Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Top 10 Breweries We Visited in 2025: Our Favorite Brewery Experiences | Episode 106

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Top 10 Breweries We Visited in 2025: Our Favorite Brewery Experiences | Episode 106 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:01
  Stand by for the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 0:39
  Hey, Merry Christmas everybody from the Brewery Underground
• 0:43
  podcast. Well, you know, I may be Steve,
• 0:46
  but I'm also Charlie, Old Saint Nick today, and Scott, Who might
• 0:51
  you be? I am.
• 0:52
  I'm let you see my my shirt here.
• 0:54
  I'm I'm Pappy Van Winkle. Yes, you.
• 0:57
  Are kind of, I just want to be Pappy Winkle.
• 1:00
  This is my this is this is the only Christmas thing I've got.
• 1:03
  It's an ugly Christmas sweater, which is really not that ugly.
• 1:07
  So that's what I've got. Well, look at this.
• 1:09
  I got the shirt. I got the Santa hat.
• 1:11
  Look at you. Can you can see my microphone.
• 1:13
  What does that say? See it?
• 1:14
  Oh, Mary. Christmas.
• 1:16
  Yeah. Grinchmas, Mary.
• 1:19
  Grinchmas. That's right.
• 1:23
  It'll it'll probably show up bigger on the screen, but maybe
• 1:25
  you are probably decked out, Yeah.
• 1:27
  We're we're all decked out because you know what?
• 1:29
  We don't stop? It's Christmas Day.
• 1:32
  It may be Christmas Day morning when people are listening to
• 1:34
  this podcast. You know, Santa just came down
• 1:37
  the chimney. He delivered the presents.
• 1:39
  Or maybe she did, Who knows? Maybe.
• 1:42
  That's right. But as you're opening up the
• 1:45
  presents, hopefully you're listening to the Brewery
• 1:48
  Underground podcast. Yeah, man, you got your you got
• 1:52
  your eggnog. Maybe you put a little something
• 1:54
  extra in your coffee. Absolutely.
• 1:56
  Shenanigans are over. Maybe cooking a little
• 1:58
  breakfast. Just chilling.
• 1:59
  Slept on the podcast. Listen to us banter on for an
• 2:02
  hour. Slept on the podcast.
• 2:04
  Listen to us. You know, turn off that
• 2:07
  Christmas music of grandma got reigned over by a reindeer.
• 2:10
  You don't need Mariah Carey. Yeah, Mariah Carey or you know.
• 2:15
  Whoever else, we don't need any more of her.
• 2:19
  No, I know it. I know it.
• 2:21
  Listen to us knuckleheads, that's what.
• 2:22
  You. Yeah, well, we're very happy to
• 2:25
  be here with everybody. If you're listening to this
• 2:27
  podcast on Christmas Day, good for you.
• 2:30
  And maybe you could tell us that, by the way, send a comment
• 2:33
  and say, you know what? Yeah, we were.
• 2:35
  We got done with breakfast or lunch or whatever and we were
• 2:39
  listening to you guys on Christmas Day, morning or
• 2:41
  afternoon or evening, right. Let's see what Steven Scott are
• 2:45
  up to on this fine Christmas Day.
• 2:47
  Yeah, So, Scott, what are we up to on this Christmas Day?
• 2:52
  On this particular Christmas Day, well, the first thing we're
• 2:55
  up to is drinking a beer. Yes, Sir.
• 2:58
  And I know you've got one over there too.
• 3:00
  And mine looks very generic. It just has American IPA, right?
• 3:03
  It's not, not a lot of frills to that one.
• 3:05
  But what this is, this is my day four of my ALDI beer.
• 3:10
  I'm gonna say advent calendar because it's no longer an advent
• 3:12
  calendar form, but I got 12 new beers from ALDI, and this is day
• 3:16
  4 of it. So it'll take me right through
• 3:18
  Christmas Day, as a matter of fact, when I finish this.
