Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Brewers Association Rankings: Top U.S. Craft Breweries & Beer Industry Trends | Episode 74

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Brewers Association Rankings: Top U.S. Craft Breweries & Beer Industry Trends | Episode 74 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

0:01
Fridays at night, the boys are coming out.
0:07
We've got a show. Tonight we'll drink some beers
0:12
and we'll sing on ourselves the brewery.
0:30
Hey, Steve and Scott are back on the Brewery Underground podcast.
0:34
We today, of course, are coming from Nashville, TN, Music City,
0:39
USA. And you know, Scott, wherever
0:43
people are listening to us on this podcast, we love it.
0:46
We know there are people that listen throughout the country,
0:49
maybe even the world, right? Maybe the world.
0:52
We see a few different countries pop up.
0:54
I think Romania was one. Russia, Russia hit somebody very
0:59
random. It's a very like .2% of this and
1:03
.2% of that. So I don't know.
1:06
I don't know who it is, but thank you for listening if you
1:09
really are. Yeah, we really appreciate it
1:11
and I want to, I want to check in from Antarctica.
1:14
I want to know that somebody one day, wherever they are, maybe
1:18
they've got some Wi-Fi and it's 50 below 0.
1:21
There's Penguins all around, there's polar bears all around.
1:24
And they are listening to the Brewery Underground podcast.
1:28
I that's what that's my goal in life, to know that somebody has
1:31
listened to our podcast from Antarctica.
1:35
You know, I imagine because they're so far away, like the
1:37
first episode we did a year and a half ago is just now reaching
1:41
there. They're like a year and a half
1:46
behind. Episode 1 is now reaching
1:48
Antarctica. That's right.
1:49
The cold, the ice, everything has blocked it and now it's
1:53
there and they're hearing one of our first episodes.
1:55
That is fantastic. Like a message from space, you
1:59
know? I know.
2:01
Well, you know, normally a lot of times we have guests here on
2:05
the Brewery Underground podcast. Today we just happen to be guest
2:10
free. It's just you and I, my friend.
2:12
We have a bunch of topics we're going to just banting about and
2:16
talk about. There's a few things here and
2:19
there over the last couple of weeks that have kind of caught
2:22
our attention. And so we wanted to talk about
2:25
it. And one of the interesting
2:27
things, you know, we're going to start, of course, drinking a
2:30
beer. Last night we were going to
2:33
record a podcast and unfortunately our platform teams
2:37
kind of had some technical difficulty, so we weren't able
2:40
to do it. So I have to give a shout out
2:42
because I was excited to drink this beer.
2:44
It was my first time and it was from our our good friend Eric
2:49
Latham from Johnson City Brewing.
2:52
It was the BlackBerry, Pineapple, Marshmallow, Sour Ale
2:58
and. That's the one you had last
2:59
night. I had that last night.
3:02
I was going to drink it during the podcast last night and I
3:04
did. And so obviously I drank it
3:07
after we we weren't able to record and I liked it, man.
3:11
I checked in and as a four on untapped and it was interesting.
3:15
It was an interesting combination because you know,
3:18
BlackBerry and pineapple, I'm like, do these go together on a
3:22
beer and then you throw in some marshmallow and I'll tell you
3:25
what, it did it it all came out really great together.
3:29
So I really enjoyed that. Beer, yeah, it's well balanced.
3:32
I remember having it and I think it gets high marks on on tap
3:35
too, if I recall. Yes.
3:37
I mean, I think, I think it's pushing for or higher like it's
3:40
really well received and he was telling us about it.
3:42
Remember, before we actually got it, when he was on, he was
3:44
telling us about it. Yeah, So, yeah.
3:47
And it great. I'll tell you, I I love the fact
3:50
that we are now seeing a lot of the Johnson City's beer here in
3:54
the Nashville area. You go to various places.
3:57
You can go to Main Street downtown, you can go to the the
4:02
Beer Store in Mount Juliet and some other places and find their
4:06
beer. And I've had five or six that
4:08
I've already been able to check in.
4:10
And what a what a great set of beers that they have.
4:13
Yeah, he's been self distributing.
4:15
So he's been to Nashville. I think I saw a post today, he
4:18
was in Nashville three times in a month or something, all the
4:21
way from Johnson City. So he's continually making the
4:23
trek, but he's selling beer out here too.
4:25
So he's distributing. And I think it's I saw too that
4:28
he might have some in the airport now.
4:30
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're continually
4:33
working to get to Nashville and great to see it because I've
4:35
only had it. I've went to their brewery one
4:38
time, which I even had forgotten about until he came on the
4:41
podcast. I looked it up and realized I
4:43
had been, yeah, it's a great and everything we've had from them
4:45
has been fantastic. So yeah, I agree with you.
4:48
It is great to see them in Nashville.
4:50
Yeah, definitely. And you know, if you are flying
4:53
out of the Nashville airport, sometimes you do need a you need
4:56
to do need a beer or two. Yes, you need something heavy
5:02
for sure. You need, yeah.
5:03
You need something. Yeah, you definitely need
5:06
something. Well, the beer of choice for me
5:08
tonight. This is from West Side Brewing
5:11
in Cincinnati. This is their Red Rye IPA.
5:15
Oh baby, that looks good. And I have not had this beer yet
5:20
and so looking forward to taking it in tonight.
5:23
What do you got? Nice.
5:25
All right, I got one. It's called, if you can see it,
5:30
FU Express. All right.
5:35
It's, yeah, it's a dank West Coast IPA from North Park Beer
5:38
Company, so it is true to form. It is a bit dank, but it's
5:44
delicious and it smells very good.
5:46
I'm gonna have West Coast IPA, you know, I'm gonna have to get
5:49
in on that action. Yeah, as part of your summer
5:53
tour. We'll talk about the summer tour
5:55
here on the podcast episode in a little bit.
6:00
Yeah. Hey, before we go any further,
6:02
before we go any further, it is Cinco de Mayo, by the way.
6:05
It's Cinco de. Mayo.
6:07
It is Cinco de Mayo. So cheers to you.
6:09
I'm not drinking a Mexican beer at all, but we are drinking beer
6:12
and it is Cinco de Mayo. So happy Cinco de Mayo.
6:15
I didn't have any Mexican lagers in my refrigerator,
6:18
unfortunately, but I can tell you I have had some Mexican
6:21
loggers and if I went on my untapped app right now to look,
6:25
I should have planned this better.
6:27
I've had I've had a few and I've enjoyed them.
6:30
So yes, happy Cinco de Mayo to everybody out there who is
6:35
partaking whatever you're partaking.
6:38
Right. Well to your, to your both, to
6:40
both of our defenses, we were actually going to record on the
6:43
4th. So may the fourth be with you
6:45
would have been yesterday's. People go crazy over man, I know
6:51
I've seen anything like it. Yeah, if you know.
6:53
There's social media out there that is funny.
6:55
You know, it's funny, I I did grow up a big Star Wars guy.
7:00
I always enjoyed Star Wars. I was never a guy that, you
7:03
know, when Star Wars came out, if I, I usually I would go to
7:06
the movie theater, but I was never one to like dress up.
7:09
You know, people like dressing up as like scene three people
7:12
going on solo and things like that.
7:14
I like that was never me, but I always enjoyed going to seeing
7:18
all the Star Wars movies and big Star Wars guys so.
7:21
Man, they do it at sporting events now.
7:22
The Preds have a have a theme night.
7:25
Sounds baseball does. I think the Reds do at some
7:28
point, and probably all the parts probably do at some point,
7:30
yeah. It's time to love it.
7:33
Yeah, I've actually been to Cincinnati Reds games before,
7:37
not specifically for Star Wars night, but the fact that
7:41
they're, you know, they've had a Star Wars night there and you
7:43
see everybody running around in their in their costumes and
7:47
things like that. So it's always a fun time so.
7:50
It is. It is for for other people to do
7:52
it. I have no interest in it, but to
7:55
see other people do it, it's a lot of fun.
7:57
Yeah, it is. It is definitely a lot of fun.
8:00
Well, you know, Speaking of the Reds, there is something we got
8:03
to talk about real quick. We are, we are gearing up, my
8:05
friend. We're gearing up for a really
8:08
big trip, the Cincinnati takeover.
8:11
And there will be a Cincinnati Takeover Edition podcast because
8:15
we're going to be going to Cincinnati in a couple of weeks
8:18
and that's going to be a heck of a lot of fun.
