Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Top 10 Craft Beers of 2025: Our Favorite Beers & Blind Taste Challenge | Episode 105

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Top 10 Craft Beers of 2025: Our Favorite Beers & Blind Taste Challenge | Episode 105 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

0:39
Well, hello everybody, it is the Brewery Underground podcast.
0:44
We got to say happy holidays because you know, it is, it is
0:47
the holiday season, right? Good times, good times, good
0:49
times good. Times.
0:51
Chris, did you spring your sweaty?
0:53
Balls. Oh, I loved your sweaty balls,
0:54
Scott. And we're off and we are off.
0:59
I'll tell you what boys, this is, this is a, a second now a
1:04
second tradition that we are going to be doing a few things
1:08
here. We're multitasking tonight #1
1:11
the important thing that we're doing is we are ranking our top
1:16
10 beers of 2025. Yeah, we need to keep that in
1:20
mind because there's something else that's going to go on here
1:22
shortly that you're going to talk about in a minute.
1:24
But we have to keep in mind that's the premise of this.
1:26
That is the premise, you know, we we made the list.
1:29
We go throughout the year. We drink a lot of great beer.
1:32
We also drink some bad beer at times.
1:35
Sometimes on purpose. Yeah, but we're not raiding
1:38
those beers. The beers that were raiding
1:40
tonight are the ones that we really like, right guys?
1:44
And we have drank them already this year.
1:46
By the way. Introductions if if he needs
1:48
one, that's Chris Finnon. Chris Finnon's here.
1:50
Thanks for having me guys. Absolutely.
1:52
I Before we get into the good beers and the really bad beers,
1:56
I, I had an epiphany on the way here like a another one of my
2:00
$1,000,000 ideas, you know, like my, you know, gluten free,
2:03
organic, vegan bottled water, you know, like $1,000,000 idea
2:07
and of course yeast infection $1,000,000 idea that lives.
2:09
Forever. What what if we did a podcast
2:13
about beer where you go and interview like the Brewers that
2:17
actually make the beer, you know, like not like mainstream,
2:21
like something that's a little underground, you know, like a
2:23
little under the, you know, do. You have any any thoughts?
2:27
I think there's AI, think there's a market for that.
2:29
Like does it sound like a pretty good idea?
2:32
Yeah. We should do that.
2:33
What do you think? I, I mean, I think maybe only
2:35
two people. I don't, you know, I don't know
2:38
if we need 3 to do something that's, you know, like an
2:42
underground kind of brewery. Yeah.
2:45
Podcast. You know, you're really on the.
2:47
Cell phone here. I think you are, yeah.
2:48
See, I'm going to write this down.
2:49
We're going to cut. We're going to cut Chris out of
2:51
this. We need.
2:52
We need. More ideas?
2:54
Now seriously wanted to say cheers, Congrats on.
2:56
I know you're north of your 100th episode, but wanted to say
2:59
Congrats and well done. Thank you.
3:01
Very, very good stuff. And you've been a part of that.
3:04
Yeah, cheers to that. Cheers to 100 episodes, yes.
3:07
And then maybe a moment of silence to all the brain cells
3:10
that were donated for for the 100 episodes.
3:16
We may get into some of theirs tonight, some of their stories.
3:18
And I appreciate because I know you listened too, because you
3:20
were actually bringing up the Riverbend Malt House episode to
3:24
me the other day. Fascinating.
3:25
How interesting. Yeah, So interesting.
3:28
Yeah. That was both those, you know,
3:29
double episodes. Fantastic.
3:30
Thank you. Yeah, really much.
3:32
Learned so much out of that one. Yeah, and you know it.
3:35
That's off to to to our guest on that one.
3:38
Yes. God, how great was that?
3:41
Yeah, I think he could have talked for 8 hours just you guys
3:45
wound him up and just let him go and it was really, really
3:49
interesting. Best guest aren't.
3:50
They you enjoyed them. You wound.
3:53
Up These crappy beers are about to drink and get me wound up.
3:55
We're going. To get everybody.
3:57
Might get a little ornery. By the way, Steve, grab me that
4:00
bottle opener right there, if you would, if you don't mind.
4:02
Yeah, let's put that, just put it on camera, put it right in
4:05
front of your face. That is Brian.
4:08
Brian's helping us out over here.
4:09
He's going to be our sommelier. Yes, he's our sommelier.
4:12
He's he's, he's serving up the blind shitty beers and and you
4:17
know, recognition of it. We, we, we created a bottle
4:19
opener for him. There's Brian.
4:23
Well. The good thing is, so we're
4:25
starting off tonight. We are drinking some good beer
4:28
and Chris over there we're we're going to, we're going to ask you
4:32
first, what is it that you're drinking?
4:34
Yeah, I just pulled out of the celebration.
4:37
You know, Fresh Hop IPA from Sierra Nevada, always good this
4:41
time of year. I think usually when they
4:43
release that and never can go wrong with that one.
4:46
I know you just. Had I just had it 2 days ago Mr.
4:50
Brews and Murfreesboro on a flight and really enjoyed it.
4:54
Always, in fact, who you know is always big.
4:58
Well, I am now, you know, I'm too on the old untapped thing.
5:01
He's like, did you really rate that in right because.
5:05
Well, it wasn't your fault, but go ahead.
5:08
You know, it's one of the things that I've tried to cut down on.
5:11
They're getting those text, text messages from Scott.
5:14
When he said you didn't rate, you didn't rate that beer,
5:17
right. I have actually.
5:18
I actually haven't had a text message from him.
5:21
Like that, he's critiquing your ratings.
5:22
Critiquing my rating, just want them to be.
5:24
Pure, That's all. I want to be pure.
5:26
Yeah. So yeah, I, I went in the other
5:28
day and I'm looking at him like 2024.
5:32
There's 2025. And then there's one that just
5:34
says it's like regular. I'm like, well, it's 2025 and I
5:37
look up at a board and I see the ABV and I'm like, this is the
5:40
one I'm writing in 2025. It's not.
5:42
Your fault though, every menu he's got in his 2025 but he's
5:45
doing it. It's not my fault.
5:46
Right, it's not your fault, it's just what's on the menu because
5:48
it's an annual beer but the recipe stays the same.
5:51
But people like to put the years on them if the recipe is the
5:54
same. So anyway.
5:57
It's like wine. I mean it, you know, same as
5:59
wine. They have different years, same
6:00
recipe. Some years are better than
6:02
others for whatever reason. The crop.
6:04
And that's, you know, and that is a big harvest annually.
6:07
So everything thinks it's a different thing and it's fine.
6:09
I if, if there's one to be had that way, yeah, that's the one.
6:12
Yeah, and celebration, that was on my list, you know, to get
6:16
when it came. Out, don't, don't worry.
6:17
When I go get it on draft, I'm going to rate US the 2025.
6:20
Everybody else is doing it. I wasn't worried.
6:22
You're the one that's worried about it.
6:23
Just like we could tell what's going on.
6:25
I don't want you rated a beer. I'll just toast your beer.
6:28
I don't want the untapped police to come get you.
6:30
Scott's like, OK. Feels like hey, great.
6:33
Second, I have a little issue with your your rating.
6:36
Can you get banned from untapped?
6:37
Like fake news, you know? I'm thinking about I'm becoming
6:40
a moderator. I would have the power, I'll
6:42
have the power. I won't have the time, but I'll
6:44
have the power. I see a beer that you're
6:46
drinking that I've had before that I truly love.
6:49
It's one of our favorites in it. This has made a list before.
6:52
I think it's made both of our lists before.
6:53
It is the see that is the vibacious from Great Lakes, by
6:58
the way. Vicious.
6:58
Yeah, anybody can see my shirt. Great Lakes.
7:01
I bring Great Lakes beer to Tennessee, so it's from Great
7:03
Lakes and it's awesome. I got that at Great Lakes on my
7:05
way back from New York about a month.
7:07
That is the blood orange IBA, right?
7:09
This is this is not this is the right room, but I have that and
7:12
I've got the juicy one also. So I've got it all.
7:14
So this is the this one that started it all right of the
7:17
vivacious series and it's fantastic.
7:19
So that's what I'm almost done with that one before we before
7:23
the next one I'm going to go with is Barik Path of Total
7:27
Destruction West Coast IPA and why it's significant.
7:30
It's a collab with Burial. Nice.
7:33
Talk about two bangers. I didn't even know they were
7:35
doing a collab. I didn't either.
7:36
That's awesome. When I pulled it out of the
7:37
fridge today, that's when I saw the burial.
7:39
Yeah, So, you know, I, you guys always do such a good job of
7:43
educating people. I, I did a little research about
7:46
what makes an IPA, a West Coast IPA, and what I found out is a
7:50
West Coast IPA is one that's overpriced and a little
7:53
pretentious. They'll have mystery solved.
7:58
Being on the West Coast IPA tour this year, I don't feel
8:02
pretentious. Maybe I'm a little more uppity.
8:06
Maybe I have a little more St. cred now with some of the the
8:09
more sophisticated beard drinkers out there.
8:11
What do you think? What?
8:12
Do you think? Oh, you absolutely.
8:13
I mean, you're in, I'm in. You got both free to wet.
8:16
Awesome there we should start a podcast and I can have even.
8:18
More credit only. There was something we could do.
8:21
If you're onto something, Steve, you're onto something.
8:23
That's a great idea, $1,000,000 idea.
8:25
So are you going to go over our our lovely beers that we're
8:28
going to do a blind of? Yeah.
8:30
Real quick, I can also. Oh yeah, yeah, sorry.
8:32
That's OK, That's OK. I'm drinking a little.
8:34
This is the fruited pastry sour ale from Southern Grist.
8:39
It is called Strawberry Delight and it is delightful.
8:42
I know it's in a can, but have you seen the color of it at
8:45
least on the rim of the can? Is it red?
8:47
I would assume I. Bet.
8:49
Yeah, it probably tastes exactly like it sounds.
8:52
So like a strawberry pastry. Very good.
8:55
It's very. How many things does?
8:56
It have in it. It almost feels like a summer
9:00
beer. And on the day that we're
9:03
recording this, it's supposed to go down to like 12° in
9:05
Nashville. So I feel like, yeah, this is
9:07
going to get me in a better mood.
9:08
And I wonder. I really want to get you out of
9:11
it, these beers that Brian the brain is going to get you out of
9:13
that. Zoo is taking over Southern
9:16
Griz. Will this be back again next?
9:19
But that's the question, right? We do know that Chris is going
9:22
to stick around in some capacity.
9:24
Zul has said they're going to keep certain things, maybe batch
9:27
one theory, maybe some some styles that they've got, but
9:30
we'll see how it shakes out. All right, it's coming.
9:33
Scott, what are we doing here, buddy?
9:35
Go over our four blind beers. The crap beers.
9:38
So. We got yeah.
9:39
So we did this last year and Chris was a part of that too.
9:42
We're doing our again, we're doing our top 10 beers of the
9:45
year. But in addition, we're doing a
9:47
flight of four blindly shitty beers.
9:50
Now we know what the beers are, we don't know how they're being
9:52
served in what order. But so we've got Colt 45 at
9:57
coming in at 5.6%, we've got Heineken.
10:02
I'm already disgusted at 5%. Labatt Ice not.
10:08
Labatt but. Labatt Ice. 5.6 and Milwaukee
10:12
Best Ice 5.9 I. Honestly didn't know they still
10:16
had the ice. Beer, it's got to be really
10:18
cheap to make. So the question I have have you
10:21
guys ever had any of these beers?
10:23
I've had the Heineken. I've had Heineken.
10:25
Yep. I'm sure Once Upon a time I've
10:27
had a Colt 45, but it's been decades.
10:29
Same, and I look today, I know I've drank it, but I have not
10:31
checked it so it's probably well before I even knew what craft
10:34
beer was. And I mean, I definitely drank a
10:36
lot of Milwaukee Best, but not ice, I don't think.
10:40
And by the way, and I don't know if anybody saw the Instagram,
10:42
the the cans are one of those cans, 20, 2 oz 22 ounces are
10:46
fucking massive. Not one of them is more than
10:49
$3.80. 5. Oz and we'll probably drink, I
10:53
don't know, 3 oz each? Yeah, so there'll be there'll be
10:57
some beer waste, but who gives a shit?
10:58
Might be 3 oz too many. I remember I listened to this
11:02
episode from last year, Steve. Yeah.
11:04
And it haunted me as I was listening to it.
11:06
And it was a year ago. So we get to do it all over
11:10
again. We do.
11:10
Matter of fact. By the way, one of the things I
11:13
said when I when that episode was winding down, OK, when that
11:20
episode was winding down, the very few things I said, I go
11:23
never do the shitty beer tasting flight again.
11:26
Verbatim because I here we are. And here we are, one year later.
11:29
We're right back at. It, I think at various times
11:32
this year we talked about what we would do and there were some
11:35
ideas that were bounced around and then it kind of came back
11:38
to, well, let's just do that again because it was so much
11:41
fun. Part of the fun is finding them.
11:44
Yeah. What's, what's the shitty ones
11:46
we're going to find? And I was in New York and I
11:47
found the two I brought back because I hadn't seen, I hadn't
11:50
seen the bat ice. And that's part of.
11:52
Yeah, it's kind of from that area.
11:54
And the Colt 4 to 5 was just right there.
11:55
So yeah, you brought the Colt 4 to.
11:57
Five Yeah, I was visiting from Emily in Cincinnati last weekend
12:00
and walked into my, you know, if it one of my favorite places,
12:03
Party source. And I thought, well, they'll
12:05
have they have anything. And there was Colt 45 and
12:09
Heineken in a cooler right next to each other.
12:12
I went and I texted you and I'm like, this is it?
12:15
Got. Them and and what were our four
12:17
last year? Do you remember it?
12:19
Was Bud Ice regular Bud? One of them was hams.
12:22
Oh hams, that's right, I did have an ice beer last year.
12:25
We had regular bud. There were two ices in that one
12:27
too I think. I forget what the 4th 1 was but
12:31
ice was the worst. I think that was the one we
12:33
rated the worst and hams won and.
12:36
Hams won. It's the best worst spear.
12:39
By a landslide so. Well, we got our first ones
12:43
here. OK.
12:44
Should we? Should we?
12:46
I need a pallet cleanser. All right, so how we doing this?
12:50
Well, this is round one. Oh, these are all the same.
12:52
OK, so we got. Three right here for us, those
12:54
around. Thank you.
12:57
Steve, you grab 1:00. You got that one.
13:00
OK, so we've got beer #1 and what we're going to do, we got a
13:02
little sheet here. We're going to maybe put some
13:05
notes down, which probably won't be be any good.
13:08
And then we're going to rank these.
13:09
We're going to. I think we're somewhere along
13:11
the way. We'll guess what the beer is and
13:14
then give it a ranking from 1:00 to.
