Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / The BUPA Awards: Our 2025 Craft Beer Awards | Season 2 Finale | Episode 107

Transcript

The BUPA Awards: Our 2025 Craft Beer Awards | Season 2 Finale | Episode 107 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

0:10
Well, hello everybody, Spence Lamont here, special
0:14
correspondent assigned today to cover the Brewery Underground
0:18
podcast Year End Papa Awards. Stay tuned for a lot of great
0:23
stories, many even true, and some tasty cold craft beer.
0:29
Now back to you. Hello.
0:31
Hello. Hello and Happy New Year to
0:33
everybody. Yes, yes.
0:36
We are. You guys are no stranger to this
0:37
podcast. None of you has.
0:39
Spence been on before? In in in.
0:41
Not in that manner. I think Brad and Tom posted a
0:45
picture of him. Yeah, I don't think Spence has
0:47
ever. Made it back here cooler he's
0:49
been mentioning but. Well, this is our annual second
0:54
annual, I guess You're in review, BAPA Awards, the Brewery
0:58
Underground Podcast Awards, which is very prestigious.
1:02
Scott, how did you come up with that name, The Bapa?
1:05
Yeah, the root is really it just took all the letters of the
1:07
Brewery Underground podcast and just put them together and here
1:10
we are, the prestigious Bump Award.
1:12
So here we are. This is what we're doing
1:13
tonight. Well, that's fantastic.
1:15
It's fantastic. We, we have 10 categories of
1:19
beer styles that we're going to talk about, we're going to give
1:21
awards to right? And and it's the best beers in
1:26
the beer styles that we have in 2025, if that makes any sense.
1:31
And we didn't omit any. Some of the ones that we did not
1:35
include in this one is because we already had our top 10 beers
1:40
of the year and we didn't want to be redundant.
1:42
So some of the ones they were like, you know, stouts, maybe
1:46
sour fruiteds. We didn't.
1:47
We didn't include in some of those Ipas too.
1:50
We didn't want a lot of redundancy.
1:52
We. Didn't want a lot of redundancy.
1:53
Right, could be the same podcast over again.
1:55
But anyway. Twilight Zone podcast.
1:57
Yeah, we talk about enough of the same shit over again.
2:01
We should try not to do that again.
2:04
Anyway, welcome everybody to the second annual Bupa Awards.
2:09
I'd like to start out, and I mentioned this in the last Path
2:11
cast. Steve and I recorded Dry
2:14
January. Stupid.
2:16
Friends don't let friends do dry January.
2:18
Correct. No, Brad, you're going to do it
2:20
for a day. It's OK.
2:21
We'll allow that. Brad, are you, are you doing a
2:23
dry January? For a day, I'm not committed.
2:25
I'm not committed to a day. Maybe an hour you.
2:28
Know, I think. It's until it gets up.
2:31
We just we just got to see how you got to see how I feel.
2:35
You know at 12 O one right? I mean if you drink at 12 O.
2:39
Brad's sleeping hours from like maybe 10 O clock at night till
2:42
6:00 in the morning so that that that could include the dry
2:45
January, right? How old do you think I am?
2:47
I don't. Know no like I would love to be
2:50
in bed by 10 O clock but it usually doesn't happen.
2:54
Oh, OK. But on that night, you know it's
2:56
who knows, it may be an all nighter.
2:58
It could be. There might be some whiskey left
3:01
in the bottle that you can't, you know.
3:03
That's why you're wrong. They will not be.
3:07
Well, we, we've established we don't like a dry January and we
3:11
also don't like, we also don't like a dry end of the year
3:15
edition of the Brewery Underground podcast.
3:16
So you know what? I'm going to transition into
3:18
that and I'm going to tell you all what I'm drinking.
3:21
Tom influenced me on this this year.
3:24
I had it before, hadn't had it for a while.
3:27
And a bribe from tap brewing. Right there, best best holiday
3:31
beer. Yeah, the oh, best holiday beer
3:34
you'd like out there? For me, that's my favorite
3:37
Christmas beer. All right.
3:39
All right. Somebody's calling right now.
3:41
Do you even agree? No.
3:43
See that that means I won, right?
3:44
You won. You got they were supposed to.
3:48
Call you. This is sad caller.
3:54
Wait, I heard Spence was on the line?
3:56
Yeah. Well, I get old.
3:57
This is a great winter ale beer anyway.
4:00
No, Yeah. Listen, I, you know, I in all of
4:03
my travels, no. It whenever we go back and hit
4:06
every year, we try to find and, you know, they're always good.
4:09
But listen, I always talk about Santa's bride.
4:10
And I was afraid that when they closed down taps, but they sold
4:14
off to like a distributing company.
4:16
So they're still making it, but they're not, you know, brewing
4:17
it like they normally do. I thought that was the end of
4:20
it. And then it showed up on the
4:21
shelf this Christmas and it's still as good as ever.
4:25
Just a perfect recipe with a little nutmeg, a little molasses
4:28
in there. It's it doesn't get too dark and
4:30
heavy, but it's, it's just sweet enough.
4:32
Love it. The last time I checked this in
4:35
was in 2023 and at the time I rated it a 3.5 O on tab, so
4:40
let's see if we can do a little bit higher.
4:43
Yeah. Thank you.
4:44
I know, Tom, what are you drinking?
4:45
But right now I'm actually drinking a just a slap in the
4:49
face. It's a Great Lakes Christmas Ale
4:51
because I can buy. It right here do.
4:54
You know who wants that? There's these nice movies not
4:56
have an account in. Tennessee once again, if, if you
5:00
need me to snowman and bandit, if you need us to bring this
5:03
down. But you know we can do that.
5:04
We can. Hey Bob in there.
5:06
Their Irish stuff is just come, I don't know if it's out yet
5:08
that Conway, the Conway and then they get like an Irish lager and
5:11
stuff so. Conway's great.
5:13
Scoop some on the way through here next that later on this
5:16
week would be great. I don't know if it's physically
5:18
out yet though. Listen on on one condition.
5:22
When I get there, I want the two you dressed as big and little
5:25
Enos. I'm.
5:25
Gone. How you doing it seems like a
5:27
hat. A couple of hats.
5:29
White jackets, white hats. Whichever one of them says Daddy
5:32
is going to be funny. Anyway, how?
5:36
How is it now that you've taken a sip?
5:38
Good. Yes, Great, Awesome.
5:40
I really worked. Out liking the Santos bride
5:42
quite a bit and probably it's probably more worthy of a of a
5:45
higher rating now which is always a good thing whenever you
5:48
drink beer, you know a couple couple years after you've had it
5:51
and you say do I like this more now?
5:53
Yes. So here you go, Liz.
5:55
Yes. What do you what do you check it
5:57
in tonight? Well, I'm currently double
5:59
fisting like any good podcaster should.
6:02
In one corner I have Bailey's and coffee, you know, on sale at
6:06
Kroger's. The other day was the chocolate
6:08
Bailey's, so I had to go for it. And then in the other corner I
6:11
can't. You can't see the can, but it's
6:13
a little Scentsy light from Rygeist.
6:15
Yay. Go back.
6:16
And now y'all got to support rap.
6:18
Rap. Don't say.
6:19
One of America's favorite breweries to run, guys.
6:22
You know, supporting locals, supporting my Bearcats.
6:25
They play in a bowl game on Friday.
6:27
Go Bearcats. Go Bearcats.
6:29
Nice. All right, Brad.
6:31
UT is playing the Music City Bore right now so I just got to
6:34
throw that inside. Aren't you glad you're not
6:37
there? I see.
6:37
What you did there because both teams are crappy shades of
6:41
orange to be honest with. You right and both teams are
6:43
very boring at this moment, which is fine by me.
6:46
Brad, you go ahead. Sorry.
6:47
Yeah, no, so I'm it's delicious. One of my faves and from
6:52
Northern Kentucky, the winter ale from wooden cask.
6:56
It's it's still it's you know, my favorite non Christmas winter
7:00
beer. I think it's delicious.
7:03
Love it yeah. I wouldn't cast man.
7:05
I'll, you know, flight me up. I'll I'll get on board every
7:09
time with a lot of. Stuff that they throw out there
7:12
for sure. Under the radar cool spot.
7:15
And did you get that from the the party source when you were
7:17
up there? No, believe it or not, we we
7:19
were in Cincinnati and just happened to that was on the list
7:26
of places to stop in and we did. And it was like, Oh well, we're,
7:30
we just canned a bunch of our winter ale that we haven't even
7:32
put out on the shelves yet to, to stores and like, can we have
7:36
some and right place, right time.
7:40
And they hooked us up so. They said let let me check if I
7:43
can sell it to you and they went to the back and they came out
7:45
with 2-6 packs and said you all are the 1st to buy this of the
7:49
season anywhere. Yeah.
7:51
So you got the freshest? That's right.
7:53
Excellent, excellent, excellent. Well, Scott, we know that you
7:56
have not had any beer to drink today.
7:59
I can. For this week.
8:01
Yeah, you have not had any beer to drink today.
8:05
Nope, you weren't a tailgate a few hours ago drinking beer.
8:08
That wasn't me, OK? It was just a guy that looked
8:11
like you it. Was.
8:13
Yeah, right. Remember that song by Shaggy?
8:14
It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
8:17
And what? And what do you and what do you
8:18
have by the way? Or what?
8:19
What are you? I'm starting now and believe it
8:21
or not, Grist has actually a relatively new beer out and it's
8:24
called Beach Peach from their health series and it is a fruit
8:28
of sour brewed with banana, Peach, coconut and lime puree.
8:32
And it's actually really pleasant.
8:33
It's not as sour as you think, has a little tartness to it very
8:36
good, and is pretty, pretty new from Southern Grist.
8:39
As we know, their story is Zul is coming to town, but the fact
8:42
that they're putting out new beer is still pretty cool.
8:44
Guys, I'm starting off the year kind of excited because it's not
8:49
necessarily a dry January for me.
8:51
We're going to be a dry 2026. I am now a Mud Club member at
8:55
Tailgate Brewery. Thanks to Scott, thanks to
8:58
Richard from the Foamy Heads. Yep, they they got me a
9:01
membership. And we're utilize it in the most
9:04
in the best day, the last Tuesday of every month.
9:07
Every beer on the board is $1.00.
9:10
If you're a Mud Club member, one friggin dollar.
9:12
What was your tab today when you cashed out, Steve?
9:15
One freaking doll nose. No, I think it's only like
9:19
$7.00, something like that it. Could have been that much
9:22
because you only had three beers.
9:24
No, I know that much. Calculator there, yes, but it's
9:26
fantastic. So you get a free, you get $1.00
9:30
beer every beer on the board the last Tuesday month and then
9:32
every Tuesday during the month, one beer on the board is $1.00.
9:36
So it's pretty fucking great Mug Club membership.
9:38
So Congrats to you on your Mug Club membership.
9:40
Well. Thank you.
9:41
Your mug. Do they keep your mug or do you
9:43
get to bring it home? No, they just, they just give
9:45
you a mug club mug when you get there's no particular mug for
9:48
you so. You can't show and tell your mug
9:50
right now, no. Yeah, that is listen, listen,
9:53
it's always preferable if you got the place where you got a
9:56
mug either in a cubby or your own mug.
9:58
But then again, you know the ones that where you just go in
10:01
and you just get the bigger mug, but they charge you the regular
10:03
price. Yeah, that's not.
10:05
That's just fine too. Right it's one thing one less
10:07
thing you kind of have to keep up with two at the same time,
10:09
right. Give me the mug.
10:10
As long as you give me the right size, I'm good.
10:12
So all right, do you want to dive in?
10:15
We've got 10 categories. We've got 10 beer styles we're
10:17
going to give bump awards to tonight, Steve.
10:20
Yes, Sir. And we, we, we have, we're both
10:23
giving awards for the same styles, different beers,
10:27
different breweries and this, you know, between the two of us.
10:29
But let's go through the categories real quick.
10:32
We don't go through the beers. We'll go through the categories
10:33
real quick if you want. Well, and as I said earlier, we
10:36
broke these down in categories and we know there's a ton of
10:41
different categories for beer. We already know that.
10:44
And if people go back and of course you will want to go back
10:48
to our top 10 beers of the year. There were some other categories
10:51
that we didn't throw into this one because they were like, that
10:54
would be redundant. So we, we went into the favorite
10:57
ale category, the favorite box category, favorite blonde,
11:02
Kolsch loggers, dark loggers, light logger, Oktoberfest,
11:06
Pilsner, Porter and wheat beer. And we knew Scott and I were
11:10
talking about this. It's like you could go all over
11:13
the place when it comes to like the logger category, the AL
11:16
category. I mean, there's so many
11:18
different ones. And no, we did not include any
11:21
Ipas in there because there were a lot of Ipas.
11:24
They were included on our overall top 10 beers.
11:26
But if the three of you have favorites in those categories,
11:30
certainly you know if it's something that stands out for
11:32
you. Like we'd love to know too.
11:34
Yeah, chime in. Yeah, the I, PS and stouts are
11:37
literally left out on purpose. You're going to be like, where
11:41
are those? They would have been redundant
11:43
in our top 10 beers of the year episode.
11:45
So just trying to mix things up and trying to find some other
11:48
things so. Would a would an IPA count as an
11:51
ale if you wanted to throw it in that?
11:54
Like, you know, even though it's its own entity and wild,
11:58
technically it's in the name of it, right?
12:00
Yes, yes, it it. And to be clear, there are only
12:03
two types of beer, two kinds of beer, hills and loggers.
12:09
Everything falls under those two kinds of beers.
12:12
Now there are styles within each of those.
12:14
You know, your loggers go one side, your stouts and and IPS
12:17
and all stuff that's all in your ails.
12:19
So yes, there's a lot of subcategories.
12:21
There's a lot of debate we could do.
12:23
We didn't want to get but. But yes, you are 100% correct,
12:27
we just didn't want. To do want to get into the
12:29
barley is that you don't want to get into the hot.
12:31
A lot of our beers that we would have had if we left Ipas would
12:33
have been the same ones on our about 10 beers of the year kind
12:37
of things. We're just trying to mix it up a
12:39
little bit and make it a little bit different, that's all.
