Hey folks, just a quick thing before we get started on this week's episode. Our one-year anniversary show is coming up, and we're gonna let you decide what horrible crap we put into our bodies. We're gonna do one of four stupid beer shows to help raise money to get us to the Great American Beer Festival in October. Here's what you do. Go to thebearest.com and click on the PayPal donate link on the left of the page, make a donation to help us get to the JBF, and when you do, click the Add Special Instructions to the seller link. There, type in and tell us which one of these four shows you'd like us to do. 1. The Return of the Malt Liquor Show. You guys remember how the first one went. 2. Crap we drank in our teenage years. Think booms far, mad dog, all of that crap. 3. Malt beverages. With stuff like wine coolers, Budweiser, chilada, and four loco, and 4 Mexican import beers. All known as Skunkfest 2000, the show topic that gets the most money donated to it will be what we record for our 56th episode. All the money that we raise will be put toward getting us to the JBF in October. Now please be sure to donate and vote by April the 20th, and we really appreciate all of your help, and we hope to see you at the Great American Beer Festival in October. Now on to the show. 3. Episode 53 of the Bearest Podcast, recorded on April 1, 2013, Accessible Beers for the Springtime. Is that your official statement? Yeah. I'm getting really worried about you guys, because if there was any time that I should have said stop, it was less. You're not my dad. I know. I'm not your dad. Dad. I actually care about you. Oh. You're just some guy that sleeps with my mom. Oh, I don't remember any of that. I'm John Rubio, and with me today, Anastasia, not your mom, Kelly. I'm so glad you're not my mom, because that would get weird. We also have with us Mike, good job, hangover, Lambert. Yeah. No shit. We'll get back to that in a minute. And then the fourth chair today. Ryan Allen-Mesh? Yes. And we have Ryan here again today, because Grant decided to pop a baby out. Yeah. They had a kid. Fuck that. I know. I know. What a terrible thing to do. But she looks delicious. Read my mind. But we do want to say congratulations to Grant and his new family. Absolutely. Yeah. Today, we're doing a show where all the beers that we have are from breweries with a really wide distribution, something from Sam Adams, something from New Belgium, something from Lagunidis, Sierra Nevada, just shoots and dogfish head. So most of these beers can be bought by most people around the US. Unless you live in Utah. Right. Otherwise, you're fucked. No. The Midwest kind of though, what is it though? The mid part of the West is called the Midwest. No, no, no, like that strip that goes from Canada to Texas. Oh, that's Canada's teardrop. It was like a Bible bell, a Sun bell. I don't know. Never mind. Whatever it's called. Yes. I don't get stuff. And you should probably move. I have a feeling they don't listen to us anyways. They're celebrating what is that? Easter? Oh, yeah. It's Easter Sunday today. And what better way than to drink a bunch of fucking beers? Yep. I feel like I came back from the dead. I know. And you look like I came back from the dead. Last night we went to our friend Josh's place, Josh from episode one that we don't like to talk about. We got to start somewhere. Yeah. It was like a giant beer tasting with very few people. We ended up going through so many goddamn beers. And Mike at some point, you're pretty drunk. And then you decided to leave at 10 and I was like, oh man, that's really, really responsible of him. We're going to the poor house. I can go drink somewhere else. I know. And what time did you leave the poor house? I don't remember. Okay. This sounds like an interview like you're questioning him. This is an intervention. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This show is all about interventions and how we should not let friends dive down the spiral of alcoholism and Ryan is feeling pretty good. How are you doing? I'm hanging in there. It's been a long week. I thankfully took a little nap this afternoon and woke up at five kind of in a haze. We're like, ah, we're in, but what's, yeah, I've got to go to John's. I'm glad you could make it. I'm glad I made it. Yeah. And like I said, a bunch of really accessible, easy to find beers in this show. But first we're going to go to our iTunes shout outs because we didn't really get any questions in email this week. We got a few emails, but God, Harrison finally stopped, right? I know. Right? Or maybe you've just stopped including him. No, no. He didn't write this time. So our first iTunes review, so people leave reviews and ratings for us on iTunes. Really cool way to support the show. And the first one that I'm going to read out a thanks to today is to Silence Omo, who says we're his most listened to podcast. And he wishes we'd do more, but fears we'd succumb to alcohol poisoning. Not there yet. It makes like a Terminator of liquor. The dude says we're informative, funny, and we make his nips hard. See, I read that as we make his naps hard. It's difficult for him to take naps while he's listening to us. And then I thought, well, you're just doing it wrong, sir. That could happen when they're like diamonds. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He'd like to hear us do a show on nitro stouts or a nitro CO2 comparison show. That could be interesting. That would be a lot of fun. It could be hard. It could be difficult, mainly because I know most nitro beers, maybe that are on nitro and not nitro. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, most of the nitro beers you're going to find are in bars. Yeah. On tap. Yeah. Some people do can bottom nitro beers. And we'll look into that. Maybe that's a good idea for a future show. So send us a bar? No, don't say this bar. I don't have any place to put it. Adam Snow is from Kalamazoo and liked hearing us cover one of his local breweries. Lucky dog. I know. I know. It's beer from another one of his area breweries soon. Thank you, Adam. That's awesome. Like I said, if you guys want to leave us an iTunes review and do that, get on the iTunes store, do a search for the beerists, leave us a five star rating and write a little review for us. And when you write the review, I can see your name and give you a thanks on the show. It's a great way to support the show, gets us higher up on the rankings and iTunes and gets more people introduced to what we do. One other thing. We got more donations. We got more money? Yes. We got more money. Yeah. We're up to $500 now that we receive from listeners, which is awesome. That's almost one person to go to GABF, I think. That's almost one person. It's really damn close to it. I know. That's so fucking awesome. And we really appreciate the support. This time from Gillian Adams, Dale Martin, Black Gendo, we know who you are and we actually know Gendo. He's a nice guy. His name's really Black Gendo. No, that's his real name. Don't shadow the illusion. His name is actually Black Gendo. His parents saw him and named him Black. He's actually Black. Elliot Fontenet, Kimberly Cox, Emmanuel Silva, Tim Fries and Kathy Erickson. Thank you so, so, so, so, so much. I didn't think that you could just ask people for money and then they give it to you. I mean, technically you have to do 50-something shows worth of hard work. I got you. Or you have to learn how to dance in those big, tall heels. Or that. We'll make more a night than we've made this whole show. We should probably think about changing what we do. We can get to JBF fast if we just shook our tits around the stage. Thank you guys so much. And we're still looking for donations. Like Ryan said, this is almost enough to get one of us to the JBF. I really, really, really ask you, please, if you have any extra cash, send it our way. It'll do wonders for us. We got JBF, we could record a show or two and take some interviews and make a bunch of connections that'll improve the show later on. Can we play that really sad Sarah McLaughlin music while you say that? And then we can have pictures of us looking sad and fearless. Okay. Let's try this again. ♪ In the arms of the age ♪ Please send us all your extra money. It'll do wonders for the show and get us drunk in another town where hopefully we can meet some of our listeners and a bunch of wonderful, wonderful beer people. I love you and hope that you love us too. Sarah McLaughlin, everybody. Sarah McLaughlin, let's get into our beers. That was beautiful. It gets me right here every time. I know. It gets me right in my jimmies. In your what? I call my balls Jimmy, both of them. Jimmy Twins. Our first beer of the evening is Sam Adams Alpine Spring. Sam Adams is out of Boston, Massachusetts. Alpine Spring is 5.5% ABV, 18 IBUs, and it's a spring seasonal available in bottles and on draft. And this is one that everybody in the U.S. can get, I believe, and it's topped with Tetenang Tetenanger and malted with Sam Adams two-row pale malt blend and honey malt. So checking this beer out, it's a fucking hazy golden color. It's an unfiltered lager. Yes. Really nice bit ahead and a spongy and wispy at the same time. This smell reminds me of that Paulander Oktoberfest we had. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Really? Because what I'm getting is stomach acid and bad decisions. Man, we didn't go to the titty bod, please. Oh, Mike can smell his last night. Biscaty, bready, a little bit of orange. Yeah, it's very biscaty, a little bit of citrus. Clean. It smells clean, crisp. There's a bit of a grassiness and a full quality there too. Yeah, there's a bit of that grassiness from the hops. It smells nice. It smells like something that is appealing now that it's spring. Yeah, definitely. Very fresh smelling. And there's a juicy, almost creamy quality as well to the nose, citrus pith or something like that. Yeah. It tastes kind of like a creamsicle. That is a goddamn great lawnmower beer. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, it is. That tastes good. Yeah. Very different from what I'd expect from Sam Adams because usually there's something about the malt and the hops that they use that make, and I guess maybe they're used to, that make most of their beers have this very particular Sam Adams house flavor. And this is very light and citric. And it's got this really awesome effervescent fresh quality to it. Fresh Valencia orange and something kind of dandeliony. Yeah, there's that kind of dandelion green. I'm thinking like a spring vegetable spinach salad with a citrus vinegarette. Oh, to pair with this? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or salad with a poached egg or something in there. That's really nice. It's so fresh and lively and I'm having a hard time not chugging it. I know. You really throw this back so easily. Yeah. I'd never had this one before. You know, it just came out in the store and I didn't know what to expect. And I'm really digging the hell out of this. You know, we just drank some gumball head downstairs and that's kind of my go-to light wheat beer. And I know this isn't a wheat beer, but there's some similarities to some of the flavors that I'm getting here that gumball head also has. Very complimentary. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like an aftertaste to it. There's kind of like this lasting creaminess that coats your tongue. Yeah. I think when Asdger said earlier, it's like an orange creamsicle was like after you get past some of that greenness from the hops and that little bit of citrusy and that dry biscuity creams out over the tongue. It's really nice. And the hops are just lending a very slight bit of grassiness to the overall flavor. I think it kind of brightens it up a little bit. Yeah. Well, we almost passed this one up in the store. We did. True. Yeah, we did. We had bought a stone IPA for this show, but Anastasia reminded me, we just had the stone IPA on the stone show. So that went back in the fridge and she brought two bottles of this with her from work today. And I'm glad she did. Yeah. Sometimes forget about Sam Adams, they're the biggest craft brewer in town and sometimes I pass by them. But man, sometimes their beers are really good. They have a really nice Pilsner that I forgot what the name is and just they're Boston Loggers. They're Boston Loggers. You've got like Budweiser, Shocktop, Coors, Boston Loggers, like fuck yeah, I have a Boston Logger. That's always a good beer. It's my old standby. Any place that has crappy beers on top, like Ryan said, will likely have that beer. Sometimes I'll just have a Boston Lager because I'm in the mood for it. All right. It's good. It's a solid beer. This is absolutely a solid beer as well. I think I'm going to drink the shit out of this during the season. It's really rare that I say that about a Sam Adams beer because yeah, a lot of it sometimes is samey. Yeah. Very similar flavors and some of it doesn't really do very much with those flavors that they present to us. But this one is exactly the beer. It should be. It feels like. Yeah. A lot of them don't really feel like they make a very large departure from one another. Too many similarities. This is really nice. The Christmas that's here, really, really damn drinkable. Yeah. Super easy to drink. So clean. This would have done just as well for a summer beer as well now that I think about it. Oh, absolutely. Because it's light and very easy to drink, but it also has a lot of flavor there. And there's some body that's going on there. But it's just retaining that refreshing quality of those fresh fruit notes that we're getting. The citrus. Maybe a little bit of lime. Maybe a touch of melon or something. I really like the carbonation level that's going on here too. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm ecstatic that pretty much everybody listening to this show can get this beer. How many states is this available in? All of them. All states. Yeah. Sam Adams comes out with a beer that I'm surprised by and in love with. But that doesn't happen very often. I wish I was closer to Sam Adams themselves at times because they're seller series and some of the barrel aging projects are silly good. When I used to go to school in Western Mass, we'd go out to Boston and you could go to the brewery and the things that they're just kind of playing around with are just phenomenal. I can imagine. I mean, they have a lot of disposable income. And they do a lot of really great stuff too for other craft breweries. Just earlier this month, they unveiled their can design. It's the first time that Sam Adams can's. They kind of shied away from that for a long time. But they unveiled a can design that they spent a million dollars developing to use for their lineup. And it's a can. It's got more of a recessed area at the top so that there's a lip that comes out further than usual on the can. And I guess they're doing that to make it more glass-like. I know that there's another can design out there where you remove the entire top of it. But they didn't want to exactly do that. So they've developed this can. And they said that they're going to let any other brewery who wants to use that can design use it. Nice. Yeah. Super fucking cool. Yeah. And they dropped like a million dollars playing around can design and getting balled to. To develop it up and make it and produce it. And that's really exciting. I think you should give it like more aroma and things too from having the recessed top and. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. A larger punch top. I'm hoping they have like one of the keys in there. We can stab it and you can shotgun it. Well, Sam Adams also does a hop giveaway to other breweries as well. Yeah, they did that again this year. Did they? Nice. Yeah, because they're such a big beer company, they have first dibs on a lot of the hop harvest around the US. Sometimes they buy more than they need. So they give it away or sell it to other craft breweries with no markup. I mean, it's really, really awesome and they support the shit out of everybody else. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And was it 2009 when there's the big hop shortage? And some breweries were like, we can't even make beer. I know Sam Adams cut back production to give out hot, like making sure that people could stay afloat. Yeah. They're a killer fucking brewery. And I'm so pleased and excited that this Alpine spring was great. Yeah. This was delicious beer. Awesome. Do you guys want to move on? Yeah, I'm thirsty. All right. I'm just getting warmed up here. That was the Sam Adams Alpine spring. Our next beer is shift from New Belgium. It's a pale lager. New Belgium's out of Fort Collins, Colorado. This is 5% ABV, 29 IBUs, and it's a year-round offering available in cans and on draft. They don't bottle this. I didn't know that. All right. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they don't. I tried to look, but I don't think they bottled it. It's hopped with Target, Nelson Savon, Liberty and Cascade, and it's small to do with pale, Munich and C80. And I'm going to read the write up because it's pretty interesting. New Belgium employee owners work in shifts to brutal life world-class beers. Those efforts are rewarded daily with a shared end of shift beer. They're passing that welcome occasion on to beer drinkers in this shift pale lager. Think American pale meets American lager. It's easy to drink, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so clock out and crack open all these marketing speaks. I'm not going to read the rest of it. Cool. Wow. That is clear as everything. It's as if you're looking through air and the air is just a darker... You're any color? Yeah. It's like if you're looking through the world with beer tinted glasses. It's like what Mike's piss looked like this morning. Just strong golden gold. Not enough blood. Yeah. Strong gold and almost bordering on orange, but clear. And it's got a pretty decent amount of head on the top that's sticking around nicely. Fomeness. Oh, it smells great. Oh, yeah, it does. And I haven't had this one either. You've not had this one? I have not had this one. I have not had this one. Yes, it's new to me as well. Crackerinos. Get that kind of grassiness. It's a nice smelling beer. Crackery, grassy, just like Mike said. And there's just a tinge of maybe pineapple or something there. It smells like a meadow. Yeah, it does. But somewhere far off in the distance, I guess, like green cantaloupe. Yeah, it's some kind of tropical fruit, right? Maybe cantaloupe. Red and biscuits and grass, dandelions or something. Get kiwi almost. Yeah, it's somewhere between kiwi and cantaloupe, isn't it? And those are very far back there. They're like, we're really distant flavors there. Yeah, we've got to drill really far into this beer to get it. I imagine that's from the Nelson's oven. Probably. You get a little bit of that crackeriness. You get a little tiny bit of malt, but it's at the beginning and then it swoops through the middle and then you get like a lot of hops towards the end. It's really grassy. It sure is. And the malt character is really interesting because at the beginning it feels like it's about to start going into sweetness and then it just dries out completely. And you get this really nice crackery, bready malt. Really crusty bread. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That hop note, like that grassy, super grassy hop note just comes in and fades in towards the end. So it also tastes like a picnic. Yeah, I don't even know how to describe that hop note other than just very grassy. That's pretty much it, isn't it? Yeah, it's like really chlorophyllic. There's something very green about it for sure. I was expecting more tropicality to it from the Nelson, but that's not really coming through very much. Do you get a cantaloupe note from it? No. Cantaloupe note. That was so funny. You really need to go back and listen to that show. I'm so drunk. It was horrifying. So, I'm going to be the one who says it. It's a little one note or two notes, I guess, grass and bread. Sure. There's not much complexity here, but it's really straightforward, real easy drinking pale lager. Yeah, fruit very well. Yeah. I guess when you get off work, you don't really need complexity or warmth. I would have thought what Nelson Savon and Cascade though, it would have been a little bit more citrusy, a little bit more white grapey. I did too. The top note would be not as one dimensional. It's clean. It smells good. I don't know if I could have more than one of these beers before I was kind of like, "All right, I'm really disflavors. I get it." Yeah. It gets a little bitey at the end with that grassiness. I don't know. I think that this beer is okay. It's, again, it's not making me freak out and go, "Whoa, this is really delicious. I could drink a bunch of this. I'll have one or two and enjoy them while I'm drinking them, but then I'll probably move on to something else." This is more of a placeholder beer for me. I've drank a lot of this since I've released it, but it's not anything that's going to challenge you. Right. I think that this is a good one to give to friends that maybe aren't really into beer so much. This is something that's kind of familiar, I think, with a lot of people. It's kind of like that. It's kind of one of those familiar, budmiller cores kind of beers, but done with real malt and good hops and done well. It's good camping beer. Yeah. Like summertime camping. I could definitely see that. Especially with the clean, fresh air, I think this would pair really nice with camping. Not shmores, though. Not probably. Yeah. I like this beer. I don't think that it's got a lot of character, even for the style, but it's not bad. I mean, it's not something that I take a sip of and turned off by at all. You would go with hot dogs, though. Who would really go with hot dogs? Hot dogs with buns, roasted. Hell yeah. Because it's got that small backbone. This is one of those perfect beers to drink with a pizza. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A great beer to drink with pizza. I can just imagine doing that. You know, you're still drinking beer, but it's not going to conflict with any of the flavors that you're having with that pizza. Yeah. The breadiness will match up with the crust and the grassyness will probably go with tomato sauce or pesto or whatever else you use as a sauce. Yeah. And it's a slight departure from what New Belgium usually does. I mean, I can see where shift fits into their portfolio of beers. They needed to fill that slot with something and this is a good beer to fill it with. I'm enjoying this, but I'd rather move on to the next one because I'm looking forward to this next one because I haven't had it since we were at that Lagunitas beer dinner at 24 diner. That was good. That was new Belgium shift. And the next beer that we're moving on to is Lagunitas, new dog town pale ale. It's out of Petal, California. It's 6.1% ABV. It's a year on offering available in bottles and on draft. And according to the write up, it says we took our original brew, dog town pale ale and hybridized it with the kill ugly radio, a 22 unseasonal we release commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Frank Zappa's second album. The flavor was too good to let float in the abyss, so we revamped our original recipe and never looked back. It says this beer is available in 34 states and they just opened up a new brewery in Chicago. Well, they're in the process of doing it. They're probably going to be all 50 states here in six months, huh? Probably, yeah. They have a weird spotty distribution, man, and they make great reasonably priced beer. Absolutely. I think they're really underrated as a brewery. A lot of people tend to pass them over and they make some really, really killer stuff. Totally. It's always well priced. Hopstupid is a fantastic beer for the six and a half bucks you're going to spend for it. A 22 ounce bottle. Of a hundred something I've used of deliciousness. Yeah. And you're going to get stupid when you drink it. That's a good point. They also did that Lagunita sucks, which is a seasonal and is fucking fantastic. And I believe that beer is going to go year round. And this new dog town P.L.L. I remember having the original dog town P.L.L. and thought it was just okay. And then later on having this new dog town and freaking out that it was hoppier than their IPA. Yeah, that's right. Because who was it? One of the reps was talking about that during one of those beer dinners that was at 24. And it was quite a delicious beer when we had it. And this one is, oh, there's a little bit of particles at the bottom of my glass. But it's a golden color, slight bit of haze. And just seeing any beer next to the beer that we just had to shift, it's going to feel hazy because that one was clearer than anything. Yeah. Nice head too. That's really sticking around. I've got a lot of fingers worth ahead. And it's foamy and bubbly and delicious looking. And it's not going anywhere. Oh, it smells like pizza. That smells good. What? Like basil. Yeah. A little bit of oregano. Yeah, it's a little danky also and mossy. Smells kind of like pot. A lot of their beers do. You don't say. A lot of their... They really like to smoke pot. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, yeah. A lot of their... A lot of their brewers smell like pot too. Yeah. If you ever go on a brew tour there, you get more than just free beer. No, they got investigated and they had nothing. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. That is awesome. But yeah, just resinous mossy, kind of herbaceous hops. There's a little bit of a tropicality. That's because there's a bit of citrus in there too. Mm-hmm. There is. Like a Hawaiian pizza. More Jamaican. Fine. I think you're like the south side of Jamaica though. There's almost like a pineapple note that's going on there. Yeah. What color is a star fruit? Yellow. Yes. And that. I'm smelling. I could totally get that. Mm-hmm. Well, that's good. Oh, that is. That's a lot of hops for a pail. Do we know what the high-be-use on it are? The bottom does not say. It does not say on their website. It says that this beer is way better than it used to. It used to taste like broccoli and kerosene and the carbonation ate right through and drain your stomach into your gut. It's a big improvement from that. It's a huge improvement because this beer has got all the hops of a very, very delicious IPA, but very little of that bitterness. It's just all late hop edition just. And these hops are very big and resinous and mossy and grassy, and I'm still getting some herbal qualities to it. That basil's still coming through. I think this would be great with pizza. Absolutely. They really do hoppy beers extremely well. Oh, yeah. Tastes like leaves. Uh-huh. And there's a patchouli quality to it, too. Yeah. Like, hoppy. It's like licking a hoppy leaf. Why are you laughing? A bean leaf. Am I just smelling, Mike? I've never worn patchouli ever, and I think a lot of people probably wish that I did. [laughter] Oh, fuck. I'm actually surprised that I like this as much as I do. Y'all had me really worried when you talked about how hoppy it was, and sometimes the hoppy or luggany just once don't jive with me. It's missing the bitterness, right? It's not a super bitter beer. That's true, yeah. Probably why I like it. All the bitterness is kind of perceived through the flavor. Yeah. I get most of the bitterness after I've already swallowed the beer. To me, it's more of an afterthought in the aftertaste. Yeah. I just got a touch of mint. That was pleasant. I can see that. I've definitely seen that. Like, right in the back and the finish. That was nice. I just burped, and it was all biscuity bolts and delicious hops. This one is definitely the most complex so far. Lots of depth to it. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. Wow, the hot bitterness and just the hops really build as you continue to drink this. First, like, oh, this is kind of light and pretty clean, and now I've had five, six, seven more sips. It's like, oh, all right, starting to build up. It sits on the tongue really nicely. He sits on that perceived bitterness so that hangs around the end, starts building and building. I can imagine that this beer would be good to hand to somebody who's not used to hoppy beers, because it doesn't have a lot of that bitterness when you first start, and then it kind of builds that direction as you keep drinking it. So it might be like putting in a frog into a cool bath, and then you slowly cook it, you know, and it doesn't realize that it's getting cooked. I know. That's so depressing. But you had weird childhood. I know. I know. That was last night. Oh, but yeah, you know what I'm saying, though, right? It's kind of a staged gateway. And it tastes like hops. So it's like marijuana moving on to heroin. Yes. This is. That was also last night. This is actually more. No, that didn't have a lesson. This is just the marijuana. This is just like marijuana moving on to stronger marijuana. This doesn't make any sense anymore, but what I'm saying is that I think that this beer is good for somebody who's just starting to get into hoppy beers, who is actually enjoying some of the hoppy beers that they're having, but not really enjoying the bitterness, because the bitterness comes in slowly, and even then it's not overwhelming by any means. Not at all. It's gentle. It uses lots of lube. The next thing you know, the whole thing's just in there. Yeah, it's like moving from a pinky finger to your ring finger to something bigger, like a flashlight. Baseball bat, your fist, whatever, the fingers in there already just throwing wiener dogs down there. Watermelons. Yeah. And then you can start your life as a mule for the cartel. You had a weird job. And I'll start with a pinky finger, just the tip, and then you're going to end up a drunk mule. I want that t-shirt that just says it all starts with a pinky finger. Can that be the official beeriest motto? I may end up selling a shirt that says that, but we should take a break and rethink that idea. Brainstorm. Brainstorm? Yeah, we need a brainstorm on shirts. Delicious! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So one thing about that stone enjoyed by that we just had on the break, it's just as good the day right before it expires. The trick is, does it taste good tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow, it's just going to go straight to hell. Stone enjoyed by that. We dropped dead at the enjoyment. It turns into arrogant bastard tomorrow. Oh man, yeah, that was a good break. We just, like I said, drank a stone enjoyed by, and I don't know, I don't even know why we have a break beer, like, we don't really need one. Just to. Oh, we totally do. I'm feeling so much more talkative and happy right now. Oh, good. Okay. That's a good point. So next beer, yes, we're moving on to our next beer, which is Chain Breaker. It's a white IPA from Deschutes out of Bend, Oregon. It's 5.6% ABV, 55 IBUs, and it's a rotating release available in bottles and on draft. And it's topped with Bravo, Citra, Centennial, and Cascade, malted with Pilsner, wheat and unmalted wheat. And it also contains sweet orange and coriander. Ooh. So Deschutes probably has the smallest distribution range out of all the ones that we're having. Yes. And they're in about 20 states, mainly on the West Coast. Yeah, they hit the Mississippi River and they're like, boop, yeah, they just drop right off. Yeah. But this beer looks almost like a whipped beer. Very Hugartan-esque. Right. Oh yeah. Yellow. Yeah, really pale, pale yellow. A little bit of haze to it, white pillowy head on top is just a shade lighter than the actual pier. Mm-hmm. Oh, that smells so good. That smells so fucking good. Very Belgian-y. There's probably some Belgian yeast in here. Oh yeah. The yeast is definitely coming through. The coriander in the Citra on the nose smells so good. Yeah, there's a lot of coriander, isn't there? What's interesting is Sapparo, the Japanese beer-making company? Oh, Sapporo. Yeah, I guess Sapporo. Thank you. They did a test where they brewed a beer with coriander and they brewed a beer with Citra and they gave it blind to people to test and people couldn't differentiate between the two. Oh, that's interesting. It's really, really interesting. So the fact that they use coriander and Citra in this beer, that note is huge. Yeah, and this tangerine and juicy, fresh-cut lemon coming out in the nose and a really nice Belgian profile happening. I get a little bit of like a bubble gummy kind of nose too, as well. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't get Belgian. I get mainly the wheat. Yeah, lots of wheat. I think that's coming through more than the actual Pilsner malt, too. Yeah, grassy, probably the most incredible smelling beer we've had tonight. It smells fantastic. Yeah. A lot of biscuit and a taste of coriander and cascade. That's really delicious. That's nice. Mm-hmm. Very upfront with the coriander, there's a lot of lemon peel and lemon juice going on in the flavor. I get a lot of that tangerine that you were talking about right in the tail end. Yeah. And there's a real nice grassiness and something that smells like leaves, you know, like fresh green leaves. Like pineapple leaves. It's really interesting, just the texture. Because it's washing over your mouth, it really does have that classic Belgian wit mouth feel. But after I've swallowed, I find that it hangs on the tongue a lot longer than a wet beer does. And it kind of gets juicy, in a sense. Yeah. And then it dries your tongue out a bit. There's an astringency that's happening there. And it just preps you for the next sip, because it finishes so clean. Mm-hmm. And it's even stripped off the residual hops that I had from the beer that we had before on the break, which is that enjoy by 4-1-13. Mm-hmm. I'm not tasting that beer anymore. The coriander really coats the tongue, especially like midway to the back palate. It's like kind of dry and spicy. Oh, yeah. And there's a slight banana quality to it. It's very, very slight. But you had a coriander and like a white pepper spice is really, really fantastic in this. Spritzy. It sure is. It's very spritzy. Spritzy is also new to me today, all these beers so far have been new to me today. And I've seen this quite a few times. And I don't know why I haven't ever picked it up, and now I'm kicking myself. This is really, really good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I've picked up a few six packs of this and taken them to parties and stuff. They're a big hit. Yeah, really are. Even with people who don't drink a lot of craft beer, they tend to enjoy this one quite a bit, which is kind of amazing to me because it's a hoppy it is. Right. It really does come off like a wit though in that first initial flavor. And I find a lot of people really like wit beers, those people who don't like beer really enjoy wits. It's hard to... Delicious. It's not like a wit because that coriander and that limony quality is so appealing. This is essentially a wit with just more hops, right? Yeah. I'm looking at the... They don't say what kind of yeast they use, but the malt schedule is straight up a wit. Yeah. Coriander and orange, that's pretty standard. I definitely don't get necessarily the IPA aspects other than the sheer hoppiness of it. Yeah. But this is really classically, at least for me, and it really fits that wit classification. Yeah, yeah. I don't really taste that 55 IBU, but I think the hoppiness kind of melts well with the lemon because it's kind of lemongrassie and just regular grassy and I think those hopnets meld into the orange and coriander and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, especially that citra. It's just a great combination. And it feels really great in the mouth too. There's a lot of nice lively carbonation and it's pretty full. It's really seamless and I enjoy that because a lot of times when breweries will do a take on combining styles, Belgian IPAs, I'm looking at it in most people that make those, but a lot of it just kind of feels tacked on in a sense, like where they'll, oh I'm just throwing some Belgian yeast at an IPA, but this tastes to me far more seamless, more well thought out. They do it very well. I hope this trend catches on because fuck black IPAs. I've just finished my whole class. You accidentally the whole thing? No, I didn't accidentally. That was all on purpose. I just couldn't stop drinking this. This is so easy to drink, but it still has so much going on the flavor that, yeah, exactly new craft beer people would love it just as much as the seasoned vet, I think. Absolutely. It's good hot weather beer. It's something that packs a lot of flavor and has a good mouth feel, but it's not going to be really delicate and it's fairly complex. I'd absolutely agree with that. So it's after you mow the lawn that you drink this, you drink the alpine spring while you're mow the lawn that when you're done mow the lawn, you drink the chain breaker. Yeah, it's very refreshing. I dig the hell out of it. Deshirts is a brewery too that's fairly big. They're maybe not as big as new Belgium. They really got their shit together. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The regular lineup. Their lineup is so fucking solid, like if you get a mix and match 12 pack from them, everything in there is going to be really good. I can't think of any beers that I don't like that I've had from them. That's in their barrel aging program. Holy shit. Yeah. Look at that. You abyss. I love that. I love their experimental IPA program. Mm hmm. The Bond Street series. The 2012 dissident I had the other night was awesome. Oh good. I've had it yet. I've had it. Yeah. It's good. I really enjoyed it. Deshirts. Chain breaker. Fucking great beer. Distribute everywhere to shoots. The moral needs to know. They'll probably expand pretty soon. They sound like one of the breweries that will have a brewery before you know it in like Virginia. Yeah. Deshirts is making some great stuff. 'Cause new Belgium's done it, Sierra Nevada's done it, Loganita's done it. Oh yeah. Brooklyn's going to Sweden. What? What? That's pretty cool. That is awesome. They found that a lot of people in Sweden, like their beers I guess, and it kind of fits the whole thing that they do as Brooklyn brewery. That's way cooler than going to California. And they looked at going to somewhere else in the States, but for some reason Sweden just worked out better for them. Nice. Let's move on to our next beer, which is Aprohop. It's an IPA brewed with apricots from Dogfish Head, Milton Delaware. It's beer 7% ABV, 50 IBUs, and it's a spring seasonal available in bottles and on draft. And a few of the beers that we're having are spring seasonals. Just to keep it exciting, and they're going to be around while people are listening to the show. Aprohop is an American IPA brewed with Pilsner and crystal malts. It's massively hopped, according to Dogfish Head, in the continuous fashion, of course. And the flavor is complemented by the addition of apricots. After fermentation, the beers dry hopped with irresponsible amounts of Amarillo hops. The beer has a hoppier aroma with the apricots playing a supporting role, beer, whatever. The rest is... Yeah. You read the whole thing. Yeah, there's no rest. I'm shrinking. Leave me be. You look like I've had enough. This one is... This is Aperhop by New Belgium. Yeah. [laughter] Look at the color on that. It's almost... The darkest one we've had. It's almost brown. Like it's a brownish red color. But everybody's transparent as the shift. Very transparent. Yes. It's like a rust color. Copper. Yeah, the bubbles on the head, though, are very big and so... That nose is heavenly. Yeah, so I was really interested to try this in the bottles, because I had it yesterday on tap at Hopfields, and I questioned the bartender that gave me the beer, because I didn't think that he had given me the correct one, and I think I was right. I think they had it mislabeled. This smells awesome. You just get that huge punch of... Amarillo. Amarillo. But you get those real, real nice apricot notes that are there, too. Yeah, it's kind of like a creaminess that dried apricot. Like if you have those dried apricots, eat them and you have the Amarillo up front, and it finishes off with that soft, creamy apricot, it's like sweet and dank, and I smell some salami. This is such a good idea. I can see that. Yeah. I get brown sugar, quite a bit of it. Yeah, there's brown sugar. There's citrus. There's something kind of meaty, something a mommy you like that you're talking about, and I totally agree with that. I mean, when Sam brewed this up, what, 10 years ago when this first came out maybe longer? This was like cutting edge in beer craziness, and now if you do a beer with apricots, it's kind of... I can do that, but this is, in a lot of ways, when he first made this is a pretty revolutionary type of IPA. Oh, yeah. And there's a little mango there. Oh, yeah. There's definitely some tropical notes that are there. It smells like a savory apricot tart, or tatine, or something like that. Sure, I can see that. Just like a really savory crust, but it still has these muddled or preserved apricots in it. Yeah, something marmaladey there also. Yeah, a little bit of brown sugar, too. Speaking of hot fields, had a ham and pear tart there yesterday, and I totally feel you. The quality of the crust is totally something that I smell here in this beer. There's something that's giving the hint of some kind of dark bread. Maybe something gets just a bit, yeah, something like that, a bit chocolatey. Oh, yeah. Yum. They gave me the wrong shit yesterday. Hey, hot fields. If you're listening to this, that beer that you had on last week, yeah, two weeks ago, was mislabeled. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of apricot going on there. Apricot rich malt caramel. Yeah, like apricots that have been boiled in brown sugar, but it's not really a sweet beer, is it? I mean, it's pretty dry. Oh, yeah. This is on the drier, more savory end of a fruit beer, for sure. This will definitely go with a ham and pear tart. Oh, fuck yeah. This is great. And the sweetness it is coming off is kind of pineappley. There's still that mango note going on there and more citrus as I'm sipping this. Like a soda bread. Yeah. Yeah. That when I made that soda bread a couple of weeks ago, quote unquote, soda bread that had the raisins and the citrus, the orange peel, a little bit of the careway seeds. It has that bready, spicy, bready, spicy, sweet without being sugary or cloying. Oh, yeah. I mean, for this being an apricot centered beer, they're really not beating you in the face with the apricot as much as they could be. No, I think Ryan nailed it when he said dry apricot because it's coming off more like dry, dehydrated apricots than fresh, juicy apricots, right? Well, I like that it's not so apricot heavy. I like how the apricot just kind of works with the hop node and the malt bill. Yeah. It's supporting the hops. Exactly. We just kind of like, Hey guys, I'm here and I'm awesome. It just adds another dimension to the hop that you don't normally get from the hops. Absolutely. Oh, well done. Very. I love this beer every year. I feel like it changes a little bit. I feel like it's less apricotty this year. You know, I wish I could support that or argue against it, but I haven't had a proper hop in a few years. It's probably been three years to add in. We had it last year. Did your man? Did we? Mm hmm. Was I drinking? Yup. I mean, we were at a bar. So yeah. Okay. So I had it a year ago, but I don't remember that at all. So this episode on debunking John Rubio alcohol has an effect on memory. Go figure. I'm okay with it changing a little bit every year because I imagine it does because this batch of apricots maybe wasn't as sweet or as juicy because fruit changes and nature's way. Yeah. Anytime you're dealing with an agricultural product, there's going to be variation. Oh, absolutely. Which is one of the reasons that they say, holy shit, I can't believe Budweiser's so consistent, you know, but this has got that extra element of the apricots. It's been a good seven years since I've had this beer. Wow. I had it in college and I really, really enjoyed it, but it was nine or $10 for a four pack. So I was kind of like, ah, that's pricey for my college student self. And I just never came back to it. And the other day I had it on tap. I was like, I have to try that fucking awesome. And this is actually different than what I had on tap. This has slightly more subdued apricot taste, but it lingers. It's a bit more strong in the finish of the beer than what I had the other night. And I'm sad that I haven't gone back to it for God knows what reason, but I don't normally get most of their regular lineup very frequently. But the things that I'm sure of to get is going to be pumpkin. That's a great. Oh, yeah. Uh, pumpkin ale. It's fantastic. This, the aperhop and the fustina pesh. Um, oh, that's, I love the fustina pesh is almost out again. Yeah. I cannot wait. Oh, that's dogfish, heads, Berlin or vice brewed with peaches, that's one of the best beers going. Absolutely. Great. I love aperhop season. Thank you so much. Yeah. Those three things I, I for sure get every single time that they release it. And aperhop is like we're saying, a fantastic beer and it's a pretty well overlooked beer among a lot of the beer nerds