8:20
We're going to be doing the baseball and brewery tour.
8:24
And this year we're we're, we're stepping up a notch.
8:26
We're not only going to Cincinnati and we got our list.
8:30
We're checking it twice. We'll see how many, how many
8:33
breweries we get to in Cincinnati.
8:36
You know, it's always one of those things where we know we
8:39
have our list down and there there are the ones that we know
8:43
we're going to get to. And look, we know there are
8:46
certain breweries we're always going to go to and there's
8:49
certain breweries we're going to go.
8:50
We got to get to this one and we got to get to that one.
8:52
And we've already talked about certain ones.
8:54
We're like, we may have time to go in and get a quick flight and
8:57
get the heck out of there. This is going to be the biggest
9:01
trip we've taken. Yeah.
9:03
As far as days go, we keep. We always care about adding days
9:06
and we always do. And this, this year is no
9:07
exception. We're going to be well over a
9:09
week at this one. And yeah, we're going to, we're
9:14
going to Cleveland after Cincinnati.
9:16
So we're adding on a couple days going north.
9:20
And the highlight of that is to go to Great Lakes.
9:22
That is ultimately the reason. And then we're going to fill in
9:26
with some other great breweries around it.
9:27
But Great Lakes is the is priority number one.
9:31
And if we don't go to another one other than Great Lakes, I'm
9:34
completely fine. But there are some other great
9:36
ones. There will be two days there, so
9:38
we'll have. Plenty of time.
9:39
Yeah. I gotta tell you, Great Lakes is
9:43
a bucket list brewery for me to go to when I started getting
9:48
into craft beer years ago, probably going back, you know,
9:51
10-11 years ago. And, you know, when I would take
9:54
trips to Ohio, I would see Great Lakes beer around.
9:58
And that they started really getting me more into an
10:01
introduction of, OK, so there's more than just, you know, the
10:07
usuals that you see on the store shelves, whether it was Blue
10:09
Moon or, you know, some of the Sam Adams brands, you know,
10:14
there's Great Lakes. And so I think some of the Great
10:16
Lakes ones that I had, it was basically like what the Edmund
10:22
Fitzgerald and the Elliot Ness and the Commodore Perry.
10:26
Yeah, that Loch Ness or Loch Ness or something, Yeah.
10:29
Yeah, yeah. And I and I have.
10:31
Celebration Ale or not? The celebration, the Christmas
10:33
Ale, the Christmas. Ale, Yeah, the Christmas Ale I
10:36
was raiding or I was drinking Great Lakes before I even was
10:41
raiding Great Lakes Beer. And recently I was going through
10:45
my untapped app and I have to say, pound for pound, I don't
10:50
know if there's another brewery out there that I have rated
10:54
higher in beer. It is.
10:56
It is amazing with what we've learned in the last say less
11:01
than a year with having them on and then with friends sending us
11:04
beer even before we had Great Lakes on the Libacious and that
11:09
stuff in the Midwest and brand new stuff that we just fell in
11:12
love with. So and then to have them on the
11:15
podcast, just they they shot for me, I think for you too.
11:18
They shot to the top of the list of a place we.
11:19
Oh my gosh, yeah. Uh huh.
11:21
And what? Perfect time.
11:22
We're just piggyback on our Cincinnati trip and just
11:25
continue on. Yeah, continue.
11:27
On we're gonna go up and we're gonna get a tour of Great Lakes
11:31
Brewery and, you know, probably bring back some beer from there.
11:34
And it's just, I mean, I'm just so excited about it.
11:37
I mean, I really AM and just cannot wait to see.
11:42
I mean, just the history of Great Lakes beer.
11:46
I mean, they go back a long time.
11:48
I mean, you go back into like, I think like the, the mid 90s or
11:52
so is when they started, you know, they started their
11:54
operation. And so they're one of the bigger
11:57
breweries in the country. And there's also something else,
12:00
my friend, that we're going to talk about here.
12:03
Let's let's roll right into it. Let's do it.
12:05
We're we're, we're talking about the subject.
12:07
Let's roll right into it. Would you like to make the
12:09
official? Announcement.
12:11
Oh, well, I, I, I would love to make the official announcement.
12:14
So when we had on Michael Williams, who was the advanced
12:19
Cicerone and they're basically their spokesperson guy, he had a
12:22
lot of different titles with Great Lakes.
12:25
We talked about how do we get Great Lakes beer here in
12:29
Tennessee? They, they're in a lot of
12:32
different states now. If we drive about, you know,
12:37
30-40 minutes to the to the Kentucky, we can get Great
12:41
Lakes. You can get.
12:43
It starts right there. Yep.
12:45
However, we cannot get Great Lakes beer here in Tennessee.
12:51
We cannot. So what are we going to do about
12:54
it? Yes.
12:56
We, we have we have a petition that we're we're going to have
13:02
signed and we're going to deliver the Great Lakes brewery
13:06
asking them, can you expand your beer here into the Tennessee
13:14
area? Because we want it and we're
13:17
coming for you and we're going to flee.
13:19
I make it down on my hands and knees and beg.
13:21
I don't know if I'll do that. Like hey, can you please?
13:27
If that's the last thing, we'll let you do it.
13:30
That's the last thing they require.
13:32
Yeah, right. Yeah.
13:34
Let let this be this. This is the official decree we
13:38
are decreeing to please get to Tennessee.
13:41
And we are working on getting a petition signed by maybe
13:45
millions, Steve. We're going to shoot for
13:46
millions. That'd be great.
13:48
Maybe we'll get maybe we'll get a couple 100.
13:50
Whatever We you. Never know.
13:53
We're going to bring it. This is an official decree for
13:55
Great Lakes to come to Tennessee because we're ready.
13:59
We're ready. We want their beer.
14:01
And here's the thing. All we want it all.
14:04
Yes, we want it all. We want every single one, all of
14:07
our friends that are listening to us that live in Tennessee.
14:11
You want Great Lakes too? If you haven't had it, you want
14:14
it. You want to go to.
14:16
Your so you want Great. Lakes and you want to get Great
14:18
Lakes. Right, we're going to put the
14:20
petition out. Yep.
14:21
And, and what's good, what we need to do is find those states
14:25
that don't, that have Great Lakes, but don't sell a lot of
14:29
it because we're going to be way better at it.
14:31
Yes, kick one of those states to the curb and we can take their
14:35
spot. That's right.
14:36
What do you think? What do you think?
14:38
I love it. I love it a lot.
14:41
And, and for people that are listening even out of state,
14:45
even if you're listening in Antarctica, you know, yeah,
14:49
Great Lakes and say when I come to Tennessee, because we know if
14:52
you're in Antarctica, you're going to make a trip to
14:54
Tennessee. Yeah, but by the time they've
14:56
heard this episode that we probably will have had Great
14:59
Lakes, probably. For at least 10 years, right, A
15:02
little behind the times, but yeah, wherever you are across
15:06
the country, when you come to Tennessee, you want to find
15:09
Great Lakes as well. So that that is one of our big
15:13
initiatives. When we go to Great Lakes, we
15:16
are going to, we are going to give them a signed petition and
15:20
ask them, can you get your beer here?
15:23
Yeah. Steven Scott of the Brewery
15:25
Underground Podcast. By the way, does this episode
15:27
come out before we go? Yes, it does.
15:31
Yes. OK, good.
15:33
All right, good. Good.
15:34
So they can hear it before we get there.
15:36
That's right, they can hear it. No, it's a Great Lakes if you're
15:39
listening. All right, all right, we'll make
15:41
it known and look for the petition.
15:44
We'll have it out online somewhere.
15:46
We do, we do that is that is fantastic.
15:49
Well, you know, we, we got to talk also about Great Lakes and
15:52
some other breweries as well, because something that came
15:57
across our our radar a few weeks ago.
16:01
Yeah, well, it. Kind of stands to this episode.
16:03
It kind of stands spearheaded this episode.
16:04
Yeah, yeah. It's spearheaded this episode.
16:06
We were like, we want to talk about this.
16:08
So the Brewers Association, which is a recognized
16:13
organization, they came out with the 2024, the US craft brewing
16:19
industry figures, and they also released who the top 50 craft
16:25
brewing companies are in the United States and the top 50
16:29
overall brewing companies. Now there's some stats.
16:33
I know you're a stats guy, Chancellor, you're a stats guy.
