(upbeat music) - Hey folks, some of the music you'll be hearing on this episode is for my cousin's band, Groupofentasma. Give me like what you hear. Get their Grammy award winning album, Alexistencia, on iTunes, Amazon, or Groupofentasma.com. And while you're on their website, check out their tour schedule for upcoming dates in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas. They put on one hell of a show, and I think you'll really enjoy it. (upbeat music) Episode 52 of The Bearest Podcast, recorded on March 24th, 2013, Funkworks. (upbeat music) So I think Ryan is a voodoo fucking magician. He's so white, why did you just ruin the magic of radio? - No, I know, everybody thought he was a Jamaican black guy. You couldn't hear it in his voice. - You're ruining the magic, Anastasia. - Yeah, he doesn't like Regga, he loves it. - So I guess I'm gonna be gone next week. (laughing) - The thing is, is that we're doing a Funkworks show today. And when I sent that to Ryan a few weeks ago, he's like, I really hope Grant gets sick or something that day, because, and guess what, Grant this morning, he sent me a text and, hey, I can't make it today. So, here's Ryan. - Thankfully, we think he's in good health. Thankfully, I'm here. I'm not certain which one I'm more thankful for. - Yeah, I'm not certain he's in good health. (laughing) You may have sabotaged this all along. And anyway, let's get into introductions. My name is John Rubio, and with me today, I have. - Anastasia, no nickname, Kelly. - Why no nickname today? - I don't know. - Okay, we were better off. We also have Ryan Allen, the voodoo daddy mesh. - How you doing, Ryan? - Oh, great. - Nice. - That's you. - And Mike, good job, Lambert. (laughing) - So, I don't have a nickname, but everybody else knows. - Yep, fuck you. - It's a weird day. - Yeah, this is the shit you started. - Is this like, "Freaky Friday"? Is this backwards? - It's not even Friday. - We just keep ruining all of the radio magic today. - I know, I know. - That's my job. - But, like I said, we got a bunch of funk works beers. We got five of them, and funk works sent those to us. They are awesome. They really are. - How about that? - Do, do, do. - Yeah, apparently, one of our listeners, I'm not sure exactly which one it may have been Jason Straub, saw them at a tasting, and went up to one of the founders of funk works and says, "Hey, have you heard of this podcast?" And he told them about us. I got in contact with them. They said, "Yeah, we'll send you a bunch of beer and do a show." - Awesome. - I know, super fucking cool. - I'm gonna name my first child funk works. - That sounds like really cheap, great publicity for any brewery out there. - But before we do that, let's get into our emails. We have a few good ones here. First one, it says, "How 'bout a breakfast beer show?" It doesn't have to be labeled as a breakfast beer, but any beers that you would have with your morning eggs, pancakes, and bacon. I, for one, think a really good sour and a spritzy beer would be a great pairing for a light breakfast or fruit salad, yogurt, granola, et cetera. But who the fuck is that besides hippies? Cheers, Harris, and Edelman. - I think he meant to say besides Mike. - It's the same thing. - Fair enough. - I didn't hear Hummus listed in any of my friendships though. - Or whiskey, yeah, 'cause that's what Mike wakes up to. A breakfast beer show could be cool. - Ah. - Three beans, last breakfast beer I had. - Oh yeah, so that was awesome. - Six point, three beans. - It's a great breakfast beer. - It was awesome for breakfast. - Oh, beer is breakfast beer. You guys are fucking doing it wrong. Wouldn't that just be a coffee beer episode at that point? - No, not necessarily. I mean, he doesn't have a point here about something sour or spritzy going with a lighter breakfast. - Beer mosa. - Oh yeah. - If you're not even fucking bacon and whiskey for breakfast, just stop. Just stop eating breakfast. - Yeah, I think we should probably give that some thought. It'd be cool to do a breakfast pairing beer show. That'd be awesome. Next email says, "Dear Beerists, "a problem I often run into trying new beers "is palette fatigue. "After trying one brew, I'll often find "that a certain taste buds are maxed out or dulled. "Recently I've tried certain palette cleansers "which have helped out dramatically. "Crackers, bread and cheese have all helped "refresh my taste for my new brew. "I am constantly amazed by your discerning senses "and I always imagine you continuing new tastes "after the show's over. "I guess he means we keep drinking beer "after we finish recording or something. "We'll tell you when we've had enough." - Yeah, I know. You never tell me. - Since you have such great descriptions on appearance, smell and taste, why not cleanse your palette with Limburger at the end of the show? What is this guy talking about? (laughing) - I think it's alcohol. - I would love to hear the same analytic discussion you perform on craft brew used on this famous cheese. What is happening? - We are not the cheeses. - All right, I wanna give a shout out to Luis Ramos. - I like this guy, I like this guy a lot. - I do too. To Luis Ramos, who turned me on to you guys and I appreciate your wit and humor. To the best beer tasters I listened to, I hope your show is ever successful. Chad Lourid. - God, I can't wait to make up my own email address and just shout it out for Adam shit, forcing you to read it. - Beat you up, John. I gave five stars on iTunes. You better read this and it's tired. (laughing) - But, the reason I wanted to read this email is that he does have a point about palette fatigue. Palette fatigue is one of those things that if you have a bunch of really strongly flavored beers one right after the other, it gets harder and harder to discern different flavors after that. - My favorite thing is mineral water or spitzy water here in Mexico, Topochico. - I'm not just gonna say the same thing. Topochico is really, really great to cleanse the palette. I also like to do a big picture of, you don't necessarily wanna do ice cold water because a cold will numb your tongue, but room temperature, slightly cold water with some citrus or mint or cucumbers or a combination of all of those things. Those are all gonna be very refreshing and light and will in turn help refresh the palette and kind of wake it up a little bit. - Oh yeah, you can also just change styles. I know a lot of times if you're drinking a lot of sours after a while, you need to go to a big stout and then you can go to an IPA and then you can go back to a stout. You can always go to the old trusty or vault as like a palette cleanser, something clean and neutral before you jump into something bigger and more bold. - Oh yeah, those are all great ideas. - If you're a truly only about beer and you don't wanna have crackers, you just wanna keep it pure, you can just try to switch between drastic alternate styles and it'll help open them up more. - That's a great idea too. Yeah, I mean, I usually do most of what you guys are saying, but also, oyster crackers or something like that are really great too. But yeah, thanks, Chad. We appreciate it. One more email from Seth Dunbach. He says, "Hey, beerists, "first wanted to say congrats on the 50th episode. "As always, the podcast continues to be excellent "and informative. "Recently, while drinking Alogany does hop stupid, "I thought it would be cool "if you guys created a musical playlist for the beerists." - It's called Grant Singing. - You can start off with a theme song and then go into some jovial drinking songs, get more muddled toward the end to signify the drunken state, but it needs to end with either of these two songs. Who's gonna drive you home? Or Jesus, take the wheel. (laughing) Here's to another 50 episodes of Dunbach. - I hate you so much now. I have that song stuck in my head. - I've got nothing else to add, but that was awesome. Real quick, some iTunes shout outs. The man formerly known as Dale says we're the most entertaining podcast he's come across and that we've reaffirmed his love for craft beer. Very cool. Whatever your name is now, Dale. Billy says he was skeptical at first, but we want him over pretty quickly. He also said that Ruby reminds him or that I remind him so much of Kevin Smith. If Kevin weren't a beer and not weed. (laughing) That's fine. Thanks Billy, we appreciate it. - Did you have a question mind? - No, no, that's awesome. If you guys wanna leave us a review on iTunes, that would be awesome. Get on iTunes, music store, search for beerists and leave us a little five star rating and write a review for us. And if you write a little review, I can see your name and thank you on the show. It helps us gain visibility on iTunes and gets more people into the show. - All of those things are good. - What? - So I was saying that people made out of s'mores. - You're always thinking about s'mores. - I am. - And one more thing before the beers, we're trying to raise money for GABF. Yes, we wanna go to the GABF in October. We do. I posted on Facebook that we wanted to do this and I put a little post on our website and we got some pretty good donations this last week. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, it totally is. We got donations from Christopher Day, Kayla Croemer, Dale Martin, Charles Murray, Dimitri Pompey, Evan Gundy, dude. - I know that guy. - I know. Gregory Ramirez, Jonathan Lourdes. - Oh, I know that guy! - Jonathan, yeah, these are good for us. - Congratulations to Jonathan today for becoming an official BJC. - VP judge, yeah, yeah, yeah, you did. Donations from Thomas Callahan, Dustin Switzer, Dylan Vernal, and Thomas Fichette. Thank you guys so much for your donations. It really helps out a lot. I sent them each a little personal thank you. - Nice. - It's really great that you guys are donating to the show because we really want to go to GABF and we really want to record some interviews or maybe a show from the floor. And it would be fun for us to do that and to build all of those relationships that we can at a place like the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado. - Yeah, my jaw gets real tired. - The building relationships is hard. (laughing) - Well, if you guys want to help us reach that goal of getting to the GABF, get on theberests.com. There's a little PayPal donate link on the left-hand side. Kick us a few bucks. 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, 50 bucks, 1,000, whatever. - The record 75. - 100. - No, yeah, we, no, I wish. But yeah, it was good. We got a lot of great donations, but we need so much more. So if you guys help us out, that would be great. Why don't we get into our beers? - Let's do it. - Let's make that last announcement that we have on the sheet in front of us now on Stitcher. - Oh yeah, we're on Stitcher. - This has been a long time plea of my, is the reason I have not ever listened to the show. - You're a son of a bitch. - Is because I only listened to Stitcher. - What is Stitcher? I've been trying to look it up, what is Stitcher? - It's one of my favorite iPhone. I think it's on Android apps ever. It just allows you to stream podcasts without having to download them. It updates them throughout the day. And you can have your favorites playlist and just place them in order to whatever you want. And it's quite frankly the only reason I listen to the WTF podcast 'cause I hate Mark Marin. But it happens to be on there, so sometimes I hear it. But now I have one more podcast to listen to before I end up with WTF. - Beautiful. - Some site. - Yeah, Stitcher's a really cool app. And yeah, I mean, y'all you gotta do is download for your iPhone or your Android mobile device and you could stream the show on demand. - Awesome. - Yes, let's get into our beers, Funkwerk Spears. The first beer that we're gonna do is Funkwerk Cezanne. It's 6.8% ABV and it's a year round offering available in bottles and on draft. I'm gonna read the write up. This is our flagship Cezanne. This tawny orange-hued beer pours with a rocky white head. Aroma's ah, ah, ah, ah, flavor notes. Yeah, it's all flavor notes. - I think most news are gonna be all flavor notes just as a heads up. - Okay, well, I'm not gonna read anything then. (laughing) But checking this beer on the light, it's slightly-- - Reminds me of Meyer Lemon. - Yeah, and it's a little bit hazy. - It looks lemony for some kind of lemony and hay-like, I guess. - Yeah, it's like a golden hay color. - Nice little bit of head that's kind of stuck around too. - Yeah, I mean, I poured it probably about five minutes ago and kind of whipped it around the glass a little bit and it comes right back. - Oh yeah, and as I'm rocking the beer on in my glass, there's a lot of carbonation chasing that edge up to the top. - It smells so good. - It smells so awesome. You kind of have that Cezanne yeast sent to it, so there's a little bit of spice notes, some pepperiness, but then there's a lot of real nice fruit notes that are there. - Muddled lemon, muddled, just muddled citrus in general. - But there's a creaminess to it too. A creaminess in like an earthy forminess. - Tangerine, yeah, something slightly crackery maybe. Nice little grass note in the nose too. Tiny hints of banana, but not in a negative sense. Yeah, like some kind of creamy fruit, like a banana, huh? - Wild flowers and grass, just very pleasant, it's bringy. - Oh, and that tastes really good too. Yeah, all of those things that we just mentioned are right there in the flavor. - It's nice and dry, it's spicy. - And there's a apricot-y quality to a little bit of banana, some citrus. - It would be really sweet if it were not for that dryness that's there. That dryness really, really helps to cut through this. - It would be sweet if it wasn't dry, I agree. (laughing) - Well, just that whole front end for me is kind of sweet and then it's cut by the dryness. - I know it too, it does. - So fuck you, Ryan. (laughing) - It's got a certain minerality to it. - A nice bit of spice too. - I can't figure out what spice it is. I want to say like grains of paradise, but if it is, it's like a tiny touch. What is it? I don't know. - I'm missing it. - Is something-- - Like peppercorn? - Yeah, there's something peppercorny there. There's a little bit of maybe all-spicy. - They're all very muted and in the background, but-- - Yeah, it's getting close to grains of paradise and rye, you know, something like that. - Yeah. - Man, it's good. - This beer is one silver at JBF two years ago and it won gold last year for Saison, which a brewery that's only two, two and a half, three years old is really remarkable that their flagship beer is just crushing it. - Yeah, and just a little bit about phone quirks. - They're out of Fort Collins, Colorado when they were founded in 2009 by Brad Lincoln and Gordon Shuck. They have won a bunch of stuff at JBF. In 2011, they got a silver for the Saison and the French Belgian style Saison category. They got the same thing in 2012, but they got a gold for the Saison and a gold for Deceit, their Belgian style strong. And they also last year got the best small brewery. - Small brewery. ♪ Moving on, not moving on up to the GABF ♪ ♪ GABF ♪ - I mean, it just seems like a really, really awesome. - In an inappropriate place for a song. - Oh my god, that's a random song. - I mean, I'm trying to help this musical playlist that Mr. Seth wants. - I don't think that's what he meant. - He just doesn't know it yet. - He'll know it when he hears it. You're like, that's not what I meant. - And then he'll never send another email. - I like Seth. - I know. - Really good American interpretation of a Saison. It sure is. I wish it had a little bit of tartness. I mean, not that it really needs it, but just me personally, that's kind of what I want in this a little bit more. Maybe just a little bit more funk or something along those lines too. - Yeah, and that's not me saying this isn't a good Saison, because holy shit, this is fantastic. But for my personal tastes, I tend to like the slightly tart Saison's more than the, you know, nut tart. - Yeah, we're like maybe a stronger, bright presence in the nose. Maybe not so much in the palate, but this. - Stellar beer. - Yeah, it's probably one of the top three or four American Saisons, easy. - I imagined as soon as you had said tart in my brain, I said, "Oh, lemon tartlet." If this had just that touch of tartness, it would taste really similar to a lemon tart. - Now that you mentioned that, that's the only thing that's keeping it from being lemony for me is the lack of that acid. - Yes, in any of your research, do you know if they use proprietary yeast strains or anything? - I'm not sure if they do. I know it's all Belgian yeast. I'm not sure if they have a specific house Belgian yeast website, so a little lack. - Yeah, I wish the website was a little bit better. - It's definitely style over substance, sure. - They're buried too. They're up in Fort Collins, so they're next to Odell and New Belgium and all of those ilk. And they are a tiny little hole in the wall of, I mean, we record in a room that's like 10 by 10. - Yeah. - Their brewery might be smaller than this room at the time. Like a tasting room. I mean, it's your shoulder to shoulder with people. - Oh, no kidding. - They are a very, very tiny outfit that's most obviously