that we hang out with at least. A lot of us are into the bright, shiny new thing and we want to offer a bunch. We really are. Yeah. But it's a wonderful thing to come back to something that I don't remember having last year, so I'm going to say that I haven't had in a while and really enjoying the shit out of. I think that if you handed this to somebody and said, pick this apart, I don't know that they'd say like, this is an apricot centered beer. Yeah, right. Because it's just a good IPA. It's almost like the apricots like Anastasia said, blend with the hops, right? This beer has a really nice, hoppy aroma with the apricots playing a supporting role. Exactly. And it's just as much mango to me as it is apricot. After those two flavors that are kind of blending together for me with this rich malt character, making something that's not quite tropical and fruity, it really bridges the hops and the molds together really. Oh, yeah. I keep coming back to smelling this beer and it just smells wonderful. Yeah, this has just been a really good show, I think, to bring us back to like the everyday drinking. Oh, yeah. Because usually, you know, we do. We drink the new shiny things, what comes out. This is our age in 16 barrels. I mean, it's research, we have to stay current. No, right. Right. But it's still nice. It's still nice to be able to sit down with a beer and be like, sweet, I'm going to go pick up a six pack of that for, you know, what I'm doing yard work or when I'm spring cleaning or what I'm just hanging out. The problem is, is there's so much fucking beer nowadays. Well, yeah, I mean, you can't drink them all for me. I'm so happy about that. You can't possibly just stay current with every single one. I don't know. There's a number of us that have been around for a while that it's becoming more and more well, at least it was, it was more and more difficult to find something new that somebody hasn't had before. Yeah. But now we have this influx of all of these breweries coming in because the way the four of us consume beer is we go to tastings a lot a lot once a week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And these tastings, you'll have maybe 10, 20 people each show up with three or four bottles of beer that you cannot usually get in Texas, the state where they were in. Some of those are special editions. Some of those are just, you know, whatever beer that some obscure state gets. I think we miss a lot of the stuff that we can get. We take a lot of that for granted because we could just go to the store and get it. And we're really preoccupied with, hey, let's go to these tastings and do all this crazy shit, which is fucking great. We have tons of fucking great beers like that. I maybe try 30 new beers every couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Easy. I think are good for any level of listener, whether you're just getting into craft beer, there's beer on that list for you. Yeah. You new beer listener, if you're like us and you're kind of a big beer nerd and you go to a bunch of tastings, there's beer on here that you probably have overlooked, but I know you like because you have good taste because why else would you be listening? Oh, absolutely. To give you guys context, if you're a super beer nerd, last night we were at Josh's place at a tasting. We had six different beers from Hill Farmstead, that fucking barrel aged three Floyd's behemoth from like two years ago. That was fantastic. I think we had eight different Hill Farmstead yesterday. Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah. We had eight different Hill Farmstead yesterday. We also had Bourbon County Coffee Stout from this year, an '09, Bourbon County Stout. We had tons of shit. Court and Cage Lawfully. Oh, yeah. From '09, I believe. Yeah, from '09. And then a Tarte of Darkness. Oh, yeah. Tarte of Darkness. And the sour and the rye. Yeah, from the brewery. And there was a bunch of other stuff. Like I said, we went through a lot of beer. A lot. A lot. A lot. And irresponsible amount of beer. We had a lot of those hyped up brewery. Oh, the fruit. Diabetes. Like the fruit. Like the fruit. We had the Griffin Bruxilensis. That thing was not very good. No. I liked it. I would pick Aperahop over that beer any day. Absolutely. But sour and the rye was delicious. Sour and the rye was great. I was surprised with what was the first one from the brewery? The Griffin Bruxilensis? Yeah, the Griffin Bruxilensis. I liked the sour and the rye better. I didn't realize that. I did too. A lot. Much better. Yeah. The Griffin Bruxilensis was overwhelmingly sour in a bad way. Flavors didn't melt together. Not at all. It was just everybody drinking. You could watch their faces kind of twitch because it was just like, you couldn't handle it. You couldn't handle it. And like, in sour but just in a completely imbalanced kind of way. It was as sour as the fruit was sweet. Yeah. Why? I liked it. I like this aperahop. This aperahop is so good. We have a bunch of crazy beers all the time and a lot of the beers that we drink are beers that aren't even available in the state where we're drinking them to go back to something like aperahop and be wild. Like I'm actually wowed by this beer and enjoying the shit out of it. That says something about the quality of this beer. Yeah. Aperahop is so good. We have a bunch of crazy beers all the time and a lot of the beers that we drink are beers is one of those weird limited states because of the beer loss. I'm assuming. Yeah. There's some beers that we don't get. We don't get like the worldwide style. I hope they're not going to change soon. There have been talk for years about that coming into the state but yeah, we don't get the worldwide stuff. We don't get their barley wine. We got their oldale this year and more ale. Yeah. We've been getting more ale. We've been flooding the bars and shelves. Yeah. We've been starting to get a lot of dogfish head stuff that we didn't usually get. But they're definitely very cozy. There's lots of East Coast distribution and lots of West Coast distribution. But there's something to be said. You know, we talk about going to all these tastings and things like that and distribution. What can you get? I used to live in Western Mass. It was right next to the Shelton brothers. We got everything. Oh. And then moved to Berkeley. Holy fuck. There's everything there. And then I moved to Texas. And I was like, huh, this same six pack of Avery yada yada is two sitting on this shelf for nine months. Yeah. And it forced me to go on to right beer and beer advocate and like, this is how I met Mike and John and Anastasia and all these tastings. And I feel like other people out there and if you live in dry state, states that just don't have it and it makes you go out and you meet people and it took my beer understanding and appreciation to a whole new level that I never would have gotten to had I stayed in such a beer lush state. I mean, just never would have happened. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've met tons of awesome people just going to tastings that were organized by Mike. Some of my favorite people I've met through the beer crowd and the beer community here. You don't have to tell me how much you love you. And before I went to those tastings with Mike, I had my own tastings out of my house. It's awesome how many new things you can be exposed to at those events. If there aren't any in your area, I mean, get on beer advocate, get on rate beer and see if there's one in your area. And usually the rules are you take a couple of bottles of beer that are either limited or available out of state. If you travel, pick up some bottles that you don't get in your state, bring them to a tasting or whatever. It's something about $50 worth of cheese and bread. If you don't have that, or if you don't mind that or just a wedge of cheese and some bread. Or that. Yeah. And that's how I'm a stage I got in. But if there isn't one in your area, if you got on these sites and there isn't one in your area, organize one, do it out of your house, find a bar that would be okay with, hey, do you mind if a few people show up, you know, once a month on a Sunday and have beer that we brought into the bar just as a tasting, as long as everybody who's drinking buys a couple of pints from the bar or takes home a growler or just tips the wait staff awesome. Find that good BYOB place in the hood that behind if you show up. Yeah, look for a location, organize a tasting or join a tasting group. You'll learn a lot very, very, very fast. Speaking of tasting, I'm thirsty. Okay, let's move on to our next beer. That was your chat, like a bunch of fucking heads. I'm sorry. My dogfish head, aperahop, our next beer is ruthless rye, Sierra Nevada. It's a rye IPA, Sierra Nevada is out of Chico, California. It's 6.6% ABV, 55 IBUs, and it's a winter to spring season available in bottles and on draft. I'm a little worried about this one because I feel like it might be out of most stores by the time this comes out. Okay. We'll see. Two weeks before an episode gets released. It's mostly because John's lazy. I mean, if you