• 3:20
  It's kind of a tradition for you too, getting Yeah when you beer
• 3:24
  from ALDI. When you can find it and you got
• 3:26
  to be there that day, it comes out and like they drop it and I
• 3:28
  know you went to your ALDI store and they didn't even have them.
• 3:32
  So, so they, it's funny because when you go in there, they just
• 3:34
  got, they just like throw a pallet down on the floor and
• 3:37
  then you just pick, you go in, there's like just a handful
• 3:39
  left. People get mad and they do, they
• 3:41
  do cheeses, I guess, and wines and, and the whole thing.
• 3:43
  It's all these big, you know, they do a big deal with the, the
• 3:46
  advent counter. So I try to get them every year.
• 3:49
  Sometimes I don't get up but I got one this year.
• 3:51
  Tried. You know, I got inspired when
• 3:54
  our friend, our Cincinnati correspondent lives.
• 3:57
  She had messaged us about it, and all of a sudden it was like
• 4:01
  that day. Yeah, I went to two Aldi's in my
• 4:03
  area and neither had those. And I was like, well, at least I
• 4:09
  tried. Give them.
• 4:10
  Yeah, give them my best effort, maybe.
• 4:12
  They're just allotted because they do go quickly.
• 4:15
  I mean, I've every year I've gone to get them, there haven't
• 4:17
  been many left and then they're gone right away.
• 4:19
  Like if you wait till it's too late, I mean it's too late in
• 4:22
  the day, they're just gone, so. That's right.
• 4:24
  That's. Right.
• 4:24
  Yeah, so. Well, you got that beer.
• 4:27
  I picked up this beer recently on a trip up to Cincinnati, one
• 4:31
  of our favorite breweries from Esoteric.
• 4:34
  This is Snow Day. Well, coincidentally enough.
• 4:37
  Yes, this is a this is 5.2%, so I'm going to open this up now.
• 4:45
  Yeah man, this says winter spice with some coffee chocolate in it
• 4:50
  as well so yes all right to hear it I've heard this gives some
• 4:56
  good reviews so we'll. See.
• 4:57
  OK, I'm hoping there's kind of maybe a little Christmas spice
• 5:00
  in there too. Yeah, a little Christmas spice,
• 5:03
  I'll bet So. So Hey man, Merry Christmas and
• 5:06
  cheers to everybody. Merry Christmas.
• 5:08
  Yes, absolutely. Cheers and I've got this is bad
• 5:11
  gun. I got some backups over here
• 5:12
  too, so don't fret people, I'll have enough.
• 5:15
  That one little K is not going to do it.
• 5:17
  That's right. We got some backups.
• 5:19
  We got some. Backups.
• 5:19
  Some backups and some because of the episode with this episode of
• 5:23
  Tales are proprietary to this episode, so we'll we'll get to
• 5:28
  that a little bit later. How's the beer?
• 5:30
  The beer is good. OK, excellent.
• 5:34
  Didn't think it would be from. Yeah.
• 5:37
  I can taste a little bit of spice in here, I can taste some
• 5:40
  of the coffee and I'm also getting a little bit of
• 5:43
  chocolate in there as well. So you know, I also have some
• 5:46
  cinnamon in here. So getting a combination of a
• 5:49
  lot of different things, but it's a.
• 5:50
  Pretty beer, very Christmassy. Yeah, very, very Christmassy.
• 5:55
  So, you know, if I wasn't recording this podcast, I'd
• 5:57
  probably be drinking it for breakfast.
• 6:01
  Hey, it's Christmas. If it's Christmas morning, you
• 6:03
  can drink beer as early as you want to Christmas morning.
• 6:05
  You could do whatever the heck you want.
• 6:07
  That's right. I might not drink beer that
• 6:08
  early that Christmas morning, but there will be some alcohol
• 6:10
  involved. There'll be some kind of
• 6:11
  something in the coffee, maybe a little cocktail.
• 6:14
  Who knows? We'll see.
• 6:15
  But. Depends on when you get up.