16:36
I love stats. There's a few stats, just a few
16:39
that we're going to that we're going to throw out here.
16:41
Now according to the Brewers Association, craft Brewers
16:47
produce 23.1 million barrels of beer in 2024.
16:55
That is that is amazing. Employment in the craft brewing
16:59
sector increased 1901 thousand 900 and seven 112 in 2024, which
17:09
was a 3% rise from the previous year.
17:14
So pretty cool. And in 2024, there were 9861
17:20
operating US craft breweries, including 2034 micro breweries,
17:27
3599 brew pubs, 3948 taproom breweries, and 280 regional
17:38
craft breweries across the United States.
17:41
So pretty. Cool.
17:42
Pretty cool to say if any of those numbers are up or down.
17:45
Yeah, well, it was they said, they are saying that 2024 was
17:52
the first year since 2005 that the number of breweries that
17:57
closed outpaced brewery openings nationwide.
18:01
So we know that we, we know there's been, you know, a bit of
18:05
settling out. We're you know, we don't live in
18:07
a cave. We know that they're having
18:09
breweries that have taken a hit across the country.
18:13
So we we know that. But it also if you look at these
18:16
numbers though from a revenue standpoint it's still a
18:20
profitable. Business, sure, it employs a lot
18:24
of people. People are still buying beer, I
18:26
think. And part of that too is it's not
18:27
just beer, right? It's people have gotten more
18:29
diverse in what they drink. So it's maybe less beer and more
18:31
of these other things. We've talked about that many
18:33
times. So that's probably reflected in
18:35
some of those numbers too. But but great, great numbers.
18:38
Love to hear it. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
18:41
Well, we're not gonna talk about every single one of what is the
18:45
top 50 craft brewing companies. We'll we'll go through some of
18:50
them. That kind of caught our
18:51
attention. I'll go.
18:53
Through some notable stuff on here.
18:54
Yep. Yeah, I'll go through like the
18:55
number three, you know, the first, the first 3, Yingling.
18:59
No, no surprise. They are the top craft Brewing
19:03
Company in the United States. Boston beer companies to Sierra
19:08
Nevada is 3. What caught my attention on this
19:13
one is that Rhine guys in Cincinnati, one of our favorite
19:19
breweries, we're counting for you Rhine guys when we go to
19:21
Cincinnati. They have moved to #16 on this
19:27
list and they are, they have actually surpassed Great Lakes.
19:33
So Rhine Geist is now the top producing beer company in the
19:39
state of Ohio. Great Lakes is 18 and that's
19:44
pretty amazing. That's impressive and they've
19:46
got the one location, right? Yeah.
19:51
Do you want to wait till we get into the overall to see where
19:54
they are too? Because they still rank in the
19:55
overall of all the breweries. Yeah, in the USI mean they're,
19:59
they're at #27 is the largest 27, the largest brewery in the
20:02
country. All in.
20:04
That's that's pretty good. Yeah, and, and it's interesting
20:08
and, and one of the reasons that we're we're talking about, you
20:11
know, rhyme guys is because we, you know, we, we go there, you
20:14
know, maybe a couple times a year.
20:16
I go there a couple times a year.
20:17
We drink a lot of their beer. You know, me being from
20:20
Cincinnati, I go up there and we have gone there for years.
20:24
One of the things when I saw this list came out, I thought I
20:28
started thinking about it. I'm like how interesting because
20:31
in Cincinnati there are the very three, there's three very large
20:35
breweries. All three of them.
20:37
The top three we've had on, we've had on Ryan Geist.
20:40
Braxton is number 2 and Matt Tree is number 3.
20:45
And it's interesting to me the business model because Braxton
20:48
keeps expanding. They have more breweries now.
20:52
Matt Tree is the same way. We love all three of them, but
20:56
Rhine Guy seems like their business model is not to expand
21:01
the brewery. They're just expanding their
21:03
reach in beer across the country.
21:06
And so it's an. Easy thing, they're making a
21:08
lot. Obviously that's working for
21:10
them too. Yeah, because we can.
21:12
That's when we can get here and we get a lot of it.
21:15
And we seem to see get a lot of the newer stuff too.
21:20
I don't know if we get it right away, but I do see a lot of new
21:22
stuff here on occasion too, so I think it's great.
21:26
We might have to have them back on at one point and kind of
21:29
discuss this again. Yeah, definitely.
21:32
But it's very impressive and we will be there in a couple of
21:34
weeks and. We will be there in a couple of
21:37
weeks. Yes, you can.
21:39
You can, you can bet on that. So, yeah, there were a couple of
21:42
them just in and just looking at the top 50 crap breweries that
21:46
that I'm looking at a beer, you know, over the overtime that
21:50
I've had. I know that looking at some of
21:52
the other ones like the three Floyds out of Munster, IN
21:57
they're 26 have had their beer before a beta Brewing Company.
22:02
You see them a lot here in the Nashville area, Brew Dog, which
22:06
is also in in Ohio and they're in Cincinnati, they're in
22:11
Columbus, they're in Cleveland. You know, we've been to their
22:14
brewery and they have, you know, they have a lot of great beer as
22:18
well. And you can get their beer here
22:20
around in the in the Nashville area.
22:22
So those are those are some of the ones that on on this
22:27
particular list. It really stood out for me.
22:30
Yeah, I want to, I want to go back because there's a couple
22:33
that when I was looking at, I didn't recognize the names and I
22:36
figured they were some kind of a corporate conglomerate or
22:39
something. And there are and a couple stood
22:41
out for me. So #4 is called Tilray Beer
22:45
Brands. And I go, well, what the heck is
22:47
that? So Tilray is a pharmaceutical
22:50
cannabis lifestyle consumer packaged company.
22:54
How about? That.
22:55
Yeah, I know. But they own Sweetwater, they
22:58
own Shock Top, they own Breckenridge, Alpine, Blue Point
23:02
and others. I think Green Flash is another
23:04
one. There's a whole bunch under that
23:05
umbrella. So that being said, that's a big
23:08
branch. Especially Sweetwater is
23:09
probably the, you know, the the flagship of all well.
23:11
Well, they are Sweetwater has, you know, you would almost think
23:14
that I mean, you could find a lot of Sweetwater beer here.
23:18
And they were again, when I go back to my introduction to craft
23:24
beer, Sweetwater was one that I used to get a lot had some
23:29
recently shop top. Not exactly my style of craft
23:33
beer, but in the beginning stages I had, you know, I used
23:37
to drink and and and get some shock top and that they're a
23:40
really big brand too for them. I mean, they they are, they sell
23:44
a whole lot at stores across the country.
23:47
Yeah, they do that. They parallel with like a blue
23:49
moon, you know, that like that Belgian white that they call it,
23:52
I guess. So they're similar to that.
23:55
But another one that stood out to me was number six.
23:58
I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce it, but gambrenous.
24:01
Yeah. And basically, it's two brands,
24:05
from what I could tell, it's Shiner and Trumer pills.
24:09
I've never heard of Trumer pills before, but we all know Shiner.
24:11
They're out of Shiner. And on this list, it says their
24:15
home, their city is out of Shiner, Texas.
24:16
So it's Shiner beer for the most part.
24:19
It's number six. And now here's one that that
24:22
really caught my attention #7 is Matt Brewing Company.
24:26
And the reason it caught my attention is I don't get to talk
24:28
about a lot of craft beer from where I'm from, originally in
24:32
the upstate New York area. Well, Matt Brewing Company is
24:35
out of Utica, NY and their flagship brand a lot of people
24:40
probably heard of, it's called Saranac Brewing Company.
24:42
So they own Saranac. They also own Flying Dog, who
24:46
they bought in 2023. So those two brands kind of make
24:49
up the bulk of that brand. But what's significant about
24:52
that other than it's kind of near where I'm from.
24:56
These guys have been around a while since the 1800s.
24:58
It's, it's 4 generations family owned.
25:01
Yeah, so they started the Utica Club brand.
25:04
If anybody's been around a while, they've probably heard of
25:06
Utica Club. They created the Schultz and
25:09
Dooley spokes mugs in 1958. If you ever see a picture of
25:13
them, they'll probably be a little familiar to you.
25:16
You know, we weren't around there necessarily, but you know
25:18
what I mean, just growing up. And one of the brands that they
25:24
owned was called West End Brewing Company, and they were
25:27
the first brewery in the US to get a legal license to sell beer
25:31
after prohibition. How about that?