just worked a little bit harder at this, I mean, if you just put in the effort. You want to see him turn into a salty bastard. You just tell him about how much his passion sucked. No, I will. I will have his ass after this, and you fuck. It all starts with a pinky. If you scream as womanly as you laugh, my mind hits you as much, said me as I was going. Sorry, you haven't even been drinking that much today. I know. There's still enough in your system for it to go bad. Wow. This beer is like a ruby brown color. Very clear, it seems. It's a little. Yeah. I guess there's a little haze. It's not as clear as the aperahop. It's not as clear as the aperahop or the shift. I can see me, but I can't see you. But look at the head on this fucking thing. Beautiful, thick, foamy. I've got a finger and a half's worth of dense, foamy, beautiful head. It smells really good too. I love that rye smell. Oh, yeah. And this has got rye in the nose, like crazy. And unless you're in Canada and in a weird part of Canada, you can get this beer. Right. Yeah, this isn't all the states. I guess that's one thing that a lot of the well-established breweries have going for them that have been around for a while is just distribution rights to everywhere. Oh, yeah. And in the nose, I'm getting rye. I bring this up often when I get the aroma is one of those dried oranges with the cloves stuck into it. Oh, absolutely. Dark brown sugars, turbinato. I don't know what turbinato sugar is. I hear that thrown around a lot. It's unpurified sugar. It's sugar straight from the cane and crystallized or straight from the glass that's left in LA. Yeah. Maybe we've ever had sugar in the raw. It's kind of like that. Or you could still taste the cane it came from when you taste the sugar. These last three beers have just smelled really, really good. No shit. A little bit of grapefruit. Oh, man. It's been a while since I've had this beer and I totally forgot how good this is. Oh, yeah. That's good. The reason I don't think I've had any of the other beers on this list is when I go to the draft house or I go to some different bar and I see this on tap and I'm like, "Oh, I know I love that beer." And I end up ordering the same thing over and over again because it's my personality type. I don't like to be disappointed. Yeah. So. If you could figure out a way to make rye bread with orange peel and grapefruit peel and incorporate those into where they harmonize with the rye, that's very similar to what you get here. It's citric and very, very rye. I mean, there's a lot of rye going on here, which is one of those things that when I have a rye beer, I'm kind of disappointed with if there isn't that big rye note. So earthy and multi. That's spicy at the end. Yeah. There's almost like a grains of paradise thing going on toward the end. Yeah, totally. That typically makes stuff come off a little lemony. Yeah. This is really tasty. The end. And that is episode 53 of the beers. There's also something slightly licorice-y. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. That's a very far back sort of thing. It's a very understated note, but there's a licorice quality there or a niece or something. I just love that ending spicy note that's there. Something poppy-cd. Man, this beer is so well balanced. It's just really remarkable how everything melts together. You have the sugars from the malt and you got the bit of spiciness from the malt and the hops just really tie everything together. It's also citrus-y and a bit spicy from those and. Yeah. And again, you know, we're talking about sugars and stuff too, but this isn't a sweet beer either. Oh, yeah. This is definitely more on the savory end. Yeah. That's a damn fine beer. This one's a little older too. I mean, when this is fresh, I even like it more because the hops really pop out at you, but this is the very end of the season. Yeah. This normally comes out around December, January. Yeah. Something like that. I think it bleeds into the spring, like the distribution for this. But still, if it's still in the stores, I think people should go if they haven't had it and pick up a six pack. Absolutely. If you like rye and you like citrus, I think you'll really dig this beer. Speaking of which, Ryan's saying that, you know, when he had it fresh, the hops pop a little bit more. I can think of a number of different beers that are hoppy, that completely fall off after the first couple of weeks. This isn't one of them. This is still really, really tasty, even though this is probably a couple of months old by now. Probably. But it's working so well. Mm-hmm. It tastes a bit sunstruck. Does it? I did a bit of skunk in mind. I can kind of see where you're coming from. It's subtle. I mean, it's not much. It is very, very much enjoying it. Very subtle. Yeah. But I do get what you're saying. Sunflowers. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Oh, yeah. Sunflowers. You're absolutely right. The aftertaste tastes like you're just chewing on. Sunflower seeds. Yeah. Without the husk, though. Mm-hmm. Right. That's fucking badass. I don't know how I'm going to rank this. There you can. I don't either. These were all really great beers today. So surprising. Some of these beers for me. It's like the bottom one and the top one are the easiest to rank. Yeah. Put everything else. I'm like, it's all so good. We haven't had a bad beer. Not at all. The shift for me less so than all the rest, but just because there was less going on in that beer. Not because it was a bad beer, but because there was less complexity there. But that's just me. I don't know how you guys are shaking out here. I'm having a hard time. I feel like whoever's getting fit on my list doesn't deserve it. Yeah, I don't. These beers are all very good. And the best part is all these beers are great and available to most of our listeners. Yes. And that's awesome. Like, go you listeners. Go out, buy them and drink. Yes. Why don't we just get to the rankings? Who wants to go first? I could go first. Mike Lambert, go. My number one was aprohop. It was nice having this again as it is every single year. Just really, really well balanced, really awesome IPA. It being a fruit centric beer, I don't think most people would know unless you actually told them. And I think that that's the mark of a really, really well done beer. My number two was the chain breaker. Oh, my God. That beer smelled so good. And I really thought it was a really well done amalgam of styles. And it was a unique take, really. I felt I don't really see a lot of other breweries doing this. Again, really, really well done. My number three new dog town paleo. I love that beer. And I think it's a great beer, really, really accessible paleo for sure. I think for most people that try it, great hop flavor, not huge on the bitterness. So I think a lot of people that maybe aren't necessarily huge hopheads, we'll still find this one accessible. My number four was the ruthless rye. It's been a while since I've had that beer, and I don't know why. Really, really tasty, just very, very well done rye IPA. And I don't think that there's enough of those out there. My number five was the alpine spring. Very surprising, super crisp, really, really well done beer from Sam Adams. I like getting surprised by that brewery. And they definitely, they'll do it on occasion, but it's nice to have something that departs from their standard lineup. My number six goes to shift. I didn't think that this is a bad beer in the slightest. I just think it's rather one note. If you're looking for depth and complexity, you're not going to find it here. But what you will find is just a really, really easy drinking hot weather beer. Awesome. Thank you. And I agree with you on the shift. I'm going to go next. Not because we have the same rankings, but because I agree with you on some of these things. Like my number one is chain breaker. I thought that beer was fucking great. I'm going to call it an imperial wit almost, you know. It's not really an IPA, and it's not really a wit. It's kind of both of those things together, bringing out the best of both of those things. I could drink the shit out of that any time of the year, really. My number two was aperhop, which is something that I don't remember having last year, but I remember liking, but I don't remember it liking it as much as I did tonight. I loved the multi-qualities and the hops and the way they kind of blended that dried apricot quality into those flavors and made it all work together, dug the shit out of that. And number three was alpine spring, which was a huge surprise for me. That's a beer that I could drink the hell out of six pack after six pack and just enjoy how refreshing it is and enjoy how easy to drink it is. It's one of those beers that I'm afraid that a lot of beer nerds would overlook just because A, it's a Sam Adams beer and B, it's kind of a light beer. It's 18 IBUs, it's five and a half percent. Yeah, but it's refreshing and lovely and easy to drink, and as far as I'm concerned, the perfect springtime beer. But the lawn would never get done if you drank a six pack. Exactly. I don't do the