• 6:17
  That's right, yeah. What's early to some people,
• 6:20
  Right. Yeah.
• 6:21
  Really. Exactly, exactly.
• 6:23
  Well, this is a really exciting episode.
• 6:25
  It is one that we always look forward to and on this episode
• 6:29
  because, you know, the year is winding down and we've had a
• 6:33
  busy year. You know, we already recorded
• 6:36
  our top 10 beers of 2025. Go back and listen to that
• 6:39
  episode if you haven't yet. It is hilarious.
• 6:42
  You, myself, Crispin and, oh, my gosh, our top 10 beers of the
• 6:46
  year. But also we had some really bad
• 6:49
  beer that we drank too. And we're also feeling that one.
• 6:53
  Yeah. On purpose, we did a blind
• 6:55
  crappy beer tasting. Yeah, shitty.
• 6:58
  Let's call it what it is. We could do the blind shitty
• 7:00
  beer tasting it. Wasn't that good?
• 7:02
  It wasn't that good. We picked the beers ahead of
• 7:05
  time. We knew what they were, but when
• 7:07
  they were served to us, we didn't know what order they were
• 7:09
  in and we kind of rated them, engaged them, and maybe even
• 7:12
  took a shot at what we thought they were based on the four that
• 7:14
  we knew they were. So it's pretty funny.
• 7:17
  It's pretty funny. And at the same time, we're
• 7:20
  drinking good beer too. We just had to mix that in, you
• 7:22
  know, during the episode. Hey, it's all for entertainment.
• 7:26
  It's all for good fun. You know, maybe we'll take some
• 7:29
  suggestions for next year as to what should our blind taste test
• 7:33
  be. You know, we've done some bad
• 7:35
  beers two years in a row. Maybe we need to step it up a
• 7:38
  notch. Well, in the last year we said
• 7:39
  we weren't going to do it again or maybe I said I don't want to
• 7:42
  do it again and then we did it again.
• 7:45
  So we'll do some kind of blind next year.
• 7:47
  Maybe, maybe we'll do something that we actually like.
• 7:50
  I know, I know. Yeah.
• 7:52
  We got a lot of options. We do.
• 7:54
  We have plenty of time to think about it, but it'll be here
• 7:56
  before you know it. Well, one of the fun things
• 7:59
  about this year is that you and I, and we really tore it up when
• 8:05
  it came to hitting a lot of breweries.
• 8:07
  Now on this episode, we're not talking about the existing
• 8:10
  breweries that we've already been to before.
• 8:13
  We're talking about new breweries, like all the new
• 8:16
  breweries that we went to in 2025.
• 8:19
  And you went to more. We'll, we'll give our stats at
• 8:23
  the end, but you went to a few more than I did.
• 8:26
  But we still hit a lot of them together, and now we've got to
• 8:29
  count them down because we do love our top ten lists.
• 8:32
  We do love our top ten lists and we in between both of us and
• 8:36
  individually we had so many each we could have made two of these
• 8:39
  lists. We could have.
• 8:40
  Yeah. I mean, we've got that many
• 8:42
  different breweries we we went to in a year, which is amazing
• 8:45
  because then you add that to the other breweries that we went to
• 8:47
  that we've already been to. It's it's, it's amazing.
• 8:50
  I mean, I don't know what those numbers are, but if you just,
• 8:52
  you know, you know, they're going to be pretty high.
• 8:54
  Yeah, and you know, the thing about it was I, I, you were
• 8:57
  probably the same way when I was going through just my, my top
• 9:01
  ten. I went, gosh, it's so hard
• 9:04
  because like my 9 and 10 could have been replaced, not because
• 9:08
  I disliked the breweries, but because there was a lot of good
• 9:11
  ones too that I also went to. And so I, I think we always look
• 9:15
  at and going, all right, so if you're going to a brewery and
• 9:18
  like we do and what are you looking for?