13:15
Four smell like do you? Do you have a smelt test name?
13:19
OK, it's not the worst notes. No, it's not.
13:22
Smells OK actually. OK, let's see cheat off Chris's
13:24
paper. We got to remember them enough
13:26
to rank them, so I got to make a few notes.
13:28
Actually, the notes will be funny afterwards and say how did
13:31
we, how did we decipher that sweet?
13:35
OK, let's see. I don't know.
13:38
There's not a lot of flavor profile.
13:40
There, that's what I'm saying it's.
13:43
Not terrible. Not terrible.
13:47
I'm going to guess it's not Colt 45.
13:49
You keep your own guess. All right.
13:51
I'm just going to put not Colt 45, no.
13:54
That's my little. OK, sweetness.
13:57
I mean in comparison it's fucking garbage, but I mean to
14:00
what I'm drinking early. Yeah, it didn't make me rich
14:02
like it feel like all the ones last year was.
14:04
You're right, because yes, we riched every single time.
14:09
All right, I'm done with that one.
14:10
Oh yeah, you do like to chug that first one.
14:12
OK, sweetness. I got to finish it OK.
14:16
All right, OK. All right.
14:17
Well, that's going down. Terribly chasing with some
14:20
delight here. Yeah, you want him to get into
14:22
our our list of good beers. So yes, get that one.
14:26
Yes, let's try to get all right. Why don't you feel like Brian
14:29
poured me more? Look, look how much I got.
14:32
All right? That is fair.
14:34
That's true. OK.
14:35
Well, we'll go. We'll go to #2 in a little bit.
14:38
But you know what, as we said, we are going to start off
14:42
talking about our top 10 beers of the year.
14:44
We're going to start with #10 since Chris, yeah, Chris is
14:48
joining us. He's our spent one of our
14:50
special guests tonight, even though he was here last year.
14:52
But you know, Chris, we're going to start with you, man.
14:56
What is my? Special like Special Olympics
14:57
special. Of the year you label.
14:59
You frame it any way you want. To my my #10 that was one we had
15:04
recently and you guys were there and that was the OK Boomer from
15:08
Cedar Glades. Holy shit.
15:10
Yeah, you know the English brown ale that they did and fantastic.
15:14
It was a great environment. First time I'd been to to Cedar
15:17
Glade. You guys were recording your one
15:18
hundredths and really, really good beer.
15:21
Cedar Glade in Murfreesboro, TN They are going to be very happy
15:25
that that that you put them in their rankings.
15:28
It is a great place. That's awesome.
15:30
And by the way, yeah, thank you and Brian also for coming out
15:33
and supporting us on that night. Yes, Sir.
15:35
Yep, it was awesome. Steve, you want to go?
15:36
I'm I'm going to. Go a little round Robin here.
15:39
Yeah, well, you know, you mentioned West Coast Ipas a few
15:45
minutes ago and Steve? 'S going to be pretentious
15:48
going. Through when I was going through
15:50
everything of the year, just when I would go through
15:53
everything in the year, you know, I'm like, what are my
15:56
rankings based on? And it's basically based on the
16:00
beer that I like throughout the year, the moments, you know,
16:02
certain styles that you have, you got to go through it all.
16:05
And so since I was on the West Coast IPA tour this year, I
16:10
thought one of them has to make my list.
16:13
So here's #10 Brink Brewing, which ironically is from the
16:19
West side of Cincinnati, where I grew up.
16:22
And we were there. Scott and I were there in May I.
16:25
Remember this? The Hill Tappers joined us as
16:27
well from Louisville and this was called the Operatic IPA.
16:33
And it was, it was hoppy, it was Piney was hoppy.
16:37
It was fantastic. In fact, I was there a week ago
16:40
and it was still on tap there. I didn't have it that night, but
16:44
I looked up and I'm like, oh man, this.
16:46
Is great. When you drank that beer, you
16:48
knew immediately. Knew it.
16:50
It was fantastic. Yeah.
16:51
Knew it immediately. This is at least a four.
16:53
Yeah, and so this is a 6.8% IPA. West Coast IPAI rated this a
17:02
4.25 on a tapped. The cool thing about this is,
17:06
you know, before this I had only rated the West Coast IPA on a
17:12
tap of 3.75. I hadn't gone to that next
17:15
level. I have since that time, and
17:19
there's some others that I've rated almost most on on the same
17:22
level. But I went, you know what, that
17:25
when I got to put in my top ten, part of a great kind of a great
17:29
experiencing, great moment. Yeah, you bring that up.
17:30
So have you noticed when you go back for these year end things
17:34
that we're doing, are you noticing patterns in your?
17:37
I'm noticing I'm liking them more.
17:39
Yeah. So you're just in general Ipas
17:41
or West West Coast Ipas or? Well, I mean, I, I already liked
17:44
the the whole premise of the the West Coast thing was when Scott
17:48
said to me, you know, earlier this year, then you got to do
17:51
some tour and I'm like, well, I already like Ipas, but West
17:55
Coast Ipas I haven't really delved into that much because as
18:00
as Joe on. Yeah, pop in.
18:05
We're drinking podcast that said well, some people say it tastes
18:08
like cat piss. Yeah.
18:10
The first time they have it, I never thought that, but it just
18:14
wasn't a big fan necessarily. And I think it you, the more you
18:18
got to drink them and more you got to understand them and the
18:21
hops and everything. I mean, maybe you get there and
18:23
maybe you don't, but I feel like I've gotten there.
18:27
I don't know if I'll ever rank one like A5 but.
18:31
They're they're slowly increasing, yeah.
18:34
Yeah. What about you, Scott?
18:35
Have you noticed any patterns in your ratings over the years,
18:38
year over year? As a matter of fact, one of my
18:40
notes down here was my started last year, my let's see, my
18:46
overall ratings. Last year my #10 was a 4.3.
18:52
This year my number 10 is a 4.6. So I know I'm already
18:56
increasing. Overall you're rating.
18:59
And I think it's come over the years just slowly kind of, and
19:02
I'm just appreciating things more and just realizing I don't
19:05
do that percentage thing and on tap like a 3.8 is, you know, a
19:08
certain percentage out of five. I don't look at it that way, but
19:12
I'm just appreciating again, talking to the Brewers and
19:15
knowing the Brewers and how it affects them.
19:17
Why can't this be a four? Why can't I start at A38?
19:19
Why can't it be a four? Fours were always like, oh, I'm
19:22
saving those for special things, right?
19:24
And I realized these are the special things, right?
19:28
Like this fucking thing right here, like.
19:29
Be so stingy with your high numbers.
19:30
That's what it was, being stingy.
19:31
It's exactly what am I saving it for?
19:33
I'm I'm living it. I'm in it right now.
19:35
So that's exactly that gets where we're coming from now this
19:37
year even more than last year. By the way, I do want to point
19:41
out point out that even though we had our first shitty beer
19:45
taste, I don't feel an appetite. I know.
19:48
My 1 did not have a lot of after taste which was which was
19:51
surprising to be honest with you, very surprising.
19:54
I actually wrote not horrible. That'll be interesting.
19:58
We're probably going to have a complete drop off here after the
20:00
maximum, but. Scott, what is your number?
20:02
Ten, OK #10 it's Hedy Topper from The Alchemist.
20:07
They're out of Vermont and Hedy Topper's one of the ones that's
20:09
been around for a long time. It's it kind of ranks up there
20:12
with like a like a Pliny, but I just got it this year.
20:15
It's one of those ones just me that has to bring it to you.
20:17
You have to go kind of thing. So Stephen McBride, you might
20:21
know him. He used to be Lee Smith's
20:23
neighbor across the street over there in.
20:24
Brentwood Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah.
20:26
We know we run to him and he was there and he brought me one
20:28
back. So it's a double IPA.
20:31
It's 100 IBU nice 4.6 rating at #10 So just like I was saying,
20:38
I'm starting at A. Starting at a 4.6.
20:40
It only goes up. From the High Star and.
20:43
You only got 4.6 to to five so but yeah, fantastic beer.
20:48
One a lot of people have had, but I the first time I've had it
20:51
this year and it's outstanding. Very good.
20:55
That concludes our our number 10.
20:58
How about #9 Chris, what was your number 9 of the year?
21:02
So my #9 right here, hometown Nashville from Yazoo Boy named
21:08
Sue. But the cherry version of the
21:11
smoked Porter, it's a 9.2% smoked Porter and it's their
21:16
their Sue Porter, which they've had.
21:18
It's a staple, but they did that cherry version and it wasn't too
21:23
much. You know, it's just enough of a
21:24
hint of of cherry that really kind of put it over the top.
21:27
It made it really, really nice and nine Point Twos kind of got
21:31
a little kick to it. But yeah, really good.
21:34
You know, they always do great stuff and that one was really
21:36
special. It it does beg the question of a
21:39
lot of the beers that you've had because Yazoo is one of the
21:41
oldest breweries in Nashville. Is that one of the ones that
21:44
likes? If you were to if you were to go
21:46
what is my top ten all time Yazoo beers, would you think
21:50
that that would rank pretty much pretty high for?
21:52
You that would be pretty high, I think yeah, cuz it's something
21:56
different for sure. I mean, if you were telling
21:58
people that were visiting, you know, what should I get at
22:01
Yazoo, you know, they're Dos Perros is kind of the that's the
22:03
one that everybody knows and it's really good and and that's
22:07
their high volume 1 wouldn't rank that as one of my, my
22:10
favorites cuz it's not kind of unique, right.
22:12
This was something that I thought was very unique and so
22:14
I'm not, you know, rated it pretty high.
22:16
All right. And to put that flavoring in a
22:19
Porter, that's the perfect. Stock to put that.
22:20
It really is. It is, yeah.
22:22
High ABV because that Porter can can mask a lot if you need it
22:25
to, right? Absolutely it's.
22:27
A great combination. Steve #9 for you. #9 well, this
22:32
is when I got in a beer trade. Our friends Nick and Ashley from
22:37
West Virginia had sent this to me.
22:39
And this is from Tripping Animals Brewing out of Florida.
22:44
It's an Imperial double New England hazy IPA called Six Trip
22:48
Around the Sun. And this was an 8% beer and I
22:54
rated this a 4.25. This thing, I'll tell you, it
22:58
was really awesome. You know, double dry hopped and
23:02
I it's it's another it's another thing when I remember I had it
23:05
in my house, like 16 ounce can. I remember drinking the same
23:07
going OK take notes Steve because you really like this
23:11
one. Because at the end of the can
23:12
you might not be able to remember.
23:14
No, not necessarily that, but it's just sort of, you know, you
23:17
drink so many beers throughout the year and you're trying so
23:19
many different ones. And I'm like, take notes on this
23:23
particular one because even though I have ranked some
23:26
others, now that I'm an insider, you know, I'm an insider on the
23:29
top. I'll, I'll, I'll change my
23:31
rankings in the year, but that was one that I went if I'm
23:35
reading, still reading it like a 4.25 might stand out from some a
23:39
couple of the other ones that I've had.
23:41
So. I love that because you were in
23:42
the moment. In the moment, yeah.
23:45
This stands out. That's what I said.
23:46
As I said earlier, I was like, it's about when you think about
23:50
what it, what it is that you're liking.
23:51
And if you're if well, we'd laugh, we could laugh about
23:55
that. Because sometimes we do drink
23:56
beers and maybe we've had a few and we can't remember what they
23:59
are. Right.
24:02
But I love that you're in that moment.
24:03
You're like this one. This one needs to be recognized
24:05
later on. And it, and it's possible if I
24:06
was, you know, if I was at home drinking, you know, I had a
24:09
couple, but I was like, OK, I can remember specifically this
24:12
one. So there you go.
24:14
That's my #9. Now, so untapped insider, is
24:17
that mean now you can rank by tenths like Scott?
24:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I finally gave in about about a
24:23
month ago. That thing is gonna be perfect
24:27
when you start cuz I'm not. You're probably doing it now,
24:29
but for these lists, that's exactly where that thing comes
24:33
in perfectly. Because instead of having a
24:34
bunch of four fives and 47 fives, now you got 4 sixes and
24:37
four sevens and four eights, those ones that sneak in between
24:40
those other numbers. There is because otherwise you
24:42
sit there and get to the point where you say, well, this is
24:46
1.251 A, 1.251 B. Yeah, yeah.
24:51
That's, that's where I am. I'm very much, you know,
24:53
untapped outsider, pretty much, you know, it's like.
24:57
We are good, we are not good. Those are my 2 ratings, you
25:00
know. If you aren't good at like I
25:01
know this about like if you got 4 fives or 4 sevens, you can
25:04
like OK, I got 12 to choose from.
25:07
You can kind of separate. OK, I know these ones.
25:09
Of course you have to pick one too.
25:10
But anyway, but you know, like I know where I was here.
25:13
I yeah, I I did try to go back and look at where was I when
25:16
when I had that and, and you'll see when we get farther into
25:19
there. There some of my top 10 all came
25:22
from one spot and 11 particular day and might have been because
25:26
I was a little you know you were at the.
25:31
Moment you were having fun though.
25:33
Yeah. I mean, you don't drink this
25:34
much beer and not be inebriated sometimes.
25:35
That's right, It's going to happen.
25:38
What about you, Scott? What was your number 9?
25:41
And believe it or not, it's the only it's the only beer I have
25:45
on my list from this brewery and it's going to blow your mind.
25:49
I hope this is the end game by Burial Beer Company you.
25:53
Only have one burial that made your top ten.
25:55
It's because you didn't make a a Nashville trip this year.
25:58
Otherwise there'll be any. Of them on here and here's one
26:00
of the reasons why burial beer company at Asheville it's an
26:02
imperial stout nice 4.6. I know it's the same score is
26:07
number 10, but I picked, you know, I had to pick over the
26:09
tube. I don't remember where I must
26:11
have it was in a bottle share. I don't remember exactly where I
26:13
had it. I didn't.
26:14
I failed to put that in my own tap bottle share.
26:17
Somebody had it and we shared it and it was amazing.
26:20
You know, like you said, 14%, something stands out about this
26:23
beer, right? 14% thing was a thing that stood
26:25
out. Of course it was a fantastic
26:26
year anyway, but just God damn I wish I had some right now.
26:31
Instead, how about we have the second shitty beer doing?
26:34
That. OK, OK.
26:37
Ryan has poured us another of our blind crap beers.
26:40
OK, I'm going to put this on. You get the bigger one this
26:46
time. OK, I'll take.
26:47
The. Brian, did you sample each one
26:50
of these? All right, Brian did.
26:52
He sampled him as well. But yeah, Brian will have his
26:55
ranking as well. What am I smelling?
26:57
It's a it's hard. It's it's almost non smelling.
27:00
It's not as skunky as I expected that some more of these.
27:02
Podcasts. We're doing it.
