretty cool. Definitely a crimson color. Pretty ruby red. Yes. Muddled brown. Copper-y almost. The head is kind of an off-tan. It almost seems misplaced. I know. But for the color that the beer is, it looks darker than it should be. Right, exactly. It's sticking around quite a bit. You could definitely tell that there's pretendomiasis in this beer just based off the head and the rocky. Yeah, you could smell it, too. I'm off my game, guys, I already took a sip. Did you? It smells like the old wood chest. Yeah, it's very woody, very citric as well. There's a lot of oranges that are too ripe. I'll definitely get some peppercorn from that bread. I'm sinking some cherry. Yeah, there's a little bit of that, too. It's a little creamy, probably from the oak. Touch of allspice. There's definitely a fibrous note to it. Yeah. It smells chewy. Man, that smells really good. It does. I'm surprised at how woody it is. Like, there's a lot of wood note in the nose. I'm going to take a sip. Chewy. I think I know what you mean by chewy. I think that's exactly right. Wow. That has got some serious texture for being, I guess, the body that it is. Yeah. That's a lot of wood in the flavor. Mm-hmm. It's like drinking pure oak barrels. Yep. It definitely washes over the tongue like just a bunch of fibrous wood. But there is still some of that cherry and orange peel. Yeah. It smells a lot more like the inside of an overripe orange, but the flavor is very orange peel. You get a bitterness there that's similar to those orange oils, citrus oils. It's really earthy as well, something that I would attribute to that oak note that's coming through. Is that touch of booze here? Mm-hmm. But it's not off-putting to me. I got a lot of it when I first took a whiff as soon as Mike poured it, but it settled down and it's not so much on the nose, but yeah, you can taste it. Mm-hmm. There's something also that's similar to fermenting pineapple. Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of fruit notes, and it's mostly orange pineapple and cherries that I'm getting off of this. But they all taste not like the fresh versions of those fruits, but that they have gone off at some point and are starting to ferment themselves. Mm-hmm. It's a delicious rotten fruit. Yeah. Yum. But in a good way, you know. Yeah. It's not very sour or tart to me, but it keeps like puckering up like the back of my mouth or my teeth end. Yeah. There's something that's reminding me of like when you crack open like a peanut, that skin that's around the nut. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that dusting thing. Yeah, exactly. Rotten Hawaiian punch. Yeah. [laughter] You know, I'm reading the bottle right now that says, "Our spirited breweries diligently cultivate recipes on our pilot brewery and playground. Sometimes things don't turn out as planned. They turned out better. Destined for another adventure, this delightful crimson ale is eh, that's why I didn't fucking copy all this." But what you should have copied was this little limerick poem thing on the side. "There was once a mischievous brew with a beautiful crimson like you. We had one and had one again and we called it Shenanigans." Oh, that's a stretch, guys. Then we brewed a batch of just for you. Why is the leprechaun from leprechaun reading that? I guess the best name is Shenanigans. Oh, well Shenanigans. But this is pretty good. I think it would help if it was a little lighter on the flavor because there's a fuck ton of flavor here for the amount of body that it has. There's this sourness to the fermented orange that I had a college house party years back and a friend of mine was living with a guy that just got a prison. I like where this is going. That guy taught him how to make prison hooch. Yeah, prison hooch with oranges that he just fermented toilet water and he brought, well I don't think he used toilet water, but he brought his own version, he might've. And it kind of reminds me of this. How do you pee? Do you pee in the toilet and that helps it ferment? No! In the tank. No, you put it in the tank. Oh, can we have tanks in prison? I watch too many of these. Some of them have the tank there. Some of them happen behind the wall. What was your room? It was an Andy Dufresne. Yeah, I can't tell you his new name. I really like the amount of carbonation in this. That's real nice. That Britannia Seuss edition did the right thing with the CO2 in this. The textures. The textures where this is really getting me. Yeah. That's where I'm really digging this beer. It's weird because it's almost like it's about to be metallic, but it's not quite there. Yeah, but it is certainly close. I like this in smaller doses. Yeah. I think it's better to have this and share it amongst friends rather than have a whole bottle of this. Yeah, I wouldn't want to drink a whole bottle of this. Yeah. That'd be too much. But I do think it's nice. And I think that, you know, some other citrus dish would go with it really well. That'd be great. You think so? Yeah. While we're on this, I think as of next week's recording, it'll be right at the one-year mark. Because May 2nd was the release of the very first episode. Pretty exciting. We're old. Yeah. We should do a one-year episode. Time flies when you drink a lot. Maybe for a one-year episode, we'll just do a bunch of shitty beers. What are you thinking on this beer, though, time-wise? I feel like it's got at least another eight months left in it for sure. I'd love to see where this is. Probably. And it is a retired beer, so the stuff that's on the shelf is probably all that they're going to make of this. My god, Trim. It's only about like seven and a half months. Nailed it. Yeah. Overall, I enjoyed the shenanigans. Where have you been? I actually just sit at home and make these terrible jokes and just laugh at myself. Do you have little pictures of all of us? Yeah. Just every so often, you just tape one of those pictures to your new baby's face. And you just hash out ideas on it. It'd probably be me because all the whining and crying. Yeah. And shitting itself. Yup. Yeah. Mainly the shit. Next beer. Yes. You want to do that? Sure. Our next beer is Sabatour. It's a barrel aged brown ale, 10% ABV beer, and it's another retired beer, 750 milliliter bottles. Like all of these are coming from 750 milliliter bottles. Quaked and caged, motherfucker? Yes. They're all quarked and caged. I'm going to lose an eye though. Oh, god. It's an ale aged in American oak barrels with pretend amisies. This is the same thing as shenanigans except for instead of crimson ale. It's a brown ale. We know what we feel about brown ale. They kick ass. It depends on the brown ale. As far as I knew, it was just like an imperial brown ale with pretend amisies, so I could be completely off on that. Who knows? Man. Wow. This has pretend amisies in it. Yeah, sure. The head is just giant, rocky and uneven. It's awesome looking. Wow. You can't really see through this very well. No, not really. It's dark brown and it's got a light brown highlight on it. Funny enough, the same type of head does the other one. It's got a more appropriate color. Looks like Swiss cheese on the sides. Yeah, that smells good. This is almost a little bit more smoky. Smoky and sort of minty? Yeah, a little bit of that and chocolate like malted milk balls almost. Yeah, yeah. I totally see what you're talking about with the mint. It's almost like a basil kind of mint. Yes. Greenness that's there. Yeah, malted milk balls. I keep getting that in the nose. I think that's probably just a combination of the brown ale with bread. Could be, right? Yeah, imagine the malted milk is from the brown ale quality. There's something in there that smells like hay, very specifically that. It's a little vegetal. Sort of venturing away from the food notes. There's something kind of solvent-like, something that reminds me of a cleaning product or something like that. A little bit of 409. I get some anise. Deep down. You know, I'm going back and forth between something solvent-y and something that smells a lot like bourbon. Okay. Yeah. Probably barrel notes. Yeah. Are you guys getting anise? I could totally pull that out of here. A little boozy. Oh, that's interesting. It's way better than it was when it was first released. This is retired as well now, right? Yeah. Okay. Is it me or is the ending all bourbon-y? Totally. Yeah. Did these warm-ing? Is bourbon balls here? Oh, just some American oak, which more than likely will be. Yeah. It tastes a lot better than it smells. I think so too. This would be really shaped up. When it was fresh, it was 10% brown ale aged on band-aids is what it tasted like to me. And the bread is really shaped up here. I think just having the taste also affects how I go back and smell it. It's really nice. So, to me, this beer is like drinking like a soda, but that soda's flavor is bourbon. You know, it's