• 9:21
  What, what's your criteria? And we're going, I know for
• 9:24
  myself, I mean, certainly I'm looking at the space, you know,
• 9:27
  how cool is it? And you go in and the service
• 9:30
  you're going to get and the, and the experience you're going to
• 9:32
  get. Obviously the beer, you know,
• 9:35
  how good is the beer and the company that you're with?
• 9:37
  Sometimes, you know, sometimes you may skate, may go into a new
• 9:41
  brewery and just sit there and just talk to the, you know,
• 9:44
  people that are just sitting there and the, and the guy
• 9:47
  behind the, the bar serving the beer.
• 9:49
  Other times you're with friends. But one of the things that for
• 9:53
  me that stood out this year, and we'll talk about, I'll talk
• 9:57
  about my list as we go through this, is something I really love
• 10:00
  about the brewery experience. Every brewery that I went to
• 10:05
  this year was uniquely different.
• 10:07
  It didn't look hardly like any other brewery that I went to.
• 10:11
  Everything had its own uniqueness to it and you know,
• 10:15
  its own signature. And I, I got to say, I love that
• 10:18
  kind of thing. Yeah.
• 10:19
  Don't you just when you go back in your mind, you know, and
• 10:22
  you're thinking about it or that one stands out for this reason.
• 10:24
  This one stands out for that reason.
• 10:26
  Yeah. And, and to go back to you were
• 10:28
  talking about criteria. Sometimes the criteria for us
• 10:31
  can be something might have to carry a little more weight than
• 10:35
  something else in. But it can vary between brews to
• 10:37
  like, sometimes it's just the beer.
• 10:38
  It's like, oh, the beer was so good and everything else was,
• 10:40
  you know, ho hum, not bad, but, you know, good.
• 10:42
  But then sometimes it's the ambiance brings it up, right?
• 10:45
  The beer is just kind of OK or whatever, but whatever that
• 10:48
  formula is. But at the end of the day, that
• 10:50
  it adds up to something special enough to make a list, yes.
• 10:54
  Anyway, So yeah. Making a list and checking it
• 10:57
  twice. Right.
• 10:57
  Yes, yeah. And and we, we wrote down kind
• 11:01
  of reasons or synopsis of why we liked each one of these.
• 11:03
  But yes, I mean, everything's kind of for a different reason.
• 11:06
  I mean, and every time I go back and look at one of these
• 11:09
  breweries, I'm like, OK, that this moment stands out or this
• 11:12
  particular thing stands out. So, you know, and it's hard.
• 11:15
  It's hard to pick 10. This list gets harder to narrow
• 11:19
  down every single year. I swear it does.
• 11:21
  Yeah. You know, And then we're going
• 11:23
  to talk about honorable mentions at the end, because there are
• 11:26
  just ones brewery names. I just want to say their name
• 11:29
  like, OK, you didn't make the list.
• 11:31
  But for whatever reason, but not that they did anything wrong,
• 11:33
  it's just because we didn't have 11121314, we just had 10.
• 11:37
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 11:39
  And if we, and I think if we broke down every single new
• 11:42
  brewery that we went to this year, you know, we'd have like a
• 11:44
  4 hour episode. So, you know, we're gonna try
• 11:48
  not to do that. No, you know, and somewhere
• 11:51
  along the way, maybe we've talked about these and just,
• 11:54
  hey, you know, in some other episode, right, Maybe we just
• 11:56
  mention of something in passing or whatever.
• 11:58
  So, but one of the tools of the tool I use for this, Steve, is
• 12:04
  Untapped, right? Yeah.
• 12:05
  Some things I can remember. I started writing some stuff
• 12:07
  down, but then I went through Untapped and thank God I did
• 12:10
  because I completely forgot about some of them until I came
• 12:12
  across their name again. But I mean, what a great tool.
• 12:15
  We, I know we talked about it a lot and we talked about rating.
• 12:18
  And that's kind of ultimately what The thing is, man, when I
• 12:21
  need resources and we use it a lot on this podcast because it's
• 12:24
  what we use it for. The top 10 beers.