12:41
So we left those out purposely. However, however, you might see
12:45
a little crossover so as we get into this thing.
12:48
So anyway, so there's if that makes any fucking sense
12:51
whatsoever. And if it doesn't, it's our
12:53
podcast. Is.
12:56
This the non alcoholic beer podcast.
12:59
The what? The Non Alcoholic Beer podcast.
13:01
Oh no, no, we're going to edit this part out.
13:04
Hey you know what, I do have a quick story about a non
13:07
alcoholic beer I just recently had for the first time and it
13:10
was from Rhine guys I had the. Do tell.
13:14
I picked it up. It was kind of accidentally.
13:17
I was in a hurry when I was up there in December, Liz, when you
13:20
saw me and I went to, I had gone to Jungle Jim's and I looked
13:24
over and I saw the Rhine Guys I hadn't had before.
13:27
So I just grabbed it and I took it home.
13:28
I got it home and realized I was not an alcoholic beer, so I
13:31
drank it anyway. It was the Rhine guys, ghost
13:34
pills, and I can't say I'll ever drink it again, but you know.
13:38
What was your rating on on tax? I didn't rate it.
13:42
Yeah, terrible buzz. Yeah.
13:44
He's not recovered yet. I have not no.
13:47
Since that time I have not recovered.
13:48
And if you know Steve, he doesn't rate if he if he
13:51
doesn't, that's a certain point. He just won't put a rating on it
13:54
at all. It was challenging.
13:56
It was challenging, but you know, it was a non alcoholic
13:59
beer so it was all right. That's not an endorsement at all
14:02
in. Any way?
14:04
Or alcoholic or non. Alcoholic, but does it have to
14:08
be? But if somebody, but if somebody
14:10
likes it, that's OK. Yeah, Untapped gives you in
14:12
their recap of the year, they give you like kind of your
14:15
highest ratings and they give you your lowest ratings.
14:17
And Steve's lowest ratings were anything past 3.2 because he
14:20
chooses not to rate them past 3.2.
14:23
So. Man.
14:24
His lowest? Rating. 3.2 yeah, I know it's
14:27
being nice, it's really. Funny, agree with that.
14:29
If you don't have any something nice to say it doesn't make it
14:31
on my Instagram feed either so I I agree with that.
14:33
Good job, Steve. I don't know, TomTom, you may
14:37
disagree. I'm going to the bottom, going
14:41
to the bottom. In our top ten episode, The Top
14:44
10 beers of the Year, we did the three that of the four that we
14:48
did of the blind taste and came up on my lowest of the year .5
14:52
point, 5.5 point. I I have a 1.5.
14:58
I didn't even read this in. Did you guys know about this or
15:01
it was one of them was a Heineken and the other one was
15:04
Colt 45 and what were the other two?
15:08
Labatt Ice and there was another ice on there too.
15:14
First off, it's an insult. It's an insult to use untapped
15:19
to rank, you know, a Bush light. I mean, well, First off, it
15:23
shouldn't even be on there. It's all I got changed.
15:26
In fraternities and they untapped is not on their radar
15:30
because if it ain't Natty Light or you know, whatever the
15:36
brothers bought them at the tailgate, I mean, they ain't
15:39
even. That's different.
15:40
Hey, that's hey, and, and in college, good beers are free
15:44
beers. I mean that that's all that
15:45
matters. Right.
15:46
Oh baby. Yeah, now my my lowest one ever
15:49
is a 1.5. That's the lowest grade I've
15:52
ever get. Lowest ever?
15:53
What is that one? Geez, I don't want to insult the
15:56
roads. Hoof hearted no.
15:58
Way. Yes, thank you.
16:00
On July 9th of this year I walked into Hoof Hearted Hoof
16:05
Heart and I had Tickling the Ivories and IPA and New England
16:09
Hazy IPA and the A did not stand for ale, it stood for ass.
16:15
Let me see if I. By the way, my second lowest
16:18
rated beer of all time is also from Hoof Hearted on the same
16:22
visit. It was a terrible visit to Hoof
16:24
Hearted. Now listen, I went to one
16:27
location and it's the only time I've ever been there.
16:29
I'm not saying they don't have great beers, but that day it was
16:32
not spectacular. He went there and he went.
16:34
Who bought it? Give me the hell out of here.
16:37
My second lowest one was a 2 point O and it was a Mexican
16:40
logger and I love a good Mexican logger so they ruined that
16:43
though. Wow you must have run in on a
16:45
bad day because that overall rating on tickling ivory is 4
16:48
point O 6 and I gave her 3.9 so there was some.
16:51
May have also been my third or fourth stop of the day.
16:54
OK. He was mad at something or
16:56
somebody and he. No, I wasn't mad.
16:59
I was just getting real honest. You do have a tell, don't you?
17:05
Tell him. Yeah.
17:05
I think you've ever said this before.
17:07
You're like, all right, this one.
17:07
Everything's great. Everything's great.
17:09
And you start getting pointed. Like, you know what?
17:10
Start. Pissed me off Brett always says
17:12
because if I'm out somewhere or out of town and and he can tell
17:16
when I the 1st place I go to versus like third place because
17:19
there's no intricacies to my reviews anymore The.
17:22
Filter that he thinks he has is no longer.
17:26
There. Well, sometimes you just go to a
17:28
place after a couple other places after the places that you
17:31
went were really good and then you go into those and that and
17:34
that place and you go, yeah, I'm just not feeling it.
17:37
I've been to other places that I've had the great beer and here
17:41
I am now and it's just a let down today.
17:43
Right. Yeah.
17:44
That's why we never. That's why in most cases we try
17:47
to give those those places a second chance at some point.
17:50
Not always. We've never had a bad review.
17:54
I'm so terrible at untapped, like I'm in a diff.
17:57
You all are in another league. I I can't I never I always think
18:00
of it after the fact. I'm just I'm not that good at
18:03
it. But but y'all are I mean you're
18:06
all obviously you guys have done it.
18:09
It's part of the game. Liz, are you, are you untapped
18:13
all in or? I have my photo on my phone that
18:17
tell me where I've been and what beers I've drank because I photo
18:21
document everything. So that's that's my version of
18:24
myself on my phone for untapped. All around Instagram every day
18:27
and bubbling you can see some great videos.
18:29
Yes, that is also my untapped is where I've been.
18:32
I will say yeast infection brew works has never had a bad rate.
18:36
Never. I won't allow it.
18:40
Can we get those cans somewhere? Yeah, we could.
18:43
We could change that. We.
18:44
Want to get to start producing those cans, Scott?
18:46
Would drink that stick? Yeah, I mean.
18:48
What happens when Tom drinks that at the end of the day?
18:51
And he's been to five breweries already.
18:53
I get AI get a .5 is what I get. Or could be amazing.
18:59
It could be amazing, yeah. We need to brew.
19:00
We need it. We we, we need to find a a beer
19:04
for Tom, like the Get Off My Lawn Guy beer or something.
19:07
Lawn chair hot rod. Speaking of lawn chair hot rod,
19:10
I don't think I even ranked it because I don't that that one,
19:14
that one would be a below a 1.5. Thanks.
19:16
Ryan Geist. I think Ryan Geist makes that
19:18
beer and not it's, it's shocking that not only do they make it,
19:21
but they sell it in cans and distribute it because I'm
19:24
convinced it's like that one chip challenge.
19:26
You know, I, I'm convinced it's only out there as a dare.
19:29
Yeah, that's funny. Let's see, let's find our
19:32
suckers. Let's see if you can drink this.
19:35
Dry gum in January, is that what you're saying?
19:37
Oh. My gosh, that is so hilarious.
19:40
Well, Scott, you know, talking about, as you mentioned, our
19:43
categories, let's talk about a couple of them here.
19:46
We'll rank them in. So number one for me when I
19:49
mentioned we ranked favorite ales now, because all of us,
19:53
this isn't the sole reason I rank this in, but all of us have
19:56
been there. Darkness Brewing in Newport, KY,
20:00
ranked that as my. Favorite ale of the year, The
20:02
Hot Rolo, which is a the. Hot Rolo point. 4% beer.
20:08
I rated that a 4.25 and untapped.
20:11
Yeah, yeah. That's excellent.
20:13
And they do a lot of great beers.
20:15
And, you know, Brad and Tom, you guys a couple of years ago kept
20:18
talking to me about you got to get the darkness.
20:21
You got to get the darkness. And I was glad that, you know,
20:24
we finally been there. I've been there a couple Times
20:26
Now and I know Scott's been there once.
20:28
When you picked favorite ale, how did you determine that in
20:32
untapped or because ale is? Yeah, I just went, I just went
20:38
in. It's kind of like what we said
20:39
before. I know of all of the ale
20:41
categories. We we we talked about this just
20:44
to break it down, I'm going instead of going into 7000
20:49
different ale categories, let's just go into your overall
20:53
ranking of your number one ale, whatever it is.
20:56
And so that one one for me make my #1.
21:00
You're picking one of 1000 different places you can pick
21:02
from. So that's very good.
21:03
So that's really high, high praise.
21:06
Let me do this, this this play. Let's see.
21:10
They weren't. OK.
21:11
So the Bump award goes to Darkness for Steve's favorite
21:16
ale. My bump award for favorite ale
21:20
goes to Treehouse Brewing out of Boston.
21:24
It's called Chain Reaction 9% for separate rating.
21:27
It's a triple New England IPA. And Brad, to your point earlier,
21:31
look, man, I tried to to avoid the Ipas couldn't do it.
21:35
This did not make my top ten list, but only because I had
21:39
another 4.7 rating from Treehouse and I just had to like
21:42
pick one. You know what I mean?
21:44
But but this is really high. It is a nail, right?
21:47
And it's I just had to pick it. So I picked juice machine and my
21:49
other one, the BOP award goes to my favorite ale Treehouse
21:53
brewing chain reaction. So just going to it's going to
21:56
throw that out there. It's fucking phenomenal.
21:58
Raul brought that down over the summer and cheers to him for
22:02
bringing that in plus to them our studio.
22:05
Audience is great tonight. Yeah, yeah.
22:08
Do you? Guys don't laugh at a single
22:10
joke though. The ill category guys like what
22:15
do you think because I get 1000 different directions.
22:17
Anything stand out to any of you guys along the way in 2025?
22:22
I went total opposite kind of in that category and Rhine Geist
22:28
has bubbles, which is a fruit of ale.
22:30
So I thought if we're going to go out there, it's actually one
22:34
of my favorites there. I.
22:35
You know, I'm only shaking my head because you are absolutely
22:37
correct. It is in that category.
22:40
So somebody had to represent the underrepresented and say that,
22:44
yeah, I like my name, I like things bubbling, so I'm going
22:49
with bubbles. The funny thing about bubbles is
22:52
we can all sit here and make fun of bubbles.
22:55
What's so good? Yeah.
22:57
And it was. Holiday one that tasted like
22:59
Christmas and it was amazing and I meant to buy it in the tap
23:02
room and I should have because every store does not have it.
23:05
So that's shame on me for not getting it when I went to Ryan
23:09
Guys for Dad Day and not picking up some of the holiday bubbles.
23:12
Well, bubbles still remains one of the top sellers for Ryan guys
23:16
and I'm sure even those that brew the bubbles probably sit
23:19
there and shake their heads sometime thinking how can this
23:22
possibly be? But it's work for them, and it
23:25
continues to. Yeah, I wonder.
23:27
I wonder where Bubbles is on Steve's list.
23:30
It's OK. I'm representing and I'm very
23:32
excited. I love them and I love all their
23:35
varieties. They have some mango, they have
23:37
cherry, they had the holiday wine.
23:40
It was delightful. Got to mix it up.
23:41
You know, OK, all good. Different strokes for different
23:44
folks. Brad, Tom, you got any insight
23:46
on this category? They did not pick bubbles.
23:49
I do, I have. Listen, if I just go by my
23:52
untapped rankings for 2025, without a doubt the highest
23:57
ranked ale I had is the Salted Caramel Brown Ale from Narrow
24:02
Path in Loveland, OH. Holy shit.
24:05
All right, that sounds fantastic.
24:07
It is, it is. It was really good.
24:10
Worth the apply. Bubbles didn't get a clap.
24:12
Not yet. We're saving for the end.
24:14
Go back to bubbles, everybody. Bubbles, everybody.
24:17
Crickets. Crickets.
24:19
Thank you. Whoa.
24:25
Won't do the whole episode, I'm sorry.
24:27
That's that's the thing, like there's a must.
24:30
And again, so I it's different and Scott, I go there's a
24:34
gravely brewing here in Louisville and their channel
24:36
orange IPA is delicious. And like that was the first
24:40
thing I thought of as a you know, when, when there wasn't
24:43
IPA on the list and without going into the weeds there, but
24:47
it's delicious. But again, back to wooden cast,
24:50
the great Scott, which is the rye whiskey barrel aged Scotch
24:55
ale, just like it's candy, you know, and that that was what I
24:59
was looking for. So that was that was kind of the
25:01
those two were the ones I thought of in the ale category
25:04
for me. So anyway, but again, I didn't
25:06
go back through my untapped to look at that because that was
25:09
useless. We'll see what the audience
25:13
thinks of that I. Probably.
25:16
I probably rate Brad Spears on Untapped more than he does
25:19
because I might be here. Let me have a sip of that and
25:20
then I'll rate it. And he will.
25:22
They're going. What the heck?
25:23
What the heck? Yeah.
25:24
Well, there you go. Well, you know, moving on to the
25:27
the Bach category. You bought Bach.
25:30
Yes. Go ahead.
25:31
No, go ahead. I was.
25:32
I love this category. Continue.
25:33
Yes, I was going to say Bach, Bach, Bach Bach is such a great
25:38
category too. And this one Masthead Brewing in
25:42
Cleveland, OH, I actually did not have have this at the
25:45
brewery. Scott, I think you did when you
25:47
were there. We went up there and I had
25:50
gotten a flight of other things and then you I looked over and
25:53
like you're drinking a Bock. Why am I not drinking this?
25:56
And ended up getting in the can later.
25:58
So this is a a 7.8% beer doppelbock.
26:03
And I rated that one A4 on untapped.
26:06
And man, masthead does a lot of great beers anyway.
26:09
And that one was. Really, really good.