27:03
It's live Instagram by the way. Yard of second shitty beer in
27:08
our flight. I can't really say I like.
27:09
It it's is it worse than the first?
27:12
Yes, in my opinion. Yeah, definitely a I'm getting a
27:18
little aroma of, you know, morning after at the rock club.
27:23
Yeah, you know, kind of, you know, Yeah, ladies.
27:28
And gentlemen, whatever this is, I'm not having it again.
27:31
Yeah, it's. And you get to.
27:31
Take the rest of this home. With you, it's getting, it's
27:33
getting scunked. Whatever's left, you can have.
27:35
My palace is straight ruined at this point.
27:37
I don't know anything about anything.
27:39
Hey, Sean, we're back. We're just back.
27:41
We're just, we're literally the first time we've ever done this.
27:43
We're actually cutting in live into the podcast.
27:45
Into the podcast. Head to the.
27:46
Podcast we want to see bad shit is yeah, it's getting worse,
27:50
it's getting worse. I'm going to dump mine on the
27:52
floor. I swear that it tastes like
27:55
that's where Brian mopped it up from.
27:56
I mean that's definitely got like nightclub floor, you know,
28:01
next day kind of smell like loading into the basement E stat
28:05
on a Saturday after a Friday night gig kind of thing.
28:08
How do? I order plan.
28:09
B This smells like bad decisions.
28:11
Oh my God, yeah. This smells like bad decision.
28:14
All right, wow, I guess we'll I guess I guess we'll move on.
28:19
I've already read it or I've already thought said what I
28:21
think it is. Yikes.
28:22
I'm saying it's. The tasting notes are gets worse
28:25
as you go. Yeah, it's not tasting.
28:27
Worse than first? So let's go back to our best
28:30
because I feel like at this point, it's a great time to do.
28:32
That I love that we. Jump in and jump out.
28:34
I know we need that. We need that.
28:36
Balance from bad to good back to the We're moving up our top ten
28:40
list of the good I do. Like it?
28:42
Chris, what is your number? My number 8 is from toppling
28:47
Goliath brewing and it's actually just a pale ale called
28:51
Pseudo SU, another SU and it's a 5.8% pale ale.
28:56
You know, nothing fancy here, but and I just a good pale ale
29:02
absolutely love, you know, like it doesn't have to be fancy.
29:06
Lots of different stuff. Doesn't have to have 10 fruits
29:08
in it like Stokes likes, you know, like just a good, strong,
29:12
clean Hale ale. And that one's very, very good.
29:16
Those guys are awesome. I met them at GABF really OK.
29:19
The guys, we were at one place before we went to the event and
29:22
they were hanging out. We talked to them and then we
29:25
saw them. I went to the booth at GABF and
29:27
they're nuts. They're nutty guys, but they're
29:30
like, there. Was a name like toppling
29:32
Goliath? Yeah, I can imagine.
29:34
But they were funny as a hell, so I've actually reached out to
29:36
him to try to get them on here. Yeah, maybe want me one day, but
29:38
the day is like fantastic brewery.
29:40
It is good. I like hearing that, by the way,
29:42
a clean, pale Al because yeah, yeah, it's for it's it's a
29:46
refreshing thing to hear. Right, you can burn these
29:48
glasses. We need refreshing, right?
29:50
Now, I mean, but it's one that like you could drink and you
29:53
could drink a lot of like you could sit down and drink.
29:56
I'm going to drink that one beer all night.
29:57
No, that's awesome. They do very kind of a good beer
30:00
pseudo suit too. They're different variations of
30:02
it too, of the same kind of thing.
30:03
So that's that's a great beer. I have to try to find some more
30:07
on. Main Street over in the East
30:10
Nashville. There you go.
30:12
I don't have to go far, Dave. What do you got for #8?
30:15
Well, you know. A top ten list would not be
30:19
complete without something from Great Lakes, right And.
30:24
You are right. I'm right, of course I'm right
30:28
again. This this by.
30:29
The way I just looked at my list to make sure I had.
30:31
Better, Sir, you better. You got their shirt on, you were
30:35
just drinking wine. Great Great Lakes of Tennessee.
30:38
Again, this goes back to the moments, you know.
30:40
So we were at Great Lakes in mid-May and Michael Williams,
30:44
who we've had on our podcast before, he gave us some beer and
30:48
one of the ones that I took home, this is the Barrel Aged
30:54
Blackout Stout. It's a Russian imperial stout.
30:58
I know you like to talk about IBUS 50.
31:02
This was a 12.5% beer. And when we brought him back on
31:08
the podcast, I saved it to the podcast.
31:10
And man, this thing, I mean, what can you say?
31:15
It was great. So what makes it a Russian
31:18
Imperial? Stout.
31:20
So it it it, you know, if you go and you look at was it invade?
31:24
Your colon without asking is that is it Russian I.
31:27
Mean it. It is barrel.
31:29
I mean, it's barrel aged, you know, it's smooth, it's boozy.
31:33
It's got a little coffee in it. But when I had it, I said it
31:36
doesn't. I'm not a coffee drinker, but it
31:38
wasn't an overpowering type. You're not a coffee?
31:42
Yeah, not a coffee guy. No, you like the smell of
31:44
coffee. I don't necessarily like the
31:46
smell of coffee, but I've had enough beers that if if it's
31:51
coffee that doesn't overtake the beer and like this in barrel
31:55
aged, then yeah, it's usually OK.
31:58
You can deal with it, but you don't love the smell of coffee.
32:01
Or no, no, no, not, not, not Nope.
32:05
To answer your question, Chris and I have looked this up
32:06
before. I'd forgotten until you just
32:08
asked. It has nothing to do with
32:09
Russia. As far as being Raiden made in
32:11
Russia, it's called Russian Imperial Stat because it's a
32:14
strong, dark British Beer originally brewed for the export
32:18
to the Russian Imperial court of Catherine the Great in the 18th
32:21
century. So you're.
32:22
You're reading off the website, right?
32:23
Yeah, I actually meant to include that because they most
32:27
all their beers have so many great stories as to why the beer
32:32
came about. Thank you for thank you for
32:34
bringing my wing man on that. Yeah, yeah, no problem.
32:36
Well, he, he asked. And I remember looking it up
32:38
once before. I couldn't quite remember.
32:39
I knew it didn't. It wasn't from Russia, but just
32:42
tied to it because it was made for the because I was curious
32:45
myself. All right, you're #8 number. 8
32:48
And this is a great name too. Juice machine.
32:53
Juice machine, baby. It's what they.
32:55
Call me. No, they don't.
32:57
OK. It's from Treehouse.
32:59
I don't want to hear about your juices.
33:01
I don't. Want to hear about that?
33:02
Nobody wants to know about your. Juices.
33:04
The machine juices everywhere. It's from Treehouse Brewing,
33:07
which is out of like, Boston. OK.
33:10
Oh yeah. Massachusetts area, there's
33:11
several locations up there now. It's a double IPA, 8.2 percent
33:15
4.7. Oh yeah, working up the chain
33:19
here. And I met a guy this year, his
33:22
name is Raul, when I met him through a friend of the beer
33:25
community, and he came down this year in August and we did some
33:28
stuff. We hung out for a couple days
33:29
and he brought a shit ton of Treehouse down and we got the
33:32
sample. As a matter of fact, Rich was
33:33
there from Foamy Heads when we get to try this over at Marble
33:36
Fox. Anyway, Treehouse going to make
33:40
my list every year. As long as I have one, it's
33:41
going to be on the list. So cheers for that.
33:45
Cheers. Cheers for that.
33:47
All right, Should we do another? We'll do another round before we
33:50
go to our next crap beer, are we?
33:52
Just trying to get them over with.
33:53
Is that what it? Is I was hoping like Bright just
33:55
at some point just decides to dump them down the.
33:57
Front Kind of hoping this was our last one, but I realized
33:59
we're only halfway. I say why not?
34:01
I agree with you though, you said a few minutes ago we're not
34:04
retching as bad as we did. Last year so far.
34:08
The second one was a little rough.
34:09
It doesn't have as much of an after taste, but it didn't have
34:13
a good taste when we had it #3 are we doing #3 here?
34:18
#7 yeah, we're the number. Oh no, no, we're going to, we're
34:21
let's do one more round of of our good beers before we go to
34:24
another crap beer, all right? Doing #7.
34:26
So my #7 Steve, coincidentally, is also a Russian imperial stout
34:31
from Marble Fox, their internal eternal remedy.
34:36
Yeah. It's a 10.1 but magically 10.1%.
34:40
Wow, it's amazing how many Brewers can hit that 10.1%.
34:44
The Tennessee 10 they call. It the Tennessee Ten Russian
34:47
Imperial Imperial stout, Marble fox.
34:50
They're always great, you know. Oh, they come into that one
34:53
again. Lots of stuff.
34:54
Eternal remedy. Did I actually have one that
34:56
Scott hasn't had? Could it be?
34:58
Is it possible? See, it's possible I've had it.
35:03
You're not. You're not special.
35:04
It's just freaking out. That's fine.
35:06
I don't need to be special. You're special in so many ways.
35:09
You're so special. That's good though.
35:10
Yeah, Russian Imperial Step by Marble Fox.
35:12
Local brew. That's cool.
35:13
That is cool, by the way. They make every style
35:16
fantastically. They do.
35:18
By the way, I've had that one too, yes.
35:22
What was your rating, Steve? 4.2 Oh, there we go.
35:25
And that didn't make your list. I had a 4.25.
35:28
Well, it would. It was close though.
35:30
Yeah, it was close, in fact. Yeah, in fact, I got that on a
35:36
four pack right after the day after Thanksgiving.
35:38
I went down to the brewery. Yeah.
35:40
So I still have a couple in my refrigerator.
35:42
And we're all around the same because I gave it a four three.
35:44
So we're all right around that. Same.
35:46
All right, So solid beer. Yay for us consistency.
35:49
Yes, we know. We don't fool around.
35:54
All right, Steve, what you got next?
35:55
All right #7 for me is Hop Butcher.
36:00
Yes, yes, yes. Love the hot butcher.
36:03
I have not had enough hot butcher in my life.
36:07
And I was out of Cool Springs wine and spirits a few months
36:10
ago. And I'd had this before.
36:14
It's funny. We've actually talked about
36:16
beers and maybe you've raided before and if you try them again
36:20
and I had to look and well, I'll try this again.
36:22
So I had it's called the it's it's an imperial double New
36:26
England hazy IPA. It's called Reply Hazy.
36:30
Try again. I had this in 2023.
36:33
I tried again. You did.
36:36
In 2023, you know what? I had this In 2023 I rated it at
36:40
3.75 on untapped. This time I rated it at 4.30.
36:46
Look at you. Yep.
36:48
I wonder what that percentage is.
36:49
I'm not going to do the math. Right now, but the percentage?
36:51
That went up is quite significant.
36:53
Yeah. So I mean, do you revisit beers
36:56
and like, have you seen big jumps like that before?
36:59
Because I've had a few. I don't know that I could, you
37:01
know, think of any right off the top of my head.
37:03
But there are definitely some that, you know, some of the
37:05
situation, some of them might be what you had before or after.
37:08
But you know, there's some that I revisited and be like, whoa, I
37:10
didn't like that before and I really do now.
37:12
Yeah, I mean, just really enjoyed the flavor profile a lot
37:16
more I think this time. So yeah.
37:18
Yeah, it might seem to be anything more than two years old
37:21
that I hadn't tried and then tried it again.
37:23
Huge change. Yeah.
37:24
I mean, in your palate changes, I think, you know, that's good.
37:27
Appreciate a lot the the the the European styles, the traditional
37:31
styles and stuff I've really taken a liking to.
37:34
Yeah, respect those a lot more than I did.
37:37
Because it was like, you know, back at back then it was like
37:40
just plain old beer. Yeah, yeah.
37:42
Appreciate those things. Right.
37:44
That's a that's a really good cream.
37:45
Clean, crisp beer. Yeah, I got an appreciation.
37:48
You know, we went over and spent some time in Germany and Austria
37:51
and you know, like it's, it's no frill, it's a Dunkle, it's a
37:56
Hellis, it's a vice beer. Like that's it.
37:59
That's like, it's one of those things and you're drinking a
38:01
huge volume, but you don't wake up feeling terrible the next
38:04
day. It gets just clean and good high
38:07
quality stuff. And there's something to be said
38:09
for that. There is a lot to be.
38:11
Said such an appreciation like this is a journey for all of us.
38:14
Like this beer, it's which is every beer we drink.
38:16
It's like, oh, understanding it too.
38:19
Like when you get an appreciation, you understand it.
38:21
Oh, this is what it's supposed to be.
38:22
Oh, this is what it's supposed to.
38:23
Taste like when we when we get done with our top ten list.
38:26
I have sort of a couple comments about clean be cleaner beers
38:32
that we've been talking about during this.
38:33
Pop, we love it. Yeah.
38:34
Some notes of the year. So yeah, there we go.
38:37
So what's your #7? #7 Steve, you're gonna, you're
38:39
gonna like this one summit. There's it was from Cedar Glade
38:43
that night. You were you guys were there.
38:44
Yeah. So it's so much.
38:46
It's a wild ale at 919 point 1%. I give it a 4.8 for Mitch and
38:52
Rich from the foamy heads brought this.
38:56
It's a Cedar Glade beer. Brought it to Cedar.
38:59
They brought it to Glade, or maybe they even bought it there,
39:00
but it was theirs. They bought it and it was for a
39:05
hundred 100th episode. Yep.
39:07
And then if you listen to that episode, because Steve just
39:09
asked me to tell the story. Yeah, go ahead and tell him
39:11
myself. That's OK.
39:12
It's all right. We had a lot of, we had a lot of
39:15
fun that day. We were drinking a lot of
39:16
different beers that day. So Steve told me about a week
39:19
ago, he goes, I was listening back to that episode and he goes
39:22
quiet for like 15 minutes. Steve, like he goes, I don't, I
39:25
hadn't said anything in like 15 minutes.
39:27
And he goes, all of a sudden I say, hey, that sounds like
39:31
Summit. Meanwhile, we've been talking
39:33
about sandwich for 1/2 an hour. He just had to shut down for a
39:37
little bit. And.
39:39
Then he tastes that tastes like sandwich.
39:42
Well, that is what the fact. That he remembered it from a
39:48
year I can't remember a beer. I know.
39:50
So I stopped in there about a year ago and I got a flight and
39:54
the girl that was the beer tender that day, I remember her.
39:58
She was, she was real cool. She was actually in the
40:01
permutation program at MTSU. And I was like, I'm gonna get a
40:05
flight. And one of them was at and I
40:07
think it was the first one I got on the flight.
40:10
And my, my head just jolted back because it hits you right away.
40:15
Wild. And.
40:16
Wild ale. Yeah, yeah.