25:34
How about that out of Utica, NY, which is part of the?
25:36
Match strong after all. These years 100 and should I had
25:41
it written down whatever it's 4 generations.
25:44
So it's 137 years is what it is currently.
25:47
So they've been around so and one other cool thing I saw in
25:51
their little timeline on their website is they developed a beer
25:55
ball in 1970. OK.
25:58
It's like, it's like a little mini keg.
26:01
Yeah, but it's a ball. The beer goes in this, this
26:03
Browning, this ball, and it's got like your keg dispenser.
26:06
I think it's like a dispenser ball or.
26:08
Something you know. Because of the disco era, maybe
26:11
it did. It looks like it came from 1970,
26:14
I can tell you that. But anyway, that was a cool
26:18
thing and I saw, and I mean, probably wouldn't say that as
26:21
much if I wasn't from that area, but it was still some cool
26:23
stuff. And you know what, the one thing
26:27
that that, and I know why it's not on this list, but something
26:30
stood out who wasn't on here is New Belgium.
26:33
But it's because it says craft brewing companies, I'm going to
26:37
guarantee you that they don't fall under that category anymore
26:40
as far as the craft goes. Yeah.
26:42
Which, yeah, these rankings sometimes, I mean, you just
26:45
don't know what their criteria is and you know what they're
26:47
looking at. So very very interesting list.
26:51
Any any other comments on the top 50 crap brewing companies
26:55
before we get to the top 50 overall brewing companies?
26:59
Yeah. One, one last thing.
27:01
So you mentioned Boston Beer Company is number 2, which is
27:05
Sam Adams, Right. And they own, they own a few
27:07
other things too, truly, I think, and some other things.
27:09
But I was talking to Jonathan and we go, well, what the hell
27:13
determines a craft brewery anymore?
27:15
Because that's a big brand. It really is.
27:18
And they're not. Yeah.
27:19
And what are they? They're still like number, just
27:22
like they're like #10 overall and #2 in craft brewery.
27:27
So I did a quick look on the Brewers Association website and
27:32
a quick definition of what a craft brewery is.
27:34
A small one basically produces 6,000,000 barrels or less a
27:39
year. I think that's probably where
27:43
some of these fall in to play, right?
27:45
It's less than 6,000,000 and then independent is less than
27:48
25% of the craft breweries owned or controlled by a beverage
27:53
alcohol industry member that is not itself a craft Brewer.
27:55
So anyway, it's got certain criteria that to meet that.
27:59
I still find it surprising that Boston beer companies still on
28:03
it because they're as big as they are, but but they're there.
28:06
So that stood out for me. Yeah, there you go.
28:09
All right. Well, moving on to the Brew
28:13
Association, the top 50 overall brewing companies.
28:16
Again, we're not going to go through the entire list, but
28:19
like #1 with Anheuser Busch, no real big surprise there.
28:24
Coors Molson, Coors 2, Constellation out of Chicago 3,
28:29
and then Heineken Paps Brewing Company.
28:32
I know you're a big Paps guy on there, on there as well.
28:38
So the Boston Brewing Company is number 10.
28:42
Sierra Nevada is number 11. You know, going through some of
28:45
them are, are, are good friends in Grand Rapids, MI.
28:51
I know it's not called Founders the company anymore, but
28:56
Founders is recognized as in this list, as #15 on the list.
29:03
And I am not surprised by that because we know we've talked
29:08
about founders, we have those guys on the podcast, we've
29:10
talked about founders. We have drank a lot of founders
29:13
beer, whether it's on the podcast or not on the podcast.
29:17
But we love founders. So I'm not surprised at all that
29:21
they rank is in the, in the they're #15 of the top 50
29:25
overall brewing companies in in the country.
29:27
And I think if I'm not mistaken, and we had them on, they told us
29:31
that their beer is in all 50 states now, right?
29:34
Yes, they are. They are national brand
29:36
completely. And when we were doing that
29:38
podcast that we were doing some research for, I looked up this
29:41
parent company, Mahu Mahu San Miguel.
29:45
Anyway, I think they obviously own other companies.
29:47
I think rum, I think there's a rum brand or something they own
29:50
or something. So they fall under that brother,
29:52
which makes them really big company.
29:54
But yes, we love founders and after we go to Great Lakes,
29:57
founders will be my number one priority to get to for breweries
30:00
after. Oh yeah, yeah, I know.
30:03
I almost got there once, but yeah, founders were coming for
30:06
you as well. So, yeah.
30:08
So that so that one. And then, you know, again, a
30:11
couple others will go through. We're not going to go through
30:13
all 50. But Rhine guys is now 27th on
30:16
that list of the top 50 overall brewing companies in the in the
30:21
United States. Great Lakes is at 29 and you
30:26
know, just a couple others, you know, 3 Floyd's, we talked about
30:28
them earlier, you know, they're 37.
30:31
I've had three Floyd's a Beta Brewing Company 40, you know,
30:34
Brew Dog is at, you know, 41. So those are some of the, the
30:39
ones that kind of stood out to me, a beer that I've had before.
30:43
And as you said, you can go through some of these and know
30:46
that they're conglomerate now and they produce so many
30:49
different beers. And if you went through some of
30:51
the list, you're like, Oh yeah, I had that, you know, that
30:54
certain beer or I've had that certain beer and I didn't know
30:58
that it was actually called that particular name, you know,
31:01
because it's under a different a different company, so.
31:05
Yeah, because if you went there you wouldn't know it
31:07
necessarily, but something else that stands out.
31:10
And it was on the other list too.
31:11
But like #18 is Athletic Brewing Company and as far as I know all
31:14
they do is non alcoholic stuff. Yeah.
31:17
So they may do other thing. That's that's how I know them
31:19
is. So that's pretty, that's a
31:19
pretty big, it's pretty high rating, don't you think for non
31:22
alcoholic? Well, yes and no, because as we
31:27
know, you know, we've seen it, we go to breweries a lot and
31:31
we've seen the demand go up quite a bit for non alcoholic
31:35
beers. I mean, I, I am absolutely
31:39
amazed sometimes and again, maybe I shouldn't be, but when I
31:43
go into a brewery and I don't care, I mean it's fine.
31:46
But when I go into a brewery and I see that they have like 5 or 6
31:50
different non alcohol beers on their list and there's a lot of
31:55
breweries that that have that now.
31:56
And I'm like supply and demand. I mean, you know, they want to
31:59
bring in everybody, so why not? Bring it in.
32:02
I mean you're now non alcoholic. Beer is safe when we come to
32:06
Cincinnati and Cleveland, so there'll be plenty of it for you
32:09
when we get there. When we leave, unless they gotta
32:13
still out of flight, I'm probably not getting it.
32:15
Probably not, no. So they'll be just as much there
32:18
when we get there as when we leave.
32:20
See, I think one day what's going to have to happen is is
32:24
you're going to have to do a summer tour like I do with my
32:27
summer tours of non alcoholic. Beers, I could do that.
32:31
I could do that, yeah. The good, the good news is there
32:33
is plenty of it, right? There's a plethora of things to
32:36
get and considering around we had a handful, everything I'd
32:41
have would be new. So yeah, I I would take that
32:43
sword there. You go follow the.
32:46
One other thing, one other thing I wanted to just because we have
32:50
a buddy in Hawaii, Joe. Joe.
32:55
Beer Geek Eight O 8 There are two Hawaii companies on here,
32:58
Craft Ohana, which is Maui Brewing in modern times is is
33:02
they merge and they're one. And then Kona Kona is 48 and
33:09
Craft Ohana is 28. So pretty big deal to have those
33:12
breweries on the top 50 in the country as far as way as they
33:15
are. So that's pretty cool to see.
33:17
Yeah, and I feel like I have seen their beer in various
33:20
locations maybe. It's yeah.
33:21
You see Kona? Around Nashville, I mean, I
33:23
couldn't, I couldn't swear like what, what areas I've gone to
33:27
where I've seen their beer, but I have seen like the beer cans
33:29
and stuff like that. And those stood out.
33:31
So you can't really, you can't miss them.
33:34
Now, Kona's been around a while around here, Maui's probably
33:37
more recent, but you can see, yeah, you see some Maui as well.
33:40
So yeah, pretty cool stuff. Yeah, definitely.