26:10
So so masthead. Congratulations on the boppa.
26:14
Yes. I would do the clapping, but
26:17
might get a little old. It's well, I'll save it for
26:19
others. Well, congratulations on that.
26:20
I love this category. And look again, it's our
26:24
podcast. We could create any the list any
26:26
way we want to. I have a three-way tie is what
26:28
I'm getting at for this category.
26:30
And they're all local Nashville. And I was like, you know what,
26:33
fuck it, they're all getting up here.
26:36
Three-way Tie Gothic spring by failure force, barrel Aged
26:40
Doppelbock by Black Abbey Brewing Company and Eichenbach
26:44
by Barik, all Nashville breweries, all got a 4.2 in
26:48
untapped and I had them. Here's the cool thing, I think I
26:51
had them in three different seasons.
26:52
I had one in May and the spring I had one in June and then I had
26:55
one in November. So they all hit at different
26:58
times of the year and all were great and fantastic.
27:00
And I don't know that it is the doppelbock is a year round style
27:03
of beer, but I had them in three different seasons basically.
27:06
And freaking love. But that's why all three were up
27:08
there for me. So congratulations to all three.
27:11
You're all getting awards. You're all getting a Papa.
27:13
They're all getting. Awards and whatever.
27:15
They're all getting the same award.
27:17
Listen, they'll have to share. 11 gets one in the spring, one
27:20
gets one in the summer, one gets one in the fall.
27:22
So Liz, anything in the in the Bach category that stands out to
27:26
you in 2025? Well, I don't have a particular
27:29
favorite. I have a particular favorite
27:32
festival, which is the Bach Fest Festival in Cincinnati.
27:36
So they're actually having their 34th annual this March 6th
27:40
through 8th and it's all around OTR and it's sponsored I think
27:46
by moreline Rhine guys to northern row.
27:49
And basically it's just the tradition of spring and come
27:53
drink all the Bach beer and you can and eat all the pretzels and
27:56
have all the fun. So basically who needs a flight?
27:59
Because you can just keep brewery hopping and keep getting
28:02
more beer. So that is my favorite Bach
28:05
fest, and it's a time to sample all what's new in the creative
28:09
craft beer industry in Cincinnati for Bach beer.
28:12
And there's a parade on Friday night.
28:14
You know what that deserves? Get off every.
28:18
Pickup really making up for the bubbles.
28:19
Down, everybody. Settle down people, we just got.
28:22
Started. But yeah, if you haven't been,
28:25
you should go. It's a fun time.
28:26
Yeah, not a bad beer in the house.
28:28
Excellent, excellent hilltappers.
28:30
You got anything on the on the Bach category?
28:33
Yeah, actually. So I was going to say something
28:36
very similar. Listen, we have a Bach fest here
28:39
in Louisville and it's in the gentrified area, like Over The
28:41
Rhine. We call it Nulu, NULU, Nulu and
28:46
and it's like the third week of March.
28:48
The tailspin beer fest is the first week of March and it's
28:51
freezing cold as as Scott can tell you, but then two weeks
28:54
later is new Bach fest and it's almost always gorgeous.
28:57
It's you know, it's a light jacket almost it's it's totally
29:00
bearable. But anyway, we we went this year
29:03
and so I got to try a lot of box there and honorable mention to
29:08
arise what can be like a hurricane.
29:10
But without a doubt the winner was somebody that we've recently
29:15
given a second chance to and I've now starting to go there
29:19
almost regularly now. Akasha Brewing and theirs was
29:25
GOTY Mick Bach face. That's a great name.
29:28
Gordie Mick Bach Face was without a doubt the best Bach
29:31
beer I had at the festival. Wow.
29:33
Do you recall what you might have given that on tap?
29:35
Like probably a very high rating, right?
29:37
I'm I'm not going to lie, I did not rate that one.
29:41
He. Pulled a Brad.
29:42
He did not rate I. Did I Did.
29:44
But I knew my answer. I mean that that's that was
29:47
simply the best Bach beer I had. So I'd like to try it again to
29:50
give a number to it, But from my memory of this year, that's the
29:53
best Bach I had. Love it, love it, love it.
29:55
I think it's a really underappreciated style.
29:58
They are out there, but to have Tubac Fest and two different
30:02
city, that's pretty cool. I don't think we've got one here
30:03
that I'm aware of in Nashville. I don't think so either, no.
30:06
Very cool. I would love to attend one of
30:08
those. Brad, you got something on the
30:09
box? No, no.
30:12
No, what? He said that that worked.
30:15
Hey, he was with me. Both.
30:17
He's had both. Of those, he'll agree those were
30:20
great. I was there, Cotton.
30:23
Well, before we before we get to our next category, I do have to
30:27
talk about something Liz just mentioned a brewery in Over The
30:32
Rhine called Northern Row and we have them coming up on a future
30:36
episode, which we're really excited about and she's going to
30:38
come back on with us because we were there.
30:41
It was kind of a fun night in December when Liz and I, we went
30:44
to Northern Row and it was kind of unexpected.
30:47
All I did was when I was in there was walk up to the beer
30:50
tender and I said, hey, can you put the brewery on the ground
30:52
sticker on your little beer cooler back there?
30:55
And she brought the general manager over and he christened
30:58
it for us. And next thing I know, he says
31:00
to me, do you have about another 10 minutes to stick around?
31:03
Do we have another 10 minutes to stick around?
31:06
And he took us down. Liz, you can, you can expand on
31:10
this. He took us down, down, down into
31:12
where they they put all their beer and they have all their
31:15
distribution. And we're going to get more out
31:18
of that when we bring them on in the podcast, I think in
31:20
February. But that was a really good talk.
31:22
Yeah, originally I was trying to come up with some fun Christmas
31:26
things to do in Cincinnati for Steve and what what Scream
31:29
Christmas and Northern Row had come paint your own ornaments.
31:34
So arts and crafts. You could arts and crafts at the
31:36
same time. I drank she craft.
31:38
I I crafted. I just drank the craft beer.
31:41
I didn't actually do the crafting.
31:42
I did that too, but I also was arting well, crafting.
31:45
And then Steve got to the sticker part.
31:47
But yeah, it was really awesome and got a little behind the
31:51
scenes tour. So, you know, it's one of those
31:53
things that you just follow where the night takes you.
31:56
And we ended up in some underground logger ring tunnels.
31:59
So it was really, really cool. Yeah.
32:02
So if you're ever in Cincinnati, Northern Rd. does offer tours.
32:05
You can look them up, you can take learn about the history of
32:08
the building. It's very historical and he was
32:12
going through, we didn't even make it 10 feet before he could
32:14
point out another historical artifact or it.
32:17
It was very unique. So a very cool spin and surprise
32:20
on the evening. Yeah, we're going to have him on
32:22
in a few months. They're looking, looking forward
32:24
to that, but I had to throw that in there.
32:26
Hey, our next category is favorite Blonde of the Year and
32:31
mine there is a brewery that the Hill Tappers are going to be
32:34
going to here soon when they come to Nashville.
32:38
This is from Tenfold and this is you're the only 10 I see.
32:42
And this is their their Blonde Gold Nail, a 5.2% ale that I
32:47
ranked A4 on untapped. And Scott actually had that.
32:49
I remember I had that at Predsfest this year.
32:53
OK, check that in. Yeah, yeah, when they were there
32:56
and it was the name of that. Really the name of that pair
32:58
sounds like a pick up line. By the way, I.
33:01
Know. I may have used that on top of 2
33:04
now. Sounds like a beer they had at
33:05
the Derby. Yeah, well, congratulations to
33:10
Tenfold for that. I didn't realize when it said
33:12
Favorite Blonde that it was a beer category.
33:15
I had a couple other names written down but.
33:18
Yeah, here we go. Well, you thought it was blonde
33:20
with a beach house. You know the rails.
33:23
We thought it was going to be that.
33:26
She did not need a beach house. I'm.
33:27
Kidding, that sounded like lyrics in a country music song.
33:30
To be honest with you, I thought that beer was a blonde headed
33:35
coin. I mean, is that where you're
33:36
going with this? I was, yeah.
33:38
I've not finished the song yet, but you, you're picking up on
33:41
some of it. It's a long time ago, actually.
33:43
This is going to be cool. You might not realize.
33:45
I did not realize this hotel was looking into my Into the
33:48
Untapped and the blonde category.
33:50
My blonde favorite blonde of the year goes to KBS.
33:52
So it's founders KBS but it's the ice lot Say believe it or
33:56
not, it's a blonde golden ale. I did not realize that did.
34:00
Not realize that either. Yeah, because KBS you think
34:03
stouts, but this was not that. This was a golden ale.
34:06
Blonde golden ale, 11 percent, 4.2 rating, outstanding beer.
34:11
I remember it, just did not realize it was not a style
34:14
honestly because where all the KBSS are.
34:18
I haven't had that one yet either.
34:19
In fact, I think I gave that the rich of the foamy heads because
34:22
we were talking today at tailgate about having another
34:25
KBS episode because we all have had so many and those things are
34:29
really strong. Yeah, again.
34:32
Yeah. You know, it's it's it's
34:33
Kentucky Bourbon Stout. This was not a stout ice latte.
34:35
It was a blonde golden ale. So it shocked me, but man, it
34:38
was it was up there. So congratulations to founders.
34:42
Like they needed another award, but they got one.
34:44
Any any blonde stand out to you? 3 in 2025.
34:48
As the dark beer drinker of this group, no.
34:51
No. No, but I do have some stouts on
34:56
that list, yeah. I mean, I get that.
35:00
I actually had a tie on this one.
35:02
The first one I'll mention is to bow your heads, Listerman
35:07
Brewing. Cheers, right?
35:10
Yeah, cheers to Listerman. Right.
35:12
Just when they become my favorite brewery in Cincinnati,
35:15
they're gone. But they had a lemon pound cake
35:21
blonde golden ale that was delicious.
35:23
I don't know how much I can drink of it, but man, that one
35:26
was just absolutely great. Tom, I used to.
35:30
I think I had told you when we went there, I had had that like
35:33
4 times over the years. Every time I went there and I
35:36
saw it on their menu, I always checked it in.
35:38
It was fantastic and it tied with another golden blonde ale
35:43
from Darkness Brewing. It's La Fonda.
35:46
La Fonda is a 5.7 like I said, golden ale and it was fantastic.
35:51
Got a 425 out of me. I had to give Lafonda an 8.
35:55
She's pretty hot. Sorry, that was a different.
35:58
That was a movie. Another lyric to the song he's
36:01
working on, no. No.
36:03
I'll be right back. I'll be right back.
36:06
Hey, no, I don't have anything. I don't have anything in this
36:09
category or in the coast. But so I went rogue and and I
36:12
went Shandy, I went Shanley Radler to the to the Sonder
36:17
divot, OK. That's.
36:19
A good one. Honorable mention for something.
36:23
Right, like. This beer is.
36:24
Why not? Yes.
36:26
The audience agrees. On that I will second bread on
36:28
that that was my favorite discovery well, I had two
36:32
favorite discoveries of the summer and that was one of them
36:34
and I had it at a festival in Cincinnati and I was like this
36:37
is quintessential summer yes that one right there yes, look
36:41
at that can art that's. A great beer.
36:44
I heard it. He was like, I got one, I got.
36:46
One listen, I always said when I saw that I was like, this is
36:49
it's a it's an Arnold Palmer ale.
36:52
So it's a lemonade and iced tea beer essentially.
36:56
I said that's either an abomination or a revelation.
36:59
And so I had to buy it because I just like, this is going to be
37:02
terrible. And it was like the best summer
37:04
beer ever. So good.
37:05
Yes, I remember you talking about that previously.
37:07
I don't know if it's on this podcast or just us talking
37:09
amongst ourselves, but I do remember you talking about that.
37:11
Yeah. Awesome.
37:12
Hey, great all around. Good choice.
37:14
Good choice. Good choice, Steve.
37:16
So we're in the coach category. And when I went into this
37:19
category, and I'll see if I'll let you tell yours, but it was
37:22
like, I don't know if I how many coaches I'd had this year, I was
37:25
pleasantly surprised that it had more than I thought it had.
37:28
Yeah, I haven't had a lot. I think I checked in about four
37:33
or five this year, but the one for me that I ranked as my
37:36
favorite was from East Nashville Beer Works and got it and canned
37:40
when we went out to their Lebanon location.
37:43
And by the way, guys, when, whenever you have time, when you
37:46
come to Nashville and you want to go a little bit out, East
37:49
Nashville Beer Works, their Lebanon location.
37:52
It's a bit distance from downtown Nashville, but it is so
37:55
worth the drive. It's, it's really just a
37:57
magnificent brewery and especially in the summer times,
38:00
it's, it's a really great beer. It's a really a great brewery,
38:03
but I got this in Cannes. It was their, it was their cold
38:06
style and it was a 4.5% Kolsch that I rated A4 on untapped and
38:12
I really like that as well. Very nice, very nice.
38:15
Mine was, and I mentioned this brewery in our top 10 beers of
38:20
the year. It's called Papa's Sneakers by
38:22
Ebony and Ivory out of Knoxville, TN and that is a
38:25
underappreciated brewery. I think people that live there
38:28
and have been there know how good their shit is their their
38:31
stuff is. Coast 3.9 rating 5.9% had it at
38:35
the brewery and was blown away by it.
38:37
And hats off to Ebony and Ivory for the stuff they're doing and
38:41
hope we get a little more influx into Nashville from that
38:45
brewery. So any experience with coaches
38:48
from the three here did learn? From a northern row visit is
38:52
that they have kolch nights. Apparently it's like all you can
38:56
drink kolch and they keep pouring.
38:58
It's like the all you can eat meat skewer night where you
39:01
know, they just keep bringing you meat.
39:02
They just keep bringing you Kolch, so I haven't done one of
39:05
those, but he was upselling that quite well.
39:08
So it's on my bucket list for 2026 to attend a Kolsch night.
39:12
Do you turn your sign from like green to red like the like the
39:15
meat house does? Like you know what I mean?
39:17
He said they just. Kept Brazilian steakhouse.