• 12:27
  Yeah, right. We had top 10 breweries.
• 12:28
  Sometimes we look up something out to always use it on tap
• 12:31
  because it's a great resource. It's got a lot of.
• 12:34
  Yeah, yeah. And, and, and to your point
• 12:36
  there, there's a couple, at least one brewery in my mind
• 12:40
  that the, you know, that I went to that had.
• 12:44
  And there's breweries you go to where maybe you've had the beer
• 12:47
  before you actually made it to the brewery and you're looking
• 12:51
  on, on tap to see what your ratings were.
• 12:54
  And there's a couple of my rankings I went that gives it
• 12:57
  more credibility because the beer I ranked on, on tap before
• 13:01
  I got to the brewery, I had already liked.
• 13:04
  Then I got to the brewery and I rated my beer again.
• 13:08
  And I'm like, OK, so that adds more credibility, at least in my
• 13:13
  mind, for how much more I'm going to like it, you know?
• 13:16
  Yeah, it's it's going to bolster it some more a lot of times
• 13:20
  where you. Can see it does it does it does
• 13:21
  help and, and it's nothing against any breweries out there
• 13:25
  that maybe they don't brew their own beer or, or can their own
• 13:29
  beer. Or maybe because of, you know,
• 13:32
  the distance or whatever that we are, you can't always find their
• 13:35
  beer. Maybe it's just like, you know,
• 13:37
  local or whatever. So I, I'm not saying that hurts
• 13:41
  the rankings, but in fact, you know, everything factors in, you
• 13:44
  know, of, of, of all kinds of different criteria.
• 13:47
  Like, well, if you're sitting at home on your couch and you crack
• 13:49
  open a new beer, right, you get a nice new beer from from
• 13:51
  somewhere and it's all you really have.
• 13:53
  And the beer is good and you can rate it high.
• 13:55
  But all you have to go on is if you haven't been is just the
• 13:58
  beers. You're gonna give a good score.
• 14:00
  But God, if you've been there, you know you might give it a
• 14:03
  little higher score than you factor in that experience as
• 14:06
  opposed to just sitting there with the can and the beer, and
• 14:08
  that's all you got to go by. Absolutely.
• 14:10
  Well, we've been there, we've done that and now we are going
• 14:14
  to talk about that. And you know what I'm going to,
• 14:17
  I'm going to give you the first one, OK?
• 14:20
  So we're ranking them down. We're going from #10 to #1 So
• 14:24
  Scott, the pressure is on you, Sir.
• 14:26
  Your number 10 brewery of 2025. New brewery what you got?
• 14:32
  All right, my number 10/20/25 is Masthead Brewing Company out of
• 14:38
  Cleveland, OH. Yes, Masthead.
• 14:40
  Yes, we loved it. We went up there on our journey
• 14:43
  back there in May. We we were with good company.
• 14:47
  We that was one of the ones we'd had before.
• 14:49
  We'd had masthead several times and be afraid and stuff and, and
• 14:52
  really like the brand, really like the beer.
• 14:54
  This even bolstered it some more because we got to see the place.
• 14:57
  Yeah, the place is beautiful. It's huge.
• 15:00
  We got some cool pictures. I know there were, when we were
• 15:02
  there, they were loaded down with a bunch of IPA heavy,
• 15:04
  really, but which we like. Yeah, but really great, great
• 15:09
  spot. I had one there and I thought
• 15:12
  I'd had it before because I had in a can, but I had something
• 15:14
  somewhere. The one that kind of stood out
• 15:15
  for me while I was visiting there was called Single Origin
• 15:17
  Coffee, Stout Espresso. That's a lot.
• 15:20
  And I had a single origin Coffee something from them before in a
• 15:23
  can. But this was at the brewery at
• 15:25
  like 6.9% for like a four O rating on a tap.
• 15:29
  But I remember you and I had multiple flights there.
• 15:32
  Like it was like, OK, these four are new, OK, done, you know,
• 15:35
  knock those out. Let me get four more.