40:18
Yeah, and 9%. And I really liked it.
40:21
But I also said on the podcast, and again, this kind of goes bin
40:26
to the Celebration IPA. You don't know sometimes if
40:30
they've changed it up. Sometimes they do always do
40:33
that. So in my defense, but yeah, it
40:36
was a great it was a great moment of this thing tastes
40:38
like. But my take away from it was the
40:41
fact that because it's so unique that you like, wait a minute,
40:44
I've had that from a year. I cannot do that.
40:47
Rich and I, we were the foamy hands.
40:49
We were talking about that the other day, hanging out for a
40:52
quick flight at Mr. Brews and I started talking about that.
40:56
And he goes, yeah, he goes, I'm actually surprised you would
40:58
remember that, too. And I'm like, I just did.
41:00
I mean, it was a, again, maybe the moment of the beer that you
41:03
have on a flight that stands out, you know?
41:06
Something just pops up you it's a.
41:07
Cool thing. I think it's a cool thing.
41:09
It is a cool thing, you know it just.
41:10
Sometimes something just. Clicks like you're like that's
41:13
image wow, but that was also to your point, great beer, very
41:17
unique moments. You guys are there.
41:20
We were selling our 100th. We had great company, foamy
41:23
heads, Jonathan and Robert hanging out with us.
41:26
Man, it was just fucking was a perfect.
41:28
We, yeah, we survived the drive there.
41:29
It was like shitty weather, you know, driving, Yeah.
41:32
Yeah. We didn't know you guys were
41:33
coming. I'd have told you.
41:34
I mean like this is. Bad.
41:36
It was bad. Yeah, that was.
41:37
Rain and pour. Now rain.
41:39
Well, before we get to our number six is the time again.
41:43
Yes, next. Chris acting all excited it's.
41:46
Just like, let's get it over with.
41:47
Let's. Catch it over with, Chris.
41:49
Damn you, Brian. Steve, grab the. 1.
41:54
What are we smelling? The nose.
41:55
Fucking Brian. You're heavy and you're heavy
41:58
pores. Yeah, this one smells awful.
42:01
Smells. It almost smells like like a
42:04
it's. Like it's like shitty Apple.
42:06
Juice, yes, isn't it? I was, I was trying to think of
42:11
a mix between wine that's been out for a while or yes, use the
42:15
apple juice. Yeah, it's like, got that apple
42:18
juice smell. OK, yeah, we dropped off a Cliff
42:21
here that's just making notes over here and also writing out
42:26
my will because this is fucking. This is terrible.
42:30
That is really. Damn it.
42:32
You gotta be hard up for a buzz to grab a can of whatever the
42:35
fuck this is. I feel like whoever bought this
42:38
they would walk out of it in a liquor store in a brown paper
42:40
bag, probably in some kind. Of bottle should be and their
42:42
head should be in a brown paper. Bag probably.
42:44
It's probably going to be in a 40 oz bottle.
42:46
My guess, yeah. God damn it.
42:53
Hate it here. Damn you guys for making me do
42:56
this again. OK, we're done with that.
43:00
All right, one more to go. But you know what by the way?
43:03
Steve doesn't sip on him, he just.
43:04
Kills, he just. Pounds, it fucking says.
43:07
I buy. I got the taste and I know what
43:09
I'm tasting and I'm just going, Nope, it's time to go.
43:12
Because I just wanted. Over with, we're going to, we're
43:14
going to resume. Brian did a heavy pour on that
43:17
one for on purpose. Yeah, it's like.
43:21
He's tasting them, too. He knows which one.
43:22
He's like, oh, this is the worst.
43:24
They're getting an extra few ounces of this.
43:26
One, he knows what he's doing next.
43:28
One to show up and be fucking over the top of the glass.
43:31
Man. He knows what he's.
43:32
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
43:34
Chris throwing back. Yeah, Chris, what is your number
43:36
six on your top ten list of good beers?
43:39
So number. Six Yeah, man, a lot on my list
43:42
were strong stout beers. So this is an imperial double
43:46
stout. Comes in at 15%.
43:48
A double stout. Double Stout from Side Project
43:52
Brewing. You heard a side project there,
43:54
a microbrewery out of Saint Louis, and the beer is called
43:59
Beer Barrel Time and it's their 2024 version and it's an
44:05
imperial double stout, you know, comes in the big bottle.
44:08
I happen to be at some and someone brought one in and was
44:11
willing to share. And yeah, again, I think it's
44:15
the 15% of the double stout is what, you know, stuck out is
44:18
like, OK, this is not normal. This is something special and.
44:22
Kind of wrapped up in that moment, you're in that moment
44:23
like this. I I can appreciate this thing.
44:25
Yeah. You know, I can tell this was a
44:27
rare kind of a rare experience there.
44:30
And so that one made by #6 Steve.
44:32
And my number six, there is so much controversy for me on this
44:37
one in a good way, but this is this is probably the category
44:42
that I debated the most. So we know about the sour
44:46
fruited, no crust PB and J beers, the two breweries that
44:52
really, in my opinion, this is all my opinion.
44:55
Everybody else can have a different opinion.
44:57
They're doing really well. Zool and Marble Fox.
45:02
So my number six, I'm going with Marble Fox.
45:05
They're no crust strawberry PB and J no crust strawberry 6.5%.
45:10
I rated it a 4.5 O. I was looking last night double
45:16
checking my rankings because I also had the no crust strawberry
45:21
at Zul at their brewery a few months ago.
45:25
When I stopped there, I rated it the same thing.
45:30
So you picked one over the other?
45:32
So it's marble fog, so. So if I were to go back now, it
45:37
would be probably like a 4.7 O or something like that.
45:42
Because you're an insider. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
45:46
The funny thing is, I also gave the same ranking to their
45:50
BlackBerry again before I became an insider.
45:55
And you, you and I drank that we were that we were there together
45:58
and you showed up later that day.
46:00
I think we'd already had it finished, but man, oh man.
46:05
Yeah, the BlackBerry is very good.
46:07
It was. So I'm just going to say they
46:10
have nailed these and I really think in my own opinion, I think
46:15
Marble Fox has really caught up zool when it comes to these PBJ
46:21
sours. I really do you.
46:24
Know what I love about that? They're a small brewery.
46:28
It's always a small brewery in comparison to, you know, but
46:31
they're getting a right. They get every single thing.
46:35
And the other, the other thing that I think is really we've
46:40
talked about this on the podcast and I think maybe we even talked
46:42
about this last year is you go and pay some of these are really
46:45
sweet. And so would you have them in a
46:48
16 ounce can, 12 ounce can, you know when you go in to the
46:53
brewery, are you just wanting on a flight?
46:55
These were beyond flight worthy for me.
46:58
So I think that says a lot. Well, that marble fox you just
47:01
talked about, we had on plane we had on pipe that day you were
47:05
just talking about we had it and you were the I do remember you
47:07
were like the first one to check that thing in.
47:11
That was the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry.
47:13
Yeah, that was the BlackBerry. Yeah, I was the first one to
47:15
check that in. So I guess they could just.
47:17
It released that day I think. Yeah.
47:20
I'm glad you remembered that because now that I think about
47:23
it, I'm like, yeah, I was sitting there going you.
47:25
Know I got a video of you doing. It Oh yeah, The excitement,
47:28
yeah. I mean, I really debated that
47:30
because I was like, man, you could almost do and you know,
47:36
we, we talked about this the other day.
47:37
I was like, we could almost do a separate podcast on some of
47:40
these, like rank your top ten of some of these in like
47:44
Oktoberfest. Yeah.
47:46
It really, it really gets hard when you try to refine them and
47:50
get them now, so. I think the first one if we do
47:52
that is PB and J beers. Just do a whole.
47:56
Well, and the other thing is, you know, you travel sometimes.
48:00
Where else have you gone in the country where you have seen
48:04
these? Yeah, that's a good question.
48:06
I I have not had them any other than Zul and Marvel Fox.
48:09
Like they're the only ones. I don't seek them out to be
48:12
honest with you, you know, But they are exactly like it's
48:16
uncrustable. It tastes exactly like an
48:18
uncrustable in a glass. I mean, it is.
48:21
Locally Common John did one that I had I liked.
48:26
I think our friends in Nolensville did one right.
48:31
Milk crate did one. Milk crate did one.
48:33
You love the you love that original grist 1.
48:38
Yes. Yep, the peanut butter and
48:40
strawberry Jelly was. The first one around here.
48:42
Did not come out this year for whatever reason.
48:45
Kazoo's here. Well, yeah, but you know, you
48:47
still thought, you know, something like this is my Yeah.
48:49
So you thought they would have had it.
48:51
The only the only brewery that I can think of outside of this
48:56
whole area that did something like it was Hop and Frog the
49:02
Shandy. The.
49:03
Shandy one, yeah. Peanut butter shandy, and I'm
49:05
not even sure. I mean, that's sort of on the
49:07
level. It is, but they were.
49:08
They were doing their version. Of it, they were doing that
49:10
version, but I don't, I mean, we've talked to other people on
49:13
podcasts and stuff and they're from other parts of the country
49:15
and I just don't think, I don't know.
49:19
I mean, if you go Las Vegas or California or even to Chicago, I
49:24
don't know if you'll find these. Remember when we talked to Matt
49:27
from the Brewers Association? Yes, they're in Colorado, right?
49:30
They're the, they're the, the, the thing that runs that runs.
49:34
But you know, they oversee the whole crap.
49:37
He hadn't even. Heard.
49:38
Hadn't heard of it, Yeah. Is that right?
49:40
Yeah, of peanut butter and. Jelly.
49:41
So you were at GABF? They don't.
49:43
No one had a a peanut butter. I can't say no one did.
49:46
I didn't see one. OK, I think it's a very I'm sure
49:50
it's like it's it's here's analogy.
49:54
Nashville hot shaken. There you go.
49:57
You go somewhere else in the country, right?
49:58
Yeah, we've heard about it. We're going to do our version of
50:01
it, but it's not prevalent here. Yeah, you got to do it right.
50:04
I think the peanut butter and Jelly stuff is a regional thing.
50:06
I. Think that's interesting?
50:07
And I think it's whether it's Nashville or Knoxville, it's a
50:11
regional thing here and they're killing it.
50:13
We, we live in a really good part of the country right now
50:15
for those types of computers. We're getting the best that that
50:18
the country has to offer. But again, to be clear, some of
50:21
these you have them at least in my opinion, you go, OK, that's
50:25
just good enough. It's sweet.
50:27
I just want that on on a flight and that's good enough for.
50:30
Me. Yeah, yeah.
50:31
That's. Also when you go.
50:32
To I don't need these in a 16 ounce can because I'm going to
50:34
get through about 1/2 oven and go all right, you know?
50:37
I also don't get Nashville hot chicken outside of Nashville.
50:40
Well, you you might, but. No, they.
50:42
Have it. Yeah, it's what I you'll.
50:44
Find it all over the place. Yeah, you're from here.
50:46
You don't. You don't.
50:47
Not good. What is it really?
50:48
All right, it's just spice anyway.
50:50
So what is your number? Six, my number six, and I had it
50:52
this week and I had it on a podcast this week.
50:56
It's called Out of Order. Tap Tap Taparu.
50:59
Tap tap Taparu. Yes, so out of order is the
51:02
series Tap tap at Taparu is the name of the beer in RAR.
51:06
It's RAR is the Brewer and it's a the canar is It's a Happy
51:10
Gilmore reference. Yeah, Tap, tap, tap.
51:12
It was lost on me until I was taught.
51:14
Come on. But.
51:16
You got to turn in your man card if you you didn't get that
51:19
reference. Sir, is the audio the hockey
51:21
stickers? I don't think maybe.
51:24
But dude, this is it's a fruit and sour 5 percent 4.8 on
51:29
untapped had it this week set to us by Ashley yes, Brudette, West
51:33
Virginia, who was on the podcast.
51:35
She was on the podcast. But you like this part and I
51:38
wrote this down specifically for you.
51:40
Strawberry, lime, and rainbow candies.
51:44
Just imagine whatever. Rainbow.
51:45
Candies are scales with lactose, so I'm going to that kind of
51:51
constitutes more than four fruits if you're adding those.
51:54
Well, the rainbow, yeah. By the way, when you see the
51:56
podcast come out, you're going to see what I had because it was
52:00
like a total lactose combination.
52:02
This doesn't go back. That podcast doesn't come out.
52:04
On a flight. By the way, when you drink this
52:06
beer, you know how they put ABV. They have the list.
52:08
They should put the sugar content.
52:10
Yeah. On I would say.
52:12
Cans just. Those certain beers they should
52:14
put the lactose content. I'm not a lactose fan.
52:17
Like I wish they wouldn't pump lactose in the in the view.
52:21
Like that? Yeah.
52:23
I guess they do that they try to like smooth it out like tamp,
52:27
tamper down the sweetness with lactose tampered.
52:30
It down, man. Yeah.
52:32
Was high. I think it just blends it makes
52:35
it kind of Milky and creamy. And some of these, the density
52:38
that I had was like this is a very.
52:42
Yeah, I mean, it goes again like I rated before, I like a clean
52:46
finish, like a clean, crisp, simple.
52:49
And when you throw lactose in, there's no clean finish there.
52:52
When you're going through half of it on a flight in your glass,
52:55
it's leaving behind residue. Yeah, there's residue.
52:58
Yeah, that's that's good. Or whatever you want to call it,
53:01
whatever the proper term. Right in the description of your
53:03
beer. If it says residue, probably not
53:05
a good yes. Your your glass will never be
53:08
clean again. That's right.
53:09
Yeah, I don't know if residue is the correct.
53:12
Term Term of endearment for a beer.
53:14
Leaving it's. Leaving.
53:15
How about this? It's leaving a trail behind.
53:19
You're right because the word residue like nothing good.
53:22
Is that like? I don't want to say residue.
53:26
I'll strike residue. I'll.
53:27
Strike residue and I'll say it left the trail behind.
53:30
Yes. How's that?
53:33
Well, we talked about this on that podcast, that Zul beer with
53:35
the Pina Colada. Thing.
53:36
Yeah. Oh yeah.
53:37
That left some residue, yeah. Well.
53:40
Behind. You throw the glass, Yeah, the
53:43
glass becomes disposable. It's just just permeates the
53:47
thing anyway. Exactly.
53:49
Anyway by the way after I drank this I had to go get checked for
53:52
pre diabetes. By the way, I drank 4.
53:57
Of those beers that night. Oh wow.
54:02
I mean, you know, so that says something that you could drink
54:04
multiple. It wasn't like Steve said, just
54:06
a flight. I can handle 4 ounces of that
54:09
and then I got it was. On like you feel it like you
54:12
know, but it is it is legit. It is legit and one of them I
54:15
had was the color. Blue.
54:18
Which you pictured, It was called Blue Milk Lord.