just starting and growing and expanding. - I know nothing about their brewing process or their yeast or how they do it. I mean, it's not well-known knowledge from my, I haven't dug into it too deeply, but it's not. - Blog is pretty informative, and I try to update that very often, but it doesn't go into an insane amount of detail. - I'm really impressed though, at what they can accomplish in that little space, because man, the beers that I've had from Funkworx, they've had probably three different beers from them before. - Yeah, three or four. - Yeah, most of the beers that we're having tonight, I have not had, but I've had this season before. Everything that I've had has just been fantastic. Yeah, this is a really excellent beer. This is one that I would buy constantly, if I could. - Yeah. - Seriously. - Absolutely. - As far as I know, they don't distribute out of Colorado. - I think they barely get out of Fort Collin. - Yeah, I don't think they get too much farther than Denver maybe. - Yeah, Denver and maybe a few other cities, but it's not a very big distribution range. - I could be wrong, but I think they only run like a 30 or 50 barrel system. I mean they're small, tiny, tiny guys still. - Oh, cool. Do you guys want to move on to the next one? - Yeah, let's do it. - Yeah. - What are we doing in the Solana? - Yes. Our next beer is Solana. It's a Belgian ale, 6% ABV, available in bottles and possibly on draft. - It's definitely available on draft. - Okay, and it's brewed as an homage to the rustic wild fermentations of Belgium. It pairs a fruitiness of a traditional Belgian yeast strain, the subtle spicy character of botanomyces and the floral notes of German hops. - Man, I can really smell that botanomyces. I'm going to get over here. - Oh yeah, and as he's pouring it, you can see that each glass is a huge pillowy head. It's a much darker amber color. - That's a pretty beer. Yeah, the head is pretty gigantic, actually. Maybe three fingers worth the head when you were pouring it. - I didn't tilt the glass or anything like that, so. - No, yeah. - It was kind of a hard pour, but it's really sticking around. - Yeah, each one has great retention and it's just-- - Yeah, I mean, the head is just this big, rocky, foamy, wow. - Hard pours are awesome, side note, if you're sharing. - This is like a garnet amber twin. - Yeah, one more orange to me. - Dark amber copper. - Yeah, rusty amber orange copper. - Oh, it smells awesome. - Huge bubbles. - It's like orangey and coppery. I almost feel like I smell sort of like a, in a pleasant way, a penny sort of-- - Like a fresh penny, like newly minted penny. - With like tangerines or something. - Okay, I can see that. This is, yeah, there's a slight tinniness to it, but there's a bunch of fruits that are happening as well. Man, that's really citrusy. - And that barbed yarn funk of the bread of mine sees definitely shines through. This has more complexity to the nose in the last beer. - Oh yeah, there's something like wet hay going on, maybe a little bit of alfalfa or something. For some reason, it kind of reminds me of fall. The grassy notes are what I would get. - In the early morning. - Well, when I would go and visit my grandparents in Wisconsin, were you actually get a fall? - Right. - It smells kind of like dewy, crisp, wet leaves and grass. - Dewey, you nailed it on that one. That's totally what I'm picking up there. Yeah, there's like a moistness, or there's like a, I guess, a softness that's there that I would ascribe to that. - As soon as you said fall, I'm starting to smell like a touch of apple pie at the back end of the nose. - Oh yeah, I'm getting mostly citrusy notes and that Brett character, then earthy, dewy sort of thing. I could smell this for hours. - Wow, this beer smells really fricking great. - Yeah, I know. - So subtle though, it's not in your face or aggressive, it's just so pleasant and kind of wafts into your nostrils. - I'm kind of surprised because as I was pouring it, the Brett note was just overflowing and that was what was assaulting my nostrils. As it's been sitting here, I mean, it's far more balanced. - Yeah, and as I keep smelling it, I'm getting maybe some kind of creamy fruit like cantaloupe or something. - Yeah, definitely. - But again, a little more citric than that. I'm not sure I can't really nail down exactly what I'm smelling. - We'll try it, maybe that'll help. - Whoa, I'm super disappointed by the flavor. - Oh yeah, I am too, I was just gonna say the same thing. - It's flat, it tastes a bit oxidized. - Oh man, the nose is so good. - The nose is so awesome, but the flavor was really just, man, let me taste this again, wait, because it's really subtle, it's a very subtle flavor. There's very little flavor going on. - I feel like this needs more time in the bottle to develop just a little bit more. I'd be really interested to see what six or seven more months does to this beer. - It drinks almost like a table beer. You know, it drinks-- - Yes. - And this is 6.3%, and it's drinking like a 2.73% table beer. - Your kind of table. - Yeah. (laughing) - I would have liked more carbonation. I mean, for something that had such a big, beautiful head and shake it up and you can get the head to revive itself, I expected it to play a little bit more lively off the tongue, and it really came in flat. - I want more depth. There's sort of a difference between being delicate and then just being subtle. It's not really striking me as anything special. - That coppery kind of metallic thing that I picked up initially in the nose is really coming through in the flavor profile in this beer, and it's really distracting to me. - Yeah, it is. - It's got a strange tartness too. I think the tartness is connected to the tinniness for me. - Yeah. - So it's weird. - Then to each other, late palate, like that late taste. It comes more bitter, but it starts off metallic-y. - It's like when you're doing that science project with the pennies and what cleans it better. - And the more than juice. - There's no middle to this at all. - Right. - It's kind of like this initial sort of front flavor and then it just sweeps, and then it's all just tail end and aftertaste for me. - I really don't like the aftertaste either. - I'm not off put by the aftertaste. - It tastes like an amber. - Kinda, but without the sweetness. - Yeah. I mean, I get a little caramel type shirt, but not the kind of sweetness I would get from an amber. It's like a Belgian amber, I guess. - Yeah, but goddamn, it still smells awesome. - Smells so good. - This kind of reminds me of the big-eye IPA that we had on the "Ballis Point" episode where it was really deceptive, I suppose, in terms of what it was advertising in the nose and then what you actually get in the flavor. - I've had a good dozen beers from them, and this is taste-wise, probably my most disciplined. I've never had a beer that tastes like that. I almost wonder if this is not the correct bottle we should be drinking. - This is just something that tastes a bit oxidized in it, and it's still young enough that that shouldn't be the case. - This is a hand-labeled bottle. I know they have it on draft. I think they said they were looking to bottle it soon. - Yeah, it's a beer that's not out for purchase yet. I believe, like, it's not on draft, but you can get it at the tap room. - Yeah, I mean, this isn't a bad beer by any stretch. It's just that that nose really captured something for me, and then it just did not deliver in the flavor at all. - Yeah, there's a lot of setup and not a whole lot of delivery. - The presentation and the nose and everything was really nine out of 10, 10 out of 10. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - And then it came to the taste, and it was just like, you were so excited for it that maybe if I wanted to have blind, I would have appreciated it more, 'cause it was just, like, so perfect. - Well, 'cause I keep smelling this thing, and I'm getting all these really great, bread characters that almost taste or vault-like, you know, almost smells or vault-like. - Yeah, like old or vault. - Yeah, exactly. - Well, but presentation and smell and appearance, those are all really important factors in a beer. - Absolutely, we have to have a follow through. - I know, I'm just saying, I guess they'll kind of balance out. - They're important, but they're out the most important. - They're not, by any means. - Well, let's put this one behind us and move on to the next one. - Yes. - Our next beer is Single Hop Polaris. It's a Belgian pale ale, 5.9% ABV, and it's available in bottles and on draft. The Single Hop Belgian Ale was brewed to showcase a new German hop called Polaris. Due to this hop's extremely high alpha acid content, we only used it at the end of the boil and during dry hopping to give it the most flavor and aroma possible. Described by Germans as glacier candy, this hop packs a punch of flavor notes. (laughing) And the reason that I do that is because, yeah, again, I don't wanna be influenced too much by what they tell me I should taste in the beer. - You should taste flavor notes. - Yes. - It's my favorite flavor. (laughing) - The weirdest fucker I know. (laughing) - Oh, this is a really pretty color. - It almost looked like iridescent water as I was pouring it. It almost looks like a witt beer. - Yeah, it looks like a wheat-based beer. - Looks like a Berliner vise to me, with more head. - iridescent gold. - They've nailed the colors on all of these beers. - All of their beers are absolutely gorgeous looking. - Yeah, look at the head on this. I still have about a finger and a half's worth. - I was gonna say the lacing on your glass and on Anastasia's glass is absolutely beautiful. - Yeah, very cottony pillowy head. - Nice, tight, medium, small bubbles. - Wow, that smells crazy. - That smells incredible. - That assaults your fucking sinuses and eyes. It's so pungent. - In the nose, I'm getting passion fruit, some guava, which I've had finally. - Are you guys gonna call me crazy if I get a little bit of old bay? - That's all I know. - Like that crab oil season. - The crab oil season, there's something in it that's tying that together for me. - Yeah, maybe just a little bit. I'm getting like calm-quat. - I don't wanna say this, but maybe you can help me figure out a better word. Soap, not bubblegum, but bubblegum-e. I don't know what it is. - Yeah, totally, yeah, but soap. - Mint or-- - I totally get mint, or you can lift this. - Like lever 5,000. I was spring, just something, I don't know. Something really clean. - You can look to see liquor issue almost. Sage. - Yeah. Sage. - There you go. See, that's why I say so much. - Yeah, sagey, maybe something slightly jasminey also. I would brine poultry with this if it was in enough quantity. - It smells incredible. - Yeah. - Just a little funk coming from some bread, it seems, and a little bit of cream too. - Just smells so crisp. - Oh, I dig that. Oh yeah, that is fucking awesome. - Oh, that's tasty. - That's another one that's very, very delicate, but this has a lot going for it. - So different. - That's really creamy and smooth in the mouth, feeling it just-- - Real lush, yeah. - Amazingly balances out all those fruity esters that you're getting from the nose. Really grassy too. - Yeah, so many green things going on, greens and herbs and as you can look to see from green. - Yeah, I really like the quality of the water that's in this. Just the way that it kind of washes over the mouth is awesome. - Ethically clean, super clean and well put together. - Man, I almost like this. - I can chug this. - I almost like this better than this. - Me too. - It's just crazy. I'm there with you. Holy shit. - Oh, that's good. - I'm a sucker for this style too. That really light, super clean, hard to attain slightly hoppy paleo. - Mm-hmm. I know with that kick of red kind of in the background. - Mm-hmm. A little bit of tangerine skin there. Or like I said, something like comquat, you know, 'cause the peel on a comquat is very, very sweet and the inside of it's very, very tart. And this reminds me of comquat peel. - Oh, the sweetness. - This is silly good. - Yeah. - I really, really fucking like this beer. - The sweetness that I'm getting is kind of like honeysuckle. - Yeah. - Yeah, a touch of like wildflower honey. - And it might just be perceived sweetness because this is coming off to me as being pretty fucking dry. - Mm-hmm. But the fruit flavors and the esters are-- - It'd be really sweet if it wasn't so dry right now. - Yep, exactly. (laughing) - You'd be so nice if you were in such an asshole, right? (laughing) - That's what my mom says. - It's like crushed velvet and satin in my mouth. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Does that touch a clove to there in the back? - Oh sure. - Their yeast is really fucking good. - Yeah. - I really wish there's more information about it. - Man. - I don't know, something in there's reminding me of the texture of kiwi, if that makes any sense. Not necessarily the flavor of it. - I know where you're coming from when you say, 'cause they sit in a kiwi, it kind of gives it that texture too. - Right. - And this beer is that smoothness and that sweetness. And it's that kind of fruit too. I mean, you guys are talking about kumquats and kiwis. - Yeah. - Maybe a touch of nectarine in the back and-- - Yeah, it's a ton of really interesting, slightly bitter and sweet fruits. - This is a mild beer though. Don't be confused by these descriptors. This is a beer that is subtlety. - Absolutely. - Oh yeah. - And the spice that's coming through on this is starting to build a little on the tongue. - That lingering spiciness is really cool. - That's what really cool. - Really cool, really cool. - I'm curious to try Polaris and maybe an American pale ale or an American IPA just to kind of see what the hop is like because I feel like the Belgian yeast-- - Yeah, it's a little bit of an interference at least from getting the full scope of that hop. - Yeah, this works together. - Oh, this is awesome. - Yeah. - I'm just so curious about that hop on its own. - This doesn't really make for a good reference beer. - Right. - So to speak. It's a delicious beer, but there's a lot more going on than just the hop notes. - It's so unique. - This is world class. - Absolutely. - Oh, this is amazing. - Thank you so much Funkworx, this is-- - Ryan's gonna cry. - Ryan's gonna cry. - I'm really happy right now. - This is an immediate redemption for the last one. (laughing) - You know, for a second they're Funkworx. (laughing) We got a little judgey, but I'm just gonna go-- (laughing) - I don't know, I apologize because you done good. 'Cause holy shit, you done good. You wanna take a break? - Yeah, we can do that. - Yeah, sure. If it means that I get to continue to sip on this beer, yes. - I'm almost done with it. It's so fucking drinkable. Have we not talked about that yet? - I am trying with every fiber of my being to not just slug this back. - It's fantastic. And you know what, Anastasia? I'm looking at the front of your table. You have five glasses with about two inches of beer in each one of these glasses. - Why? (laughing) What is that? - This is the Porter from earlier. This is the song you just, this is the song, and this is the amber. - We've poured that Porter like an hour ago. - Yeah, it's perfect temp now. I like to be able to have different reference points to see how, shut up, I'm drinking. - It's okay, it's research. Yeah, you look like a crazy cat lady of all the cats were partially filled glasses. - You mean if all the crazy cats were delicious beer? - Yes. - Why don't you just call me a crazy beer lady? Can we make that? - Crazy beer lady. Ready for a break? - I am on a break. - Cut point. - Anastasia CBL Kelly. What does that mean? Crazy beer lady Kelly. - Ah, right. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - We're back. - It was a great time out there with three points. - Yeah, we had that ride the lightning on our break. It was a rye IPA. It's nice to revisit. - It really is, it really is. And what was awesome to me about that beer is that when you smell it, it smells really sugary and sweet, like really cooling. - Yeah, but it has that rye spiciness on the nose, that very distinct rye aroma. - Absolutely. And when you taste it, that sweetness really goes away quite a lot. And it still has some sweetness there, but man, it'd really be sweet if it wasn't for that rye. (laughing) - Rye, you're a hot sucker. Put it in the best way. - Which means I'm good at it. - I know. - So let's get into our next one. Are you guys ready for our next one? - Yeah. - Yeah, I'm not supposed to be over, actually. - Are you? - Yeah. - Why? - You guys are fucks. - What? - I just continue, it's cool. - Okay. So the next beer is Tropic King Imperial Cezanne. It's 8% ABV, and it's available in bottles and on draft. And the description, it's all flavor notes. I'm not gonna read that. - It's hot on the nose. - Yeah, this one seems to be a bit clearer than the other ones. It's kind of like a, more of like a golden orange. - A little bit more of an orange. - Something that you would expect between like a golden ale and a pale ale sort of color. - Yeah, kind of. - That has a density in color as candy wood. - Yeah. - It's a bit hazy. - Ruby was saying that yeah, there was a slight haze to it. If you look through the bottom of the glass right up to the light, you can see through to the head, but it's just slightly hazy there. - And bigger bubbles in this one, it seems. And the last couple beers. I like the way the head sticks to the glass when you kind of rock it around. - Yeah, but the head-- - Yeah, it's not as pillowy as the other ones. It's bigger bubbles. - Not as tightly packed. - Yeah. - I don't smell that. - Yeah, there's definitely a spiciness. There's definitely a fruitiness that's there. - And like Ryan was saying, yeah. And like Ryan was saying, there's definitely booze. - Yeah, just a little banana. Banana, creamy papaya, cantaloupe or something, maybe some mango. - Spiked punch. - Definitely cantaloupe. There's a huge cantaloupe nope in there. - A little bit of cantaloupe? - Nope. - A little bit of pear. - Yeah. - Jungle juice, that's what it's called. That really alcoholic, fruity punch that you make. - Oh, right. - In a trash can. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never had jungle juice that's tasted this good though. - Well, I haven't tasted this yet. - A little bit of funk on the nose. Just a slight bit of earth. - Now that you pointed out that cantaloupe nope is really a cantaloupe. So if you can't say it, cantaloupe nope. - Cantaloupe nope. - Can you please just continue saying it like that? - I will. - I just gotta say that right now sitting in the room with us are a couple of guests from out of town who are listeners who wrote to me, say, hey, we're coming to Austin. You know, maybe we'll have some drinks and now they're in the room with us. - Little do they know what they're in for after the show. - No, I know. And I was, while Ryan was fucking up saying cantaloupe nope. One of them was dying, laughing in the corner. - They also paid a thousand dollars each to be here. - Oh yeah. - You too can listen in to an episode of The Shitshow. - They didn't pay anybody. - And have all the magic ruin for you. - Man, that smells delicious. - Sun tan oil. Like a little bit of that golden toasted coconut, sun-kissed. - You know, as you were saying that I was taking a sip of this and that follows through in the flame. You get a little bit of coconut water or coconut zest or something. - Absolutely, that's smoothing this to your, I can't fucking, I'm sorry. (all laughing) - Well, it has a consistency of a coconut water. - Yeah. - Totally. Like that weird, not so creamy, not as thin as water. - But there's a creaminess towards the back end of the palate. - Oh yeah. And that cantaloupe nope is still there. - Yeah, but it's still, that cantaloupe nope is a little bit more muted. (all laughing) - Feller added to my trap, sir. (all laughing) - No, but yeah, you're right, you're right. The cantaloupe is more muted, but it is definitely there. - Ryan's been drinking all day. - Hey, so am I. - So am I. (all laughing) - Good to be fair, those guys are the professionals, they're the stand-in. - The two guests have also raised their hands. - You are the only one, sir. - I'm fine with that, they've got a show to run. - Someone's gotta do it. - I wouldn't call this running a show, this is more walking a show because holy shit. (all laughing) - But that cantaloupe nope plus that coconut, they're really creamy and nice together. I mean, it's imbalances nicer with that alcohol. - Yeah, and the banana is kind of gone from the flavor. I mean, you get a lot of it in the nose, but I don't really taste very much of that. - For me, any banana note that's there's in the very, very finish, the way that the flavor kind of runs over your mouth, it's just this fleshy kind of fruit. - Right, it rounds the other fruit notes out. - Yeah, exactly. - It does a quite predominant note, but it kind of makes them all creamier and it gives that kind of banana smoothie sort of creaminess to all those notes. - And it goes really well with the citrus in this too. - It tastes almost like heavy to me. - I get a good amount of banana and clove from it. - I could see exactly where you're coming from with that. - So you guys are talking about like creamy banana. I'm like, ah, it's more of heavy use to me. - It's less banana-forward in the flavor to me than that, but I know exactly where you're saying. - I also get a little bit of a bubble gumminess as well. - Yeah, yeah. - And that is something that I often get out of half a yeast. So I see where anastasia is coming from there. - Yes. - This almost tastes like it's barrel-aged. - It might be barrel-aged. I don't know, I haven't really looked at it. - There's a touch of vanilla and smoothness. - Oh, we have sort of a dreamticle like in a way. - Yes, it feels like there's a touch of oak to it, which may or not be coming from oak or it could just be coming from the yeast, but. - I also can't believe-- - This is a fucking great saison. - I can't believe it's 8%. - Oh, I know. - It's really just in a-- - Oh my god. - Yeah, then now it's super boozy, but once you start drinking it, you're like, oh. - I think it shows up in the body of the beer, but it's not off-putting and it's deceptive in a sense because you're not picking it up in the flavor. You're not really picking it up in the actual mouth feel as much as, well, I guess more mouth feel just because of the body, but it's not burning in a sense. It's just coming through as like a thickness. - Yeah, and it's got like a bitter orange peel that's kind of matching together with the grassy hop that it's got there. - Noticing a minerality again, and I'm thinking it's their water. Got a really mineral, I don't wanna say mineral heavy, but a very distinct mineral quality to the water. It's pretty nice. - Yeah, and all these beers have been very clean and very nice feeling in the mouth. - None of them have been really rough. - For it being eight some odd percent alcohol, this is really damn drinkable. - Yeah, eight percent, and you can't really tell. - I could easily polish off a bottle of this by myself, and I'd be feeling pretty awesome by handling it. - I'd be falling asleep afterwards, but it'd be a great time. - Yeah, definitely. - Yeah, I'd seen Mike polish off a bottle of Listerine by himself. (laughing) - It's kind of hilarious. - You guys weren't there for the isopropyl 91%. - No, that was the... (laughing) - Bare-laged Listerine. - Yeah, this Listerine has been sitting in heaven hill barrels. 'Cause man, I don't have enough other booze or beer to drink. You know, vampires existed and they all attacked Mike. Those vampires would be wasted. (laughing) - Oh yeah. (laughing) - That sounds kind of hilarious, actually. - Between all the booze and the garlic that I eat, yeah, they'd be pretty fucked. (laughing) - On the brink of death, it's really awesome being in a small room with Mike. (laughing) (laughing) - You're welcome. - Oh, fuck. - I mean, even Sam's dreadlocks now, so no one's even talked about that yet. - It's a good point. - What's really more awesome than being in a small room with Mike, is this beer? - The Tropic King by Funkworx. - Happily named. - Yes. - Because, yeah, it's very tropical. In a different way than things that we usually associate with tropicality, like some of the really good late edition hop IPAs that we have. - I was more of a fan under its more, I guess, offensive moniker of the Maori King. - They do use hops from New Zealand. - Yeah, they're very cow hops, which is a... I imagine those are really tropical. - Yeah, I mean, which makes-- - But they're more for the logger pills and they're into things. They're not the New Zealand sort of hops, such as Nelson Savon. - Right. - Or Manatkau or whatever that hop is. - Man, I still imagine they have-- - This is a bit more of a tamed hop, but again, it's-- - Or different from those topical fruits to them, though, just from the earth they come from this estate. - Absolutely. - Yeah, but I mean, that's still, the New Zealand connection fits with the Maori King. You know, and the Maori people got pissed off when they called it Maori King and they, yeah, but they were also able to somehow communicate their distaste for the name back to the brewery. Good on funk works to very quickly, I guess, address the situation. I think that that speaks pretty highly of them. - Oh, absolutely. - 'Cause when I first had it, you know, didn't even cross my mind that, oh, that might be somewhat offensive. - Yeah, my next beer, if I ever started brewery, is gonna be the French King. The French can fucking suck on it. (laughing) - I thought for a second you were gonna say, my beer is gonna be called Wetback King. (laughing) - Bonneberg. (laughing) - So let's just move on to our next beer. This was delicious, this