33:43
Well, that is information from the Crap Brewers Association and
33:48
we just wanted to, it's something that we saw a few
33:52
weeks ago and thought it'll be a very interesting conversation to
33:55
talk about. And for people that if you want
33:57
to know more, go on their website at the
34:00
brewersassociation.org and you could check it out.
34:04
And I'll tell you that is that website anyway, has been a great
34:07
resource for us over time. Yeah.
34:10
Yeah, it is the, it is the guide as far as craft brewing goes in
34:14
the country. Like that's the that is the main
34:16
source and resource for they kind of dictate everything.
34:20
That's that is the association, yes.
34:22
Yeah, it's a it's a lot of fun stuff.
34:24
So, you know, Speaking of beer, we want to talk about a couple
34:29
of beers that are coming up. So we very soon are going to be
34:35
reaching the midway point of the year.
34:37
It's going to it's, it's hard to it's hard to imagine that we're
34:41
not that far off from the midway point of the year.
34:45
And we will be doing a a podcast episode that we're going to be
34:50
talking about our favorite beers so far that we've had of 2025.
34:56
I can tell you that there is a certain beer that I had last
35:02
year that I rated really high that this year I rated even
35:06
higher. Oh yeah.
35:08
And maybe from a certain brewery that I talked about earlier,
35:11
you're going to have to wait. You're going to have to wait for
35:15
that particular podcast and listen to it.
35:16
But I know you and I, I wonder what Chris Bennett is going to,
35:20
we're all going to get together on a future episode and talk
35:23
about our midway point of, of, of beers.
35:27
And we checked in this year and some of the new breweries that
35:30
we've gone to this year as well. I wonder if there'll be a
35:33
challenge for that top spot of yours, especially after this
35:37
upcoming trip we've got coming. I wonder if there'll be a
35:39
challenger trying to trying to knock that one off the top.
35:43
Dude, I'm so looking forward to the challenge.
35:45
I really am. I'm looking forward to the
35:48
challenge. And, and I will tell you,
35:50
Speaking of beer, you know, I mentioned, we teased it just
35:54
earlier about the summer tour that I'm going to be doing.
35:58
And I've already had some now, we talked about this on the the
36:02
Hop in podcast episode that we had with our, with our friends
36:07
Joe and Nick. And I had mentioned that I'm
36:12
kicking off this summer, the West Coast Summer IPA tour.
36:17
And the reason for that is basically this.
36:21
I don't dislike West Coast Ipas. I do like Ipas, but it's not
36:27
exactly my favorite style of Ipas.
36:33
But as I've become more in tune to the other styles of Ipas, I
36:38
have begun to like them a lot more.
36:41
So this summer on this tour up to Ohio, I'm going to seek out
36:46
more West Coast Ipas. Looking forward to it and, you
36:51
know, gonna report back. You know, I was thinking about
36:53
this if you had to pin down what your favorite style of Ipas are,
36:58
what are they? Do you know, do you have to
37:00
cover your head? Do you have?
37:02
Do you have a particular the? Style.
37:04
Favorite style of Ipas? Yeah, it'd be the it'd be the
37:07
double dry hopped. Yeah, stuff.
37:10
Yeah, that would be that would be mine.
37:12
OK, those double Ipas. Yeah, like that stuff and a lot
37:16
of people do them, but the ones that burial do that they're kind
37:18
of famous for, they're the ones that style is what I like.
37:21
Yeah, for the most part, Yep. And so for people that people
37:25
that don't know describe that kind of style, like why you
37:28
would like that particular style?
37:30
Because they for me they're the AB VS usually 7 plus probably 6
37:35
1/2 to say 7 1/2 sometimes 8. I like the, I like the ABV on
37:42
them. They're they're a little
37:43
sweeter, they're a little thicker.
37:45
They they look hazy. They're not called a hazy IPA
37:48
per SE, but they've got a lot of flavor, a lot of citrus, They're
37:51
juicy and, and they're just, again, that ABV is perfect for
37:55
those types of beers. Might be a little high for some
37:57
people. Seven and a half, 8%, man, they
37:59
just, it just hits perfectly for those.
38:01
To me, it's the perfect style of beer.
38:04
I, I, yeah, I mean, when I, when I look at IP as and I look at
38:08
what, what I like, it's like the New England, the hazy type of IP
38:12
as are more my style. And that's why I think the West
38:15
Coast have been sort of like, oh man, give me something a little
38:19
more. But I'm coming around, you know,
38:22
I want to get there. I think my goal this year
38:25
because I, I, I've gone back. I mean, look, we, we talk, we've
38:29
exhausted the untapped app rating system so much.
38:33
But even if I'm going, if I'm rating my beers and if you're
38:38
rating it from, you know, one to five, well, I'm not going to
38:41
rate anything of one. I'm not going to drink it again.
38:44
But I have yet to rate a West Coast IPA as a four or higher.
38:51
So I'm looking for you at the West Coast Ipas.
38:54
I want a higher ranking. And I think as my my palate has
38:59
changed in the IPA world a bit more, I think I'm going to get
39:03
there. Yeah, you will.
39:04
That day is coming and probably sooner than later.
39:07
I think the more you have and if, especially if you hit like
39:10
if we go up then we hit a bunch and there's a lot of West Coast
39:12
IPS, you're going to find several that you like.
39:15
If you just find a bunch at one time, you'll just be overwhelmed
39:18
with it and you're like, well that's great and that's great.
39:19
And it just, you know what I mean?
39:20
It's just kind of compound and you'll just appreciate them
39:23
one-on-one after the other so. Yeah, no, it'll, it'll.
39:26
Be like an influx, yeah. It's going to be really good.
39:30
You know, I mentioned a few minutes ago too, you know, our
39:34
our future episode we're going to do where we're going to rate
39:37
beers and also breweries. We're going to talk about the
39:40
new Crazy Gnome Brewery that opened up just recently.
39:42
But there is something that you and I both wanted to talk about,
39:47
and it's the camaraderie. We've discussed so much that we
39:52
see especially in the beer community in the Nashville area.
39:55
So a couple of weeks ago we went to.
40:00
You know our our Frank Grayson, He opened up that new location,
40:03
a crazy gnome in East Nashville. We went to the soft opening when
40:06
we were there, yeah. It was the soft opening when we
40:09
get there and we get there and talk about some of the folks
40:14
that we saw there, I mean from the beer community.
40:17
Yeah, so we get there and we get a beer and we kind of go outside
40:20
and see it and I go back inside and I look over and there's Chad
40:24
from Tenfold at the bar getting a beer, right.
40:27
He is the head Brewer over at Tenfold.
40:29
And Donald said we've had him on him and Mike Place we love.
40:32
We were there not long ago for the, the free, the free flight
40:36
that we got. And then we look back over and
40:41
he's talking to Parker from Fatal Force, which is.
40:44
Really funny because you told me that Chad was in there and I
40:47
walked in there and I walked up to him and they were faced the
40:50
other way and I tapped him on the shoulder and I'm like, hey,
40:52
Chad, how's it going? You know?
40:54
And all of a sudden Parker turns around and goes, what about me?
40:57
I'm like, Parker, I didn't even know you were here, man.
40:59
Chad, La. Forest told me Parker was.
41:00
I had to go back over. Yeah.
41:02
Yeah. Yes.
41:03
So they were there and he owns Parker owns Fatal Force.
41:08
Yep. So they were there to support
41:09
Grayson in in in crazy known for the soft opening.
41:13
And then somebody else who was there, who we've gotten to know
41:15
a little bit is Josh from Hoppin River North, which is a new tap
41:20
room down in Nashville right on the river, who has 60 taps.
41:24
And he was, he had just come from Southern Grist's party and
41:29
he texted me and was like, hey, where you at?
41:31
We're at crazy now. So he shot over and then he kind
41:33
of knew those guys and we introduced them and it was just
41:35
kind of a big party. The camaraderie just to be out
41:37
there, just to supporting a new brewery open and they work in,
41:43
they have breweries of their own.
41:44
Yeah, and it's not necessarily competition, but it is.
41:48
I mean, they're all competing for that dollar.
41:51
But I even said to Grayson that day, and I don't think Grayson
41:54
would mind me telling the story. I walked up to him, we're about
41:57
to leave and I'm like, man, I said, isn't it great?