• 15:36
  Right? Because when you go, that's the
• 15:37
  other thing. When you go to a brewery, you're
• 15:39
  going to find some stuff that you might never find anywhere
• 15:41
  else, especially if you live, you know, as far as the ways we
• 15:43
  live from Cleveland, we don't get all that stuff here.
• 15:46
  So to go in there and to get it, you know, that institute, oh,
• 15:50
  they got oh, I didn't know they did this style or did it so
• 15:52
  well, you know, and we thought they were IPA's heavy.
• 15:55
  So we love Masthead. We'd go back in a heartbeat if
• 15:59
  ever find myself in Cleveland again.
• 16:01
  So yeah, that's my #10. All right.
• 16:04
  Good deal. What is your #10, Sir?
• 16:06
  Well, my number 10 is Narrow Path in Loveland, OH, which is a
• 16:13
  suburb of Cincinnati. And you know that we, you guys
• 16:18
  always joke with me because I'm like, I got my list, you know,
• 16:21
  and talk about that, that list on Christmas Day.
• 16:24
  But you know, making a list. But I got the list all the time
• 16:26
  where it's like, OK, there are there are a lot of breweries
• 16:30
  around. And whenever we make the
• 16:31
  Cincinnati trip, we always have things that are on the list.
• 16:34
  And so Narrow Paths are our buddies.
• 16:37
  So Tom and Brad, the Hill Tappers, they had also been with
• 16:41
  us and they have been there before.
• 16:43
  So they're like, you know, we got to get, we got to get you
• 16:46
  guys there. And I loved narrow path.
• 16:49
  You know, the day we were there, it was in mid-May.
• 16:51
  It was a great day outside. I mean it was like 7585, you
• 16:55
  know, 7580° just a great, just a great day that we were out
• 16:59
  there. Big outside patio and what was
• 17:03
  really what's really cool about it, you know it it's a lot of
• 17:07
  big bike trails and stuff for people in that area.
• 17:09
  So there's just a lot of different there's a lot of
• 17:12
  activity that's going on just around the brewery.
• 17:16
  So it was kind of cool just to sit out for a couple of hours,
• 17:18
  have a few beers. You know, we certainly enjoyed
• 17:21
  that. And so that was, that's my #10
• 17:25
  and you know, I can't wait to get back to Narrow Path because
• 17:29
  I feel like I think that day I had about two or three beers and
• 17:33
  I can't wait to have more. So that bike path you mentioned,
• 17:35
  and I looked it up once when we got back, I forget how many,
• 17:38
  many miles that thing goes. I want to say 70 or 70. 5 but.
• 17:42
  It's like it's a really long way and there were paths sits at
• 17:45
  right at the one end of it. So whether you felt the start or
• 17:47
  the finish, depending on which way you're coming from, it's
• 17:50
  literally right there at the end of it.
• 17:52
  So a lot of bikes were parked out there.
• 17:54
  Again, beautiful day. So I like that place.
• 17:56
  Well, we always talk about, you know, places that do great
• 18:00
  diversity of beer and they had a lot of different beer styles.
• 18:04
  You know, I think I had a Mexican lager and a red ale the
• 18:07
  day I was there. And, you know, both of those
• 18:09
  were really good. And then, you know, the only,
• 18:12
  the only thing I wondered about that place was it seemed like
• 18:15
  inside this half room may have been a little bit smaller.
• 18:18
  And so I kind of wondered, you know, during the winter time and
• 18:21
  do they cram people in or are there people sitting outside?
• 18:23
  They may have heaters and stuff outside during the winter time
• 18:26
  for people to, you know, warm themselves up and enjoy.
• 18:29
  I don't know, but I would recommend Narrow path to
• 18:32
  anybody. Man that that place is great.
• 18:34
  Because many people that were there that day, most of them
• 18:36
  sitting outside, would not have fit inside of that building.
• 18:39
  That's true. That's true.