54:22
It's got a man. It was part of Star Wars.
54:23
It was a Star Wars can art. Oh yeah.
54:27
Mandalorian. Nice.
54:28
Yeah, that makes sense. It's Oh my God, all right.
54:32
Is this the last one? This is the last one, so we got
54:35
to enter our let's get into our top five.
54:37
We got to get our top five of. Our You just rated your yes, so
54:42
we're going to go to 5. Yeah, that was your number six.
54:45
Yeah, let's. Go through another Yeah.
54:47
So my number 5 is from this is one that I know I'm betting you
54:51
guys have not had because it's from New Groove Artisan Brewery.
54:56
They're over in Boiling Springs, SC.
54:58
Oh wow. And it is actually the head
55:01
Brewer is a buddy of mine named Jonathan Duke, who I marched
55:04
drum corps with. He's a fellow drummer, hence the
55:07
new groove of New Groove Artisan Brewery.
55:10
And this is called. I see a Pilsner and I want to
55:13
Paint it black. I like that.
55:15
I see a pilsner and I want it painted black, you know, and
55:18
it's a dark lager and 5.6% and very unique beer, like very
55:24
pilsner beer, but dark like a Porter and incredible like doing
55:30
some really cool stuff there a microbrewery over there.
55:33
It's a suburb of like, you know, Greenville, Spartanburg area
55:37
there in in South Carolina. And you're going to hear more
55:40
from them on my list here as we move forward.
55:43
But please do really, really cool stuff.
55:45
If you're ever in that area and get a chance to go by New
55:48
groove, I highly recommend that. They're doing some great stuff.
55:50
They do a lot of aged stuff that touches wood, you know, the ages
55:55
in barrels and happened to get to go by there last January and
56:00
he took me on a tour. You know, it was great.
56:03
Good to hear. Yeah, also that might win the
56:05
best name of a beer. I know, right?
56:08
I see a pilsner and I want it painted black.
56:11
I nominate that. Beer for the best beer.
56:13
I need to seek that one out, yeah.
56:16
It is perfectly. It fits.
56:17
The style, It fits the style. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a
56:20
perfect description of what you're about to drink.
56:23
That was like, fantastic. Love it. #5 Steve. #5 you know
56:29
what? This one really surprised the
56:31
heck out of me so. Surprised yourself I.
56:34
Know so so this was from Zool and again, I I picked this up at
56:40
a four pack actually gave you one when I was at Zool a few
56:43
months ago. And this is a, again, a sour
56:46
fruited called Betty's Peach Cobbler.
56:50
I did not think I would like it as much as I did.
56:53
I bought it and I saw it in the can.
56:55
I thought, you know, Peaches for me, it's like, OK, you know,
57:00
I'll get home. And this is probably going to be
57:03
too sweet. A 16 ounce can.
57:05
Guess what, boys, it was not. It was not.
57:08
It was perfect. Drink the whole thing.
57:10
Yes I drank the whole thing. I rated it a 4.5 O and you know
57:17
again, Zool, what Zool does is impressive and it gives what I
57:23
said before, you know, would you drink this on a flight?
57:27
Could you drink this on a 16 ounce can?
57:30
And I could. I got it down.
57:31
I wasn't like I got. It down there's an endorsement
57:34
for a beer I got it down I. Got it down of the 16 ounce can
57:38
I which I could. Say about these four ass beers
57:40
that we, I'll, I'll, I've got them.
57:42
Down. So I'll rephrase that ring.
57:44
Endorsement. Steve.
57:45
I probably not, probably not the best way, but you can make
57:48
quantity on that one. No, I enjoyed it.
57:50
How's that? Chris just took something to ran
57:53
with. He's had a few months to drink.
57:56
No, I really enjoyed. It that was great.
57:57
I appreciate that because you, you are really, you're an
58:01
advocate of like, hey, do we do flights?
58:03
Do we do the whole thing? So you like if Steve says he
58:07
drinks 16 ounces of it, it's a good fucking beer.
58:09
Yeah, you go, yeah, no, that is important.
58:11
Like if it's one, it's like, oh, that's good for 3/4 oz.
58:15
It's different than if you can drink a whole.
58:17
You're right. I'm with you.
58:18
I'm just making. Funny.
58:19
No, no, that's OK. It's like I got it down in the
58:21
16 ounce pan to the point where I went and.
58:25
You and your residue and and that you got it.
58:28
But by the time we reach about 3/4, I'm like, I can continue
58:31
drinking. That is a really good sign.
58:35
So Sewell. Percent, yes.
58:37
Here's another thing, and I just kind of thought of this.
58:40
Sewell's doing multiple fruited sour series.
58:44
It's tape in the collar. Yeah.
58:46
I know it's the cobbler series be able to do those different.
58:49
Things, yeah. We got the mixed tape series and
58:53
we got the Kyler series and probably some parallels there,
58:56
but damn. I mean, it's resonating with
58:58
people and so they want to kind of build on and keep keep
59:01
inventing, you know, keep creating.
59:03
I think that's cool. It sells a lot of beer.
59:05
Yeah, keep you coming back, you know.
59:08
Well, keeps them now it breaks them into Nashville.
59:10
There you go. That was right.
59:12
Now they're going to be God that's excited to have them
59:14
here. We don't have anything on the
59:15
books, but that will be an episode soon.
59:17
Something, something, whether we got to make it up ourselves.
59:19
Yeah, there'll be a Zool episode coming, right?
59:23
Top five my #5 OK. And Steve, you had kind of
59:27
something along these lines earlier. 35th anniversary barrel
59:31
aged Imperial Amber Lager strong from Great Lakes Brewing
59:36
Company. Oh yes.
59:37
And why, why it's similar is because I got it.
59:39
I got that bottle the same time you got your thing earlier you
59:42
got. So when we went and visited
59:44
them, he gave us the stuff, 12.1 percent, 4.8.
59:49
Michael Williams gave it to us while we're at Great Lakes
59:51
visiting for the first time after he'd been on the podcast.
59:54
And that I sound that bottle for, I don't know, two or three
59:57
months. Maybe I'm glad I did, maybe I, I
59:59
don't know. But when I opened it, I was
1:00:01
like, fuck, I should have had it early.
1:00:02
Like I should have opened it immediately.
1:00:04
What am I waiting for? So good.
1:00:07
I think, I think at that time we'd gotten some stuff.
1:00:09
We just kind of divvied it up right and you got yours.
1:00:11
We'd made your top 10. List right might have made the
1:00:13
top ten list. Love it.
1:00:15
Fantastic 35th anniversary barrel aged Imperial amber
1:00:19
logger. That's a hell of a name.
1:00:21
Yeah, sure is. How can you get wrong?
1:00:24
I know you can't. An imperial amber logger sounds
1:00:28
delicious, like. It really does, and it's in
1:00:30
parenthesis strong like a. Strong.
1:00:32
Amber Logger. And what was the percentage on
1:00:35
that, do you know 12.112? Yeah.
1:00:37
So it was strong, right? As it should be.
1:00:40
It was strong. All right.
1:00:42
So do we want? To OK.
1:00:44
We're we're in the top five. Do we want to do another or do
1:00:47
we want to let's? Do another yeah of our TOPS 10,
1:00:50
and then we'll crack into this. All right?
1:00:52
All right. Yeah, that's good.
1:00:53
Anything we've got 5 to go. Anything to put off that class
1:00:56
crap beer, it's good with me. So yeah, again, for my #4 I'm
1:01:00
going right back to New Groove Artisan Brewery.
1:01:04
This one, it's called Turmoil and Tinfoil, and it's part of
1:01:09
their Masterworks series. Get this?
1:01:12
So this is a double pastry imperial stout, comes in at
1:01:18
16.5%. Wow.
1:01:22
So yeah, there there's more here.
1:01:24
So this was actually brewed as a collaboration with Zul.
1:01:29
So I don't know if they ever jointly marketed it, but the ZUL
1:01:32
folks were in town and they came over and they had a blue day
1:01:36
back in 2021. So double mash extended boiled
1:01:41
stout aged 21 months in. Will it barrels?
1:01:45
Will it bear up? And then dosed with local toffee
1:01:49
and peanuts and vanilla from local makers there in South
1:01:53
Carolina. It sounds extraordinary.
1:01:55
Very, very exclusive. They only release this to their
1:01:58
masterworks, which is their kind of mug club, I would say, you
1:02:03
know, but just for a new groove again, happened to be there with
1:02:07
with Jonathan and he let me have some of that outstanding,
1:02:12
outstanding again, double pastry imperial stout with Zul.
1:02:16
And, you know, this is sounds to me like people with too much
1:02:21
time on their hands. So there's like, what could we
1:02:23
do? And they just and they went nuts
1:02:25
and sounds extraordinary. It was extraordinary.
1:02:27
Yeah. And it's it's their masterworks
1:02:29
volume. 2Q3. They, I think they do these
1:02:33
special, yeah, they do these special things for their kind of
1:02:36
their masterwork insiders and, you know, and that are all aged
1:02:41
in some kind of bourbon barrel or wine barrel or some kind of
1:02:45
barrel. And it's pretty outstanding.
1:02:47
OK, well, we can't top that. That's right.
1:02:50
That was only my #4. That's your number.
1:02:52
That was #4 I got a little, yeah, I got a little bit more
1:02:56
information on that one. But again, new new Groove
1:03:00
artisan brewery. Really, really cool stuff.
1:03:03
Holy shit, really? Good stuff I.
1:03:04
Don't know, maybe you could put a couple in the can and bring
1:03:06
back to Nashville, I don't know, for a couple of your podcast
1:03:08
buddies. I'll be there in January.
1:03:10
I will see about bootleg and what I can do.
1:03:12
Leg back. That sounds so amazing.
1:03:15
It really does. And it's your four that's
1:03:18
mindful. I can't wait to hear what the
1:03:20
other three are. Holy shit I'm.
1:03:21
Telling you got some good stuff. Steve, what residue beer do you
1:03:26
have for #4 residue beer? Is not necessarily residue, but
1:03:31
it was really good founders brewing ice.
1:03:35
You know they do these KBS series.
1:03:37
This is the double oaked KB SI did the spicy chocolate last
1:03:43
year, which I ranked really high and this one is their imperial
1:03:48
stout 12%. So here how it reads food with
1:03:52
coffee and chocolate aged for one year and selected bourbon
1:03:55
barrels. And it has notes of vanilla,
1:03:58
cocoa and charred oak. I rank the same.
1:04:01
Sounds fantastic. Yes.
1:04:03
I rank this thing a 4.5 O and I mean it just Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:04:09
And you got a. These things hit you when you're
1:04:13
drinking them. Katie bar the door.
1:04:16
Also from that first sip, yeah, the one you just described, and
1:04:19
that when you drank it for the first time, you're like.
1:04:22
Yep, yeah. It's I, I don't normally like,
1:04:25
you know, normally like strong barrel aged stouts are not my go
1:04:29
to. But when I, when I started going
1:04:32
through my top 10 rankings, I had a number of those, you know,
1:04:35
because I think it's that exactly what you said, man.
1:04:37
You take that first sip and you're like, Yep, this is
1:04:40
something special. This is something unique.
1:04:42
And then you rank it. Then maybe you get halfway
1:04:44
through, you're like. Yeah, they have a bunch of
1:04:47
various songs out there, and this is this one, This one for
1:04:51
the year when I started going through my ratings, I'm like,
1:04:53
yeah, this one is really awesome.
1:04:55
So that's my favorite KBS. Yep, you, you did not.
1:04:58
You did not disappoint on that pay.
1:05:00
Good, that's a good one. That sounded like an
1:05:03
outstanding. One, all right, where are we 4
1:05:06
it's going to be over some I don't like it, OK, I'm #4 and
1:05:11
it's the first appearance for this brewery for me today.
1:05:15
Thank PB and J Mixtape from Zul beer Company The BlackBerry.
1:05:23
Seemed like everybody did BlackBerry this year.
1:05:25
Everybody went BlackBerry. And here's why.
1:05:27
And I think This is why as sweet as that beer is, the mixtapes
1:05:32
you had BlackBerry, there's some tartness there.
1:05:35
You still get the sweets, but you get that tartness too at the
1:05:37
same time. So it's a little more balanced
1:05:39
and you get both of them. But that's, that's why I like it
1:05:42
so much. 4.8, It's a 6.5% beer, but that's what it's that makes
1:05:49
it my all time favorite. But the BlackBerry is that they?
1:05:53
I think it's the same thing with the marble fox, because that
1:05:55
tartness kind of balances out. Yeah, I think so.
1:05:58
For me anyway. So that was my #4 All right.
1:06:02
Speaking of #4 yeah. Fucking God damn.
1:06:05
OK. Look at how full Brian pour.
1:06:07
Delicious. Brian is an asshole.
1:06:10
Take a picture. Wait, hang on.
1:06:11
Let me take a picture of this, the fullness of these fucking.
1:06:13
All we were trying to do was like do a little tasting and.
1:06:16
Hey, take the whole fucking thing.
1:06:20
Wow. This is like you're.
1:06:23
In the Doctor chamber. Oh my gosh.
1:06:26
You know, Brian hasn't gone to the bathroom in a while.
1:06:28
Maybe he just went in these fucking glasses.
1:06:30
Let's hope not. Let's hope not.
1:06:31
A little suspect. Our last one of the beer
1:06:35
tasting, the very bad beer. Tasting.
1:06:38
Yeah, just go right into the. Smell has the same thing that
1:06:41
you haven't said before on this one.
1:06:44
I'm going to say worse, like apple cider or something.
1:06:48
OK. Fuck.
1:06:51
It's vinegar. I would say it's gone bad.
1:06:53
I think it started out this bad. Yeah, that is not good.
1:06:57
OK remember our ranking is the like 4 is the worst OK?
1:07:02
God damn. I just wonder if, you know, is
1:07:05
this what they were going for? Is this what the Brewer was
1:07:08
after? Like somebody this was their
1:07:10
recipe and they're proud of? I got, is this what really what
1:07:14
you're going for? Yeah.
1:07:15
Like does a head Brewer title matter this company?
1:07:19
Yeah, or you just just. Leftovers.
1:07:21
You know, this is just. Left that that that's what this
1:07:23
tastes like this like this is like what spilled out.
1:07:27
It's the good beer that spilled out on the floor and then they
1:07:30
vacuumed it up and yeah, called it whatever this.
1:07:34
Is we saw a bunch of shit leftover, let's put it in one
1:07:36
bin and put it in some bottles or some cake.
1:07:39
Well, this won't be bottles. These be cans.
1:07:42
Oh fuck. OK.
1:07:43
Yeah. You know, Once Upon a time
1:07:45
people talked about like, you don't want to drink beer out of
1:07:48
a can because the can kind of changes the flat.