lawn. I hire white people to do my lawns. Number four is new dog town pail. I'm so glad that they changed the recipe for this. And this, again, is hoppier than the regular IPA in a very good way because it's hoppy and not necessarily bitter, but that bitterness starts to build as you keep drinking it again. I love that. Number five, ruthless rye was yummy as hell. Like I just said, it's like eating rye bread that incorporated some citrus to it, dug the hell out of it. Number six, shift, not that I didn't like that beer. I thought it was good. I just didn't think there was a lot going on. It's a beer that you could hand to any of your bud miller cores, beer drinker, and they could probably get something out of it, too. But it's not something that I'm going to get super excited about drinking. Still a good beer, solid offering from New Belgium. But that's me. Who's next? I'll jump in next because my rankings are literally identical to yours. Go for it. Ryan, please. There's a slight difference. But again, to me, some of the rankings in the middle don't matter. It's kind of you're just throwing out numbers and drowning them down. But the chain breaker, I loved. I really liked that orange peel in the coriander. Is that your number one? That's absolutely my number one. Sweet. We matched up. We only had the slight shift in the middle. Nice. Aperhop. Wow. As Mike said, it's a very deft hand can go in and add that aperhop and have it not be overwhelming and have it not be totally overwhelmed. And the way that it could tie the hops and the molt together was really awesome. And I can't wait every year now for this beer to come out and I definitely won't pass it up anymore. My number three was the alpine spring. I really, really loved that beer. Out of all the beers we had today, the one that I'm definitely going to go pick up a six pack of. It's this one. No ABV, it's going to be easy to drink and I can come home from work and I can have a couple. Totally unexpected for me. I haphazardly wrote down number four is ruthless rye. I love that beer. It's delicious. Everything you guys said about it. Number five, new dog town paleo. That's the first time I had it. That was really cool. I like that there's almost no bitterness to it and there's all this tons of light hop additions and then that bitterness kind of builds as you drink it. That was really unique. I agree with everything you guys said about all the beers except for shift. I didn't like it. It's just this grassy chlorophyll off flavor that I couldn't kick and the more I drank it, it just kept building. That just wasn't one for me. What a great day. Fair enough. It's for really great. Yeah. Anastasia, are you good? I mean, don't even have to go. Yes. Go on. I'm sure everybody knows. I'm very, very similar. Shift, of course, made number six, not something I had to pick up again, wasn't bad but I wouldn't pick it up again. That'll point me. Five was a ruthless rye and that one only made number five in comparison to the other ones we had because the other ones were lighter and a little bit easier to drink but the ruthless rye is still very, very delicious. Number four, I picked the Alpine spring because when I do the yard work that John hires me to do, I like to get a little drunk. Not a white person. I'm half white. I do lazy yard work. She just half the job. Yeah. Number three, I picked the new dog town just like Ryan and you and you and you and like everybody said, I loved how happy it was without being bitter. It just showcased what a hop is amazingly. I love it. Number two, I picked the Afra hop because delicious. I love it. That's a good reason. I think I did such too, which is why I gave it as a reason. I believe that was one of my reasons for picking it was just I love the subtlety of the apricot. It just works so, so fucking genius. Oh yeah. Wow. Big kiss to you, Sam. That was creepy. Number one. I picked the chain breaker because it is cooffable as shit. Wait, shit's not. Wait, shit's not cooffable. It's cooffable as water. It's just so light and spritzy and it still has a little bit of a hop punch to it, but it works really well with the hops that are used and the wit, coriander, sweet orange thing. It just, that was a fantastic beer and looking up the rankings, Mike's the only one who didn't rank chain breakers. Number one. What's one, one, two, one. Right. It's the top ranked beer the night. It absolutely is. But I'm really glad we did this show because I didn't know what we were going to do this week, really, but I knew that I wanted it to be something that was more accessible to people who might not be able to get a lot of the beers that we talked about on the last three or four shows that we've had. Because some of those were pretty interesting. Yeah, like that's a lot of people. Yeah. You're not in like Colorado. You're fucked. Right. I wanted to do something that more people could try and it just so happened to be with beers that were fantastic. I didn't know how this show was going to shake out. The listeners can go out and buy these beers while they're listening to the podcast. Yes. How awesome would that be to have a fucking chain breaker in your hand while we're talking about it? If you're anywhere in the US and you have access to any beer, you'll probably get four of these beers on this list. Yeah. There's at least one that you'll be able to get at least two because two of them are in 50 states. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is good. Thank you guys for joining me. Anastasia. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Thanks for making me do this. I was really skeptical. No, this worked out fucking well. Very well. Yeah. I'm very happy with this show. I didn't want to leave my couch and I'm glad I did. Me too. Me too. I'm still on the couch. Okay. I'm just glad I was able to beat my hangover. I'm midway through. I'm glad you can walk today. Yeah. I'm not sure if beat it. Is the right word? I was kind of fed. Post pwned it. I parlayed it. You fed it and then you postponed it. But that's okay. I mean, that's how Mike's body works. And great beers on this episode. Yeah. Really. This was really, really good. I enjoyed every single one. Yeah. I'm very happy with this as well. And thank everybody for listening. You guys are awesome. Keep doing the iTunes reviews and ratings. Give them a thumbs up on Stitcher. Yeah. We're on Stitcher Radio. If you guys find that easier to do than doing the iTunes download thing, give it a thumbs up on Stitcher. It's updating every week when the show comes out. Can I also be the one that begs for money? Sure. Go ahead. Give us money. Okay. Good begging. We're trying to get the GAVF. So please, if you have any extra money, like I said in the beginning of the show, donate some to us, 10, 20, 30, 50, a thousand dollars, whatever. Oh, if we get enough money, we'll stop begging for money. No. See how that works? Everybody knows how NPR works. That's just fine. If we get enough money, we'll beg less. Yes. Last off. And we'll wait a couple of months before we start begging again. If we get enough money, we won't ever put ads on the show. And that's the thing. I'd rather this show be listener supported than be supported by this web applet that helps you make a perfect website for your upcoming business. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to do that. We could do that. We might end up doing that eventually, but I'd rather be listener supported. I'm pretty sure the listeners appreciate that more because when we can give stupid quips about how black him don't give us money. Wait, how do I get a water burger response, yes? Oh, God. No, I think we're blacklisted now. I think I'm good with just letting water burger take ads from us. I mean, we talk about them enough. I'm just donating all of this time to water burger. The views expressed for a job review do not reflect views of water burger. Look the fuck out, brown people. There's a goddamn jalapeno double meat water burger headed right for your race. Is this how we're going to end the show, really? Yes. Thank God. I have more beer. My God. To reward the people who stuck around this look. I know. I'm smart. I saved beer. Oh, thanks everybody for listening. You guys are beautiful. And bombs on. And we love you. I love you guys. How are you dripping again tonight? I also have bottoms down. Don't put that in. But me especially. I'm surprised you're alive. Me, secondly. They should study me. You're studying. You're deaf. You're striking up to physically kill? Yeah. You're like most people. He's rich as a alcoholism. God damn it. Goodnight. More information on the Beerists podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit the Beerists.com. Email us your feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions at info@thebeerists.com. Check us on Facebook at facebook.com/thebeerists and follow us on twitter at twitter.com/thebeerists. Intro music was provided by Ian Butcher and his band Deflated Balon. Follow him on twitter at twitter.com/eion_butcher93. I'm John Rubio. Thanks again for listening. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