Tropic King, but our next beer is Dark Prophet. It's a barrel-aged Belgian dark ale, 9.5% ABV, and it's available in bottles and on draft. I'm not gonna read any of the notes here. - A dark mahogany Belgian style ale, partially aged in bourbon barrels. I think that's important. - Okay, yeah, you're right. - This is the darkest one we've had all night. - It fucking is. - I guess that's why they named it Dark Prophet. - It's a really dark, mostly clear beer, and it's got these really awesome mahogany highlights. - It's gonna say it's absolutely a dark mahogany color. - Really? - Looking at it straight on, you really don't see through it, but if you hold it up to the light, you can get through to actually see the head. - See through about a quarter of it before it starts getting blacked out. - And the head is dense and foamy, like really dense. It looks almost like brown shaving cream. - Like latte foam or something like that. - Oh, man. That smells awesome. - Smells like fucking shiny candy. - Candy and you get that vanilla barrel note that's there that comes across just. - Gotta hear what this beer doesn't let down. It smells so incredible. - Vanilla, cocoa, plums, dates, like creams, fresh almost. - There's a little bit of a berry note. - Yeah, it's gonna say there's like some strawberry in there. - Blackberry. - Yeah, blackberry. There's something like-- - The bottle of the berry. - Nice, bright berry in there. - Burnt sugar on a vanilla bourbon barrel. - It's like the vanilla is really shining through again. - It's like a berry tart. - Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing. - With fresh whipped cream on it. - Oh yeah, yeah. - And like a-- - Like vanilla whipped cream on it. - And that's really what's surprising to me is that there's that big vanilla bourbon note, a little bit of chocolate, but also, yeah, the berries are just as present as that. - It's not toned down berries, but it's very bright, snappy. - You get this fibrous kind of wood tone to it as well. - Yeah. - On first taste, that is really smooth and creamy and nice. - Oh wow. - It's not as big as I expected, but man. - A little bit of coconut. - Ooh. - It's surprising. It's not what I expected, but I really like it. - That's very woody. - Yeah, and I like how it's not overly berry-like. It's just very dark, toasty, caramell-y with these kind of notes of the berry and the vanilla. - Vanilla, vanilla. - Yeah. - Up back. - And it's really weird because the oak bourbon barrel is really present here, but there's also some kind of cedar-y quality, like this Spanish cedar cigar humidor. - First sip was a little iron-y to me. - Okay, I can see they're being like sort of a metallic note, but I also get tobacco and leather. - Yeah, I think that it's not quite metallic for me, but some of those flavors are converging and it seems a little like that, but take a couple more sips and that might go away. Yeah, tons of vanilla. A little bit of cinnamon and cow nibs. - I get some heat. - Yeah, just a bit. - There isn't any sweetness here, though, either. There's maybe a cola-like quality or sassafras sort of thing going on, a little bit licorice. - So I got influence and I saw the word tannins. I'm thinking maybe the tannic quality is kind of coming off as maybe metallic to me. - No, I can see that. This is really interesting because usually when I have a beer like this, there's a lot of sweetness accompanying these flavors and here there really isn't. This is more of a dry expression of what those beers are. I'm just blown away by the amount of wood that's coming across here. And just a little bit of that bourbon, actually more as it works. - Yeah, a lot more bourbon. It's like if it's partially aged, not fully aged, not all of it, but partially aged. - This is a pretty damn balanced beer. - Yeah. - I like where the flavors are. This one's really, really tasty. - You've noticed in the name of their game is balance and water and I guess yeast. - Yeah. - You know, like in 3rd or 4th as a whole. - But the yeast is what sets them aside. - Yeah. - A lot of breweries do this sort of game and they're yeast and their fermentation is just spot fucking on. - Absolutely. And I've been completely impressed by this entire lineup with the exception of Solana. I think that that one, for me-- - Need something else. - Yeah, I think it was lacking something. - Yeah, it was lacking. - I really think that bottle was just oxidized. I'm still holding out that that was not a great bottle. - Yeah, I'm sure on draft it's, you know, different, maybe better, hopefully probably. - Well, according to the handwritten bottle, that was bottled in December. I mean, maybe more oxygen. The cap that was bad was treated. I don't know something. - The rim was all gunky. - Yeah, I didn't mention it on the mic. - I saw it from over again. - Yeah, but cracking it open, just a very big layer of yeast around me. - Okay, so there was probably some oxygen exchange that happened. I'm surprised that that still had the carbonation that it did if that much oxygen got through. I'm really enjoying this beer quite a lot, this dark profit. - This is a very unexpected style from them. I've had a lot of their different Stasons and they've always all been Stasons-type beers. I had a Stason Berliner vice combination from them. That was really, really delicious. - That sounds crazy. - Sounds like my life. - It was so nice. And then, so it had like a bit of tartness and that lactic acidness to a Stason that was beautifully balanced. And I've also had their green tea Stason, which just was like super forward green tea. And that was like a really fun, what I imagine was a one-off last time I was up there. I haven't had a beer as clean as this one, which is their Belgian dark ale, which I don't taste any Stasons. They don't taste any bread in it. And it's just so much oak and vanilla. And the yeast flavors are really mild and complimentary towards it and so clean. I'm excited. I didn't realize that they were so multidimensional either. I thought that they kind of had their thing and that's what they're going for, but I'm excited to see that between their single-hop Polaris and this, that they're kind of going in different directions and they're expanding on that repertoire. It's really nice. - And what's really surprising to me about this beer is, A, how different it is from the rest of their stuff, which, yeah, I mean, you cover. And be how great an expression of what barrels are used. I'm not even sure what bourbon barrels are used on this. - It was so seamlessly integrated. - I know. And it's a great vehicle for those flavors that those barrels had going on in them. - I don't think I've ever had a bourbon barrel-aged, Belgian ale meld this well. Usually it's either all Belgian or all fucking barrel. - Yes. - You know both things are happening in this glass. - Yeah, that's a cool fucking beer. Do you guys want to get to rankings? - Yeah, absolutely. - Mike, go ahead. - All right, I'm going. Single-hot Polaris number one. Holy shit, that beer was just so tasty. It just totally ride that line of subtlety and great flavor. Really just all around awesome. I was always a really, really big fan of the standard Cezanne and this was the one that really kind of stood out above that one for me, which leads me to my number two, which is just the standard Cezanne. Really one of the better American interpretations of a Cezanne that I've had in recent memory. This was really, really fantastic. The flavors that were there, the balance, awesome. My number three, actually, I just changed, my number three and my number four, I just reversed the picks because I went back and tried the Tropic King as it's been sitting out and this is phenomenal. - Also, you changed it to what I have. (laughing) - Go, go ahead. - So the Tropic King, the thing that set it apart was as I'm going back and trying them, I really like the dark profit a lot. But the thing that's kind of sticking out is what Anastasia had pointed out. There is a little bit of a metallic note that I'm getting to that one that's still kind of sitting here and lingering. But that Tropic King is high of an alcohol percentage as it had for the flavor profile, awesome stuff. Number four was a dark profit. Sort of what Anastasia was saying earlier. I've not had a Belgian beer that was barrel aged that really melded this well. It's one thing or the other and this is quite nice. My number five was that Solenna. Man, if the Solenna had just delivered on the flavor as well as it had delivered on the nose, I probably would have ranked this a little bit higher. In terms of the actual nose, this would have been one of my higher ranking beers if it had delivered on the flavor. Probably one or two, you would say. 