1:07:52
It's doing this one a favor. Like the aluminum, like a little
1:07:55
aluminum is is enhancing this beer.
1:07:58
I think it's helping. It is like I would much rather
1:08:00
have the aluminum taste than this beer.
1:08:04
Welcome the aluminum. OK, not that we have to answer
1:08:08
them out, but we got Colt 45 to pick from Heineken, Labatt Ice
1:08:11
and Milwaukee's Best. God damn.
1:08:13
OK, you know what I'm going to, I'm going to go out here and
1:08:15
live here. I'm going to say.
1:08:16
Yeah. Yeah, wow.
1:08:18
I. Don't know that I have any notes
1:08:20
or tasting notes on that, just oh.
1:08:21
Here just worse. Worse.
1:08:23
Not good. That's my tasting of bad, Not
1:08:27
good. All right, Yeah.
1:08:29
Get that out of the way. This beer tastes like I'm not
1:08:31
going to work Monday. Or Tuesday it's.
1:08:35
Just Saturday, by the way. All right.
1:08:38
Oh. Shit, look, I got all right, we
1:08:39
got it's something we got to rate.
1:08:41
We got to get them raid up. OK, I think I think I know what
1:08:44
the worst one is. You could dump whatever's left.
1:08:46
Oh great. Hey don't dump in the yard cuz
1:08:48
it'll kill every all the grass. Straight spout there licking it
1:08:51
up. So 4 is the worst.
1:08:53
OK, 4 is the worst. Yeah.
1:08:54
All right, all. Right, I got.
1:08:56
All right, we'll edit some of them on this pausing down, but.
1:08:58
I haven't finished well, I haven't finished.
1:09:01
Scott hadn't finished either. I will, but I won't like it.
1:09:06
OK, what? By the way, last year I listened
1:09:09
to the episode and last year he he brought my our sheets up.
1:09:14
Oh. Yes.
1:09:17
This whole idea was wrong. You got a rate.
1:09:21
Brian brought our sheets up last year.
1:09:23
I've heard this one of the episode the other day.
1:09:24
He goes, you're the worst shitty beer taster ever.
1:09:28
Like he got everything wrong. And I was like, I'm kind of
1:09:31
proud of that. It is a badge of honor, yeah.
1:09:34
I didn't get one right. Great.
1:09:35
All right. Just make sure I got all four in
1:09:37
there OK I. Really need a palate cleanser
1:09:40
here would. You like some Lucy?
1:09:43
I'm still like somewhere try. And help yourself to anything
1:09:46
over there if you had to taste the top.
1:09:47
Yeah, you can finish those four off, Ron.
1:09:50
All right. Well, moving on.
1:09:52
We're in the top three now We're in the top.
1:09:54
Three. All right, my #3 again right
1:09:58
here and surprised I had to get this far before I got to one
1:10:01
from Barik brewing and blending the sunset sipper wild ale.
1:10:08
I you know, they can do no wrong in my book, and so they could be
1:10:12
my whole top ten. Just depends how many times I've
1:10:14
been there honestly, right, because their their stuff is
1:10:18
fantastic. But this was a sunset sipper,
1:10:20
fantastic wild ale that I had there.
1:10:24
Made it crack my top three. Yeah.
1:10:27
I don't know if I could. If I had to rank their beers,
1:10:30
that would be tough. That's.
1:10:32
That's a good episode. Yeah, between also between the
1:10:35
wild ales and then just this. Oh yeah.
1:10:38
Because I do a bunch of traditional stuff.
1:10:39
Yeah, I'm doing a check logger. Yes, there's right that's.
1:10:42
A whole nother thing that bro. That yeah, everything they do is
1:10:46
fantastic. Their their sours are next
1:10:48
level, their wild ales and sours are are next level.
1:10:52
I will say I have not found anything equal that in anything
1:10:56
that I've had in that category, but.
1:10:58
They're the. Best at it, but yeah, they were
1:11:00
fantastic. So that made my, that was my #3
1:11:02
All right, Steve. Well.
1:11:05
My #3 Scott was there. I was there for most.
1:11:08
When I have that. No, you weren't.
1:11:10
Some of them probably have. This is from Common John, our
1:11:15
friends in Manchester, TN. This was called the First
1:11:19
Crusade. It's a Belgian strong dark hell.
1:11:22
Let me tell you something. This thing was freaking strong.
1:11:26
We had it, Scott and I and Rich from the phone we had, we were
1:11:29
at Mr. in Murfreesboro one night.
1:11:32
This is an 8.9% beer and I was glad that night that I took an
1:11:38
Uber home. We we have been in a few places
1:11:42
and after we had this, it was like all right, this had that
1:11:44
boomerang effect. You were like, this thing is
1:11:47
hitting me right away. The cool thing about this is it
1:11:51
basically it's they they say it's a deep amber to dark brown
1:11:54
color. It has a dark fruit, caramel and
1:11:58
toffee and also was a collab with wanderlinger nice in
1:12:03
Chattanooga. So Yep.
1:12:05
And I rated this also a 4.5 O but man, they really knocked us
1:12:12
out of the park and you remember having it that night.
1:12:15
I remember sitting there with you and it was a moment for all
1:12:18
of us because we all had that same beer.
1:12:19
We all were like holy shit this is the one.
1:12:22
And I think that we can all agree that in Middle Tennessee,
1:12:25
they're not a Nashville brewery necessarily, right?
1:12:27
But in Middle Tennessee, Common John is top notch.
1:12:32
Fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it's the style
1:12:35
again. 8.9%. See, we've been drinking, we've
1:12:38
been, we've been to Casual Pint earlier in the day.
1:12:41
We had beers at Common John earlier and again, that thing
1:12:44
you drink that one, it's, you know, you drink a bunch of beer
1:12:46
Sometimes it's like, oh, same after that, like, bam, that one
1:12:50
hit, that one hit. Yeah.
1:12:51
Yeah. It really did.
1:12:52
We all knew it at that time. Yeah, it was fantastic.
1:12:54
Fantastic fucking beer. Wow.
1:12:56
Yeah, Colin, John's great. It's if you're ever passing
1:13:00
through, these two are off the Interstate a mile or so to go by
1:13:04
there in Manchester, TN It's a cool space.
1:13:07
They have great food and so many good beers.
1:13:09
I mean, so many good. And they're dry, Irish stout.
1:13:14
It's the closest thing to Beamish that we found since
1:13:17
we've been back from Ireland. Yeah.
1:13:19
So they do so many great things. I had some friends that were
1:13:22
visiting about a year ago, well last year or so from Atlanta and
1:13:26
they're big crappier guys and gals.
1:13:28
And I said on your way home you have time.
1:13:31
I said stop at Common John in Manchester, TN.
1:13:35
If they have food down there, you could stop in for lunch or
1:13:37
you could stop in for breakfast. You can and they and they did
1:13:40
and they were like, thank you for the recommendation.
1:13:44
I mean, absolutely fantastic. Great, good, good way to break
1:13:46
up the drive between Nashville and Chattanooga or Nashville and
1:13:50
Atlanta. Exactly, you know.
1:13:52
But. You're in a biscuit.
1:13:53
I. Just love that, all right?
1:13:55
#3. OK so I said my last pick was
1:14:00
Zul and was the first time it made my made my list.
1:14:04
It's also back so #3 Fit for a King by Zul Beer company.
1:14:12
It's peanut butter and banana and it's.
1:14:16
That's a. Fave.
1:14:17
So it's modeled after the guy from.
1:14:19
Memphis, Yeah, right, right away.
1:14:22
I'm going. For the younger crowd, you know
1:14:25
that aren't familiar necessarily with Elvis Presley peanut butter
1:14:29
and banana sandwiches. That's exactly right, and it's.
1:14:32
Hits. Yeah, it is.
1:14:33
It is. Oh my God, it's so good.
1:14:35
It's better than the mixtape. Wow, wow.
1:14:38
It's yes it. Sold 4. .8 same score I gave the
1:14:43
the BlackBerry previous but it it it nicked out.
1:14:47
You know that Oh my God, 6.5% I give it a 4.8.
1:14:51
It's just a banana that balance, you find a balance between
1:14:54
these, some of these, especially with these adjuncts, it can lean
1:14:58
heavy towards one or the other. What's peanut butter or the It's
1:15:02
perfect. This sounds awesome.
1:15:03
It's fucking pretty. Great.
1:15:04
Yeah. You know, earlier tonight I was
1:15:05
drinking the Polliner half of ice and half of ice is to me,
1:15:09
always have that heavy banana. Yeah.
1:15:11
Like if you could mix a little peanut butter into that, like,
1:15:14
that sounds like heaven. You know, I love that, love that
1:15:19
combination. I would like to try that.
1:15:22
They would. Yeah, they would not be happy.
1:15:23
Fuck up our beers. All right, we're moving up, man.
1:15:26
What is your? What is your number?
1:15:28
2 so #2 you know, once again, hometown Southern Crest, their
1:15:32
Midnight Crisp, which is a Swartz beer.
1:15:35
And I don't know about you guys, but like whenever I see a Swartz
1:15:37
beer or a black IPA like it's one I gotta get.
1:15:41
Is that one of their signatures? I feel like they've had that out
1:15:43
for a little bit. I don't know that it's new.
1:15:46
It might have been a mainstay for them, but I think it was the
1:15:49
first time I've had it this year ranked it, you know, four and a
1:15:52
quarter, which is what I, what I did for a lot of beers.
1:15:55
I'm not like you guys. I'm not an insider where I can
1:15:57
slice and dice. But again, one of those like
1:16:00
really good unique beers that I could drink a lot of, you know,
1:16:04
like and enjoy and could sit down there and have another and
1:16:06
another and another. You know, it's only a 5%, but
1:16:10
just a good clean kind of dark Schwarzbeer.
1:16:14
Perfect and they do it's yes, they do a really good.
1:16:16
Job at it they do. Well, yeah.
1:16:18
So, Steve, Yes, Sir. You're #2 Sir.
1:16:21
Man my #2 list again. The second bull was.
1:16:26
Back they're dominating this top 10.
1:16:30
Can't imagine. Sewell is back, and you know
1:16:32
what makes me happy about this one?
1:16:34
It's not a fruited sour. This was an imperial double New
1:16:39
England IPA 8.8 point 2%. I rated a 4.75 again purchase
1:16:48
this in a 16 ounce can. I got it down.
1:16:51
It was smooth. I mean, really, seriously, it
1:16:54
was dry hop with Citra Petrine, as they say, yes.
1:16:58
And man, this thing was just absolutely out of the park.
1:17:02
And really, I think what I love what.
1:17:04
Was the name. Didn't I say it?
1:17:06
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I said it.
1:17:07
Hyper hyper. Yes, hyper.
1:17:10
Yeah, I thought I said hyper. Before I thought I said hyper,
1:17:13
yeah. Excellent, good choice.
1:17:16
Yeah, yes, it was hyper. Very, very good choice.
1:17:18
I remember having it going really freaking like this beer.
1:17:22
And the thing that really stands out the most is the fact that
1:17:25
it's not something that just wouldn't basically Zul was known
1:17:29
for, you know, all their sour fruited mixtapes and things like
1:17:32
that. I'm going They do other great
1:17:35
beer and that one really makes me happy and I'm very glad that
1:17:38
it's in my top 10. Excellent choice.
1:17:39
Yep, excellent. And I love the fact that you
1:17:41
just pick something other than mixtape or something.
1:17:44
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.
1:17:45
Yep. Outstanding choice.
1:17:48
All right, Steve, the only duplicate you and I have have.
1:17:52
We have a duplicate but. We'll we'll edit this part out.
1:17:57
Steve had it really high ranked in his list in mine even a
1:18:01
little higher. Double oak KBS.
1:18:04
Yes, Sir. From founders.
1:18:05
Holy shit. And I'll tell you, I struggle
1:18:07
with that one in between #2 and #1 it's that damn good.
1:18:12
It's my favorite KBS, my favorite beers of all time.
1:18:16
Don't quite get a 5. It's a 4.8, the 12 point or it's
1:18:19
12% imperial stout. That just that that double oak
1:18:24
shit, the wood in there. Oh my God, it's so good.
1:18:27
You talk about the variants. They do.
1:18:28
Yeah. All solid, All Yeah, all above
1:18:30
fours, well above fours. That double up just gets it.
1:18:34
When I had the last year, when I had the KBS spicy chocolate,
1:18:38
yeah. And I was kind of wondering, you
1:18:39
know, what I liked? Sexual Chocolate.
1:18:40
Sexual chocolate. That's right.
1:18:42
How's. That they do play so fine, don't
1:18:45
you agree? I love that.
1:18:47
I was checking it in, you know, it's like 12.5 or 13 or whatever
1:18:50
and Scott's like, were you drinking a beer?
1:18:53
That's 12%. I have a house.
1:18:55
Because you know, you don't want to, you don't really want to be
1:18:58
out drinking those. Buddy Rich.
1:19:01
Shout out to our buddy Rich from the Foamy Hands.
1:19:02
One night we were all doing a a podcast together and I think he
1:19:06
drank two of those back-to-back. What was it?
1:19:10
Is it? Is it 2 KBSS and an IPA?
1:19:12
Oh my gosh. Wow.
1:19:14
And then they had work the next day.
1:19:16
I couldn't do it. I could not do that.
1:19:19
I was like, yeah, I wouldn't rise for the bell if I did 2
1:19:22
back-to-back. It's.
1:19:23
Rough. It's rough.
1:19:24
But KBS, we love KBS. We love founders.
1:19:27
We do, Yep, out of Grand Rapids, MI.
1:19:29
That double O is my guy. It and it, it's at least where
1:19:33
we live, it's readily available. It is.
1:19:36
And I'm fine in most of the variants we can find and go to
1:19:38
Main Street. We really can get it.
1:19:39
You can get the hazelnut and get the spicy chocolate, whatever
1:19:42
you want. They've got them and I can get
1:19:44
this anytime I want. And it's I have never had it.
1:19:47
I will seek it out. I am definitely seeking that out
1:19:50
because you don't get it going to go to Main Street down the
1:19:53
road for me, I. Was going to say you don't let
1:19:55
it go. That's right.
1:19:56
You get a 12 ounce bottle, it's like 7 bucks, 7 or 8 bucks.
1:19:59
It's nothing nice. Just take it home.
1:20:01
We just Connell it and. Squeeze.
1:20:04
It and I will. Have yourself a fun afternoon.
1:20:09
There you go guys, we're down to #1.
1:20:11
But before we do that, we need to do the results of the shitty
1:20:14
beer. Yes, Brian has got the results.
1:20:18
He has tallied the scores. Does anybody know anything,
1:20:21
Brian? We are terrible.
1:20:24
OK. All right.
1:20:25
Brian, give us the results. Interesting results.
1:20:28
So three of the four of us ranked the beers the same way.