42:00
I mean, I guess you got, you probably don't see these guys
42:03
that often and he's like, no, you know, probably four or five
42:05
times a year. But I could even tell like the
42:08
excitement that he had these guys come and they're supporting
42:12
them. I mean, they are supporting each
42:14
other and lifting all each other up in this brewery community.
42:18
And I for me, you know, I don't know how, how common that is in
42:24
other parts of the country. Maybe it is, maybe they do that.
42:27
But I I just want to make note of it because I thought it was
42:30
very, very, very fantastic to see.
42:32
Very fantastic. And just to see it, we're just
42:34
sitting there drinking beer and that's what those guys were
42:35
doing. They came in and we just came in
42:37
to drink beer and and support them, which was which is just
42:39
cool. Seems it was cool that we know
42:41
them too. So they were familiar to us and
42:44
I'd say as I was. So I actually stopped this past
42:46
Saturday over there because the grand opening was Saturday this
42:49
past Saturday. And I stopped over there for a
42:50
couple on my way to somewhere else.
42:52
And I got to talk to Grace a little bit and he was talking
42:55
about he's got a working relationship with Mill Creek,
42:57
which is down the road down here too.
42:59
So doing some stuff with those guys too.
43:00
So just to your point, just more of that camaraderie and cool to
43:05
see it first hand, wasn't it? It is, yeah.
43:07
No, I love it. I really do.
43:09
And it's great getting to know all these guys and gals that
43:14
operate these particular breweries and tap rooms and
43:17
things like that. You just brought up Mill Creek
43:21
and something that I had not known until we were at Crazy
43:26
Gnome and you tried it. Mill Creek they have gotten on
43:31
the PB and J train. They now have people are like,
43:34
what is the PB and J train? Steve, the PB and J train.
43:41
That's somewhere true I want to go on.
43:44
Yes, you do. Yeah.
43:45
It's going to stick to you, my friend.
43:47
It's going to stick. To you.
43:49
So basically the PB and J train is something that has really
43:55
taken off with breweries around here probably over the last
43:58
year, year and a half or so. It's the peanut butter and Jelly
44:02
beers that are out there. And if you would have told me
44:06
five years ago, 10 years ago, you know, you're going to be
44:10
drinking some PB and J beer, Steve with peanut butter and
44:14
Jelly in it up. Look at him like I don't know
44:16
about that one. You can't even imagine it until
44:21
you had it, you know? Yeah, yeah.
44:23
But Mill Creek has one. Now.
44:26
We know we've talked about Zuul in Knoxville.
44:29
They have a whole big variation that has some southern grist.
44:35
They have theirs. It comes out every year.
44:37
That's probably, you know, my personal favorite.
44:40
I can't wait for it comes out again.
44:42
The peanut butter and strawberry Jelly Hill Tailgate has their PB
44:47
and J Milk stout Marble Fox. They've had theirs as well.
44:52
And you know, certainly. There's no press there, Yeah.
44:55
What about some of the? Others out there, Scott.
44:58
I had one recently, as a matter of fact, when I was in
45:01
Louisville for that beer fest they had up there, which was
45:05
really, really cold. I think I mentioned it on one of
45:07
the episodes, but it was from somebody had brought it down and
45:10
that it's from Belbrook Brewing and they had, it was called
45:14
Friends Forever BlackBerry PB and J Sour.
45:16
And I gave it like a 3.9 too. So that's one you mentioned all
45:21
the ones that are local to here that I've had when I when I look
45:25
back to untap to see all the peanut butter and Jelly ones I
45:27
had. Yeah, I stopped looking after my
45:31
3.5 ratings so. Yeah.
45:34
Didn't look anything below it, so there are probably more.
45:37
I will tell you this. I've got a couple on my list and
45:39
I'm not going to mention the names of who they are of that.
45:43
In 2017 I gave a 2.52 and in 2020 I gave a 3.25 to another
45:52
variant of it. But it was so long ago.
45:56
Either my palates change, probably for the better, I would
45:58
appreciate them more, or I'm sure that beer has gotten
46:00
better. If it really was that bad, well,
46:02
but it's. AI think that's.
46:04
And I doubt it was that bad. Yeah, I think that's a lot of it
46:07
because when we had on John, who's the head Brewer at the
46:13
Marble Fox, I mean, we we could tell because when he talked
46:17
about the first PB and J no crust, that came out one of the
46:20
observations. And it's not a criticism because
46:23
I don't brew beer. You do.
46:26
If I, if I would have tried to brew a peanut butter and Jelly
46:29
anything, I'd be like, it's going to take a while to get
46:32
this right. And I think the first one that
46:34
that he put out, he even admitted, you know, it was more
46:37
on the Jelly side and maybe not as much pronounced peanut
46:41
butter. And the second one that came out
46:44
that they did the revised version that we actually had on
46:47
the podcast. I mean, I, I smelled it and I
46:51
went. I can smell the peanut butter.
46:53
He doubled the peanut butter or the peanut in it?
46:56
The peanuts? Yeah, he doubled it.
46:58
I, I would be interested to know because I, I love peanut butter.
47:02
I mean, I'm a big peanut butter guy and but that's just me and I
47:08
would, I would be curious to know people out there, if you're
47:12
having a PB and J, whatever it is, beer, are you wanting more
47:18
of the Jelly taste of the sweet taste?
47:21
Are you wanting more of the peanut butter taste?
47:24
Are you wanting more of a middle ground?
47:27
And I I almost like the middle ground, but I want to taste a
47:33
little more peanut butter in mine.
47:35
And, and nose has a lot to do with it too.
47:37
And you're probably going to get more peanut butter on the nose
47:39
than you would Jelly. But that like that Mill Creek 1
47:43
I had yesterday, really a lot of peanut butter on the nose, which
47:46
was really good. So that could probably have
47:48
something to do with it too. You know, that balance I tend to
47:51
I'll look at my list like so. So I've had four of the Zool
47:55
mixtapes and the one I like the most was the BlackBerry.
47:59
And I think it's that tartness and Southern gristed a peanut
48:03
butter and Jelly BlackBerry as well.
48:05
And I like that the most of theirs.
48:07
So there's something to the BlackBerry.
48:09
I think for me that I like I like the most in those things.
48:13
So maybe it's a little tartness with with the peanut butter or
48:16
something. It's like you said, it's what
48:18
combination do you like the best?
48:19
Yeah, I think that's true. I I really do.
48:22
Yeah, now Zool does one. It's not mix tape, but it's
48:25
called Fit for a King. Yeah, and there's peanut butter
48:27
and Jelly and banana. Oh my God.
48:30
And that's pretty, pretty freaking good, too.
48:33
Maybe they should call that the Elvis.
48:35
Yeah, well, hence the fit for a king.
48:38
Thank you. Well, they can't call it They
48:40
can't call it the Elvis Juice because the BrewDog has a beer
48:45
called the Elvis Juice. They do.
48:48
That's they. Do yeah, so they could they
48:51
wouldn't be able to use that name.
48:52
Maybe Elvis. I don't know if Elvis and and
48:55
beers is trademarked because of that or not.
48:58
But you know, I just, I I do remember that though.
49:01
That's right. I forgot about that.
49:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think this trend is here to
49:06
stay a while, especially when they're making high quality
49:10
versions of it. If it was just some and and
49:11
there's some out there too that probably aren't very good.
49:14
But Zul, I mean Gris, we've Gris was my first and and and many
49:19
years ago. But ZUL I think took it to
49:21
another level with the mix tape. Yeah.
49:24
I mean, I mean, just everybody talk who hasn't had it, longs
49:28
for it. Hey, can you bring us some?
49:29
Can you bring us some? You going to zoo, you know?
49:32
Yeah. Yeah.
49:33
So, but and and by the way, we cannot get that over here in
49:35
Nashville. Rarely, rarely we'll find it on
49:37
draft somewhere, the regular one.
49:40
But you've you have to go to Knoxville for the most part.
49:42
Yeah, I've gotten to the Deep South growlers and I know that
49:46
Mister Brews in in Murfreesboro seems to have it regularly on
49:51
tap. So and you know, that's pretty
49:53
cool. And again, I think, you know
49:55
this maybe go back to, you know, here we are talking about it's a
49:58
marketing thing and you know, on our little podcast, people are
50:01
like, hey, do you hear those guys talking about the PB and J?
50:04
Maybe we need to go somewhere and go get it and try it.
50:07
And that's part of the brewery experience.
50:09
You know, you're going to have fun.