39:19
So like until you literally like, I feel like put your
39:22
coaster on top and say no more. Like they just keep refilling
39:25
you. Like you're, you look a little
39:27
empty, like you know, you're at getting water refills at a
39:30
restaurant. They just, well, coffee tip off.
39:35
Nice. And Colchis, there's some
39:37
variance within Colchis too. There's a lot of variant within
39:39
that that, that that genre per SE.
39:42
But Tom, you, you, you look like you might have some experience
39:44
with some Colts this year. Well, I listen, I think Colchis
39:47
are probably the most subtle beer.
39:49
They're I've I mean, personally, I find them to be pretty tame.
39:53
And so it's hard to find one that is, you know, I like I kind
39:56
of like bold flavors and it's hard to find that Nicole's
39:59
generally unless they really experiment with it.
40:01
So my standard answer for this is the coal shell, like every
40:04
year. Which is a third term brewing.
40:07
They every year they put out the Swooly and the Swooly is a coach
40:11
that's got jalapenos and mango and it just puts all these big
40:16
flavors on the coach base. And the mango offsets the heat
40:19
of the jalapeno and it's great. And I burn out on it within a
40:22
month because I just go there and it's like, don't get
40:25
anything else on the board until I can't get it anymore.
40:27
And appreciate that totally, yeah.
40:30
Well, it's a good style of beer. You go right back to.
40:32
Yeah, I was going to say it's a good style of beer.
40:34
You just don't see it on tap at a lot of breweries when you're
40:38
out. But I think it's one of those
40:40
categories, like I was saying, when I looked at back, went back
40:43
and looked at my on tap was like, I didn't realize I'd had
40:45
so many. You had a couple here and you
40:47
get a couple there and then suddenly you've had, I don't
40:49
know, 12 or 15 or whatever you've had during the year.
40:52
Maybe you don't realize it because they don't stand out as
40:53
a style necessarily, but they're always good.
40:56
They're always solid in my opinion.
40:58
Yeah, it's a dependable beer. It's just a good, very drinkable
41:01
beer. But.
41:02
Yeah, it's, it's, it's never going to get really high or
41:05
really low. It's going to get just kind of
41:07
be in the middle it. Does not rock the boat.
41:09
No, no. It's a great analogy.
41:12
Perfect. All right, we're coming to.
41:16
OK This next category is my favorite category this year.
41:19
It really is, and it's really because of my answer.
41:23
But Steve, go ahead with yours. But I really love this category
41:26
and it's because it's one of these styles that we've talked
41:28
about for the last couple of years that we've appreciated so
41:31
much. Well, it's the loggers category
41:33
and the loggers category. There are so many variants of
41:36
loggers out there, tons of them. And this is, this was one of our
41:42
debates when we started doing these going, OK, so are we going
41:46
to, are we going to mention each one of our, of our favorite
41:49
loggers? Are we just going to do the
41:51
overall #1 of what we ranked of a logger?
41:54
And this was at one point in time in my top ten list of
41:59
favorite beers of the year. And all of us were there.
42:03
This comes from Mad Tree Brewing.
42:06
I mean, with their Shady Links dark lager.
42:09
It's a well, yeah, the Czech Dark, a 4.6% beer that I rated a
42:14
4.35 on Untapped, and I absolutely love that thing.
42:21
No, but that was a great, that was a great, great beer.
42:23
I don't know if any of you had had that that day, but it was
42:25
really good. I think I did and it loggers is
42:28
like that ALE category in that you could go 1000 different ways
42:32
with. I love that you went with the
42:33
dark logger because I love a dark logger.
42:36
I went a little bit different direction.
42:37
I went American logger, which could be the same thing kind of
42:40
sort of, but mine is and you guys are going to be here very,
42:44
very soon. It's called Original and it's by
42:47
Stokehouse and they're right here in Nashville, TN and it is
42:50
my favorite, favorite logger. It's traditional.
42:53
I give it a .4 in untapped. It's the best logger I've ever
42:57
had and I've been to Germany. It's amazing and it's just plain
43:01
clean and simple. Yes, and it's so fucking good
43:04
and you're going to have it when you're here and it's play the.
43:07
Soundtrack red roll it. Come on, Scott.
43:11
Well, playing clean. So that's a That's a Van Halen
43:16
song, isn't it? Pound cake.
43:18
But I love it so much because I appreciate the the cleanliness
43:22
to it and, and it, it's just basic stuff, but you get so much
43:26
flavor out of it. You know, I don't know, just
43:29
this appreciation we've had in the last couple years and it's,
43:32
there's no frills and you can't hide behind anything.
43:35
It's just that good. You guys are good to again,
43:37
you're going to get to try it when you're here.
43:38
So my favorite category and it's my one of my favorite new
43:41
breweries that are out right now.
43:43
So this is a category that you guys could probably all speak
43:46
to. I'm sure loggers in general.
43:48
I mean, it's a broad category. Like Steve, I went dark and West
43:52
Side makes a nice dark lager Schwarz beer from our kind of
43:57
Oktoberfest. The area timeline.
44:00
I happen to just have it the other day cuz my family checked
44:03
out a new German restaurant. New to ice, new word of
44:07
Cincinnati, but got some good German eats, got all some good
44:11
German based beers. So yeah, two thumbs up.
44:15
What's your restaurant? Canteen, it's near the American
44:18
Sign Museum and apparently they follow some German soccer teams
44:22
there like that. I don't know which one.
44:24
They had one up so you can watch soccer from there.
44:27
They're having a cool New Year's party, apparently.
44:29
I saw on their website they have jazz brunches if you're in a
44:32
jazz brunch. But really, the food was
44:36
awesome. I mean, these plates were huge,
44:39
full of food and, you know, got big tall pours of beers, so I
44:44
couldn't be upset about a very fun, entertaining outing there.
44:48
So it was, it was a good little thought hidden gem.
44:51
It's off the beaten path. I don't know if you'd know it
44:53
unless someone told you it was there.
44:55
You said big pores. Were they in the mosses?
44:57
The steins? The big old steins.
45:00
No, but they had very very tall glassware.
45:02
So not steins, but other other tall glassware.
45:06
Very nice, very nice, very nice. Tell me Brad, anything online?
45:09
Yeah, I'll go first at German Heritage, which is huge in
45:13
Cincinnati and and it is here too and there are so many good
45:18
loggers. But going local to Louisville,
45:21
if you're ever here, whether it's Derby time or whenever and
45:24
you can hit 1020 TEN 20 is the name of the brewery.
45:29
They have a Vienna lager called Schnitzelberger, which is
45:31
Schnitzelberg is is kind of an area of our Germantown
45:35
neighborhood. And they've taken off with this
45:37
beer and it's just it hits every note.
45:39
It's a it's a terrific beer. So Schnitzelberger is 1 to
45:43
remember if you're ever in Louisville.
45:46
Always on tap, too delicious. That's a great name for a bear.
45:49
Awesome. I just, I love this category.
45:51
Oh, go ahead, Tom. I actually had two.
45:53
Listen, I don't think I've ranked anything higher than a
45:55
4.5. And I have two loggers this year
45:58
that that both got a 4.5 out of me.
46:00
One of them is actually a holdover from last year.
46:02
And Scott, I know you had it when you were in town for
46:06
Tailspin. This is from a Rye Brewing here
46:09
in Louisville and Tyler Martin T Mart there.
46:14
He makes a black logger that they call Luna Noir.
46:19
Man, listen, I didn't, I didn't really know what made a black
46:22
lager a black lager. And, and he told me what
46:24
traditionally it is. And he says, but I didn't do
46:26
that. I did this.
46:27
And that's why I love about T Mart.
46:29
He's just always trying to make the next better beer.
46:32
And Luna Noir he just brought back again and it's absolutely
46:36
delicious. The other one though, that
46:38
caught me out of nowhere was from our good friends at
46:41
Darkness when I was up there in September.
46:43
It was it actually it was a rock beer, lager rot beer called Blut
46:49
Ragnet. I'm probably saying that wrong,
46:52
but it's BLUT and then R e.g. NET and it was fantastic.
46:57
I did. I was like, you know what, I'm
46:58
going to try that. I've never seen it on their menu
47:00
and it was great. I I love that and great
47:04
breweries, both of them. Let's give a little. 321 go.
47:16
Stand up, stand up, OK, went down quickly.
47:19
Now we're going to, we're not going to shift gears very much.
47:22
We're actually going to stick in the logger category.
47:24
But I thought this was a category.
47:25
I think we both did. That was a category that
47:29
deserved its own kind of praise, right, Steve?
47:32
Yeah, because the light lager category.
47:36
Just popped. Yes.
47:38
Completely, I already know where this is when we.
47:40
Were with you guys this year. We were out with others.
47:43
We on the podcast with Brewers. I mean, we talked about this so
47:47
much this year about light loggers really not only making a
47:52
comeback, but the guys and gals that brew the beers also know
47:57
the importance of them. And so we really felt like that
48:01
was worthy of another category to put in here.
48:06
My light logger category was one that Scott just talked about
48:12
earlier, Ebony and Ivory Brewing, and had theirs at the
48:16
Common John Beer Fest this year. And that was the steel arm that
48:20
I rated 4.2 or I'm sorry, I rated A4 on a tap and that was a
48:26
4.2% light lager. But I'll tell you, there's so
48:29
many of them out there now at a lot of different breweries.
48:32
I mean, I could, I probably could have had two or three.
48:35
That almost would have been the tie because there's just a lot
48:37
in that category now that are really, really good.
48:40
Yeah, that's one of those things that are something for everyone.
48:44
When you go in and that's a beer, that's something for
48:46
everyone, you know, you have some non alcoholic stuff.
48:49
Yes, ciders, yes, Elsa, but this is a beer that anyone could
48:51
drink. If you're a light beer drinker
48:52
or you don't like craft beer in general, a light beer in
48:55
general, a light lager covers a lot of a lot of ground, right?
49:00
A lot of people can drink that thing.
49:01
And we've had many of them and they're all frigging good.
49:04
There's so much better than they used to be.
49:07
I love that category. So, so my American light lager
49:10
and two of the three of you I know have had it.
49:12
Liz, I don't know if you have, but you may have.
49:14
It's from Great Lakes Brewing Company and it's called Cold
49:18
Rush Premium Light Lager. And we shared some with you guys
49:20
on the way back when we came back from Cleveland and it's
49:22
just super crushable. It's just, it's, but it has
49:25
flavor, right? It's not just water.
49:28
And fairly new from them as well.
49:30
It's yeah, it. Was brand new from there right
49:32
and they only like they didn't distribute it to all the states.
49:34
They only distributed it there like in their area percent.
49:37
You don't think it would have a lot of flavor?
49:39
It does. I give it a 4.1 super crushable.
49:43
It's just man, you could cut the cut the grass and drink it all
49:46
day or I don't know. It's really fucking good and I
49:49
really appreciate this style more than I ever have.
49:52
Liz, I would like to go to you next on this category and give
49:56
us your thoughts and opinions, please.
49:58
I believe I already told you this earlier.
50:00
I'm drinking a Reingeist Cincy Lite, not to be outdone by the
50:05
Reingeist Cincy Lite Lime, which was my other quintessential
50:09
summer beer and also highly promoted in the BearCat stadiums
50:13
everywhere go Bearcats. But I honestly, I feel like, you
50:17
know, back in your younger beer days of, you know, lower
50:21
varieties, lower budgets, Corona was one of those things that,
50:25
you know, you felt fancy when you were drinking when you were
50:27
younger. I kind of feel, I feel like this
50:29
is an upscale Corona. You have your Scentsy Lite lime.
50:33
So I feel fancy. I could add a lime, but the lime
50:36
zest is already in there. But yeah, I love Scentsy Lite.
50:38
They've had some great cans art for had to collect during the
50:43
season. So yeah, in case you didn't
50:46
know, Scentsy Lite. We didn't know.
50:49
This is new news for everybody. I love it.
50:52
I love it. I love that you're true to it.
50:55
It's it's so cool. Tom Abrade.
50:56
We got anything on the the American loggers?
50:59
You know, no, I personally lime. Yes, Yeah, I have a theory.
51:04
It's like I don't go to breweries for light beers.
51:08
I mean, every time I have a craft light beer, I'm like,
51:11
well, that's just a light beer. It's, I'm sure it's suddenly
51:14
better than, you know, a Miller Lite, but I pay $7.00 for
51:18
something that's subtly better than a Miller Lite.
51:21
I think I say, listen, they throw the lime in that.
51:23
I think I did. I had, I did have a Sensi Lite
51:26
lime. I went to a, a, a play.
51:29
You got a little theater where you can buy beer.
51:31
Went to a. Play and I got a sensi Lite lime
51:35
and it was pretty decent but overall I can't purchase it
51:38
because it goes towards Bearcats NIL and I can't support I got
51:41
to. Support my alma mater.
51:44
I get no, I get it, I get it. My daughter graduated from
51:46
there, but she's gone now, so no more.
51:47
I get appreciate we all have different palettes Brad you got
51:49
an opinion on this category No okay and we're.
51:53
Sorry, it kind of broke up there.
51:54
My connection is not. I can't tell if that was funny
51:57
or if he froze. Yeah, there he.
51:58
Is. You know, somebody picked up.
52:02
The muskies have finally gotten in the game, and I don't know
52:04
which brewery picked them up, but somebody, somebody picked
52:07
them up. And they have a logger too.
52:09
Yeah, they have seen that, Yeah. I've not had it, but I think
52:11
I've seen that, yeah. I will not try it.
52:13
I can't imagine why. It might be fantastic.
52:16
What in the competition? Yeah, can't do that.
52:20
Can't do that. See, we're into a category,
52:23
which I'm going to guess this might be your favorite category.
52:27
Yeah, at least one of them, but probably your favorite one.
52:31
We could almost do an hour podcast.
52:33
In fact, I think we have done hours.
52:34
We've done a couple of this. We have.
52:36
Just simply talking about Oktoberfest Beer Fest beers,
52:40
yeah. Let's see.
52:42
It's a season that seems like it's beginning to the point
52:45
where it goes all year long or talked about all year long,
52:49
right? Right, we do.
52:50
We certainly do. We do.