'Cause I think the Solenna probably smelled better than just about every single one of them. Crazy. But yeah, it didn't deliver on the flavor and that's where it really matters to me. There's so much apple and citrus and bread in that. Yeah, that was fantastic. Thanks, Mike, for your rankings. I appreciate it. I'll go next. My favorite beer of the evening was that single-help Polaris. Holy shit. I didn't expect that at all. At all. Such a delicate, beautiful, awesome fucking easy drinking beer. It had so many things going on in such a very narrow bar. It had very little to work with, but it did everything that it could to make all of those things shine. I could drink that beer all the goddamn time. Amazing stuff. And it was better to me than what I thought my number one was gonna be the Seissan. My number two is that Seissan. I've had that before and fuck, that's a great beer. That is an absolutely stellar fucking beer. And aside from what I was saying when I was reviewing and when I was talking about it, yeah, I wish it was a little tartar, but that's just my personal taste. That Seissan is easily on the top of a lot of American Seissan. There's a ton of them out there and this is one of the best easy. There's a number of Belgian Seissans that I would say. It ranks above those. I agree with that, absolutely. My number three, Tropic King. Complete surprise. I'd never had that one before. And I loved that coconut quality that it had in that creamy cantaloupe nope. (laughing) - See, you say that. All I can think of is Leslie Nope/Amy Polar on Parks and Rec. And it's so awesome in my brain because she's awesome. (laughing) - But Tropic King was badass. I really, really dug that beer. Number four, Doc Prophet. Doc, Doc Prophet. Oh, I'm Doc Prophet. Would you like to buy myself? - Would you like to buy my water burger? - I'm Doc Prophet. I got the snake oil. - Wow. Number four is Dark Prophet. Man, I thought that was really interesting. All of those flavors that I was getting in that beer, I usually associate that with a sweeter beer. And this wasn't that. This wasn't sweet. It was dry and light and still really refreshing in a way. It's weird because a lot of the flavors that we were describing, those woods and that vanilla and that dark bourbon flavor, you wouldn't think would be refreshing, but I kind of found it to be that. And my last place beer was a Solana. I didn't find it as off-putting as some of my co-hosts. I actually thought it was a decent beer, just not a lot going on there. I guess this beer had about as much going on as my number one, but far less skillfully applied. There was about the same amount of flavor, but the flavors that were going on were just not appealing necessarily. Metallicky, I don't know. Maybe we got a bad bottle because yeah, like you said, there was some gunk around the cap seal. Who knows? That's me. That's my ranking. Anastasia, you wanna go next? - I do wanna go. My rankings were C-Mike, C-John. - We have a three-way tie. - Oh shit. - For the first time. - Oh wow. - I said. - It totally is three-way tie. - Well, I know that we've tied together, you and I, Rubio. - Yeah, no one atory is, and Grant and I are notorious for tying, but number one, I picked the single hop Polaris, because it reminds me of that space movie, Solaris, and it's all desolate and clean and really minimal and delicate, and it fucks with your psyche, hardcore. Number two-- - Wait, when you started with that description, I was like, what is she doing? And then at the end, you're like, I'm like, yeah, it makes total sense. - It sounds makes sense. And if you've seen Solaris, it makes even more sense. - Yeah. - Number two, I picked the sison, because fuck yeah, favorite style, ever. I like how delicate and mineral-y. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - Whatever. I love those qualities about that beer. Number three, I picked Tropic King, because it reminds me of being hungover at work and trying to make a cocktail of things that are gonna make me feel better. (laughs) So usually, it's like coconut water with a little bit of topo-chico and a little bit of flavored sparkling water and the lightest splash of the mango or the sea monster, Adwala. - Oh, yeah. - That's kind of what that's like, but in beer form. And it's delicious. I love it. I think it's because I'm tropical. Number four was the dark profit. I liked it. (laughs) But it still had this irony taste, even after it's warmed, that I don't like. I still love that they took the bourbon barrel and the Belgian dark or Belgian. I'm like, what the fuck they want to call it? And married it so well, and they gave each thing its own personality. It's just not my personal favorite. - Sure. - Number five was the disappointing child. - The Selena? - Yeah. - Oh, thank God, that, that they were talking about me. - I mean, I've gotten a, I've gotten a B+ before. I know how it feels. (laughs) - On that note, I think our PhD candidate should go. - Nah, nah, nah, nah. (laughs) - Thanks, Emma Stasier. Ryan, you ready? - Absolutely. - Okay, go. - By leagues and far and far and far away, the single hot Polaris is my favorite. - Everybody's. - It's a unanimous decision. - We'd fight over that. - I've been on like a drunken rampage lately. - Yes. - It's generally in life. But every time I'm around people, I'm like, the new fucking style, the style that people need to nail. And if you're going to start a brewery, you need to do a light style, super clean, hoppy forward beer, that is just fucking spot on. And this is it. - Yeah, it's so perfect for that. - This beer drinks like it's 3%. I'm looking at the sheet, it says it's 5.9%. I would have no idea. - Yeah, no clue. - They yeast the malt, the hops, they blend perfectly together. It's so fucking smooth. This, I think this is like one of the pinnacles of beer. Like you play around with big IPAs, you play around with loggers, you play around with pillagers, you start getting around towards this style where you have just that perfect malt backbone, that melds perfectly with that Belgian, maybe a touch of bread in there, and then the hop they picked with it, the Polaris. I know that this from the bottle and the sound of single hop Polaris, that they're playing around with different hops. Without trying any of the others, I think Funkworx fell upon a gem in this one. - Yeah, something special. - I really wish I had like three cases of this to sustain me through the summer and the hot months that are coming. - Oh no! - I would drink this every fucking day. - Yeah. - This is so spot on. - It goes well with heat. - Yeah. - There are a few beers going towards dark profit. - Oh wow, nice. - But it makes sense for you, I think. - I like it. I know talking to a bunch of other beer fanatics, you know, I've been 21 for only a short period of time compared to some people, but I think that's your girlfriend. - Seven long years ago when I turned 21, I just wanted high alcohol, lots of bourbon, lots of hops, and if it wasn't that, then I didn't give a fuck about it. - Right. - Pallets change, life changes, et cetera, et cetera, and same when I was talking about the Polaris where there's, like, the celery is the malt and the yeast and the hops that blend together, the dark profit was really fun for me. They're talking about a dark Belgian ale that was aged in bourbon and I was smelling it and I was smelling those vanilla and coconut and that roasty kind of multi-backbone. And then when I tasted it, it was not at all what I expected. It was a bit thinner bodied and it threw me off for one second and then I kept drinking it some more and it all started coming together again. The balance with that barrel along with the yeast, it's right along with that single hot Polaris but a totally different style of beer where I'm just like, fuck, all of a sudden you just took yeast, malt, hops, and you added barrel to it and you did a beautiful blending job once again and a totally new style from this brewery that I've loved for all two and a half years that they've been around. I'm just super excited about their future. I love this beer so much. - So it's a dark profit like you being an older man, dating a younger girl, trying to relive your youth and the high-octane bourbon. - Are you trying to tie it into his current life situation? - Maybe. (laughter) - I'm trying to make a relevant joke and I'm failing miserably. - No, that was actually good. Did you hear us laughing? That probably don't hear that normally. (laughter) - I was wondering what that sound was. - You know that weird sound that just happened that filled the