50:10
You're going to go in, you may or may not like it, but you're
50:13
probably going to be talking about it and, you know, maybe
50:15
you're going to go back and forth on the discussion on
50:18
whether or not. If, you know, maybe what kind of
50:22
peanut butter do they use? Yeah.
50:24
Well, you know what, in our last episode, we were talking with
50:28
Nick and Joe, Nick brought up a good point talking about Zul.
50:30
He goes, it was it's exciting to see people standing in line and
50:33
get excited about craft beer, like standing in line for a
50:37
release date for for hours to get some of this stuff.
50:40
So very good point. And and you know, beer like that
50:44
makes people excited. We managed to get the Blueberry.
50:47
Remember that the the Mixtape Blueberry had come out like the
50:49
week before. We got it over here at Southern
50:51
Griz, luckily that day at the snow cone thing.
50:53
So we kind of looked out there. But you'll be there not too long
50:57
from now, so maybe you'll be able to get some of it.
51:01
Oh, I think so, yeah. Yeah.
51:02
Bring some back and and that'll that'll be a lot of fun as well.
51:06
So. So what else?
51:07
What else we got going on that we want to talk about here, my
51:10
friend? Well, what how about this?
51:13
We can go back to the Brewers Association.
51:16
They just had the Craft Brewers Conference in Indianapolis like
51:19
a week ago. It was like April 28th through
51:21
May 1st. And it's always a big deal when
51:24
they have those in whatever city they have in.
51:26
But what they do is they have competitions within certain beer
51:30
styles, right? And people in in judges vote on
51:33
beers that are turned in and whatnot.
51:35
So they announced the winners on May 1st and it's online.
51:38
You can you can catch it online, but I got a few here I want to
51:43
talk about if you got if you want to go into that.
51:45
Definitely. OK, so Tennessee had eight
51:50
winners at the state of Tennessee and some of that to
51:55
highlight was half batch brewing out of Henderson, TN
51:59
Hendersonville, TN that we know they won bronze for their Falcon
52:04
which is a Scottish style air. It is amazing.
52:09
It is. Times.
52:10
That is a great Dang beer. They they own that category, it
52:14
seems that's their second award in that category for that beer.
52:19
So And another one is coincidentally enough out of
52:23
Knoxville. It's called Orange Hat Brewing
52:25
Company and they got a bronze for their engine 42 for an Irish
52:29
style red ale. I said they're eight winners.
52:32
I don't know some of the other breweries and don't don't know
52:35
enough to speak on them. So highlight of those because
52:38
they were kind of, you know, not local, but familiar to us.
52:43
And I'm going to pull out 11 Ohio winners.
52:47
I won't talk about all of them, but fret board out of Blue Ash 1
52:50
of bronze for their crazy trained Belgian style ale.
52:55
Pretty cool. Our friends Brink, not that we
52:59
know them, but we like them. They won a bronze out of
53:03
Cincinnati. They won a bronze for the Little
53:05
Zoomie, which I think you've had, and the Coffee Stout.
53:09
Yes, yes, I've had that and not the seal your Thunder, but they
53:14
won a gold for the moozy, which is really one of their
53:17
signature. And they have won, they have won
53:20
so many awards at at different beer events.
53:24
It, it's, it's funny because Brink, which is on the West side
53:28
of Cincinnati, not far from me, very close to our Cincinnati
53:32
correspondent, Liz, she would love to hear this because she,
53:37
she, she goes to Brink quite often.
53:39
And I'll tell you man, Brink does it well.
53:43
There were smaller brewery on the West side, but they do a lot
53:47
of great beer. Yeah, and that was that Muzi was
53:51
a sweet stout or cream stout category.
53:53
So it's actually a different category than the other one,
53:55
which is really cool. So it's great to hear.
53:58
And then Third Eye One Gold for their Scotch ale called Higher
54:02
Consciousness. So really cool places we're
54:05
familiar with. There are more winners in places
54:07
we might not be as familiar with, but some some that stood
54:10
out to us. Yeah, I often wonder too.
54:13
I I mean, obviously you want recognition and it's great to
54:18
win. I really wonder when, when these
54:22
breweries win these competitions, what it does for
54:25
their business. I mean, it's certainly not a
54:29
negative thing. You know, no, and, and I don't
54:31
know if I mentioned it's actually called the World World
54:33
Beer Cup. So it was 2025 version of it.
54:36
So that's a big one. And then I know after the Great
54:39
American Beer Fest in the fall, they kind of do the same thing
54:42
or some categories and things and beers are submitted by
54:46
different breweries and there are winners and things.
54:48
And that's a big deal too. So that's got to, it's got to
54:50
bolster some sales and get people interested in those
54:53
breweries for for when and making them, you know,
54:55
recognizable to people that might not have heard of them
54:58
before. Yeah, exactly.
55:00
We like people that we know winning things.
55:03
So congratulations to all of them.
55:06
Yeah, especially our buddy Nate up there at Half Batch.
55:11
Yeah, love half batch in a great place.
55:15
So Scott, recently we went to we we got invited to a fun event.
55:21
We went to tenfold over in Donaldson.
55:25
We love tenfold a great place. We talked about the, you know,
55:30
meeting up with Chad recently at the crazy gnome.
55:32
We didn't see him at tenfold today.
55:34
We were there because if he told me he's like I get up at 5:00 in
55:37
the morning, man, I'm not going to be there at 5:00 in the
55:39
afternoon. He's like, but there was a there
55:43
was a fun event that we recently went to at Tenfold and talk
55:48
about what that event was. Yeah, so there's a company in
55:52
Nashville called Nashville Brew Pass and they're on social media
55:55
as that Nashville Brew Pass and they have this, again, my
56:00
thing's blurry, but Nashville Brewery Passport and what it is,
56:04
is they put on event at Tenfold where if you registered with
56:08
Nashville Brew Pass, you automatically got a free flight
56:12
at Tenfold and you got 3 beers and they were really good beers.
56:15
They were predetermined, which was great and we got there and
56:20
they told us that it had 1200 people register.
56:24
Wow. When we got there, there was a
56:25
pretty good, there was a significant amount there already
56:27
of people so. Of course.
56:29
Great event, very cool. The easiest thing you had to do
56:31
was just was just show up. I mean, that was the hardest
56:33
thing you had to do. You registered and then you
56:34
just, your name was on the list and you got a free flight.
56:37
And then, but on top of that, what they're doing is they're
56:40
promoting this, this, this passport booklet.
56:42
And, and Steve, you and I both have one.
56:44
And when you go around Nashville and you go to one of these
56:47
brews, you get a stamp and it's, you know, it's like any
56:49
passport, you just try to collect them and get as many as
56:52
you can. And I only have one so far.
56:55
I just have the 10 fold. Stamp.
56:59
Although I did forget to bring it to crazy No the other day.
57:01
But anyway, so it's a really cool thing.
57:03
Shout out to those guys. Thank you for the book list.
57:05
I think it's a really cool thing that gets people involved in
57:08
going to breweries and you know, just something fun to do.
57:11
And shout out to Tyler, Lola and Megan who are part of the
57:16
Nashville Brew Pass and I met all of them.
57:19
I haven't met Megan. I've talked to her and she's the
57:21
one that sent us these and just shout out to them.
57:24
Thank you for that. It's a cool thing.
57:26
Check them out. They're on social media.
57:29
Get your booklet and also want to give Megan a shout out.
57:32
She's got a podcast. It's called We What we aim to
57:37
do, so give her a listen to. She's cool anyway, so that was
57:42
that was a cool thing. Yeah, it was great.
57:44
It was great meeting up with them.
57:45
And you know, we had a, we had a few minutes conversation with
57:48
Tyler that day. He was, yeah, he was a little
57:50
busy, but it was great meeting him as well.
57:53
And Nashville Brew Pass sounds like it's, it's another great
57:55
thing, you know, get people involved and get them out and
57:58
get the breweries. And I'll tell you what, man,
58:00
every time we go to Tenfold, I mean, I, I, I will, I will say
58:06
for people that have never been again, you live in Nashville,
58:09
you're listening to us, maybe out of state, you come to
58:12
Nashville. Tenfold is not in downtown
58:15
Nashville. It's a little bit of a suburb,
58:18
but you go there, you will not be disappointed.
58:21
The food is outstanding. The well, the beer is
58:24
outstanding. And I was going to say it
58:26
because that's my thought. The beer and the food are both
58:29
outstanding. It's not just your, you know, no
58:33
offense sometimes. And when you go to a place and
58:35
it's like we got, we got these pretzels over here.