52:53
And now they're releasing them in like early August or late
52:56
July. Yeah, I think it's at after
52:59
Saint Patrick's Day this year is when the Oktoberfest beers will
53:02
come. Well, I do recall this year and
53:07
it may have been in like been in like May or June where I was at
53:11
a beer store in Nashville and I had texted some of you guys and,
53:15
and a picture of somebody. I don't remember.
53:18
I don't, I don't want to say the brand because I can't remember
53:21
the brand. Not necessarily.
53:23
But I remember when I was like, Oh, here we go.
53:25
And Brad was the first one to respond basically saying what I
53:28
thought had they had that on the shelf from last year?
53:31
Maybe they had it in the back and they just stuck it out
53:34
there. And I really don't remember the
53:37
brand. And no, it was not Sam Adams.
53:39
But regardless, it, it, it is becoming to the point that I, I
53:45
think we're a couple of years away from some breweries out
53:47
there. They're just going to have
53:48
Oktoberfest all. I agree.
53:50
Or the OR the dates that they release.
53:52
Some get early and earlier we're actually reverts back to when
53:55
it's actually supposed to come out.
53:57
Yeah, at some point it might hit when it's supposed to, but I
54:01
love this category. Too, maybe it comes full circle.
54:03
Well, so Sam Adams almost always ranks high for me and but it's
54:09
got to the point where I'm like, well, I could say OK, Sam Adams,
54:12
but I've said that before so that gets kind of boring.
54:14
So this was new for me and I almost put this in my top ten
54:18
again this year as well. My top 10 beer.
54:20
So my new top 10 or my new favorite Oktoberfest of the year
54:25
was from Hop and Frog and that was their Oktoberfest Froggy
54:30
Style Lager which was a 7.3% beer and I rated that a 4.25 on
54:36
a tap. And I feel like if I keep
54:38
drinking it one of these days it may become a 5.
54:41
Scott, I know you, I know you. I know you really love it too.
54:44
I love that one too. It didn't make my list only
54:47
because I've had it before. Yes, but it is fantastic and the
54:52
ABV on that friggin thing is higher than most, which really
54:56
makes it really friggin good too at the same time.
54:58
And you keep drinking. That, and it's going off the
55:00
charts. That's that is a theme with my
55:05
beers though I tend to I like the higher rated ones, the
55:08
higher ABV ones. For whatever reason, I can
55:10
actually feel something. So I've got one and this is the
55:14
bumpa for my Oktoberfest slash fest beer Slash Martin is
55:18
actually a tie and I've had two ties on here and again, it's my
55:21
list. I do whatever I want.
55:23
But this brewery has already made an appearance by me.
55:25
Stoke House It's called Stoke Fest by Stokehouse brewing and
55:29
BBQ here in Nashville, TN Hazing friggin fest beer.
55:32
We've had it a couple of times, They 5.5%, I give it a 4.6
55:37
rating and it's tied with Oktoberfest beer by Hofbrauhaus
55:43
out of Munich, Germany. I'm like, I had to make the
55:46
list. It's so fucking good, plain,
55:48
clean and simple. 6.3 percent, 4.6 rating.
55:51
I've had that beer before, but I've kind of rediscovered it I
55:54
guess this year I just have an appreciation for and they're
55:58
both, they're just the best Oktoberfest beers I've ever had.
56:01
So this is another category guys, where again, Oktoberfest
56:04
fest beer Marks and they're all kind of Oktoberfest beers.
56:07
Kind of pick your poison if you've got one.
56:09
That's something, Liz. Any beers in that category?
56:11
Sorry, awkward silence. I liked Dunkles.
56:15
I know it's kind of an Oktoberfest beer kind of nod.
56:18
I mean it's in Oktoberfest at Westside locally had an amazing
56:22
Dunkle. I saw it at multiple things.
56:25
They had it at Zoo Brew this year.
56:27
They had it on Oktoberfest but traditional.
56:29
I like Var Steiner and I can't not have a German based beer if
56:34
I'm at the US based. Largest Oktoberfest in the world
56:38
in Cincinnati. And it fits right when you're
56:40
in. It's kind of like when in Rome,
56:42
you know? Yeah, you can do all the things.
56:44
You can chicken dance, you can watch the the Wiener races.
56:48
You can, you know, try all of the, you know, hot dogs, the
56:52
sausages, the ghetta, the sauerkraut, you name it it.
56:56
It's all quintessential part of it all.
56:59
Yep, perfect. Tom, I know you.
57:00
I Tom, I know you're pretty vocal about when Oktoberfest
57:04
should come out, yeah. He is.
57:05
We've seen the text. Messages, yeah.
57:08
When well. Hey, when should Oktoberfest
57:11
come out and what was your best one that you had this year?
57:13
September 1st. OK.
57:16
September 1st and and then last, you know, last longer, that's
57:19
fine. But you know, as far as October,
57:22
you know, we talked extensively on our podcast because that's
57:26
how we started this thing is our love of Oktoberfest.
57:29
So we've talked extensively about it and all of our
57:31
favorites. But I did have one this year.
57:33
I will I will give my favorite this year because it's one I
57:35
only had this year for the first time.
57:37
So the best new Oktoberfest I discovered is actually out of
57:42
Mirror Twin in Lexington, KY and it's called Wade Boggs Style and
57:47
it is great. It was the best new Oktoberfest
57:50
I've had. And for baseball fans, Wade
57:52
Boggs is a former professional baseball player.
57:55
So why is that name of that beer relevant in Lexington?
57:58
Like where do you not? I'm glad you asked.
58:00
I have no idea. Like, I know he like, did he
58:04
some kind of record about so many beers on a flight from one
58:08
city to another? He did something like, but I
58:10
don't know what that has to do with Lexington.
58:11
Well, First off, I I didn't have it at Meer Twin.
58:14
I actually had it on tap at a tap room of a brewery that's
58:19
from Louisville but was we were in Owensboro, KY Long story.
58:22
Anyway they had it, got it on a flight and then I found it in
58:25
cans and the cans are what a white label?
58:28
And it's just got a bunch of like 12345 hash marks all over
58:32
it. Almost like someone in prison
58:34
counting days. So I'm not sure what the meaning
58:37
of it is. I have not googled that but I
58:39
didn't care, I drank it. I think it's in.
58:41
I bet it's that story that that where he drank X amount of
58:45
beers, 100 and something beers from one city to another.
58:48
If you ever saw it's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, they did
58:50
an episode on it and they were literally marking off the beers
58:53
on their shirts, trying to tie the way Boggs records so.
58:57
That's got to be it. Yes.
58:58
Yeah, that. Has to be it.
58:59
I mean, that has to be it. And he was in an episode of
59:02
Cheers back in the day, right. And he goes to the bar and they
59:07
they think, yeah, you're Wade Boggs.
59:08
Sure. OK Wade Boggs.
59:11
But anyway, delicious beer and and you know, we haven't there a
59:15
few really good breweries in Lexington, but we don't like to
59:19
go there because there's too much blue.
59:21
I get it. In that city and no thank you
59:25
that's. Hers is blue.
59:26
We don't know what that's like in Cincinnati.
59:28
No. It's a better blue in
59:31
Cincinnati, though less obnoxious than the blue in
59:34
Lexington. Blue.
59:35
Oh, wait, you're talking. Oh, yeah.
59:36
OK, let's see. I get it.
59:38
Yeah. We're talking.
59:39
Yeah. Yeah.
59:40
That's right, less Snooty and less uppity.
59:43
They both have patinos in common.
59:45
Yeah, well. Affiliated to that.
59:49
Anyway, So, yeah, so we, we don't go to Lexington for like
59:53
the only reason we would go to to Lexington is to go for a beer
59:57
and then not, you know, it's like we nothing else.
1:00:01
So that's really what it but yeah, it's, it's a that's a
1:00:03
terrific call on that Oktoberfest.
1:00:06
And, and again, that's where we started.
1:00:08
Like we were friends and then we're like, well, I like
1:00:10
Oktoberfest. He's well.
1:00:12
I do too. And then, you know, Sam Adams is
1:00:14
the is the original from our world and, and it just led to
1:00:19
trying other ones and, and, and going from there and that, that.
1:00:23
And now you know, we we are fortunate to be on tonight's
1:00:27
ABUPPA awards ceremony with with you esteemed colleagues who
1:00:33
represent the craft we're seeing so well. 1000% the audience is
1:00:38
really. Sleepy.
1:00:41
Like sit out, sit out, everybody.
1:00:42
The audience isn't really, they're not timed very well.
1:00:46
They're they, they're in their own world.
1:00:47
But be paid? Really.
1:00:48
Dozing off for most of this. They're drinking beer, I guess.
1:00:54
All right, we're on to our category that we're going to go
1:00:57
to the to the pilsner category. Now Pilsner do fall under the
1:01:01
logger category, I get that. But we're going to do our
1:01:03
favorite Pilsner anyway. So Steve, do you have a favorite
1:01:06
Pilsner and what is where does the BAPA award go to?
1:01:10
It would go to our fine friends here in Nashville at Fayette La
1:01:15
Force and it would be the midday Raposa, which was a 4.8% pilsner
1:01:21
that I had and I rated that A4 on untapped and from a, a place
1:01:27
that is known for really, really, really good pilsners.
1:01:30
And so every time I go to Fayetteville Force, I always got
1:01:32
to try because they have a lot of different styles there.
1:01:35
And if I remember Hill Tappers, the first time you guys ever
1:01:37
came to Nashville or or at least the one I know about, failure
1:01:40
force was a pleasant fine for you or a little surprise fine
1:01:43
for you guys. Yeah, yeah, we, we actually, we,
1:01:48
we'd, we'd gone to broadcast. We had, we had a list, you know,
1:01:51
and then we had alternates and we, we were hitting broadcast
1:01:55
and then our next stop was to meet up with you guys for the
1:01:57
first time ever. And we were done early.
1:01:59
And we were like, well, you know, I had this failure force.
1:02:02
I looked them up online and like, I select the pictures on
1:02:04
their website. It's like that looks like a cool
1:02:05
place. So it happened to be right
1:02:07
between where we were and where we were going.
1:02:09
And I'm like, we got time to run in and man, we've been there
1:02:13
three times that we, it's, it's a regular stop for us.
1:02:16
We just, we got to stop in there.
1:02:17
It's just a fun, cool place. Is a great spot.
1:02:20
We've had them on here and here's one of the best.
1:02:23
Their beer is fantastic. Real quickly.
1:02:25
My favorite pilsner is a phalaforest pilsner.
1:02:28
Also it's called a hollow shore. They put it in the other Pilsner
1:02:32
category. It's a 5.8%.
1:02:34
But the other thing I love about that, they do the proper beer in
1:02:37
the proper glasses at that place.
1:02:40
And not that others don't, but they're perfect.
1:02:42
They do it every single time you get a Belgium, it's a certain
1:02:45
thing. If you get a Pilsner, it's a
1:02:46
certain thing. If you get a logger, it's in a
1:02:47
certain glass, the way it's supposed to be every single
1:02:50
time. They don't skimp on that and I
1:02:51
really appreciate that about that.
1:02:53
That's so funny because. When that happened, I was like,
1:02:55
why is this? What am I?
1:02:57
What's the deal here with this glass?
1:02:59
I didn't. I didn't know.
1:03:00
I didn't know, you know? So you learn and yeah.
1:03:04
You do very cool. Like every time you go get a
1:03:06
different beer, you get a different glass, right Brad?
1:03:08
Like I just thought they were out of.
1:03:09
Glasses, They just, you know, we're pulling stuff from from
1:03:13
the bartender's kitchen in his house.
1:03:15
I don't know but. He was the closest to the
1:03:18
bartender, so he just reached over and grabbed it.
1:03:21
I was trying to figure out glasses.
1:03:22
There's no way in hell I'm going to figure out untapped, you
1:03:25
know? Right, it's all up here.
1:03:26
It is. And they do this thing.
1:03:28
And the reason that that stands out for me is because they do
1:03:30
those tall pilsner glasses, right?
1:03:32
And I can just remember sitting there in the bubbles coming up
1:03:34
from the bottom of that glass right to the top.
1:03:37
And I think I got a picture, a video one time of it and it was
1:03:39
like picture perfect. I was like, this is this is how
1:03:41
it's supposed to be. So it's it's a great category in
1:03:44
itself. Liz, you got any Pilsner
1:03:46
experience this year or anything that stands out to you it?
1:03:48
Just scrolled through my entire picture book for the year and I
1:03:52
don't think I drank a pilsner this year.
1:03:54
So I'm going to go with like, I'm going to go with my favorite
1:03:57
dark beer variant from Brink from Thanksgiving.
1:04:01
Black Friday. They had a cookie sandwich
1:04:04
Muzie. It's a milk stout.
1:04:06
It's delicious. It tastes exactly like an Oreo
1:04:09
dropped and a muzie and I love it.
1:04:12
So yes, yay, dark beer. It is the time, it is the time
1:04:16
of year for that, right? It just is.
1:04:18
That's. OK, you're allowed to improvise.
1:04:19
I'm pro dark beer all year long so I have a very.
1:04:22
Long list. All these.
1:04:25
Lighter varieties that I'm like, uh.
1:04:27
Oh, it's a release. You can do whatever you want.
1:04:30
Well, that's OK. On our on our top 10 beers of
1:04:33
the year, we had a lot of ones that weren't necessarily lighter
1:04:38
varieties too. Yeah, we're kind of all over the
1:04:41
place here, but it's OK. It's, it's, it's our, you know,
1:04:43
it's our list. It's our podcast.
1:04:44
We can do whatever we want to like ours.
1:04:46
It's ours. All right.
1:04:49
Moving on. We only have two categories
1:04:51
left. Only two.
1:04:52
There are a million other freaking.
1:04:53
Categories. Can I throw out a pilsner real
1:04:55
quick? Yes, please.
1:04:56
Make my pilsner, yeah. OK, Wayne, is there a way to
1:04:58
mute Tom? Let me see.
1:05:00
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
1:05:01
I'm sorry. Brad knows how.
1:05:05
Yes, please. He just turned me right off.
1:05:07
I discovered because of where my daughter moved to Silverton, OH,
1:05:12
just outside of Cincinnati this past year, I discovered a high
1:05:16
green brewing and cool spot, great food, but they had a Czech
1:05:21
pilsner, Czech Bohemian Pilsner called gentle Revolution.