1:20:32
The only thing that was different was Steve.
1:20:35
Oh, Steve had two and three flip-flopped.
1:20:39
Whenever I tell you when, I'll go through and tell you the
1:20:41
order they were. So we were kind of, everybody
1:20:45
had kind of the same taste. The bad news, Y'all suck at
1:20:49
this. You were worse.
1:20:51
Worse this year than last year. One beer was identified
1:20:56
correctly, one person identified 1 beer correctly.
1:21:00
All the. Others were wrong.
1:21:01
Chris got the little bat. Everyone was completely wrong.
1:21:04
Please, Chance. And most of you had the number
1:21:07
one beer rated low. So here's the order of the
1:21:10
beers. OK, it was Milwaukee.
1:21:13
That was the first beer. Was the Milwaukee the Beast?
1:21:16
The beast was the first beer beast.
1:21:17
Light ice was first. And then Labatt Ice was the
1:21:22
second, Heineken was the third one, and Colt 45 was the
1:21:27
unanimous worst. Beer.
1:21:28
Worst beer? Yes.
1:21:30
Billy Dee waves. Wow.
1:21:32
Damn you Billy Dee again. Wow, you guys.
1:21:34
OK? That sucks.
1:21:35
We're not good at that, but I'm OK with that.
1:21:38
I'm totally OK with that. The.
1:21:39
Best one? Was the.
1:21:40
Beast The Milwaukee Beast Light ice.
1:21:44
I can't get my mind around well. I also wrote down.
1:21:47
I think my notes were not so not not so bad or something.
1:21:52
It was like. Well, what?
1:21:54
Did it say that was a shock? I really thought Heineken was
1:21:57
the first one. Horrible, not horrible.
1:21:59
Not horrible. Not horrible, he's.
1:22:02
Ice. OK, maybe there's something to
1:22:04
so, but. But the two ice beers were one
1:22:07
and two, yeah. OK, wow, interesting.
1:22:10
That's surprising. OK, that that's very shocking.
1:22:13
Like I kind of went, I came into this jaded, thinking Heineken
1:22:17
won't be that bad. Yeah.
1:22:19
Versus these other domestic ice beers like.
1:22:22
Heineken is that bad? Sir, and and apparently it's
1:22:24
that bad. It's.
1:22:25
That. Bad.
1:22:26
It's that. Bad skunky, as I thought it was
1:22:28
going to be, because I always thought Heineken was kind of
1:22:29
skunky. Maybe in the bottle?
1:22:32
Can you deal? With them, it knows how long
1:22:34
they've been sitting in the beer cooler.
1:22:37
Yeah. And and and again, the theory
1:22:40
that there are no good beers in green bottles, right Heineken.
1:22:43
Clear or clear, right? Or or clear bottles.
1:22:46
Can you name 1A good beer in a clear or green bottle?
1:22:49
Off the top of my head. If I bought 1000 beers this
1:22:52
year, not one of them were in a clear or green bottle, I promise
1:22:55
you. You'd rather have it in the
1:22:57
aluminum can, yes. Yes, there's no light getting
1:23:02
through that you. Might taste it.
1:23:04
It tastes like aluminum, right? Well, that was something.
1:23:08
Also, there was something. We need to do this with a W1W
1:23:11
night one. But but blinds Just blinds in
1:23:14
general. Yeah.
1:23:15
Tell you you don't know anything.
1:23:16
You don't know anything. And I accept that.
1:23:19
I accept that I don't know anything.
1:23:21
Given time, you could, they could, you know, Brian could
1:23:24
come back next year and give us the exact same beers and we'd
1:23:26
rate them all different, right? You know.
1:23:28
Maybe next year. Yeah, we do 4 peanut butter and
1:23:31
Jelly beers. Well, yeah.
1:23:33
Like, kind of like there's enough of them out there.
1:23:36
I wouldn't complain. I wouldn't.
1:23:37
Complain we would. There would be no.
1:23:38
Complaints about that, There would be no complaints, Yeah,
1:23:40
there would be no complaints or like the KBF series or something
1:23:43
like that, although those are pretty strong.
1:23:45
We'll do 4 peanut butter beers and you have to name the fruit
1:23:49
that's in it. OK, yeah, there we go.
1:23:52
They do all the different variants.
1:23:54
Take some notes. We're recording those, so take
1:23:56
some notes. I love it.
1:23:56
OK, well. We'll listen back to in about 11
1:23:59
1/2 months from now, we'll do a recap.
1:24:01
When we start planning, all right.
1:24:04
All right, we're up to #1 #1 All right, so once again, I'm going
1:24:09
to Side Project Brewing. You guys kind of looked at me
1:24:12
cross eyed when I said Side Project Brewing.
1:24:14
That's OK out of Saint Louis. We owe us some beer from there.
1:24:17
This is a another double imperial stout coming in at 15%
1:24:24
called the seller 10th Anniversary stout.
1:24:27
Again. This was the same day that I was
1:24:31
at new groove and someone brought it in one of their
1:24:34
regulars and fairly special kind of beer was willing to share.
1:24:41
It is a you know, obviously it's a stay a stout that's aged in in
1:24:46
bourbon barrels, but a blend of rye and bourbon aged stouts to
1:24:50
make this beer and it stuck out. It was pretty special, but Side
1:24:55
Project brewing the only thing good to come out of Saint Louis.
1:24:59
Certainly not the Cardinals. Or the Blues.
1:25:01
What was the rating you gave that?
1:25:03
I gave that one a 4.54 point 5, so everything else on my list
1:25:06
was 4.25. Because I don't have all the
1:25:09
tents and everything, our rate tends to be a little bit crammed
1:25:13
into the middle, but it was 4.25 to 4.5.
1:25:16
That was one that I gave, you know, again, probably tainted by
1:25:20
experience and situation of what I was in and that I knew this
1:25:25
was special because somebody was bringing something in that was
1:25:28
probably a high dollar, you know, bottle.
1:25:32
Very, very special, but it was quite good.
1:25:35
Quite good. I feel like you're being a
1:25:36
little stingy on your ratings, yeah.
1:25:39
I might be but I only. Have two steps from 4 point.
1:25:44
5:00 to 5:00. Unlike you, I only have two more
1:25:47
4.75 and five. Unlike you guys, you're
1:25:51
insiders, you know you got the other four or five steps there.
1:25:56
Stingy. That was my best from 2025I.
1:25:59
Really liked your list. Those those man, those 3
1:26:02
special. There's some good I I'm proud
1:26:04
that I have probably 4 beers on my list that you 2 have never
1:26:08
had. Amazing.
1:26:09
Love it and they never have. Unless you bring it back for us.
1:26:13
I will. I will.
1:26:14
Seek to do that. Food.
1:26:15
Yeah, absolutely love it. Yes, I like that too because it
1:26:18
kind of to your same point we haven't had and we haven't
1:26:20
experienced and we just going by your description in the in the
1:26:22
names of the beers and stuff. So they sound fantastic.
1:26:26
So, yeah, and it's 10th anniversary of side Project.
1:26:28
So they've been around for at least 10 years and you haven't
1:26:31
had? It would they like to come on
1:26:32
the podcast. And you call yourself beer?
1:26:36
Never even heard a side project. We have now.
1:26:39
Put a bag over our heads. Would they like to come on a
1:26:41
podcast? That's I.
1:26:43
Maybe they would. Would they?
1:26:44
They would. Then they'll send us some beer.
1:26:46
That's all right. Hi, Steve.
1:26:49
Steve. The best of the best wait.
1:26:51
Before you, before you do it. I meant to do this and I
1:26:53
apologize, but hang on. It's supposed to be a drum roll.
1:26:54
We didn't play. OK, I.
1:26:57
Didn't I? Didn't work that out.
1:26:59
There's drum roll. Anyway, there we go.
1:27:02
There's the drum roll. Here we go, all right.
1:27:04
Steve's number one. So I've been searching for a
1:27:07
five this year searching for A5 like the.
1:27:11
Last and you're women or you're beer.
1:27:14
I mean A5 on the women. A10 on the women.
1:27:16
Come on, man. Yeah.
1:27:18
You wanna go high? You wanna go?
1:27:19
Depends on what state she's from.
1:27:20
Yeah, well, that's true. That's true.
1:27:23
Anyway, I love it. Maybe, Maybe.
1:27:26
Yeah. OK, anyway.
1:27:29
The shame of beach house. We'll get yeah, it's shame beach
1:27:32
house. We'll get a different untapped
1:27:33
app for that. But are you ranking 10?
1:27:36
All right, so I I've been on untapped.
1:27:39
I've been searching for A5 like the last couple of months.
1:27:42
I'm going where is it, where is it?
1:27:45
And about a week ago, I'm in Cincinnati.
1:27:48
I'm checking my beer out at the party stores and I walk in
1:27:52
there. We're on prop tonight here.
1:27:54
We go you. Hey, he's brought it with him.
1:27:56
They brought props. Mad Tree.
1:27:58
Whispering Pine. No shit.
1:28:01
Yeah, the same. It was like 7 bucks a can and I
1:28:06
looked up and I said I am going to have to get this.
1:28:10
This is barrel age bourbon Barrel age Imperial stout 12.5%
1:28:17
a collab with the party. Source.
1:28:20
Hold that up. Yeah.
1:28:21
Here we go, hold it up. Lots of.
1:28:23
Imperial stouts in the in the top ten this year.
1:28:27
Much more than I remember last year I had.
1:28:30
I knew since this podcast was coming up, I'm like, I got to
1:28:33
have it soon. Well, they're not going to have
1:28:35
it on a weeknight, you know, working.
1:28:37
Probably not. So I got back into town
1:28:40
Cincinnati last weekend on a Saturday, about four O clock in
1:28:43
the afternoon. And I'm like that thing, that
1:28:47
thing, I'm going to have it later that evening.
1:28:50
And I did. Popped it right in the fridge.
1:28:52
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, there is nothing bad
1:28:57
I could say about this other than it got to the point that it
1:29:01
was almost like this much left. And I'm like, this is a heavy
1:29:05
barrel aged beer. Had chocolate bourbon, very
1:29:10
strong, but there was nothing that I disliked about it at all.
1:29:16
And so I said, you know what? That's my 5.
1:29:19
Love it. I.
1:29:21
Love it. Yeah, you were looking for a 5
1:29:24
and. You I was looking for a 5 and I
1:29:26
got her done. Fuck.
1:29:28
Yeah. I see that canned, I saw they
1:29:33
had dropped, they had the release they still.
1:29:35
Smell it? I wonder if they've done a
1:29:38
barrel aged before. They probably have.
1:29:42
Probably like, oh, it's. A party source exclusive.
1:29:44
Yeah, yeah, collab at the party. Source.
1:29:47
Fireside knives with decadent notes of dark chocolate, dark
1:29:51
fruits, beefy beer. Wow damn it.
1:29:54
Well they did it right. They also got would you say 7
1:29:57
bucks a piece worth. Yeah, perfect.
1:29:59
We're going. To wind down and like an hour
1:30:00
and a half, that's perfect. Yeah.
1:30:02
Also, I think it's probably perfect in the 12 ounce can.
1:30:05
Oh, 60. 60 might have been just kind of, yeah.
1:30:09
It'd been hard to get through 60.
1:30:10
Yeah, you're like, I thought it was bad.
1:30:13
It was like, how bad? Yeah.
1:30:17
So as Scott was looking at that, I was like, yes, chocolate and
1:30:20
dark fruit in it and bourbon barrel aged.
1:30:25
There was just sounds. Heavenly.
1:30:26
Yeah, it sounds heavenly. Nothing that I disliked about
1:30:30
it. So I was like that is my 5 for
1:30:32
the year. I love, I love.
1:30:33
You gave a five. Yeah, it's the only 5.
1:30:36
You gave all. Year.
1:30:36
The only five I gave, Yes. Yep.
1:30:38
That's impressive. Well, shout out Mad Tree.
1:30:41
Shout out the Mad tree. Yeah, wow, they do a lot of good
1:30:45
beer anyways. You.
1:30:46
Couldn't have picked up three or four of those, but.
1:30:50
Share. Those they're $7.00 a kid.
1:30:52
Good kidding, but that's that's a fantastic.
1:30:55
All right, Scott, what is your #1 beer of 2025?
1:30:58
OK all. Right people, get off your hands
1:31:02
from Russian River Brewing Company.
1:31:04
Nice. Plenty of the younger.
1:31:05
You have much you got a younger. You got a younger man, a man who
1:31:10
got me #10 The Alchemist Hedy Topper.
1:31:14
Stephen McBride also brought me a Russian river.
1:31:18
Plenty of the younger. He went to the event in March.
1:31:21
He went to the thing and did the whole thing and brought me back
1:31:23
one. And and it met the hype.
1:31:26
Shit, and here's why. It's the triple IPA with the
1:31:31
younger or the OR the. The elder is the double IPA.
1:31:34
Fantastic. Yeah, fantastic.
1:31:35
I think it's the only follow that I have.
1:31:37
Also A5 for me too. Also a 510.25% triple because
1:31:43
triples tend to be higher, sweeter.
1:31:46
I had it and I was like, I'm sorry guys but I can't share it.
1:31:49
It's all mine. Like that bottle went down so
1:31:52
goddamn easy. We talked last year on this same
1:31:54
episode. We talked about we had for
1:31:57
president at JBF. We had gone to JBF.
1:32:00
And we, yeah, yeah, we did. Resident that made my list.
1:32:03
Somewhere along the way we just we had a sample of it.
1:32:06
So I've had the younger, I've had for president, I've had the
1:32:09
elder. It's just.
1:32:12
It's it's that it's. Better damn it.
1:32:14
Why there's an event around this I understand, but they built a
1:32:18
building for this thing out there.
1:32:20
No kidding. Yes, basically based on plan of
1:32:23
the younger event. So 5 OI give her five O Shout
1:32:26
out to Steven for bringing that back to me.
1:32:29
Nice. Yeah, cheers for the.
1:32:30
Killer like you have to be there to get this beer and have
1:32:34
someone bring back. Great job guys.
1:32:35
I'm no, I'm glad to hear that it leaves it lives up to the hype
1:32:39
because there's a lot of hype around that.
1:32:41
I've, you know, plenty. The elder lives up to it, to me
1:32:45
even, you know, and we have it what every six months or so we
1:32:49
we come across one, we get somebody to bootleg 1 back for
1:32:52
us. And every time I have it, I'm
1:32:54
like, it still lives up. It lives up.
1:32:57
It's not the hype. It's not.
1:32:59
It's not all hype, but. I'm like every time I fucking
1:33:01
have it. It is really, really good.
1:33:03
Here's the thing, I don't know what the what the younger costs.
1:33:07
I'm sure it's the same. The elder is like 799, right?
1:33:12
It's not a $15 bottle or 20 something.