not like bourbon and soda or bourbon and water, but it's not like a mixed drink. It's like, okay, we just launched a new soda, which is bourbon, but carbonated. I've had some carbonated chocolate drinks before, and I get notes of that in here as well. It kind of starts with that chocolate note and then finishes with the bourbon. Actually, I think that's a little bit more accurate. Yeah, because that chocolate maltiness, it's got a really nice balance. It's like if they just took that powder and then they just poured some bourbon on the chocolate malt powder. Have you had malta before? No. It's similar in a sense as what I'm getting here. Just the... It's a carbonated malt drink. It's kind of fermented. Normally you get that around like Central and South America. Okay. I kind of get notes from that in this. Chocolate pencils. What? Pencils. Chocolate scented pencils? Okay. That's what I taste. Kind of the wood flavor. I've never experienced chocolate scented pencils. Oh, like colored pencils or anything like that? I haven't either, but I was just trying to roll with it. No, but I understand the wood part and the chocolate part, but chocolate pencils. I guess your guys are dudes, so you probably didn't have scented writing utensils. You guess we're dudes? Yes, I guess. I can't verify for facts. He made a child. Like, doesn't that qualify? I mean, we think. He's more manly than us right now. This guy's got a lumberjack beard. Yeah. And, well, there's Ruby out. How are these proof of things? Thanks, Grant. I use hair product. This beer, there's something in here that tastes kind of like chocolate covered strawberries. Okay. If you have another sip and try to drill down to that, there's a very, very light note of that sort of thing. There's definitely a fruit note that I think that we've been missing. I think you kind of hit it. I think it might be strawberries. There's a berry note that's there for sure. I keep choking on the carbonation. It is very carbonated. Are you okay? Okay. She's better. Let's find out what happens when we mix. And Grant's back. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of carbonation here and a really interesting mouth feel that that gives this because it's not really a light-bodied beer so much. It's more medium and that carbonation is taking it directly into full. It definitely tastes like roasted malt to me, roasted chocolate malt. It's a very multi-presence in it, which makes sense if it's a brown now. Yeah. I think sometimes we mix these beers and they turn out great. Then there's this if you guys want to try it. I like how you just rushed straight into the fire of mixing that beer and then we're just completely devastated. They have two very similar write-ups here. L.H. and American Oak Bells with Britannia seeds. No, let me try it. Wow. It's just like a ringing endorsement coming from your throat. No, it's okay. It's just weird for like fermented oranges and... After you choke that down, try some of the shenanigans that's been sitting around at room temp. Well, it's not that bad, actually. No. Okay. Everybody's handing me things. So the mix isn't really that bad. Some parts of it compliment each other. Some parts clash. Yeah. I think it clashes more. But that shenanigans that you handed me, Mike, tastes really nice. Yeah. It's opened up quite a bit. Mm-hmm. If there's a bottle out there, go ahead and let that sit and open up for a little bit before you drink it. I'm really enjoying this saboteur. It is a lot better than I remember it being. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just remember it being such a mess. So muddled and I feel like it's been flat, at least one of the times you've had it. Oh, yeah. There's no carbonation. Yeah, I do remember somebody having to flatten it. 'Cause we've had like two or three bottles of it. I've had one that completely gushed over the top. It might have been just taking it out of the fridge and the drastic temperature change, but one of those bottles exploded on me. I mean, I can imagine why. I mean, with the Brett in this beer, not then. I mean, it's quite nice, actually. It's, I think it's changed a lot and really evolved over the time that it's been released. Each time that I've had it, it's been something a little different. So if it's got anything going for it, I would say it's neat to watch the evolution. Absolutely. So this is going to sound kind of strange and I guess rude, but I kind of thought that these first two would be a little more complex. They'd have more of a beginning, middle, and end. It seems like the shenanigans and the saboteur have both kind of been like beginning in middle or beginning and end with no real middle. It's all one line as opposed to distinct segments on a line. There are some layers to these beers, but there's not really much of an evolution during your drink. Yeah. You know, during your sip. I feel like it's a lot of things kind of competing. These are bold beers, there's a lot going on here. And I think it's easy to kind of get lost in just how big they actually are. I agree with that. I like when you said layers. That kind of makes sense in my head more. Cool. You guys want to move on to our third beer? Yeah. Sweet. The third beer is a must, a M-U-S-T-E. I think that's how you pronounce it. Ooh, stay. Whatever. It's a porter brewed with grape juice or grape must aged in wine barrels. It's 9.3% ABV and it's a limited release available in 750 millimeter bottles and on draft. I'm going to read the write up to this. Must is to wine as wort is to beer, the primordial ooze, the source and foundation that feeds the process of fermentation, we all love so much. A must is a culmination of a two year endeavor to marry these two fuels into the same fire. An imperial porter aged in oak wine barrels accented with juice from Tempranillo grapes grown on the western slope of Colorado. This harmonic combination is truly a must. Every time he opens one of these bottles, it looks like Halloween. Yeah, just a little bit of vapor coming off from the bottle mouth or mike lights up like a jack-o'-lantern. Both. It's like something wicked this way comes into our mouth, nope, nope, never mind. Not what I meant. And that's a lot of carbonation on this beer. Yeah, it is. And it's super fluffy. It looks like dessert, it's like a mousse with coffee whipped cream on top. Yeah. It's like half and half, half head, half beer. I know. That's how big the head is. A ton of head. Oh, that's just because Mike poured it shitty for you guys. Perfect. The head on this one is a lot more dense than the other ones, but it's still uneven and rocky and there's giant bubbles popping in this thing. And it's a very dark beer. I can't see any light through it at all. Very dark. That's classic Brett infection, if you will. Just that tightly packed head with large, large bubbles in between. Sure. I can't smell anything. Can't really smell anything in this beer. Maybe we should let it sit for a little bit. Like, there's a very slight grapeiness or something. I mean, I definitely get a grapeiness. I get some roasted malt. I get some roasted malt. Like a porter. But it's all very light. You got a dig. There's some chocolate malt notes that I'm pulling out of that. Yeah, touch of booze. And these are all very, very far back there. All of these notes are almost imperceptible. It's the least fragrant of the three that we've had for sure. Sorry for that. I think I'm going to agitate it, let it sit for a little bit. I'm just going to go in and taste it. I'm still smelling it. Little hint of coffee, like roasted coffee. So. Well, I just tasted it. I definitely get grape in the taste. That's a very veneous flavor. It's real tannic. Yeah. It's kind of like Concord grape skins, in a way. You definitely get that chocolate note in that porter, the characteristic porter notes that you would get. Did you ever have the blueberry porter, the fulsome porter from Lovejoys? Yes. It kind of reminds me of that in a sense. Kind of. Less blueberry. More bread. I think more well done. Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, you get that characteristic porter notes, you get a little bit of the grape skin. And I think you're right about the Concord grape, like some of it's reminding me of Concord grape jelly. But there's a Tempreneal wine character there too, which is very interesting, that really earthy, acidic sort of wine character. I can barely tell that this is 9.3. It's not showing up in the flavor anyway, it's showing up in the body. But my first sip, I had a pretty significant alcohol burn toward the end. But after my first sip, I don't feel it. I can kind of feel it in my nose and in my throat, but I don't taste it is what I meant to say. I feel like it's less perceptible than the previous two. I think it might be, yeah. Anastasia looks puzzled. It's a little coppery to me. A little bit, not a lot, just a little bit. Okay. And it definitely tastes like the Welch's girl, like that little... It tastes like butter. You had an interest in childhood. Can I try your glass? It tastes like maybe she dumped some chocolate milk into her glass of Welch's on accident. Yeah, there is a chocolatey note there. I guess it's not really creamy, but... And it's not really grape juicey. Oh, it's grape juicey to me. It tastes like grape juicey. It's a little chocolatey grapey. I see that. No, yeah. It's kind of weird. I get that. I don't really feel grape juice. It's definitely gone into wine for me. I think some wine tastes like grape juice though, so... Oh, some bad ones. Right. I'm saying, this is what I taste. I see what you're getting to. I taste grape juice, now shut your mouth. I taste grape juice too. I've been drinking a lot of it this week. I really mostly feel like I ground up a whole bunch of grape skins. That's really where the grape note is coming in for me. It's not really so much of a juice note. Right. It's too tannic for that for me. Yeah. I think it's some sweetness somehow. I'm not sure where it's coming from. There is a sweetness there. Not a lot. I think maybe I guess it kind of tastes like a chocolate covered grape gummy bear as disgusting as that sounds. Gummy bear? Again, I'm going to go back to what Mike said. I think it tastes much more tannic than that than gummy bears or grape juice. I could get essences of those things, but as it sits on my mouth, it's just like I'm chewing on grape skins that have been soaking in oak barrel. Yeah. There's a lot of oak barrel there. It's almost like the grape has the grape seed along with it. Definitely. That earthiness just evokes that to me. But I do get that chocolate note, and that's what's making it better than just eh to me. Is that chocolate note? Because when that chocolate note shows up in a good wine, that can turn like a decent wine into a really great one for me. You know what I wish this had? Just a hint more acidity. I think that would kind of just liven things up just a little bit. And I think having the previous two beers, the shenanigans had a little bit of an acidic note just slightly, just enough to make it interesting as I'm drinking it. And I think that that's kind of what is missing on this one. And it would certainly go well with that tobaccoy quality that this beer has. Yeah, it's certainly got this smoky element too. And I was just thinking, man, I wish there was something more to the smokiness of it. But yeah, this obviously just needs to be punched up in one way or the other. Yeah. You definitely touched on it. And something that I don't think any of us had was there's a tobacco note and there's a little bit of a leatheriness here as well. And when I say tobacco, I don't necessarily mean like cigar tobacco or cigarette tobacco. I mean something like chewing tobacco or snooze or something like that where you have that really sharp, strong liquid tobacco in your mouth that's kind of part of this. I can't remember the last time I had red wine. And I'm like trying to pull really, really deep in my memory bank. Yeah, I might even have a temper Neo downstairs, which is interesting. So yeah, I'm done with these. Yeah, I think I'm done with this too. We should probably take a break. Go get a break beer. Yeah. Some break wine. Fuck beer. Let's drink some wine. So I'm like 14% alcohol wine to make it with some bourbon. Let's have a break with some break beer. Terrible beer. Yes. Break beer. Break beer. Break beer. Break beer. Hey now we've been limited to how it's going to come and be from now on. So guys, I've been away for a couple of weeks and I've certainly missed you guys. There's been something I've wanted to say to all of you. And I know this gets thrown around a lot and people just kind of outright dismiss and you're like, uh, wouldn't overuse the phrase, right? But I think you guys have a drinking problem. I don't think there's a problem. This is my intervention with you guys. I wait until halfway forward. Let's look at high school all over again. You have a kid and then it's like, er, stop drinking. Mike, you got a drinking problem. Why don't you have a drinking problem, Mike? Yeah, we're doing nice things for you. We're trying to figure out baby's first beer and all this other stuff and you come over here and tell us that we have a drinking problem. This is bullshit. Join us next week with Ryan Mash back on Mike. Ah, his answer should get kicked off. Well, let's get into our next beer, which is deconstruction. And this is a 2010 bottle of that deconstruction is a golden ale. It's 10.5% ABV and it's a limited release available in 750 millimeter bottles and on draft. This is a really long description, but I'm going to read it because it's interesting. Take a deep breath first. Yes. A blend of four pilot beers, all golden strong ails, 44% ale, 33% ale aged in oak, 20% ale aged in oak bourbon barrels, 3% aged in wine barrels. The first beer that's a part of this blend is called de ughst or the harvest. It was the pilot beer that they used to develop the base recipes of the other beers in the blend. De ughst is a hoppy 7% ABV Belgian inspired pale ale with three different yeast strains, two Belgian and their house yeast strain, malts include Belgian and Pilsner, hops used in the kettle include gold, tetenanger, and zaz is used in the hopback. For the second pilot beer, dubbed golden, they substituted Canadian based malt for the Belgian malt to achieve a richer malt base as opposed to the drier malt profile in de ughst. Lactobacillus, pedococcus, and pretendomiasis were also added to the beer as it aged in French Cabernet barrels in their barrel room. The third pilot beer was aged in old, steamed out bourbon barrels and one Cabernet barrel. Pilot number four went into second used woodcut barrels, woodcuts another one of their barrel aged beers, Edo del. Each pilot beer and the base beer underwent primary fermentation with both their house ale yeast strain and one to two of four different Belgian yeast strains. For pilot beers number two and three, they inoculated those barrels with a local culture of wild yeast that they referred to as their fester strain. Fester was cultured from, there's a lot of shit. Fester was cultured from a Berliner style mash they created in their lab with their silo malt. Since wild yeast is essentially everywhere, they ran with a culture from right outside the brewery. After isolating fester from their other yeasts, they propagated it until they reached desired pitching quantities for each inoculation. Fester's proven to give a uniquely tart grapefruit-esque sourness that they had never had from any other wild yeast which they've worked with. As an additional note, a tree fountain in Britannia yeast strain was also used in the process for certain pilot number two and number three barrels. So deconstruction. Holy shit. Yes. Odell's crapshoot. Yeah. It's just like, let's do a bunch of shit at this thing. Period. Let's fucking crazy. I know. It's one of the most overworked beers. Holy crap. Yeah. That's a crazy, crazy lot of information but worth mentioning. Oh yeah. Expectations in the middle. Yeah, that's a good idea. So I tried to give everybody the best pores because I got a little bit of yeast that made it into the last glass. Okay. Everybody else got some pretty clear pores there. Yeah, we did. I mean, mine's very, very clear and it's a really vibrant bronze color. It's been upright since 2010. Wow. It's like a golden bronze, a bright. Mine by comparison is quite a bit more hazy. Yeah. It looks like an IPA almost. Yeah, it does. And just for sake of mentioning it, this bottle came from Mike, which he's had in his, you know, I guess since it came out, right? Yeah, I picked it up at the Great American Beer Festival in 2010 when I was in Denver. Very cool. And I've had this bottle ever since. Yeah. This is the only beer that we're having tonight that didn't come from Jason Strop. Right. It was interesting. Just when it was fresh. I'm interested to see exactly how it's aged because I haven't had it in probably about a year. Yeah. And the head isn't really sticking around very much. I mean, mine is still a little bit there but Anastasia is almost all gone. But when it was first poured, the head was monstrous. It was a giant white pillowy head that was just rapidly popping. And as soon as I cracked open the bottle, the head was nearly gushing. Yeah. Oh, that smells really good. Pineapple, coconut, pineapple, citrus, coconut, and a nice acetic acid quality, a little bit of lactic acid in the nose. You can smell the brown. Coconut macaroons. You get that American oak. Mm-hmm. It smells like cologne. There's something peachy also. You get something wine-like as well. Yeah. Like a white wine. Mm-hmm. Chardonnay is something wrong. Yeah. That's fucking delicious. I found your new fragrance. Y'all nailed it. So what I really liked about this beer when it first came out was it really lived up to its namesake. It felt like it was cohesive but you could taste all of these things individually. On the front of the bottle, it's 44% ale, then 33% ale aged in oak, 20% in bourbon, and then 3% in wine barrels. Yeah. You can really taste those things individually, at least when it was first released. And you know what? I just took a taste of this. This is a lot more cohesive than it was a year ago, even. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's turned into something fucking cool. Yeah. That is fascinating. You can't really taste those things individually anymore. No. This is really kind of unified now. This is really, really good. I'm digging this. The deconstruction's no longer really a deconstruction. It's now become something new. Yeah. Whoa. Construction. I took a sip and it started instantly carbonating in my mouth, and I felt like I was gonna choke and die. Odell stopped trying to kill me in the mouth, for real. Really? Mine doesn't seem that bad. It hit my tongue and all the bubbles went, "Relie! Free! Free!" and then he was like, "Ran, all over my palate." Something like that did happen, too, when I took a sip, it just kind of expanded in my mouth. But then it gave way to this really delicious Chardonnay sort of veneous thing. There's a little undertone of bourbon there, but you get a bunch of these fruit flavors, a lot of citrus, a lot of peach, a lot of delicious white, grapey muscat sort of. I certainly feel that where I completely agreed with Anastasia about the previous beers, not really having a lot of range and how they washed over your palate. I guess storytelling is maybe what you said. This one certainly has that so much more. You get, like you said, this fruity burst right at the front. You get this wash of the smokiness and then you get this really woody oak in the breath at the end. Even if you inhale as you're taking a sip, it's like this whole experience that we weren't having as much in the other three previous beers. Yeah, there's a lot of complexity here. It's almost like going from pina colada to some type of old-fashioned with Chardonnay. Yeah. Or something like that. It's weird how that evolves really. No, yeah. You're absolutely right. It goes from something very bright and crisp and tropical fruity and then it turns into the woody sort of rich, viniest and spirit-like sorts of flavors. Yeah. I get sort of a fluffy sourdough, like freshly baked sourdough breath as well, and that's really quite pleasant. That's really interesting that you mentioned that, but yeah, totally. This is great. Yeah. This is a fucking amazing beer and when this beer is new, it's syrupy sweet. The few bottles that I've had, I think I've had a 2010, 2011, and 2012 fresh back when they came out and they were all very sweet. If this is what it turns into after a few years, fuck man, sit on these for three years because goddamn, this turns into a fantastic, really dry, slightly tart, awesome experience of a beer. So I'm happy that it really aged this well. This is one of the ones that I really tried to pay attention to when I first got my wine cooler. Yeah. I converted into like a beer cooler. This one's been under 50 degrees since I've gotten it. Good call. Phew. This is great. Tastes like a sazerac. Mmm. Yeah, totally. I'm digging the hell out of this. I had no idea that it would get this good. Even after the oldest one that I had prior to this, which was two years old, this is something else, man. This is fantastic. I felt like, again, kind of a, maybe it's a running theme with Odell. When I get something that's got Britannia myses in it, they're kind of releasing it a little young. Normally, it takes a little bit of time to really get up to snuff and, uh, holy shit, the two and a half year mark is a good spot on this beer. Oh, yeah. This has everything that I wanted just in terms of the, it's got a really deep depth of character, but then it's got that really nice acidity at the very end. Just through everything. Sure does. So the complexity of this, I think it was fascinating, you're reading the whole story of how they actually brew this, because it makes me wonder, what are the beers that have the most complex process in order to just deliver whatever they deliver? Oh, I mean, I know that there's certainly ones that will age them for years before they'll ever distribute them, but those are just kind of sitting there versus going through all these steps. Oh, yeah. Four different processes of combining. There's several beers that are super complex in their construction. Like, you know, you want to talk about the Firestone Walker anniversary beers. Oh, yeah. Well, you just lambics. Lambics. Yeah, stuff like that. But what do those do? What are some walkers do? Their 15th anniversary, I believe, had seven or eight different beers. Every anniversary. I think every anniversary beer has a different consistency in terms of the beers that they actually have on hand. Normally, it's a mix of like abacus and parabola, the double barrel ale and a few other things. But then they'll barrel age stuff. But really, what they're doing is they're just such amazing blenders of beers, probably some of the best in America when it comes to beer blending. As Anastasia mentioned, the only other folks that I can think of that are much more masters of the craft, if you really want to call it that. Yes, call it craft, because it is. Yeah, definitely. Yes, that are making gooses. Gooses, yeah. Yeah. One, two and three-year-old lambics. Or tilcane. You know, I mean, that's four different gooses, I believe, that they're blending. Four or five, yeah. Yeah. Also, another really complex beer was that collage. Oh, yeah. That was just good. Complex number two collage from here in the dog, he shoots. Oh, that was great. We should have a most complex beers episode, and then it'll be really sad when we have to pick the one who worked their ass off still and still came in last place amongst the other ones. I want to save a little bit of this just to try it out later on and see how it's warmed out that you developed. That sounds like a good idea. I'm going to do it too. Yeah. This is fantastic. Thanks for bringing this, Mike. Yeah, absolutely. Trying to show up our listeners. Yeah. You brought the best beer in now. Just go to your local store and pick up, you know, three-year-old bottle of deconstruction. Well, you know, I do have a new bottle of deconstruction that I got several months ago and a trade that I did with Jason Straub. I didn't want to use that one because I knew that this one is definitely one you want to sit on for a couple of years before you open it. So when you mentioned that you had one, I was like, bring that one. We're opening up the next beer. It's called the Medeller. That one was deconstruction. Fucking awesome. This is the Medeller. It's an old brew in ale, 8.9% ABV, and it's another limited beer, 750 milliliter bottles and on draft. Old brew in is really just a Flemish brown. Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to read the little-- Old brown. Yes. I'm going to read the right up here. A resurrected style from the Flemish region of Belgium, the Medeller old brew in is a crafty concoction, comprised of several generations of brown ales, barrel aged and blended. Cold yeasts, lactobacillus, and pretendomiasis, metal with the brew for over 18 months, creating complexity and a depth of flavor. Yeah, we'll see about that. Yeah. That's a very cloudy brown, deep, hazy brown. Like muddy water. Yeah, I think that's a good word. Muddy brown. Or like chocolate syrup in water. Yeah. And what's funny is that the head is actually the exact same color as the shenanigans head, but the beer is twice as dark. The bubbles in this are also huge. Mm-hmm. It smells like an old brewing. It's a little bit vinegary. Touch creamy or buttery, not in a bad way. Yeah, some sweet cherries. Yeah, like a browned butter. And I'm getting a lot of barrel in the nose. Mm-hmm. I definitely get the lactobacillus in the form of like Greek yogurt kind of nose. Yeah. Like chocolate Greek yogurt. I'm getting so much chocolate from most of the beers that we've had tonight. Yeah. And these beers generally, you'll get some sweetness and some acidity from them in the flavor, and just by smelling it, I'm getting that in the nose. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like this smell. Yeah. The bread is more floral in this one than in the previous ones. Almost rose-like or something? Yeah. It's like chocolate with rose hips. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like a creamy milk chocolate bar with rose hips and cacao nibs. I think that nails it. There's a touch of bourbon there too. I get a little vanilla and lavender. Yeah. It's almost like a bath and body workshop. It really is. It kind of is. Yeah. You'll look at it. But in a delicious beer way. It's like some kind of bourbon cocktail with a bunch of flower petals and-- Sour mash. Yeah. Yeah. I got to sip this. And we just had this yesterday, and I somehow forget exactly how it tastes. It's like chocolate and balsamic vinegar. Yeah. It's like-- It's sour vinegary. Oh, that's good. It's like roasted strawberries or plums with a balsamic reduction and shaved chocolate. And bourbon. Don't be bourbon-soaked berries that you raised on the grill. Yeah. And then you put the reduction over it. Because again, this is another one where at the end, it tastes like fucking bourbon. That's really good. We did have this yesterday at the beer tasting. I did not. Our monthly beer tasting at the draft house. I know. When we had it, then, it was a hell of a lot sweeter than this one is. It's interesting because, yeah, you definitely get the bourbon on the tail end, but there's something that's more tart and more sour that's there. But the flavor to me is all bourbon. Yeah. That's good. Yes. It's really dry. And there's an astringency also to the mouth feel. This one is, yes, stay tuned for rankings. [LAUGHS] Good. That sour cherry jelly guy I think. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Like a marmalade. An old fashioned. I mean, it tastes a lot like an old fashioned with flower petals and-- Sour cherry marmalade on Pumpernickel. Mm-hmm. Or marbled rye. It's not really that rye. It's not that-- No, no. But I get that because there's a spice quality to it. It's like chocolate powder. I'll get back to it eventually, but I'm trying to figure out how this one differs in mouth feel for me than the other ones. Because the other ones just seem to streamline it straight down my tongue and in the back of my face. The astringency lasts and kind of hangs around on this one. Yeah. And I'm having a hard time figuring out the journey of this beer in my mouth also, but I know that somewhere in the middle is where the tartness comes in and then it just goes away toward the end and resolves to bourbon. Yeah. That's going to say it goes from tartness to woody to bourbon. Yeah. They don't sit as heavy on the palate as the saboteur or the shenanigans. The interplay between the body and the carbonation level, I think, is where it's at for me. There's definitely lively carbonation, but-- It matches the body. Yeah. When I first take a sip, it's a lot-- like a bourbon lemonade with a mouthful of carbonation and cream, right? When I swallow that, the acidity kind of rises and then you get some fruits like cherries and then the flowers kind of come in rosewater and then it resolves to bourbon and that's the finish. That's kind of what I'm getting in this. That was like poetry, man. That's the worst poetry. I like it, but I feel like the vinegary tartness that has-- it's really strong and I guess I'm disagreeing with you guys about it. It quickly dissipating and giving away. I feel it lingers too long and muddles what otherwise could be a nicer finesse or punching up of those other characteristics that you guys are describing, but I think it just makes it all a little bit too vinegary overall and it's just-- This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. No, no. I mean, I kind of get what you're saying. I'm very personally desensitized to sour things. Most of the stuff I eat, I dump a lot of acid into it, a bunch of lemon or vinegar or whatever. I love really sour things. So when it comes to tasting things that are sour, I think my thresholds are a lot broader than most people. So I can kind of-- I get it. I get what you're saying. I think every time I end up tasting a flavor like this and I'm like, ooh, look at that complexity. It reminds me of other episodes where we've had other beers that competed against this and I'm not sure this would hold rank against a lot of the other ones we've had in previous episodes. Yeah. Man, I'm really digging this. Last two have been pretty damn good. It's very different from the first half, which-- Oh, yes. Well, no, I thought the saboteur for me was really great. I've really dug that. I sort of felt with the first three beers, correct me if you guys disagree. But I thought that we were all kind of feeling that we hate the person that sent us those beers. No. I hate everybody, so technically that is correct. No, Jason is a really great person. You've met him face to face before. No, Jason. I'm just fucking with you. He sent this at least more beer than he showed up. Three good beers in this show. Yeah, that's the risk that you run when you send beers to a bunch of assholes. That's a good point. True. No, I mean, honestly, it's a matter of-- you send it there and you don't know how we're going to necessarily rank it, but it shouldn't be a judgment on them for sending us beers. Captain backhanded. You know what? Goddamn it. Jason's dropped. Don't listen. Just look at me in the eyes and don't listen to Grant. I'll cover your ears with my hands and I'll keep you safe. Wait. No. Basically, what Ruby is saying is anyone who sends us beer, not until after I whisper, "I love you." We will fillet you with our words. You've sent us the best beer ever. No, really, the only beer I haven't liked tonight was that a must. Was not a must. No. Was a must dump. A must dump for me. But this, however, this metler, I think it's pretty awesome. I love you, Jason Strab. I'm sorry. Sometimes we're off topic anyway. Let's go back and try the deconstruction. I just took a sip. Holy shit. Okay. We each saved a little bit of deconstruction and glasses. Smells like cotton candy. It does. Man, the sweetness in the nose has opened up quite a bit. That's weird. Peat torture, too. I mean, it's very peachy in the nose. That's really good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It really amplifies the fruit once it warms up, doesn't it? Totally. Sounds a little weird, but Campbell's tomato soup. Wait. What? Explain yourself. I get something very tomato-y in it. What kind of tomato? Is it like fresh? Is it roasted? Is it more like sugar? Wait, wait, wait. I get it. I just took another sip. And there's that acidity, right? There's a sweet meat. Yeah. The small ones. Like a grape tomatoes kind of sweet, I think. Yes. And you can't have that blended up, but you get that little tartness with it? I can't untaste. You got that? Yeah. Did you get that? Yeah. I love tomato soup. It's right after like... I'm still good to me. You wait a couple of seconds. And then you get a note of that. And it's just a fleeting sort of... I didn't mean it about. No, right? No, yeah, yeah. No, and it's not a dominant flavor. It just comes in somewhere and goes, "Hey, I'm here." And then it incorporates itself. All I know is I took that sip and I was like, "I want a grilled cheese sandwich." Like when you bite into like a cherry tomato, the gooey, or part of it around the seed. Yeah. But that slight hit of acidity and that merry-like... I gotcha. Thankfully, I can't taste that. But you love tomatoes. You'd be like, "All over it." I fucking love tomatoes. Yeah. It's a meveler. And I thought that was delicious. But let's move on to our next one. Which is freak. Wait. Like creak? Yeah. It's actually spelled F-R-I-E-K. Like frambois in creak. Yes. Yes. Frambois in creak. Because this is an ill with cherries and raspberries aged in oak barrels. I see what you did there, Odette. Yeah. It's a 6.5% ABV beer. It's a limited release. Available in 750 milliliter bottles and on draft. Little creak, olamic-style ales are fermented with wild yeast and tart cherries. And then moved into oak barrels to age and sour, taken on the cherry flavors. As the beer matures, framboises, which are raspberries, from shoyer family farms in Fort Collins are hand-picked and readied for the beer. The fresh raspberries are added immediately prior to the final blending. Is it really framboises? Frambois is raspberries. Frambois. Yeah, I know. Framboises is plural. I like how they use local stuff from Colorado in their creations. Yeah, it seems like in their write-up about the company, they do a lot of local sourced ingredients for their beers. Yeah. And there is no head. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know if that sound was being picked up in the microphones, but it was crazy effervescent as I was pouring it. But the head's really not sticking around at all. Yeah, it just dissipated immediately. But if I remember correctly, that's how it usually is with the freak. Yeah. It's like some kind of cherry water, like it's really red and bright. It's weird because if you look at it not directly in the light, yeah, it's that deep ruby garnet. Deep ruby, ruby garnet. And then you pull it right up to the light and it's a very orange yellow. Orange yellow. Yeah. Pretty. Oh, that smells so good. Smells like fruit farts. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful fruit farts. Cherries and raspberries. Cherries and raspberries and then lactic acid. Yeah, there's a farty quality to it. Very framed boisies. Something a little green, like leafy. Yeah. Like dandelion greens or something like that. Yeah. It's a grassyness to it as well. A little vanilla bean. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah, definitely. Like really, really small. Only light. I get a lot of that too. It's there. Yeah. But that lactic acid to me is coming off a lot more like the sauerkraut lactic acid that you smell, right? Yeah. It's something just shy of milk that's gone. Something shy of wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Remember when I'm smelling a beer like this that you don't compare it to sauerkraut though, that gets things jumbled in my head. I'm sorry. Like my butt on my best day, jumbled in a mess. Mike's butt's always so jumbled. And just stuffed with sauerkraut. Yeah. Yeah. Are you trying to eat for your butt again? What do I tell you about that? It makes the... Nothing. I'm just fighting. I'm sorry. It's okay. You can't. It's so dumb. You know, something else that I got on the exhale? What's that? Real quick was tea. What kind of tea? Like a black... Something like an arrow gray. Something a little earthy. I don't know exactly which tea I wouldn't be able to place my nose on it because I'm not much of a tea aficionado, but... This isn't a tea-ist. No. Brian Miola gave me some tea at some point in time and it reminds me of that. If I were to pick one, I'd say a green tea. Like tea tree oil or something like that. Yeah. There's something going on there. You have the bergamot type flavors of like an arrow gray and doesn't have... You mentioned tea tree oil? Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's something like that there. That's interesting. It's also like wild... A slipperiness. Sour cherries with the leaves still on them that you mush into tea. Right. Ah, salty. Wow. So have they done multiple releases of this beer? I'm pretty sure. Okay. Cause this bottle actually tastes pretty young. I feel like I've had some that have come through a lot more tart, but I'm loving what's here. Yeah. Man, I've had more tart bottles of this and I kind of prefer this one a bit more because I can really taste the cherries and the raspberry. So bright. Right. The older ones are a little more muddled and hushed. Yeah. They're more loon hushed. They lose all that fresh fruit note. Yeah. And the acidity really distracts from the cherries and the raspberries and those other older bottles, right? What I remember having in terms of the tartness was more along the lines of like the medler. Yeah. So where it was just that much more in your face, heavy handed sour tart note. No, but I agree. I'm totally getting more fresh fruit notes out of this one. And it's not to say that this is not tart because it is still tart. Oh, certain sour. This is tart. Oh, just by comparison, I'm a small zipper. I'm underwhelmed in a sense, but at the same time, I'm really enjoying what's here. It's just that I was expecting something that was exponentially more tart and more sour. I wasn't expecting this, but I'm enjoying definitely what's here. Yeah. There's a lot of the cherries more than the raspberry, actually. I'm getting a lot more cherry than raspberry and there's a kind of medium level sourness. If you want to measure it next to something like a canteon, it's less sour than something like that, but more sour than, you know, your standard Flanders red. The fruit in this is really nice and fresh and lush, but there's also something to me that's similar to Asonic, you're talking about like a limey or something? Yeah. Like a cherry limey. Oh. You know, because you get a little bit of that saltiness that you would get in whatever soda they put in there. Mm-hmm. That's pretty good. A little mint. Yeah. Maybe a little bit. There's a little herbal thing going on there. So I find that when I have a beer kind of like this, as I start taking a sip, my throat closes up, my mouth tenses up, and then it's like a go ahead, take the sip. I dare you. I have to like willpower, take the sip, and then I'm like, "Mm, I like that." But it's so dry that everything just clamps up at the beginning, and it's like, "Is dry, sour, and astringent at the same time?" Yes. And that's what does that. Yeah. I do hate to say it again, though, but it harkens back to the first couple of beers. Not much else going on besides fruit and some sourness. I agree with you on that. I like it because I like those things, but... See, I agree with you on that, but I'm enjoying this one more than those because the flavors that it does have are better for me. No, I know. That's what I just said. That's what I just said. I like the fruit and the tartness. I like those things, but it's still just... It's not as complex as you want. Yeah. I mean, all the descriptions and everything that they do to these beers, I kind of expect a little bit more. I'd had a lot of these beers not in this context before, and remember enjoying some of the other ones more than I did tonight. That said, I don't think we've had a bad beer, and for me with the exception of the Amost. I wasn't a big fan of that. Well, the Amost are probably better with some time. It could be, but it's just so tannic. Yeah. And I don't know. I want to keep talking about this freak, though, a little bit more, and, you know, there are a bunch of other creeks on the market, and I know this is a fanboy, a creek hybrid thing. Yeah. This isn't a bad attempt at an American interpretation, I would say. I can think of a handful of other ones that are better. Oh, yeah. Cascade is better, I think. Sure. Russian River. But yeah, definitely isn't bad, not by a long shot. No, I'm really enjoying this. I don't think this is bad at all by any stretch. I think this is better than good. I think this is actually an excellent beer. It's a respectable creek. It's one that I wouldn't not bring to a tasting. You know, I would absolutely bring this to a tasting, and I know other people would enjoy the shit out of it. You know, a little bit of raspberry is starting to peek through a bit more. Because I mean, the cherry is definitely still the dominant flavor. I felt like this went for like another six months. It'd be at a pretty nice sweet spot, because there's a bit of a muddled note that's here. When this beer had more time, the thing that I really enjoyed about it is how tart and how sour it could get. I almost think that I would appreciate it just a little bit more if it just had just a hint of that while still retaining the fruit notes. Yeah. And I think that's the trade off. I think the more the acidity increases in this particular beer, the less of the fruit that you're going to get. So yeah, it depends on your preference. This is a tough call in terms of aging. It really is. Because that fruit note right now is fucking- It's crazy. I find I get a lot more of the strawberry actually on this one too. I know you're mentioning strawberry in the other beer. Yeah, I wasn't picking up on it. I noticed some lingering in this. No, you're right. There is something that's coming off like tart strawberries. Yeah. It's unexpected. I'm not sure necessarily how I feel about it overall in this lineup. This has been an interesting show to do because like I said, yeah, I've had a bunch of these beers by themselves. And not all these beers. I haven't had the emus before and the metaler I only had yesterday for the first time. Yeah. And I've never had shenanigans. Right. I'm having a really difficult time ranking them. Not me. I'm ranked. I had my top one and my bottom one right off the bat. That was really, really easy, but the middle four for me was just kind of like that. That was kind of no contest for me. Well, why don't we just get to it? Let's do it. Let's just do the rankings. Who wants to go first? Grant us. I'll go first. Okay. Grant. Go ahead. I would like to thank Mike Lambert and also Jason Strop for these beers because number one goes to D fucking construction. Does that mean you like Mike better? I was just joking with Jason. I love you, buddy. Thank you so much for sending us these beers. That's so kind of you. These are great beers. And this is really a fun show. I said deconstruction one. I don't know why Mike had to swing in and win, but it's not a competition. Go. It's not. Shut up. Damn. This beer, it had all the complexity that I think can make it stand out among all the greatest beers. Tastes great cold. As it warmed up, it got even more intricate. It has a complete experience as it goes through. It's very impressive. It's a very delightful beer. The amount of time they put into it paid off in my opinion, agreed. Number two, I'll give to the Medler. I had some problems with it, I think. I thought it was a little bit too tart, almost