1:05:25
And that that tied with one out of Louisville, which at Goodwood
1:05:31
Brewing here in Louisville, which was also a Czech pilsner
1:05:34
and that one was called bounced Czech.
1:05:36
So both of them four point O good beers.
1:05:39
Excellent. Thanks for chiming in finally.
1:05:41
Thanks for chiming in. It's about time Tom said
1:05:45
something right? Oh man, come on now, why are you
1:05:48
here? I can't wait for you guys to be
1:05:51
here in like 3 days, it's going to be awesome.
1:05:53
Yeah, Steve, sure. You can't get out of work early
1:05:55
on Friday. I mean, you know.
1:05:58
I don't want to leave Tennessee until we all have alternate
1:06:01
personas. That's right, we'll find some
1:06:03
for you. Look, I already told Steve that
1:06:06
he's going to get the full court for us come Friday when you guys
1:06:08
are in town, then he'll get the full court for us.
1:06:11
Hopefully I'll be alive by then. Where the fuck are you at,
1:06:13
Steve? Come on, son.
1:06:16
Where are you? It's come and get you.
1:06:19
We'll come and get you anyway. We got 2 categories left.
1:06:22
Porter is the next category. Steve, I'd love to hear your
1:06:25
answer on this 10. Gosh, this could have made my
1:06:30
overall top ten of the year. I can't imagine why because it's
1:06:34
only from Bring Great Lakes, from Tennessee, Great Lakes
1:06:36
Brewing. It is their Porter, the bourbon
1:06:39
barrel Imperial Porter that was given to us by Michael Williams
1:06:43
when we went, when we went to visit.
1:06:44
It's only a 12.5% beer, really rated at 4.25 on untapped.
1:06:49
And you know, basically this was aged in bourbon barrels.
1:06:52
So it has bourbon in it, obviously chocolate in it as
1:06:55
well. Just absolutely fantastic for
1:06:58
those of you that enjoy that kind of a beer.
1:07:00
You had me a bourbon. I think all of you would enjoy.
1:07:04
It you didn't save us any, No. Sorry.
1:07:06
Maybe they could get us some here.
1:07:08
Maybe we could. Maybe they got some in
1:07:10
Cincinnati or, you know, elsewhere.
1:07:13
You never know. Never know, Never know.
1:07:16
Didn't that make your top ten list beer list too?
1:07:18
No, there was a different one that was a different one that
1:07:21
actually made my top ten list. Yeah.
1:07:22
All right. Excellent.
1:07:23
OK, Well, excellent choice. Yes.
1:07:25
Sir. Thank you.
1:07:26
My Porter, favorite Porter in my Bupa goes to by the way, there
1:07:30
are 9 different Porter categories with it on tap.
1:07:33
By the way, there's just Porter something this Porter of that
1:07:35
Porter. There are 9 different ones.
1:07:38
So I checked all the boxes, filtered it out, blah, blah,
1:07:40
blah. But the one that one was Plum
1:07:43
Tuckered out Old Double Porter by Hop and Frog Brewery.
1:07:48
Oh. Yeah, it's an Imperial Double
1:07:50
Porter at 16.8%. It was quite lovely.
1:07:55
The nice thing about it was an it was an 8 oz can.
1:07:58
So it was like you, you could live through it kind of thing.
1:08:01
It's got AI give it a 4.3. It's got a 4.15 global rating
1:08:05
and actually had it on the podcast with Hop and Frog with
1:08:09
those guys. So it was really cool to have
1:08:11
that on. It was an excellent, excellent
1:08:13
beer. Porter categories for you guys.
1:08:16
Liz Dark beer it is. A dark Porter category, but
1:08:19
everything I just looked back in my thing that I thought I'd
1:08:22
tried that was a Porter, guess what?
1:08:23
It was a stout. So I'm going to go with my new
1:08:27
favorite stout that my aunt brought me at Christmas, which I
1:08:30
love. Mass Landing, which is out of
1:08:32
Maine. They have a milk stout called
1:08:34
Gunner's Daughter, which I have a goal to make it there for
1:08:37
Gunner's Daughter Variant day sometime.
1:08:39
But they did a double fudge variant and I was like, Oh my,
1:08:43
this might be better than the original original.
1:08:45
Now I have to do a side by side comparison.
1:08:47
So I got a hunt and probably head to White Oak Marathon to
1:08:50
see if they have any more. So I'm I'm on the hunt.
1:08:52
I already had to call Beth and be like Beth.
1:08:54
Keep an eye out for this one up in Cleveland because she's also
1:08:57
a big Stout fan. But yeah, sorry guys, I thought
1:09:00
I'd try to stout this year or Porter, but apparently I'm on a
1:09:04
roll with Stout. So it's OK.
1:09:05
Do you all feel like porters and stouts and even anything brown
1:09:10
are more conducive to be like colder weather this time of year
1:09:14
or can you drink those things year round?
1:09:15
I'm no, it's, it's definitely for me.
1:09:18
Fall, winter kind of thing, yeah.
1:09:20
I mean, if you're in the air conditioning, I think it can be
1:09:24
frigid and you can also have a dark beer.
1:09:27
I can't say if I'm sitting on a patio.
1:09:29
That would be my choice. It's not exactly something that
1:09:32
if I'm sitting on a patio or I go into a brewery that I'm
1:09:36
looking up going, boy, I need that on a nice 100° day in
1:09:40
Nashville, right? Right, but I would drink a year
1:09:43
round as long as I'm in a temperature can controlled non
1:09:47
under degree weather environment, sure.
1:09:49
There you go. I go back to what Tom said
1:09:51
earlier. I think when it said like just
1:09:53
give me a stout or a Porter, I could drink them all year as
1:09:56
long as it have these heavy other things in them, big heavy
1:09:59
adjuncts and things. I could drink a dry Iris stout
1:10:02
in the summer. I can drink a Porter like those
1:10:04
kinds of things. Thoughts on that?
1:10:05
It's a nice the heavier they are, the colder it needs to be.
1:10:08
It's a nice evening beer when the temperature cools off, you
1:10:11
know? Yeah.
1:10:12
We're on the fire. Yes.
1:10:14
Maybe you got thoughts on that pour?
1:10:15
Yeah, there you go. Some smores you can pair nicely
1:10:19
with your Porter and smores, yeah.
1:10:21
Well, First off, I figured Liz was going to be dominating this
1:10:24
category. And then she's like, no, it's
1:10:25
mostly stouts. I really laugh.
1:10:27
I scrolled it, I'm like man I don't think I drank a Porter.
1:10:30
But then maybe This is why you should get untapped, so you're
1:10:32
not relying on. Photos.
1:10:34
True. I, I use I listened to that
1:10:38
point. I, I usually don't drink much
1:10:40
stout supporters. I'm I'm much more of a, you
1:10:42
know, don't like the heavy beers like that.
1:10:44
I'll sample them on a flight, but I won't get much more than
1:10:47
that. The one Porter I I do like,
1:10:49
because I've had it probably more than most, is from third
1:10:52
turn brewing. They have a double haze Porter
1:10:55
that uses hazelnut. It's not something I can drink
1:10:57
much of, but it is really delicious when you do.
1:11:00
As Steve, would they add it to the list I.
1:11:02
Got to add everything to the list.
1:11:05
There is always room on the list.
1:11:07
Yeah, Brad's more of the Porter stouts than I am generally, but
1:11:11
not a lot more. I, well, I just, when, when
1:11:14
coffee's involved, you know, and you mix coffee and chocolate or
1:11:19
hazelnut or, or whatever, it's, it appeals those senses, I
1:11:24
guess. It could be good or bad.
1:11:25
As a as a non coffee drinker, me, I I can find it to be very
1:11:30
overpowering if there's a lot of coffee infused in there.
1:11:32
So yeah. I think.
1:11:34
In fact, I think, yeah, I think Liz, you, when you were with me,
1:11:37
I had a Porter. We were at Northern Row.
1:11:41
We were at Northern Row and they had, you know, what was that?
1:11:44
A Porter? Maybe I did have a Porter.
1:11:46
Hold on. You tried it.
1:11:47
I had it on the flight. You tried it because it had
1:11:50
coffee in it and you liked it. You just tasted it.
1:11:53
You had more than that and it can't.
1:11:54
It can't be too much coffee that that route.
1:11:56
That's that's yeah, that ruined. Then it's just a coffee.
1:11:59
Like you get that it starts. It's got to be coffee though.
1:12:02
Coffee's got to be in the mix where you can taste it, but like
1:12:05
you don't want it dominating. Right, right.
1:12:07
Anyway. That's the same problem I had
1:12:09
with bourbon barrel aged. It's like, you know, at a
1:12:12
certain point it's like, this is a little beer in a glass of
1:12:16
bourbon. Yeah, and I don't have a problem
1:12:18
with that, but I know Scott doesn't have a problem with
1:12:20
that. Zero look I got.
1:12:22
One, it's like I'll just drink bourbon.
1:12:24
You guys don't either. You guys are from Kentucky and
1:12:27
Louisville. You know about suburban you
1:12:29
live. In a city.
1:12:29
That's got plenty of it. Steve, was it called Banker?
1:12:32
Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, that was a good one.
1:12:35
OK. Yeah, I had a Porter.
1:12:36
I had a Porter, guys. In 2020, yeah, I had it on a
1:12:39
flight and I tasted it and I said, yeah, this has a little
1:12:43
bit too much coffee for me. I mean, I drank it, It was all
1:12:46
right. But Liz tasted it, and I could
1:12:50
tell you liked it more than I did.
1:12:51
But I I'm a huge coffee fans. Yeah, because it's that style,
1:12:54
so. You can mix any sort of coffee
1:12:56
in there and you know you'll all pep in your step while you're
1:13:00
having some beer. Yeah, exactly.
1:13:02
All right, all right. Well, we're down to our final
1:13:07
category last, but not necessarily at least we didn't
1:13:10
put these in any particular order.
1:13:11
The last category is our favorite wheat beer.
1:13:14
Now, this isn't like the like the the Oscars were like we
1:13:18
saving the best picture for last or anything like that.
1:13:21
It's just, it's just, it's just. Alphabetical order.
1:13:24
It's just weird. Maybe that's what it is.
1:13:26
It kind of is actually. That's our favorite wheat beer.
1:13:29
And before you start Steve, I got I got another little Steve
1:13:38
who gets the Papa for your. And the Papa goes too.
1:13:42
Ladies and gentlemen. Come on, John.
1:13:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Comment.
1:13:48
Yeah, comment John brewing we love in Manchester, TN was their
1:13:53
weed beer. The blessing in the skies, which
1:13:56
was which was a pretty good beer as I'm looking on a tap.
1:13:59
They rated that a four and a 5.1% beer.
1:14:03
So that was a really good one and A and another brewery.
1:14:05
By the way, my friends, if you when you get to Nashville and if
1:14:09
you're ever like, you know what, let's take a day trip somewhere.
1:14:12
Even though it's like an hour S it is so worth the drive.
1:14:15
We'll get you to those two places, but we'll go to two
1:14:18
places in one day. We'll go to East Nashville, Beer
1:14:20
Works at Lebanon and we'll get out to Manchester.
1:14:23
That'll just be the day. Yeah, add an extra day to your
1:14:26
trip. We'll do that on the Monday.
1:14:28
All right, so my favorite wheat beer, the bumper goes to, by the
1:14:32
way, this category had 10 untapped sex.
1:14:35
It's under wheat beer. The wheat beers had 10
1:14:37
subcategories in it. It is ridiculous.
1:14:39
But anyway, it's called Hey Vernal by BS Brew Works out of
1:14:43
Springfield, TN, which we've not been to.
1:14:45
Steve. That's true in Nashville.
1:14:48
Put it on the list. On the list.
1:14:50
I'm sorry you broke up on me. Did you say Murfreesboro?
1:14:53
No Springfield. Springfield, Springfield, TN.
1:14:58
Every state has a Springfield. Yeah, exactly.
1:15:01
And it's rural. It's pretty rural.
1:15:03
I think we've never been there. It's they call it the style.
1:15:07
It's a wheat beer, but it's a hoppin vice, a hoppin vice.
1:15:11
So it's like a it's a Hefavizen that's got a little more hops to
1:15:14
it, which qualifies as a wheat beer.
1:15:17
But I had it at Hoppin River North Steve, the place where you
1:15:20
go. It's it's amazing because it's a
1:15:22
it's a tap room where you can go and kind of pour your own beer
1:15:24
with the with the with the bracelet.
1:15:25
But had it there. Excellent beer.
1:15:29
And I had several wheat beers this year.
1:15:31
This one stood out 4.1 rating really good.
1:15:34
I had forgotten about it until I've looked it up on untapped
1:15:37
and I was like, Oh shit, I remember this beer now.
1:15:39
Excellent beer. So kind of a I'm almost an off
1:15:42
the beat category. I think it's one of those
1:15:44
categories again, where you have more than you think you've had
1:15:47
during the course of the year when you go back and look it on
1:15:48
tapped at least. So anyway, you guys have any
1:15:50
experience in the wheat beers this year?
1:15:52
Scott, I thought you were going to say something from your
1:15:54
Germany trip. No.
1:15:55
No, because they're all good over there, but everything
1:15:58
always kind of rides around A38. There's some exceptions, but in
1:16:02
which is higher than the normal overall rating for those beers,
1:16:06
the global rating always rate higher and they do and they're
1:16:10
all in like the three-point twos and I'm like 38393 fours or or
1:16:15
fours and and most of them are lower than that.
1:16:18
I think people just don't appreciate the traditional stuff
1:16:21
anyway. But my answer is traditional.
1:16:23
I had a really good half of Eisen from Weinsteff, and
1:16:26
recently, again, it came from this canteen restaurant.
1:16:29
I'm telling you guys, you should go fancy poor.
1:16:31
Sounds good. Yeah.
1:16:33
Good food, good beers. Half of Eisen.
1:16:35
Everybody should do it. Yay.
1:16:36
Come on, we need to clap. Yeah, come on.
1:16:39
That that was your thank you, Scott.
1:16:40
Man, wait, looks like a delay. That's.
1:16:44
We're getting trained. It's.