1:33:14
It's 7 and it's also a bigger bottle.
1:33:16
Yeah. So it's like it's.
1:33:17
Fucking. Legit, it's good.
1:33:19
Yeah, it's good every single time.
1:33:21
Before we end, and you guys know this outside your head, how many
1:33:25
fives, how many fives have you total?
1:33:29
Have you given? Them total, total 5 to look it
1:33:32
up, Steve, you just got. One you added to yours.
1:33:35
You know how many fives ratings you've given them Untapped I.
1:33:39
Think 22. Yeah, well, one we just.
1:33:41
Talked about Great Lakes last year.
1:33:43
Wow. Yeah.
1:33:44
All right. That's something I'm going to be
1:33:47
stingy with our. File.
1:33:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure it's right
1:33:50
though. I mean, without looking, I
1:33:51
think. Yeah, I think that's true.
1:33:53
All right, we save those for the special thing.
1:33:55
Yeah. Special occasions.
1:33:57
Yep. So yeah, I got to look mine up
1:34:00
here by rating. I only have one planning.
1:34:03
Let's see if. Probably yeast infection.
1:34:05
It is yeast infection. Carpet matches the drapes there
1:34:10
you go and then my you know, 4.75 Pliny the elder and Pliny
1:34:15
for president. All right those are my 4.7
1:34:18
fives. So some only two 4.7 fives, but
1:34:21
yeah carpet matches the drapes definitely 5 point O yeast
1:34:25
infection. That's.
1:34:26
Probably because he named it. You guys have any honorable
1:34:30
mentions, Steve? I think you got a couple.
1:34:33
Well, my love for Oktoberfest knows no bounds and I sat there
1:34:37
this year going, God do I put an Oktoberfest in the in my top ten
1:34:42
list. And you know our buffo words
1:34:45
that we're going to do and hand out some.
1:34:48
I could always put every year Sam Adams Oktoberfest in my top
1:34:51
10, but I'm like, that's kind of repetitive and boring.
1:34:55
It's. Your list though.
1:34:56
Yeah, Hop and Frog, when I had their Oktoberfest this year, it
1:35:02
was the best Oktoberfest outside of his ten items.
1:35:06
I really like that I had this year they almost made my top
1:35:10
ten. I took them out.
1:35:13
But it also is an honorable mention for them.
1:35:15
So yeah, I, I think it was really good.
1:35:18
I mean, you mentioned there are some really good loggers out
1:35:21
there and you also mentioned a pilsner.
1:35:24
Pilsner. I mean, when we went again with
1:35:27
St. Hop and Frog, we went there and
1:35:30
we got a flight and you know, you're Hop and Frog, they do
1:35:34
with shanties and they do these chocolate stouts and all of a
1:35:37
sudden I'm looking going flight. I want to get something to
1:35:40
balance it out. And I got there hopping Pilsner
1:35:43
and I looked at him and I'm like this freaking Pilsner rocks the
1:35:47
house and he ended up getting it too.
1:35:49
So you know, I'm like it kind of like Zool.
1:35:52
It's great to see. And when we had them on the
1:35:55
podcast, you know, we met and we mentioned that like you guys do
1:35:58
a really good pilsner. It's great to see these
1:36:00
breweries, even though they're doing some of these other
1:36:04
variants that they're still doing good like loggers and
1:36:08
pills are so. I will say on the, on the
1:36:11
Oktoberfest, what three years ago or so, Scott and I, we did a
1:36:15
tournament of Oktoberfest and Hop and Frog won like out of the
1:36:19
blue. Nobody expected that, but you
1:36:23
know, did matchups all the way through and unanimously
1:36:26
everybody picked that one as the best.
1:36:27
So and. You brought that one and we
1:36:30
mentioned that on the podcast. We mentioned that that they're
1:36:33
they're bigger one. They Yeah.
1:36:35
It was quite good. So I've got kind of a weirdest 1
1:36:38
from my year that was actually, actually it was from Upslope
1:36:44
Brewing Company, they're out of Boulder, Co.
1:36:47
And it was a passion fruit hibiscus, fruit and sour.
1:36:52
So that I had this year that I rated very high.
1:36:55
So just a 4.5%, but it's fruit and sour.
1:36:58
That's passion fruit Hibiscus. Like it tastes like flowers.
1:37:03
You. Smell just like flowers.
1:37:07
Yeah, but like as far as kind of strange, you know, kind of
1:37:11
scroll through and looking for something weird that kind of
1:37:14
stood out. Biscuits is, you know, I mean
1:37:18
very floral kind of kind of thing and and it it stood out to
1:37:21
me and that beer from Upslope so.
1:37:24
OK, all right, it's cool. I have one that was a little
1:37:26
strange that I got to talk about that I didn't like.
1:37:30
And if this is other people's beer, cool.
1:37:33
Scott and I, we were at, we were at W 6 Brewing in Covington, KY,
1:37:39
and I got this one on a flight. It's called the Icy Fuego.
1:37:43
And I started drinking this thing and I'm like, I remember
1:37:45
this. This is one of the wackiest
1:37:47
beers that I've ever had. It was only just a simple 4%
1:37:51
sour, but it had fruit and pepper in it and I just went I
1:37:57
do not. Understand.
1:37:59
Okay, Fruit sour with pepper. Yeah, I'm like, I do not
1:38:03
understand this beer. I remember that conversation we
1:38:06
were having as you were drinking at you.
1:38:08
Like this is the weirdest fucking thing ever.
1:38:10
Yeah, one of, I mean of the year of 2025.
1:38:12
I mean, you know, we've all had some really weird ones.
1:38:15
I mean, we, we've joked about some of the pickle beers and
1:38:18
things like that. I mean, you would almost expect
1:38:20
like a pickle beer to be could be strange depending on your,
1:38:24
your palate or a spicy pickle beer.
1:38:26
But I had that and I was like just a 4% sour.
1:38:29
Or it could taste like hot dog water.
1:38:31
It could. Yeah.
1:38:33
There's some of the pickle beers that we have had taste like hot
1:38:37
dog water so. I had to, I had to throw that
1:38:39
one out there. And again, that goes into people
1:38:42
say, boy, you sometimes you remember some of the beers that
1:38:44
you had when when I had that one on a flight, I just went, yeah,
1:38:48
this one, this one I'm going to be talking about for a while.
1:38:50
So I had to go back and look for it.
1:38:53
I was like, I remember it though the specifically the name.
1:38:55
Yep, there you go. When you were drinking, you're
1:38:58
trying to figure it out. Like, what is this?
1:39:00
What is it? Yeah, well, another thing they
1:39:03
didn't have up on the board like what it you know, so I kind of
1:39:07
got random, you know, oh, just get that, you know, get on a
1:39:10
flight because we hadn't been to the brewery before, you know,
1:39:13
had a little W 6. I'll just get that and then
1:39:16
start looking at how it's happened.
1:39:17
I'm like aha. OK.
1:39:20
Yeah, weird combination for. Me.
1:39:22
Weird. Yeah, yeah.
1:39:24
My strangest of the year was called and you were there.
1:39:27
You were there that night. I think you were gone by this
1:39:29
time, but it was Candy Cap. Yeah.
1:39:33
At Cedar Glade, font of it's, it's made by Font of Flora
1:39:37
Brewing. There's an imperial stout at 14%
1:39:40
and it's a, it's a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout
1:39:43
conditioned on candy cat mushrooms, Madagascar vanilla,
1:39:48
nutmeg. And man, we talked about that
1:39:52
beer for half an hour. Yeah.
1:39:54
And when someone said it tasted like soy sauce.
1:39:58
Yes, I heard that on your Yes, I heard that on that episode.
1:40:01
And I wish they hadn't said it. You couldn't forget it.
1:40:04
Couldn't forget it. Could not.
1:40:06
And I tried to. Fight it after they said it.
1:40:08
Like in my mind, like, yeah, it's fucking soy sauce.
1:40:12
I don't want that in my beard. So it was.
1:40:14
Weird. It's the mushrooms.
1:40:16
It had to be the fucking mushrooms.
1:40:17
Right. That sounds horrendous.
1:40:20
I give it a 3.7 but I'll. Say we could.
1:40:24
Not. Figure it out.
1:40:26
Yeah, it's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever had.
1:40:29
Not the. Worst.
1:40:30
What was this salty like toy sauce fuzz?
1:40:33
Did it have that kind of saltiness to it?
1:40:36
Once again, something I'm not looking for in my beer is salt.
1:40:40
Exactly. So I would prefer salt over
1:40:43
mushrooms. Yes.
1:40:45
Candy. And then, hey, let's throw some
1:40:46
vanilla and nutmeg on top of it. Yeah, it was.
1:40:49
It was. Keep keep your fungus to
1:40:51
yourself man. I don't need it in my beer.
1:40:54
Kristen, what have we got in the?
1:40:55
Pantry, I'm not a fungus. Fan in the pantry into this
1:40:57
beer. Just just the weirdest fucking.
1:40:59
Thing. But we, we talked.
1:41:00
About it for half an hour, right?
1:41:02
It was so crazy. But anyway, that was my weirdest
1:41:04
of you and dislike. It kudos to them to get getting
1:41:07
people talking. But again, one of those things,
1:41:10
did you have it as just a a taster?
1:41:13
Yes, we shared a bottle. There you go.
1:41:15
There's no way you could drink a whole bottle of it.
1:41:17
There, there was a point there where we all stopped drinking
1:41:19
it. There was much left in the
1:41:21
bottle and I think Jonathan took it with him.
1:41:24
Yeah. He's like, I went somewhere else
1:41:25
after this. I'm going to take this feel.
1:41:27
Free. Have fun.
1:41:28
Yeah, yeah. Please not a ringing endorsement
1:41:31
for a beer I. Mean they they tried something.
1:41:34
I don't know if it worked or. Not, but I don't know.
1:41:37
Anyway, Steve, I got a stat for you.
1:41:39
Yep. And I had a few, but this is the
1:41:40
most interesting one. I ran it through.
1:41:41
I ran your stats of your stuff on your list through AI, OK, And
1:41:47
it came up some stuff that went that wasn't that good, but there
1:41:50
was one that came out that I thought was pretty cool.
1:41:53
If you Add all your AB VS together on the list that you
1:41:56
yeah created today, you're at 90.8%.
1:42:01
Oh, how am I so sad. No kidding.
1:42:03
Yeah. 90 Can you imagine? Imagine like putting that into
1:42:07
one beer and have a 90.8% ABV beer.
1:42:09
You'd smell it and be out. Ever, ever clear a beer?
1:42:13
Burn your lips. Burn your fingers.
1:42:17
And there would be no flavor. It would.
1:42:19
Burn the glass. But I think it's an impressive
1:42:21
stat 90.8 is pretty fucking all. Right.
1:42:24
I'll go with that. All right, boys, I got one more
1:42:27
question for you. We're going to end on if you had
1:42:29
a time machine and you could go back to your 21 year old selves,
1:42:35
what beer would you bring your 21 year old self from modern
1:42:40
day? From modern day.
1:42:43
Yeah, I mean, for me it'd be quickly the Russian River, you
1:42:46
know, Pliny. It'd be Pliny.
1:42:49
It's on a different stratosphere.
1:42:50
It's different. Certainly at 21 had no
1:42:53
appreciation for Ipas of any kind, any you know, and I would
1:42:59
smack 21 your old Chris and say, dude, this is it.
1:43:04
This is it. This is what good beer tastes
1:43:06
like. Yeah.
1:43:07
And and you better, you better get on the train.
1:43:10
It's something different. You know, Ipas, not everybody
1:43:13
loves them right off the bat, but man, once you do like
1:43:16
they're, I don't know, they're they're one of those things
1:43:18
they're so crisp and clean and and clean finish that you can
1:43:23
drink them for a long time. You can drink them, but it is a
1:43:26
bit of an acquired taste. Kind of.
1:43:29
But if you're going to take time to acquire a taste, do it for
1:43:33
something like a good IPA. Like a really good IPA rather
1:43:37
than a shit beer like we just drank 4 of.
1:43:40
Right, which we had a choice. We didn't have to, but we, yeah.
1:43:44
Right. That's right.
1:43:45
Yeah, Budget does, yes. At 21, you're probably still on
1:43:49
a pretty tight budget. That is a good, good point.
1:43:52
That is a good limitation. 21 right now and this year 2025 in
1:43:56
December we got all sorts of choices right?
1:43:59
We were 21 there was there were no choice.
1:44:01
They don't realize the 21 year olds don't realize you've got so
1:44:05
many choices right. I wish I had the choices now or
1:44:08
when I was 21 yes we do now Steve you had to go back to your
1:44:12
21 year old self. What beer would you bring them?
1:44:14
I. Mean my list today is fantastic.
1:44:18
I don't think I would be drinking that whispering pies
1:44:22
often, but I think that I could really get behind the Belgian
1:44:28
strong dark ale because I think there's a lot of there's not a
1:44:32
lot of beers like that that you see out there.
1:44:35
And I feel like I would be the talk of the neighborhood, like
1:44:38
drink this, yes, have this. I'm yeah, I'm thinking at 21.
1:44:44
You know, Brian's point, you're thinking about a budget and if I
1:44:47
can do something that's in that 12/13/14 percent range, I can
1:44:52
get more drunk with less bear. Yeah.
1:44:58
So it's, it's a financial decision there.
1:45:00
Yeah. You know, good flavor and and
1:45:03
everything. And I'm going to get to my end
1:45:05
game in a couple. Well, so Whispering Pines was
1:45:09
like 8 bucks, you know, a can, Yeah, bucks a can.
1:45:12
So, you know, if you're on a budget, you're probably not
1:45:14
going to drink that. But your 21 year old self, that
1:45:16
would have been a $4.00 can. Yeah, yeah.
1:45:18
Yeah, yeah. Back on stage, yeah.
1:45:20
Because you're all you're all. We're all totally.
1:45:24
We're gonna edit that part out. We're.
1:45:26
Not at all. Not at all.
1:45:29
Anyway, fellas, this has been a fucking. 25 another great year.
1:45:32
Great year. Cheers to you guys.
1:45:34
Thanks for having me. Oh my God.
1:45:36
Always a blast, yeah? Next year, we're not doing these
1:45:40
beers. Let's not do the shitty beer
1:45:42
part next. Year.
1:45:43
We're not gonna do that. My my.
1:45:44
We'll find never do the shitty beer tasting flight again.
1:45:49
There you go, that's a good clothes.
1:45:53
Let's do the PB and J stuff. Yeah.
1:45:55
Cheers to Steve. Cheers to Chris.
1:45:57
Brian, Thank you. Thank you, Brian.
1:45:58
Thank you. Brian.
1:45:59
Could have done it without you. Happy holidays everyone happy.
1:46:01
Holidays and cheers. Cheers.
1:46:03
For the Underground podcast. We're out.