58:40
We do they do some really higher end food and it's a it's a great
58:44
space. You can sit outside and it seems
58:47
like that's another place that they have really encompassed
58:50
what the brewery experience should be.
58:52
And so, you know, we love tenfold.
58:55
Yeah. And they pair, they they have
58:56
recommendations with the food with pairs well with the beer
59:00
right on the menu, right on there, which is it's great.
59:04
It's a great marketing thing. No, we did the podcast episode
59:07
of that because the first time I went there, I had had their
59:09
lobster roll, which again, I'm sure there are breweries across
59:13
the country that have lobster rolls, but I had the lobster
59:17
roll there and I remember we did the podcast.
59:19
I'm like, all right, So what would pair good with the
59:22
lobster? Yeah.
59:24
I think you put them on the spot dude.
59:26
You put them on the. Spot, they knew, but you know, I
59:31
again, I'm so fascinated by that conversation because when we had
59:35
Grayson on that crazy gnome and they're serving food now and I'm
59:38
like, all right, let's put you on the spot here like the Red
59:41
Hat Ale. What goes good with that?
59:44
Like what would go? And he knew.
59:45
Yeah. You know, I'm like.
59:47
It's so cool, you know, that they that they could sit there
59:50
and come up and go, OK, for that particular style of beer you
59:54
would want to get, you know, yeah.
59:55
So I think it's, I think it's a very fun conversation.
59:59
It is. It is.
1:00:00
And another cool thing about tenfold, you just mentioned
1:00:02
their location. They're in Donaldson.
1:00:03
If you're flying in or out of Nashville, it's near the
1:00:06
airport. It's actually to or from.
1:00:08
So it's actually. Even though it's not near
1:00:10
Nashville, I mean, it's near Nashville, but it's not in
1:00:12
Nashville. But man, if you're if you're
1:00:13
flying in Nashville, hey, that's actually ideal.
1:00:16
And if you're flying in during a rush hour, just go there and go
1:00:20
get yourself some dinner and go get yourself a couple of beers.
1:00:23
Let Nashville traffic downtown thin out, if that, if you're
1:00:26
heading that way. And then you know, and then
1:00:28
you'll have don't have to worry about it.
1:00:31
Yeah, exactly. Just hang out there for a while,
1:00:33
let it die down. So there you go.
1:00:34
Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's a great thing.
1:00:36
So did you know Steve, that May 7th is National Home Brewers
1:00:42
Day? Well, I see it on our Google
1:00:45
Sheets. I'm looking at it I'm.
1:00:47
Staring at it, and now I know because I did not know that that
1:00:54
was National Home Brewers Week. It's a home Brewer.
1:00:58
What are you going to be doing to celebrate?
1:01:00
Let's see, two days from now, Wednesday, I won't be brewing
1:01:03
because it's a Wednesday, but I'll be drinking beer.
1:01:05
How about that? I've got some beer made that I
1:01:08
have made. I will drink that beer.
1:01:11
Isn't there a certain beer that you've made that some of us
1:01:14
soon, because it ties into our Cincinnati trip that you made it
1:01:19
and some of us are going to be trying it soon?
1:01:23
Yes, and I failed to bring it up here tonight.
1:01:26
What was that? What's that?
1:01:28
What's that beer? Do you want it?
1:01:30
It's the style. We're going to call it a Skyline
1:01:33
Chili or a chili. I don't know if we can use the
1:01:37
word skyline on here, but it is a chili type.
1:01:41
Theme Chili. Theme Beard.
1:01:43
There you go, it's a brown ale. That two weeks was this past
1:01:49
Sunday and I have failed, which was yesterday.
1:01:52
I have failed to check on the beer to see if it's ready yet,
1:01:55
so when I get done with here I may go down and try it.
1:01:58
All right, and some of us have. Never.
1:02:01
Yeah, well, if you never hear about this beer again on this
1:02:03
podcast, you'll know it sucked. And if you never hear from us in
1:02:07
this podcast again, you know it really sucked.
1:02:13
They both tied with beer bottles sitting there.
1:02:16
We'll be on the news. Well, they had a chili beer and
1:02:20
then that was the end. That was the end.
1:02:22
It was a bad idea to begin with, but we had to try.
1:02:25
And we got to do it. We got to do it.
1:02:27
You know you only live once. I should have had an unveiling
1:02:30
before I came up here as as we brought one up, but I forgot
1:02:34
simply. That's OK, That's all.
1:02:37
Right, we'll say that for another day.
1:02:40
Hey, 111 more bit of news I want to share or or just put some
1:02:44
information out there. Craft Beer Week is May 12th
1:02:48
through May 18th. Plan accordingly.
1:02:52
Yes. And basically it's just, it's,
1:02:54
again, this is on the Brewers Association's website, but it's
1:02:57
kind of just making sure people in the craft beer community get
1:03:00
together and just support each other ultimately.
1:03:02
So if you go on their website though, they have some
1:03:05
downloadable stuff, like if you want to put some stuff on your
1:03:07
social media, some logos and some posters and action video
1:03:11
and stuff, we may do a little something for ours during that
1:03:13
week. We'll be participating in a lot
1:03:16
of craft beer. I think we may be.
1:03:18
Towards the end of that week there.
1:03:19
Might be some craft beer drinking around craft beer week.
1:03:23
Ideally, yeah. In a certain state, in a part of
1:03:27
the country. All right, that's exactly why we
1:03:29
planned the trip around that time.
1:03:31
Sure. Wanna make sure I should grab
1:03:34
your week. So just some fun shit.
1:03:36
There does seem to be a national something day every day, but not
1:03:42
necessarily beer related. But there's always something.
1:03:44
It's National Hot Dog Day or National Shiners Tuesday.
1:03:47
I don't know. I know National drink a beer
1:03:50
day, National do a podcast day. We were on a podcast, an episode
1:03:57
I think it was, with the foam he has, and it was National Whiskey
1:04:01
Day. So days like that I can get
1:04:02
behind. There's so many of them.
1:04:05
There's. So many of them when I when I
1:04:06
see things like that and I didn't know it was national home
1:04:09
Brewers, I put it in my calendar now as an annual reminder so
1:04:11
I'll never miss it. Great stuff, man, great stuff.
1:04:16
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we had a lot of fun on
1:04:20
this, right? Just various different things
1:04:22
and some randomness. Lot of great information, a lot
1:04:27
of great talk about beer and what we're going to be doing
1:04:31
soon. And you know what, Look forward
1:04:34
to our upcoming episode, this Cincinnati Takeover edition and
1:04:39
the Cleveland and Columbus Takeover Edition.
1:04:43
The state of Ohio is never going to be the same.
1:04:47
It will not. They will have to make a lot
1:04:49
more beer after we leave because we're going to drain a lot of
1:04:52
taps. You know, we've never done more
1:04:55
than A2 parter. This beer trip might end up more
1:04:58
than A2 parter. It may be a four parter.
1:05:00
It could be or just go on for days.
1:05:02
Well, it's gonna be epic. That's right, it will be.
1:05:07
It always is, and it will be again.
1:05:10
The next new episode you hear from us will be that one, won't
1:05:14
it? I think it will be, yeah.
1:05:15
I think it will be so the next time you hear from us for a new
1:05:18
episode, it will be that one if we survive it.
1:05:21
Enjoy some of our other episodes that we've done before that
1:05:24
we're gonna go back in the past and do with the Honey Tree
1:05:27
meatery and our friends from Deep South growlers in the
1:05:30
Nashville. So Yep, cool deal.
1:05:32
We will be back. Go out, everybody.
1:05:34
Yep, support your local breweries, drink beer, craft
1:05:39
beer, and cheers. So, got any beer left?
1:05:42
I got some, I got more in the cooler, but I got a little bit
1:05:44
left here. So we timed it just right, and
1:05:46
I'm gonna go # some more. I'm going to go # some more of
1:05:49
this Red Rye IPA from West Side Brewing in Cincinnati.
1:05:55
Was it good? Did you like it?
1:05:57
Oh yeah, I like it and probably will be getting there soon to
1:06:01
have even more. So.
1:06:03
Hey, man, I'm Steve. He's Scott the Chancellor Craft
1:06:06
beer. This has been the Brewery
1:06:09
Underground podcast.