1:16:45
Terrible. I'm really good at editing
1:16:47
though, like. I don't have a wheat beer, and I
1:16:51
know I would. You know, we need to know Tom's
1:16:54
feelings about this category. OK, I see the look on his face.
1:16:58
No, I probably said this during our other podcast.
1:17:01
I'm not a wheat beer fan. I think that wheat beers taste
1:17:04
like a Band-Aid smells, and if you get that, you get that.
1:17:07
Even traditional hefeweizens. German Hefeweizens.
1:17:10
Well, listen, yeah, listen, they get really Clovy and stuff.
1:17:14
There's some I can, I can have some.
1:17:15
But I did find one this year that is technically a wheat beer
1:17:20
that I love that as a matter of fact.
1:17:23
Thank you. Thank you.
1:17:26
And I was just at the brewery yesterday and I was talking to
1:17:29
the Brewer and I was like, you got to bring that back.
1:17:31
And it's at Apocalypse Brew Works and it's, they're green
1:17:38
chili wheat. And it is, yes.
1:17:41
And it doesn't really go Clovy at all.
1:17:43
It's got those green chilies in it, but it's not too hot at all.
1:17:47
It's just the right mix of flavors that makes that really
1:17:50
interesting. And I'm a big fan.
1:17:52
I can drink that one all day. What was the color of that beer?
1:17:55
Yellowish. Was was OK.
1:17:57
So, yeah, OK. Beer colored.
1:18:00
He has no clue, he's just picking it.
1:18:03
It was no, it was a dark beer or anything.
1:18:06
It was. It was pretty standard beer
1:18:07
color. Yeah, so, but the chili, I was
1:18:09
kind of thinking maybe the Chili's had changed the color a
1:18:11
little bit or nothing, but no. No, it's a green chili.
1:18:14
It's not a color. It's just that that's the kind
1:18:16
of chili. Scott, come on.
1:18:17
Just. Put a picture in my mind.
1:18:19
When I make white chicken chili, I put green chilies in that, so
1:18:22
that makes me feel like I could pair that and have a little beer
1:18:26
and white chicken chili pairing. Yeah.
1:18:29
Hell yeah. Dig it.
1:18:30
Any other categories issue you guys want to talk about that the
1:18:33
Boppas did not represent? You know, we're, we're a small
1:18:36
staff. Do we?
1:18:38
Get to award Spence his own award for.
1:18:42
We hadn't got to. We hadn't got to that part yet.
1:18:45
Lifetime achievement? Is that what we're talking?
1:18:47
Here he's got to put a little more time in, but we'll get
1:18:49
there. We might name something after
1:18:51
him. That out.
1:18:53
I'm a. I'm a fan of cream ales.
1:18:57
I've become one, you know, if you find the right one and I've
1:18:59
had two. I had an interesting one
1:19:01
recently at Old Louisville Brewing.
1:19:03
They had a stroopwafel and it literally tasted like a liquid
1:19:07
stroopwafel, which means by the bottom of the pipe.
1:19:09
I was like, I cannot have another one of these.
1:19:10
But the first half of it you're like, this is crazy.
1:19:13
I love this. And but the one I go to the most
1:19:15
is out in Vegas when I have to go out there for work.
1:19:18
Abel Baker, best brewery in Vegas.
1:19:21
Great place. A lot of Ipas, but they have it
1:19:23
and they call it Arachata and it's a cream ale and they
1:19:27
they'll ask if you want the cinnamon sugar on the rim of the
1:19:29
glass and they'll do that. And every time I've taken
1:19:32
somebody there and done that, they're like, that's great.
1:19:35
That's like, I know it is. I know I'm going to get one
1:19:40
every. Time I had a really good again.
1:19:41
This was also at Brink on Black Friday.
1:19:44
They had a bunch of just kick it off the season beers.
1:19:47
They had one that was called slow toboggan.
1:19:50
It was a spice brown ale. It was just kind of I feel like
1:19:52
setting the holiday season in a right tone and I actually
1:19:56
watched out with the four packs. So I can tell you I liked it
1:19:59
that much that I brought home for more to share with family
1:20:02
and friends and I happened to pop back up there the other
1:20:05
weekend and it's still on tap. So I'm excited to see that that
1:20:08
they made enough that it could. Last the whole season so sure
1:20:11
yeah, I'm introducing it to more people.
1:20:13
I'm like here, try this, try this, try this.
1:20:15
So no, it was a good one. I really enjoyed it and I also
1:20:20
thought the name was Humorous Slow Toboggan.
1:20:22
Yeah, it doesn't get down the hill very quickly.
1:20:24
No, takes its time. You're favoring the hill, I
1:20:28
guess. This is why.
1:20:30
You know what? Totally appreciate that I do.
1:20:33
I love, I love the the fall into winters you go from, you know,
1:20:38
Tom, you said September, really, I mean, Sam Adams, Oktoberfest
1:20:42
is available in August now. But like when you hit once you
1:20:46
hit through Oktoberfest and then those, those winter warmers and
1:20:50
the fall, you know, if it once it turns to the Christmas ales
1:20:54
and, and you know that to me, like that's part of the holiday
1:20:58
season now for me, you know, like I totally look forward to
1:21:02
the. Different ones out there.
1:21:04
Yeah, and they're playing right from Oktoberfest to Christmas
1:21:08
ales to your Saint Patty's Day. You get, you get the box and.
1:21:14
And you get the box. Yeah, the box and the and the.
1:21:17
Irish well in Ohio and Kentucky. We're into Conway's from Great
1:21:21
Lakes, not in Tennessee, but we'll see what we can do.
1:21:24
So that leads into now when we were.
1:21:27
See what you could do, Brad. I were talking about, you know,
1:21:32
the. Best beers of the year?
1:21:33
That's right. When Scott and I were talking
1:21:36
about the best beers of the year, I put on this one my
1:21:39
overall favorite beer of the year.
1:21:41
And he said, why didn't you make that your number 1?
1:21:43
And I said it wasn't my number one, but it was my #1 beer that
1:21:47
I'll remember because it came from Listerman.
1:21:49
Listerman, Liz, you were with me.
1:21:51
Was it the milkshake? The.
1:21:52
Mint the Mint Shamrock Shake from Listerman.
1:21:56
That was so good. Was my overall, even though I
1:22:01
didn't rate it, I rated like a 4.25 on a tab.
1:22:04
I didn't rate it A5. It was still like the most fun
1:22:07
beer of the year for me because we, I was up there and we were,
1:22:12
you know, I was sitting there going, we got to get, we got to
1:22:14
get the lips from them. They got a couple of Irish
1:22:16
beers. We're going to be doing a Saint
1:22:18
Patrick's Day episode of Scott and I were a couple other guys
1:22:21
in the in the weeks prior. And I said I got to go and get
1:22:25
that. And it almost tasted like a Girl
1:22:28
Scout cookie. But it was just so good.
1:22:30
And it's, it's it, it just fit like the whole vibe.
1:22:34
And so, you know, for many reasons.
1:22:37
And now Listerman is gone. Maybe, maybe some other brewery
1:22:40
will revive that one. I don't know.
1:22:42
It was pretty good though. I would agree it was an
1:22:44
excellent one. I guess we should have brought
1:22:46
some Girl Scout cookies and Thin Mints to pair for that.
1:22:50
Yeah, we could have. But that that was an excellent
1:22:52
beer. Yeah.
1:22:54
Shamrock Shake, right? Yeah, yeah, the Mint Shamrock
1:22:57
Shake. Yep, it was great.
1:22:59
They had a couple of them, but that one was the one I really.
1:23:01
Yeah, that was a good one. Rest, rest in peace.
1:23:04
Pour one out. Not not actually going to.
1:23:07
Here's where I'm pouring it out to.
1:23:09
Good. Old Mr. Men.
1:23:11
I tell you the one I would pour out would be that Saunders
1:23:12
Cinnamon roll beer that I would pour out.
1:23:15
See me rolling. See me rolling?
1:23:18
I've forgotten the name even it was I don't know for whatever
1:23:20
reason the style I did not like but.
1:23:22
You start rolling and you were hating.
1:23:23
I gave it to Brian. He drank the rest of it anyway.
1:23:26
Yeah, that's right. OK guys, any other 2025
1:23:32
memorable highlights, beer highlights of the year?
1:23:36
Anybody stands out to any of you guys?
1:23:38
Bubble word for Tom? Tom Yeah.
1:23:40
You know this could be wordy, so I tried to figure out how how we
1:23:44
could get this to be word more wordy than it already is.
1:23:47
See you started it and I let Yes, I saw, I'm sorry, but.
1:23:50
I'll tell you how to make it more wordy.
1:23:52
Let me present it. It just went on and on and on
1:23:54
and on. The bubble word for Tom, the
1:23:56
best flight, carrying a flight on a flight of stairs.
1:24:01
He's gone. He's out on that one.
1:24:04
What was really funny about that for for people that had not
1:24:07
tuned into a previous podcast was you did something that I
1:24:11
would have done had I been brave enough to do that.
1:24:14
I stopped doing years prior and that would be trying to carry a
1:24:18
flight up the stairs at Listerman Brewing.
1:24:21
No, Brian, guys. No, no, no.
1:24:23
No, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry.
1:24:24
Yeah, Ryan guys, that Ryan guys. Many.
1:24:26
That was like, that's like a flight, Yeah.
1:24:28
And that was at least three flights, I'll remind you, and it
1:24:31
was on the very last flight as I was chastising you all.
1:24:38
Like you were telling everybody how easy it was and then it was
1:24:41
like, well. I was being harassed about it
1:24:44
and I was, I was giving back. And then I would have made it
1:24:46
too, if it weren't for you meddling drinkers.
1:24:48
So you get an award. For that.
1:24:49
Listen, I'm going to Here's my one prideful moment of that.
1:24:52
None of the glass is broke. None broke.
1:24:56
I lost every beer, so you know, that was like 12 bucks, 14 bucks
1:24:59
on me, literally. But nobody was injured in the
1:25:02
fall, and we did not have to call humans using Coleman.
1:25:05
That's right, that's right. Just my pride.
1:25:09
And that led to the and that led to the greatest video shoot on
1:25:12
the roof ever. I wish I had queued up right
1:25:14
now. Yes, Tom, I was right behind.
1:25:18
You, I was right behind you when you went out there.
1:25:19
You never foul. You just stumbled.
1:25:22
And then the flight just kind of joggled and kind of, and then
1:25:25
one went down, kind of a couple other went down and you tried to
1:25:28
save them. No glasses broke and the people
1:25:31
at the bottom of stairs got a little bit of your beer.
1:25:33
It was very graceful, it was. Very.
1:25:35
And, and I will say this for that reason, I stopped doing
1:25:39
that three or four years prior when they started doing you can
1:25:42
go upstairs and get a flight from upstairs rather than going
1:25:45
downstairs and then taking it up.
1:25:46
I went, I'm going that route because I'll call it one day.
1:25:49
Clearly I wouldn't have gotten a flight downstairs if I known at
1:25:52
the time we were going upstairs. I'm not.
1:25:54
I'm not that much of an idiot. We didn't know whether we were
1:25:57
coming and going. We had no direction.
1:25:59
We were just there. That's fair.
1:26:00
Still had still had a fantastic day.
1:26:03
Yes, absolutely. I give that.
1:26:05
That was the best brewery tour trip of the year without a
1:26:08
doubt. Now, Brad, Steve didn't write
1:26:10
that one down for you, but I did.
1:26:12
You're not left out of this thing, by the way.
1:26:14
You get an award, damn it. He should have turned this mic,
1:26:17
should have turned this video camera off for a long ago.
1:26:21
You get an award for the the best George W Bush impression,
1:26:26
all right? We all know that That's the best
1:26:27
one. Also for part being the better
1:26:30
part of this beer hanging duo of U2 of the Hill Tappers.
1:26:37
I wholeheartedly have strapped and it's true you.
1:26:42
Know a few friends, should have something of his own.
1:26:47
Gotta be a boy. Wait, is this wait a second.
1:26:50
Yeah, No, I don't like how this is turning.
1:26:52
Is this a participation? Generalize that no.
1:26:55
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, you just generalize that
1:26:58
the better half across the board I see the.
1:27:00
Dynamic. I'm just saying you deserved
1:27:03
your own. It's not participation trophy.
1:27:04
I know who runs things. I I accept and I appreciate
1:27:08
everything the Academy does like.
1:27:11
That's a powerful speech. Powerful.
1:27:14
This award just in. Wrote a speech.
1:27:17
This award just in. Steve is getting the award for
1:27:21
the Underground podcast. The least amount of syphilis of
1:27:25
the two of them. How about that?
1:27:27
That's good. Hey, by the way, how did you
1:27:30
test that? By the way?
1:27:31
Did we? We all send.
1:27:32
In samples on behalf of the Academy, I do accept accept this
1:27:39
award. You're welcome.
1:27:41
So thank you that the Bupas made the Bupas live forever.
1:27:45
And just so you know, that's a legit Emmy.
1:27:47
That's not a problem. That's fantastic.
1:27:49
That is fucking awesome. Congratulations.
1:27:51
Like a 1990 something. Yeah.
1:27:54
For a special project we did on the Little League World Series
1:27:57
back when I worked in TV. So yeah.
1:28:00
Yeah, you got an Emmy, man. That's fantastic.
1:28:02
That's fun. That was fun.
1:28:03
We have one Emmy combined with the five of us.
1:28:06
Tom of. What's?
1:28:08
I don't know what he's. Doing Tom.
1:28:09
That looks like my stationary photo.
1:28:11
He's Top Gun. Yeah, just waiting for it to
1:28:13
end. Well, you're great.
1:28:17
You're a great duo. I just, I just thought Brett had
1:28:20
the edge there, you know, He just edged me up.
1:28:23
Maybe next year. Maybe next year, buddy.
1:28:25
They could get the Bupa for the favorite Louisville duo.
1:28:28
Yeah, well, we thought this. That's a given.
1:28:31
Steve, I really need you to join on Friday as soon as possible.
1:28:34
As soon as possible. See, Tom's going to need.
1:28:37
Tom's going to need a wingman or a partner.