overpowering of some of the other flavors. But overall, it's very drinkable. It's very enjoyable. I'm starting to like the sours a lot, and those just tend to win out on me. Number three goes to freak. This is one we just drank and discussed, so I don't know how much more I have to say. Sour, almost aggressively, but I kind of like that. Quite enjoyable. Number four, I gave to the Saboteur, that was the one that had this chocolatey, bourbon-y taste, a little bit hint of cherry. I thought that everything was kind of there. Overall, it kind of just gave me a bit of an okay. It's an okay beer. It wasn't wowing me, and Sasia really hit the nail on the head when she said that these beers weren't giving as much of the experience. Number five, I gave to Shenan again, has this fermented orange, and I kind of blame my buddy who had the moonshine hooch, kind of tainted a little bit of how I taste this, but nonetheless, I thought it was enjoyable. I can't drink a lot of this, and that's a problem for a person that just needs to constantly drink beer to kill the pain. So number six goes to a must, which isn't that a must for me, it's this grape chocolate concoction that didn't seem to deliver on what it's promising. I almost feel I gave it more negative points because it hyped itself more, and I'm like, "If you're going to hype yourself that big, deliver." Yeah, that's what I felt, but nonetheless, thank you, Jason Straub. I was just joking at the beginning, I thought it'd be fine to be a dick. Yeah, you're always funny as a dick, thanks, right? You know, I'll go next, I'm just going to get into it, otherwise I'll forget because we had a lot of high alcohol beer tonight. I was going to say, the pre-gaming wasn't entirely necessary before this was. No, no, it was just fine right now. Just wipe you right out. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I slurred everything I said. My number one beer was deconstruction. I mean, that's no surprise in that. That beer had so many fucking awesome little layers that it was so much fun to try to figure out. There was a wine thing, and it started out this tropical fruit and evolved over its life on my tongue into something more spirit-like and rich. Would you say it was fun to deconstruct? Yes, I would, that was great. If you can find bottles of this year's deconstruction by a couple, you and put them away for three years, two and a half years. Drink one now and save a few. Yeah, drink one now and go, "What the fuck?" Drink one and take notes. Yeah, in a couple of years, you're going to open those up and be like, "Whoa, that's great." And then take notes and then compare your notes. Yes. My number two beer, freak, the cherries in that I thought were fucking fantastic. I think I like this beer a lot more than most of yous. Most of yous? Where am I from? Brooklyn? I think I like these guys. These guys. One of the most used guys. That beer was great, and I do remember it being more tart, but I think that tartness took away from the very rich, awesome, cherry quality and even the raspberry would come in every so often and make an appearance, but I thought that was delicious. My number three, saboteur, bourbon, malted milk balls. That's all I got to say about that. Doug it. Number four, the medaller. It had this tart, vinegary, bourbon, floral, cherry thing that was going on that I actually really liked quite a lot. I thought the medaller was a delicious, delicious beer, even if the bottle that we had today was very different from the one we had yesterday at the tasting. This one was a lot more dry. And I liked this one a lot more than yesterday's. Number five, shenanigans. Yeah, kind of like prison hooch, but guess what? I guess I like prison hooch. Yeah, we'll find out when I'm done making prison hooch in your bathroom. That's a good point. That fermented pineapple, orange peel, cherry thing, I dug it. Number five is still in my camp of I really like these beers. Now we get to number six, a must. I liked it a bit while I was drinking it and tasting it, but I took that glass downstairs with us and I kept trying to drink the rest of it. And it turned into something overbearingly gross. I did the same thing. Yeah. It did the same thing and it was no bueno. It wasn't good. It turned on me at some point and went from something that was pretty okay to less than me. Yeah, less than meh on the Mike Lambert scale of rating. Pretty okay to less than meh. I agree. Absolutely. Overall, I liked most of these beers quite a lot. And Jason Strob, thank you so much again. Who's next? Me, because Mike never goes last. That's a good point. Oh. Anastasia. You have to wait. But I'll always get mine. Wow. Shut the fuck up. Anastasia, go. Number one is freak. Yeah, I said it. Wow. I love it. I could probably drink that whole bottle to myself in like 20 minutes. It's what I like. Totally fine because I put it at number two. I thought that was awesome. Yeah. Number two, the Medler. I kind of think I should have put that at number one. But I like the fruit flavors and the freak and the tartness and the freak better. But the Medler, it's like dessert. It's so chocolatey, bourbon-y and in the nose. Now that it's warmed up, I'm getting some caramel and it's just so good for me. It's at the right mouth feel. Yum. I talked about my number two more than my number one. Whatever. That's fine. And number three, I picked the deconstruction. I liked it. I liked its likeness and the body. The Chardonnay burn, that really alcoholic Chardonnay note kind of threw me off. And then the sweetness it developed once it sat out, kind of knocked it down a little bit for me, but still really, really fucking delicious. Number four was the shenanigans. Number five was the saboteur and number six was the a must not. Man, I really rambled on with my descriptions. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, there's nothing else I can say. I didn't like them. She didn't get a chance to swear. Aww. They were just, they're not doing it for me. They were just, I'll talk about all three of them collectively because I kind of feel the same way about all three of them collectively. Right. They were just too muddled, too messy, Mike said heavy has it on the break and that kind of nailed it. They do too much at once, like when you try to wear all accessories to compliment your outfit and then it's just like, why are you wearing all these gold hats and it doesn't make sense. No, that's just you. You're the only one that stacks gold hat upon gold hat on top of your head. I mean, it doesn't make sense. And then goes in public. Like where one gold hat and maybe a gold bracelet. Thank you, sweetheart. I love you. That was beautiful. Mike. All right. I'm ready. Don't disappoint us. All right. Seriously. Going from the top down, just the level of complexity to the level of muddledness, at least from my tastes, my number one is a testament to the fact that really all of these beers are really a great experiment in aging. I really feel like you could do a lot with any of these in terms of an evolution. But man, I have not really had aging beers pay off as much as it did with this number one deconstruction. Wow. I thought that this was awesome. It was one of those beers that when it was fresh, you could taste and sort of see where it was going to go. What I really loved is that it really became more cohesive over the course of time, but you still were able to pick out those little bits and pieces of it. That's what I really, really liked about this beer. My number two was the freak. I really loved the fresh fruit notes here. I think you nailed it, John. This bottle in particular really highlighted the cherry and the raspberry where some of the other bottles that I had were a little bit more tart and over the top. I'd love to see a little bit more of a mix between those two things. But this particular beer makes it very difficult to find that even ground because if you age it for too long, it's going to go more into that tart realm. If you don't age it for too much, you still have the fresh fruit notes, but then the young bread. Yeah. My number three was the Medler. I really liked the level of tartness here mixed with the chocolate notes. Really, really awesome beer. My number four, I have fruit notes yum on my notes, and that's the shenanigans. I never had this beer before. I really liked it, but this is where it's starting to get that heavy-handed note, at least for me and my tastes. And my tastes too. There was a lot that was going on here. All of those things were good, but sometimes there's too much of too many different good things all slammed into one huge package. Yeah. And that's kind of where things started to go downhill for me. The saboteur was my number five. It was a close call for me between these two. I really like where it is now. I think it's great where it is now. Fantastic beer. When