room? That was laughter. - That was beast. - That was great. Go. - My third favorite, which was, truly could have been my second favorite, was the Cezanne. The only reason I didn't give it to it is just because it's so standardly perfect. I mean, it's that perfect Belgian solid Cezanne. It's perfectly balanced with this kind of white peppercorny spiciness with the amyl acetate sort of banana flavors. Fine, perfect. Excellent style. I completely understand and agree the fact that you win silver and gold and you'll probably do that for another five years straight. It's a great beer. The fact that you put that lower for that reason, does that make sense to anybody? - Yeah, I want something that's kind of edgy and different. And even though they did that perfectly, everyone's going for that. I think that the dark profit is something that's kind of unique. I don't know too many breweries that are going for a thinner body, lighter, Belgian oak aged. - I don't know that I've tasted a beer like this before. - Yeah. Let me quickly finish up. Tropic King was truly delicious. Lots of fruit. I tasted kind of like there was almost barrel in there. I got some coconut and vanilla on the nose. Many of these four beers could have been number two. - I felt the same way. - I really enjoyed all of these a lot and it was kind of just flipping a coin and going with it. And the Solana, the citrus, the bread, the apple, the smell was to reiterate everyone else was perfect. It fell flat and kind of oxidized to me and the taste and I'll try it again someday. - Nice. Thanks Ryan. I appreciate it. And Ryan's review was brought to you by the word perfect. - And the number for huge fan. - No, that was fantastic. I really dug all of these beers tonight with, you know, like the Solana was a little bit of a straggler. - I like this. I know it was a bad bottle though. I have evidence to support that it may have been a bad bottle. - Yeah. - Let's go with that. - Part of that evidence is how good the rest of the beers were. - Right. - How to quote Ryan, perfect a lot of these beers were, they were fucking fantastic. And I'd love, love, love, love to thank Funkworx for sending these beers to us. - Can I have a moment here? - Yeah. - To thank Funkworx for blindly sending beer to us. You know, we haven't had a lot of contact with them. We don't know them personally. We've never met them and they were kind of, yeah, have some beer. We don't really know you guys. We probably haven't listened to your podcast yet, but take these beers, drink them. - A really smart marketing move. - But it also speaks of confidence. We're primarily a review show and when we don't like something, we talk about why we don't like it and sometimes pretty harshly. It doesn't matter if they send it to us for free, like stone. - You already sent it to us. - Yeah. - I'm not gonna go in there. - Do you just plug stone? I'm not know. - I'm not know. - Okay, look, look. - We're talking about Funkworx. - We're talking about Funkworx. - We're talking about Funkworx. - Hold on. - I don't know if I can come out of your mouth, you know, stone, fuck yourself. - But you and the guy from stone, you have a back and forth. You have a previous, you like, you know each other in a way. - Yeah, we've written that. - Right, right. You've had some email communication and that's good. The Funkworx people, you had what, one email previously? - Yeah. - You didn't have a kind of established thing and they just kind of sent us their beer anyway. And that's super awesome. - Super awesome. - And we loved it, thankfully. - Oh yeah. - Except for the one. - Yeah. - I mean, one fair to mediocre beer and the other four are just being like really upper echelon. - Yeah, and even then, again, like I said, I did not dislike Selena. - No, no, no, not in the slightest. It's not a bad beer. It's just in the comparison to the rest of them. It just didn't quite measure up as awesome as the other ones did. - And we got two beers that I would consider the top of the game, world-class, incredible beers. I mean, arguably four of those, really, because we've had some fantastic beers tonight. - So if you want to help us meet the Funkworx guys, send us donation money so we can go to the JBS and Rob Elbows. - Yes, that is really important. I don't want to put ads on this show. I really don't. I'd love to keep the show listeners supported. But the fact of the matter is, is that we want to do more stuff. We want to grow. We want to bring you guys some better fucking content. And a lot of that requires us traveling and we don't have a lot of money. This show takes a lot of money to run as it is. And it's either do the show or take the trips. We'd like to do both. And in order to do that, we need your help. We really do. And we appreciate a fuck out of it. We got pretty good amount of donations this last week, totaled about 350 bucks. - Yeah. - Which is great. It's a record for us. - Yeah. Before that, we hadn't had a hundred dollars total for the show. This week makes it feel like it's within reach to actually get the JBS. And that's awesome. But we really, really, really thank everybody who helped out. Like I said, donate a few bucks. And it goes a long way for us to believe me. - Even if you just are donating 500, which is a measly sum, I mean, I'm pretty sure we have some rich sons of bitches who listen to this show who really dig it. And they're like, "Ah, God, it's funny." You know, I can either start to cook off girls' ass or yacht this weekend. Or I could just send that cook money to us. - Or I could get my voice changed. (laughing) - I could get that operation. I've been looking for a long time to get this voice for a little bit more period time or something. (laughing) - Why is that the voice that I use? - I'm glad that we stopped and re-recorded just for that. (laughing) - You just ruined that. - Oh. - Oh, man. - We should probably, okay. (laughing) - We should stop. - Thank you guys for coming. - Because I'm feeling a little drunk. - Yes. - Thank you guys for listening so much. - And thank you, fuck works. - Fuck works. - Oh, shit. - Yes. And thank you for donating. And thank you for the iTunes reviews. We've got a couple of people in our little room here. Should I see your names? Can I see your names? My name's Gillian Adams. - Big one, thing too. - Came over from Georgia. They're on their first anniversary. They decided to take a little trip to Austin. - A beercation. - Yeah, and somehow they ended up in this fucking room. - I think it was the roofies you slipped them earlier. - Probably. - Hot is fucking this room. What did you guys think of the beers? - We love you, man. - Hopefully I'm treated. - Yeah. Yeah, nailed it. - I totally disagree. I love dark profit. - So Gillian liked the dark profit. What can you do like that? - Oh, the dark profit. - Oh. - Why? - It's something in the blood here today. - It is. They like it dark and strange. - Yes, totally. - If things don't taste like bourbon. (laughing) We can't be on board. It says that Georgia peaches. - Thank you, thanks, John, for hosting or trying to host. - I know, it's a struggle. - You live when I'm fortunate live. - Yeah, it's a good life. - It's a hard job. - Keep with straight. - Anastasia, thank you for being here. - Go fuck yourself. (laughing) - Ryan. - Still totally drunk, Besh. - And, uh, Mike, right behind Ryan Lambert. Okay, guys, thank you. - Again, I don't have a nickname. Fuck. - What's your nickname? - I mean, I don't have one. There's just fuck. - Anastasia, fuck, Kelly. - That's my poor name. - Right. Bottles up, everybody. - Bottles down. - Lucky I'm okay. - That's your poor name, isn't it? (laughing) - Yes! - Your second is kind of, like, lucky I'm okay. - No, no, no. So we're talking last night about poor names. And it was for your pet's name when you're a kid. And the street you grew up on. - So I would have been Sadie Apache. - Yeah, and mine is Blackie Buena Vista. - Which is awesome, by the way. - And Anastasia's lucky MLK. - To be fair, I can grow. On MLK, it's just the major cross street. (laughing) - Fuck yourself. - Lucky MLK is as bad as, like, cheerful holocaust. (laughing) It's terrifying. I love you, sweetheart. Good night. - Stop advertising that. (laughing) ♪ Ain't got no body ♪ ♪ Can't be so ♪ ♪ Ain't got no body ♪ - More information on the Bearest's podcast, including show notes and pictures, visit thebearest.com. Email us your feedback, comments, questions, and suggestions at info@thebearests.com. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/thebearests and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/thebearests. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