1:28:39
I know it, I know it. He's going to need the getaway
1:28:41
car. Like, give me the hell out of
1:28:43
here. Liz, you're getting an award
1:28:47
too. You get a bump of your second
1:28:49
year in a row, you get a bump of I don't even remember what the
1:28:51
last one was, but you get a bump of for the for the best
1:28:54
Cincinnati correspondent and on our feet on the street like you
1:28:57
are our correspondent in Cincinnati, you keep it going
1:29:00
for us. You report back, you give us
1:29:02
pertinent information. You get a bump of for that.
1:29:04
Why? Thank you, Thank you.
1:29:06
I also accept. Thank you, Academy.
1:29:08
I'd, I'd like to thank all the little people along the way that
1:29:12
helped me get here. Yeah.
1:29:14
And all the beers that contributed to this so I could
1:29:18
have opinions on things and all the events that Cincinnati
1:29:21
hosted. So thank you.
1:29:22
Well. I can't wait till you guys cash
1:29:24
all this in later. Just just to clarify, she's
1:29:28
super helpful and awesome. I got an award for dropping shit
1:29:32
and she got an award for not being me.
1:29:35
Hey man, you got the award at the end of the day.
1:29:38
Hey, every, everybody has a role this like, I mean, come on, come
1:29:42
on. We don't do this by ourselves.
1:29:44
But seriously, like I learned, we're going.
1:29:47
We will definitely be eating at canteen at some point in
1:29:50
Cincinnati. That's like now it's on the
1:29:52
list. If you want to know anything
1:29:54
about Cincinnati, as far as where to go, the great places,
1:29:57
Liz is your hookup. She's got it.
1:30:00
She's got it down. I.
1:30:00
Mean, I even got Steve to try Christmas bars that were all
1:30:05
decked out in Christmas spirit, so we had Christmas cocktails as
1:30:08
well as beers. Hell yeah, it was fun.
1:30:10
I will. I would drink me a good cocktail
1:30:12
on occasion. Yeah, we had some nice bourbon
1:30:15
we went to. Where did we hold on?
1:30:17
It was the Saint Nick Speakeasy at Arnold's.
1:30:21
Yes. And you, you had a old fashioned
1:30:23
I. Think I did, yes.
1:30:24
Yeah, and I had a Christmas cookie martini, Sugar Christmas
1:30:28
cookie martini. Say that five times fast.
1:30:31
Yes, yes. And then I took him to the
1:30:35
pitch, which is across the street from the FC Cincinnati
1:30:39
Stadium. They were having pitch miss.
1:30:40
So it looked like full on Christmas had happened in there
1:30:44
with lots of photo tourneys for people who want to get their,
1:30:48
you know, Christmas cocktails and, you know, photos.
1:30:51
And might I say that was the first time I've had Christmas
1:30:54
Ale. But at first, that was the first
1:30:56
time I've ever had Christmas Ale on tap.
1:30:57
So I'm pretty sure we were texting Scott and going Scott,
1:31:01
why aren't you awake? And we were sending pictures of
1:31:04
Steve in the corner. They had this like bow corner
1:31:07
with the word joy written on there and Steve his beer.
1:31:11
I was adorable. I was just so adorable.
1:31:13
Adorable Steve, you get the bapa for being most adorable.
1:31:16
Yeah, did he say adorable? You know, there just were so
1:31:20
many fun Christmas themed things.
1:31:21
I thought, you know what, in Cincinnati you might as well see
1:31:24
what sort of shooting ends you can get up to.
1:31:26
But you know, probably the best. The best part of that evening
1:31:29
was our little underground unexpected tour.
1:31:31
From it was, it was, it was fun. It was fun, Scott.
1:31:34
We got some stats, right? We have stats.
1:31:36
We got some stats, but before we start that I've got I've got a
1:31:39
few quick bumpers I want to give away.
1:31:42
Okay, just just a couple things. You got the soundtrack.
1:31:45
Ready. I didn't, I didn't prepare that
1:31:47
with that. Well, we were drinking earlier
1:31:48
today. I had to go do that.
1:31:49
I was unprepared. However, a couple random Papas.
1:31:53
New brewery of the year goes to Stokehouse Brewing and BBQ here
1:31:57
in Nashville, TN New brewery of the year, You guys are going to
1:32:00
visit very soon. We're going to do that.
1:32:02
They're awesome. Best new podcast.
1:32:05
We're three years old, so it's not us, but hop in, we're
1:32:07
drinking. Our friends Joe and Nick love
1:32:10
those guys. Best new podcast of the year to
1:32:13
get a Bupa. Chris Finnon Our buddy Chris
1:32:16
Finnon for tolerating us first of all, and ultimately being our
1:32:19
best additional host of the year.
1:32:22
Now you can hit the applause. Yeah, OK.
1:32:33
That's for you, Chris. Chris Finnick gets a bapa.
1:32:35
Michael Stokes, our biggest supporter.
1:32:38
He's listened to every episode and every episode.
1:32:41
The most episodes he's he's our he's our biggest fan.
1:32:44
Michael Stoke gets a bapa And the last one goes to the foamy
1:32:48
heads. Mitch and Rich for paving the
1:32:50
way for us. I think we, we name an award, an
1:32:53
annual award after them for anyone that paves the way for
1:32:56
anyone else in the craft beer communities, Bapa for those
1:32:59
guys. And we're going to name an award
1:33:01
for those guys annually. Cheers to all those guys.
1:33:05
Now to the stats. We got stats.
1:33:07
We got stats. You start.
1:33:08
Here's. Some stats.
1:33:09
Stats. Are Scout, I'm gonna do my.
1:33:12
Stats are stats are stats. Stats are stouts.
1:33:14
We can do both. So here's my stats and on tap.
1:33:17
So this year I drank 376 unique beer.
1:33:22
I had 102 styles. My top style, probably because I
1:33:26
was on the West Coast IPA tour this year, was IPA American.
1:33:30
I don't think that'll be that way in 2026.
1:33:32
Whispering. Pines, I rated A5 from Mad Tree.
1:33:37
That was my my number one of the year.
1:33:39
I had four. I had 430.
1:33:41
Check insurance at 65 venues in eight cities and this year,
1:33:46
according to Untapped, I drank enough to fill a 30 inch tire.
1:33:50
Would love it. And this year, according to
1:33:52
Untapped, I am an alcoholic. And that, ladies and gentlemen,
1:33:56
are some of my staff on Untapped.
1:33:58
The next one should have. Been with the tire?
1:34:00
Yeah. The next, the next set should
1:34:03
have been, hey man, split this up over a couple of years.
1:34:06
Yeah, just one. Apparently I have a tire problem
1:34:10
all right. The tire needs to be deflated a
1:34:13
little bit. It'll deflated.
1:34:14
Yeah, that inflated. The thing is maxed out.
1:34:17
I'm telling you, Scott, what you got all.
1:34:20
Right quick stats, this is all just from untapped 15178 unique
1:34:25
check insurance down from last year if you can believe it. 456
1:34:29
badges matching so far matching what I had last year.
1:34:34
Yeast infection. Brew works is my #1 venue.
1:34:36
I drink in kind of home or 13 venues, 8 cities, three
1:34:40
countries. Saturday is my most checked in,
1:34:43
Monday is my least checked in day.
1:34:45
My trusted copilot this year was Steve and I've had 24,408 oz
1:34:50
enough to fill 2 kayaks twice over or fill a kayak with.
1:34:54
I don't know why a kayak, it doesn't really make any sense.
1:34:59
There's nothing else they can do.
1:35:01
Go. Small tire.
1:35:03
Yeah, they don't go from like one kayak and then to like a
1:35:05
rowboat. That's like, no, just two
1:35:07
kayaks. Two kayaks which no longer float
1:35:09
like tie eggs at the bottom of the river.
1:35:11
Have you guys looked up in your set?
1:35:13
Go ahead, Brad. No other to say yay or I don't.
1:35:16
Know well the way we check in his would be like oh you drank a
1:35:19
thimble? Enough to fill a shoe, Tom,
1:35:23
you've got some you. You're pretty consistent on your
1:35:25
your. Yeah, but I'm I'm not listening,
1:35:27
but I don't check it on time. But but here's But I did check
1:35:30
in more this year than I ever had, so OK.
1:35:32
Give us some stats. Breakdown.
1:35:33
Well, this can't be right. It's all well, it's all 0.
1:35:37
Where am I supposed to go check in?
1:35:40
Liz Nice that a little Woodford. There you go.
1:35:44
Yes, yeah, that's candy. This is the 150th Derby
1:35:48
commemorative bottle. What's that time?
1:35:51
OK, Tom's going to raise that. Language right there.
1:35:55
Apparently. Stats and I don't have my
1:35:58
untapped stats, but I have been to five distilleries this year
1:36:02
that make bourbon. So yeah, there's that stat.
1:36:06
Excellent, I'm an amateur. I have to upgrade my account to
1:36:09
get the yearly stats. Oh.
1:36:10
My God, rookie. I'm not.
1:36:13
Do I have to pay that? I'm not paying this company to
1:36:15
do that. I don't think.
1:36:18
Not for the recap, I don't think.
1:36:19
Anyway. I'll show you how.
1:36:20
To do it my God see here here's where is you know I'm not paying
1:36:24
for that get off my lawn and. Get off my lawn.
1:36:27
I'll tell you how much I. Drank you could.
1:36:30
We do this. Your car probably knows a
1:36:34
workaround for you. Probably.
1:36:37
Tom, this needs to be a sticker. By the way, your picture right
1:36:40
now needs to be a sticker. I'm.
1:36:41
Telling you, Georgia, it looks like my frozen face.
1:36:44
Right now, yes. Yes, it needs a sheet over his
1:36:47
face. Yes, a blanket.
1:36:50
A blanket. You're pretty close to being the
1:36:52
Jon Hamm meme, you know, just nod your head.
1:36:55
I'm seeing that everywhere too. I was going to say, can you see
1:36:58
this? This will be.
1:36:59
Yes, that's fantastic. Oh yeah, love it.
1:37:02
Nice, it looks like. How to cousin it from a little
1:37:06
bit? Yes, people who wait in line for
1:37:08
concert tickets but don't want to tell people they took off
1:37:11
work for concert tickets but then got interviewed by the News
1:37:15
anyway. That was the move.
1:37:16
People who come on podcast but don't want people to know that
1:37:18
they've been on the podcast, that's the look too.
1:37:21
There you go. Luckily it fits.
1:37:23
It fits. All right.
1:37:26
I guess and then we'll go to like you know, second tier or
1:37:30
second phase of this thing which after with the microphones off,
1:37:32
what do you think about that or at least the camera off you want
1:37:35
to end this thing? Are you talking to me?
1:37:38
Yeah, I mean, just just end it. I don't know you just you just
1:37:40
said, you just mentioned it to everybody.
1:37:42
Sure. You got to get off.
1:37:43
The local news is coming. On yeah, yeah, OK, but yeah.
1:37:47
We talked about our favorite things in 2025.
1:37:49
Do any of you have something you're looking forward to in
1:37:52
2026 From, you know, anything beer related?
1:37:57
Travels. Great visits.
1:37:59
I was looking forward to my trip to Nashville.
1:38:02
You're always welcome. You're always welcome.
1:38:05
You got an award? I mean, I'm not the worst thing
1:38:08
in town. The Titans are still there.
1:38:11
No, they're yeah, that's that's very true.
1:38:15
You will be completely welcomed here.
1:38:17
The red carpet will be rolled out for you, Sir.
1:38:19
Speaking for myself, Liz, I'm looking forward to more great
1:38:23
Brewer beer and more great breweries in 2026.
1:38:25
Yeah, no, I, I look, this year was great and we got, you know,
1:38:29
through you guys like in Cincinnati with Liz and then
1:38:32
when we hit it off with, with you guys in Nashville and and
1:38:35
Keith came to visit and he on his way through to Indianapolis,
1:38:39
he stopped by. It was great.
1:38:40
Had a great day when we met the Pedal Band and the Brew Dude and
1:38:45
Brew Dad, you know, like that was so much fun last year.
1:38:47
So that network of people and who enjoy it and enjoy having
1:38:52
fun and trying new things. May we all be blessed with some
1:38:56
of that in the coming year for sure.
1:38:58
Yeah, absolutely. And and the reason we're all
1:39:00
here is because we've done all that and you guys continue to be
1:39:03
a part of our lives and and be a part of the podcast.
1:39:05
But just even outside of the podcast, like we we all talk
1:39:08
individually anyways. So you guys are a big part of
1:39:11
our lives and our beer lives. And so that was a big highlight
1:39:14
for me. I've drank beer with all of you
1:39:15
people this year multiple times. Every once in a while, even
1:39:20
before the podcast starts, well. When when you didn't know I was
1:39:24
drinking with you, I was in a kayak or in a tire, I don't
1:39:29
know. You never know.
1:39:31
There was taking it home, then taking it home, then we'll.
1:39:33
Just see real quick. Yep.
1:39:35
OK, encore, encore. Come on.
1:39:37
Yeah, he's making fun. But the the very first thing
1:39:40
that's coming up in 2026 is Brad and Tom coming to town.
1:39:43
They're literally going to be here on on January 2nd.
1:39:46
So the first thing out of the gate in 2026, I look forward to
1:39:50
these guys coming down here. I know you do too.
1:39:52
New beer, new beer, new stories. Cheers.
1:39:55
Let's do it. Cheers.
1:39:56
New spills let's. Go I can't wait to see you get
1:39:59
what you get an award for next year and.
1:40:00
It could happen in three days. That's true.
1:40:04
He's going to do something that's going to earn him an an
1:40:08
annual. It's a it might be a leg lamp,
1:40:10
who knows, but it's going to be an award.
1:40:12
You're getting one regardless. You never know what you mean.
1:40:15
We're cheers to that, cheers for all of you.
1:40:17
Thank you for being a part of this.
1:40:18
We're two hours and for this, this party is going to go on
1:40:21
after we hit stop here, I think. Right on.
1:40:24
Cheers. Happy New Year.
1:40:25
The Brewery Underground. Podcast Happy New Years.
1:40:28
Cheers everybody. 2025 Cheers to the Brewery Underground podcast.
1:40:32
Thank you. And all big awards.
1:40:35
Look for them in the mail.