it was fresh, it was just a huge brown ale aged on band-aids, was some of my notes from previous tastings, but it's really opened up. You get that real nice, dry, bread character, real awesome. My number six, my notes here, was that it needs something else, and it was the a must. I felt like this one was heavy-handed, but it didn't quite know exactly what it wanted to be. I really felt like it needed something to just amp up the flavor, whether that was something more tart or like what Grant was saying earlier, just something a little bit more smoky. It needed something to kind of tip the scales, and it just didn't quite do it for me. It was just heavy-handed while still being in the middle of the road, so that's where it is for me. Well, thanks, man. That fucking totally makes sense too. What an interesting show. This was awesome. Yeah, thank you, Jason. I've never had two of these side-by-side, much less six of these. Yeah, and every time we do have one of these, it's always in the middle of a tasting or something. It gets lost. I feel like in a lot of senses, and it's easy to see why, at least on, especially these last three, where it's just so heavy-handed that it's kind of just like, "Mm, mm, mm, mm." Yeah, and you know, the only ones that I've had in the middle of tastings that didn't get lost for me were the freak and the deconstruction. So it's not really surprising to me that they were my number one and number two, and I know that you guys all have different rankings, but for me, like, those are the ones that really shown. Pretty sure those were ones I'd say that one and two, for the most part. deconstruction was number one for everybody but me. A must was number six for everybody. Yeah, that's totally understandable. That beer does need something else or a little less of something. It's always funny because I ordered that at a bar and I'm just chatting with people. I drink the shit out of it and not even think about it. The a must. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. To me, it's one of those. I probably drink at least the first one. Be like, "Okay, next." Yeah. It's one of those beers that's just kind of unremarkable, in a sense. Yeah. I don't know. At least in the face of all of these other beers, I think that maybe that's why we're ranking it solo or kind of giving it a little bit of shit. To me, it tasted kind of like a failed experiment. Like it sounded really good on paper, then it didn't work out. Like it maybe worked for Dogfish Head with Noble Ront. I've had way worse beers left at so many that are better. True. Yeah, that's kind of where it's at for me. I really, really want to try the a must with about a year on it. I feel like something would happen and that something has to be better than this. Oh my God, that would, I'm, wait, not on the other thing that happens to things is a good thing. I know, and I didn't mean that to sound so, I guess, negative. But I think she's got a point. Oh, sure. Like all of these beers that I've had, the deconstruction in the freak and the saboteur. To me, they, at least with the exception of the freak, and I think it kind of depends on your taste with that one, they all got better with time. Absolutely. So I think that that's something to really kind of be said about this series of beer. If you get it, buy a couple of bottles of this stuff. Drink one now, age a couple, you know, have one every couple of like maybe every six or eight months or something like that, just to see where it's at. Yeah, the series is called Seller Series. Seller Series. Okay. You should probably sell her. Exactly. And like I said, the must is just so weird and unique and interesting that I know I put it last, but I want to give it a chance. That's a good point. It deserves a fucking chance because I like chocolate covered gummy bears. I would do that too. All these beers are doing really impressive things. I think that there's a lot of nuances to what they're developing in their recipes. So I'm interested to see what they do in the future. I agree. I feel like maybe we did forget that it was called Seller Series. Oh my God. Does anybody still have deconstruction? I just know. It's so good. I know. It's so good. Right now. Yeah. It smells like perfume. Anastasia's got like a quarter of a glass of metal. But I'm kind of hoarding. I know. That's fine. And you gave me a sip of it just to be a go and that beer's opened up. It took a lot of time for me to give you that sip. Well, no, I get it. And I really hope you don't share it with anybody else because you should keep that all for yourself. That's really good. I'll take your advice. And we should probably close this out and say thank you guys for listening. Thank you, everyone. Please continue to give us those great rankings on iTunes. Yes, that would be awesome. We didn't get any iTunes rankings this time around. Well, I think part of it was because our show was technical snafos and yeah, it was kind of shitty, but they do really help. And if you want to do that, get on iTunes, do a search for the beerists and give us a little five star rating and write a review for us. It helps the show out a lot. And if you really want to help the show, if you give a fuck at all. If you dream about us, if you love us, if you want to be our BFFFFFF. If you've been listening for 54 episodes and haven't contributed a dime and you've gotten all this wonderful free entertainment, send us some money, you know, 10 bucks, 20, 30, 40, 50, we want to get to the great American beer festival and we won't be able to do that without your donations. And the reason for that is because we spend so much money on the show as it is for us. It's either do the show or take the trip. I want to do both. We all want to do both. And if we go, we won't disappoint. No, we won't. We will not. We will do some awesome stuff. Wait, we'll buy beer some Colorado and drink it in a hotel so it's quiet. We can record. Well, if you're saying, Hey, if you donate, we'll drink beer in a hotel room. That's not very compelling. If we were at a bar, it'd be really loud and they wouldn't be able to hear us talking about beer. I promise I'll get drunk and throw furniture out the window. I saw this. I will get wasted with Jerry Stillwater. We will get fucking hammered. Okay. So if we don't get enough donations, we're going to start putting ads in the show. And if we do that, Anastasia's not doing any of the ads. The guy's the one who just be, yeah, bla bla bla. Pussytown Hotel. Give me it. When do I ever talk about having China? That was the best ad ever heard right now. Okay. Good point. What do you sell on buy in? Oh, I love pussytown. Give me it. Oh, God. Thank you guys for being here. I think beer moaning sounds for one. No, Anastasia, but I still thank you for being here. You're delicious. I think it's because no one else will put up with your bullshit to record this show. That's a good point. Mike Lambert, thank you. I love you. I love you too. And Grant, thank you so much. Please don't have any more kids. I'm trying not. And thanks, Rubio, for having me. Thanks you guys. Always a pleasure. You were gone for three weeks? Yes. Anytime you want to be delinquent in your fatherhood duties, you can just be here. Dude, gladly expect Grant every week from now on. No exception. Right. What's baby's first beer going to be? It's going to be bottoms up, bitches. That's not even a beer. That's just a catchphrase. Okay. Bottoms up. I was trying to close his head. I'm sorry. Thank you. Shit. I was trying to help. Bottoms down. Let's leave. Let's fucking shut it down. Are you good? Yeah, let's go. Come on. I mean-- Like on a scale of one to ten with ten being, you're bursting in the same. The one seam that's holding your pee back. I don't know. How drunk are you? All the way! Jason Strahb sent us beers that are all like ten, nine, ten, nine-- Well, how much we didn't drink! Bloody 3%. He sent us beers that sound like an amazing bowling score. This adds to a hundred percent. Yeah. Girl, it's 40. I can recognize it. I have one. --and it's wasted. Bottoms up down. They're in a funnel. Nice to meet you guys. Wow. Wow. Nice to meet you. Fuck! One of the greats on the way hold up. One of the greats on the way hold up. One of the greats on the way hold up. More information on the Beerist's podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit the beerist's.com, email us your feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions at info@the beerist's.com. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/the beerist's and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/the beerist's. Intro music was provided by Ian Butcher and his band Deflated Balot. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/Ian_Butcher93. I'm John Rubio. Thanks again for listening. Music playing. Music playing. 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