• 18:41
  Yeah. That that is very true, but now
• 18:44
  narrow path is is my #10 So very, very, very glad to have
• 18:50
  gotten there and certainly a trip at some point we'll be
• 18:54
  making back to. Excellent choice, Very excellent
• 18:57
  choice. All right, let's move on to #9.
• 19:00
  Number. Nine my #9 the little place
• 19:04
  called Our Mutual Friend Brewing Company out of Denver, Co All
• 19:07
  right, And I got recommended this place by Mitch from the
• 19:12
  Foamy Heads. As a matter of fact, he
• 19:15
  recommended this and he recommended the BBQ place called
• 19:18
  Pit Fiend, which is literally directly behind.
• 19:20
  It's a different building. It's not the same thing, but
• 19:22
  it's literally you get your beer and you go get your barbecue and
• 19:25
  you just kind of eat your beer, eat your BBQ with the beard
• 19:27
  stuff. Yeah, it's right there.
• 19:28
  So it's kind of a 1-2 punch, but we were in Denver for the Great
• 19:32
  American Beer Fest this year. We always do some stuff prior to
• 19:36
  the actual event, and we had a lot of breweries, and this was
• 19:38
  one of them, this one. And I had got a probably half a
• 19:40
  dozen I could have put on this list just from Denver alone, if
• 19:44
  you can imagine. So I didn't because I'm trying
• 19:46
  to try to spread it out a bit, but fantastic, terrific beer.
• 19:50
  This was the place like multiple people went and this was the
• 19:54
  place where we all got together for the first time because some
• 19:56
  of us had come in one day and somebody come in the next.
• 19:58
  And then this was where we all kind of merged for the first
• 20:01
  time. So the experience where we're
• 20:03
  all drinking great beer. I think I had four different
• 20:05
  flights. Everything on it was completely
• 20:07
  different. Very good stuff.
• 20:09
  As a matter of fact, I'm sitting there.
• 20:10
  I think I sent you a picture. I'm sitting outside to pick a
• 20:13
  table and look over on the building.
• 20:14
  There's a bearded iris sticker slapped on the window.
• 20:17
  I remember you telling me that, yeah.
• 20:19
  That was that place, yeah. Look and.
• 20:20
  Of course, that's going to be a collectible, since bearded iris
• 20:23
  is basically going away and they're going to be.
• 20:24
  Yeah. Yeah, Yep, Yep.
• 20:26
  Not going away entirely. They just go on their new
• 20:29
  ownership. Right, it'll be Wiseacre.
• 20:31
  Yep, that's what it is. But you know, that's a great
• 20:34
  weather. Beer was good.
• 20:36
  We had great food to go with it. Hanging out with with buddies
• 20:39
  and just having the best time and man, go to go to our mutual
• 20:43
  friend. If you're in Denver, put that on
• 20:44
  the list. And do you know how long they've
• 20:47
  been there, or are they like a staple of the area?
• 20:49
  I don't know. I think they've been there a
• 20:50
  while because Mitch was telling me he when he'd been to GIBF
• 20:54
  before, like years past, it was there and that's how we knew
• 20:57
  about it and recommended it. So feel like they've been there
• 20:59
  a while. I'll.
• 21:00
  Got you all. Right, really cool and we sat
• 21:02
  outside the inside the tap room looked cool too.
• 21:04
  We didn't spend a lot of time and they were just ordering the
• 21:05
  beer and then going back outside.
• 21:06
  But it looked like it was really nice and spacious and clean and
• 21:09
  very kind of hip and cool. And they were very efficient
• 21:11
  when they were pouring the the flights too, because it was busy
• 21:14
  and a lot of people in there. But of course with JBFB in town,
• 21:17
  a lot of the vendors were there too.
• 21:18
  We saw them hanging out there to the beer vendors and stuff.
• 21:21
  So, but they were efficient, got you in, got you out, great beer.
• 21:24
  Just overall fantastic experience.
• 21:26
  Awesome. Well, great. #9 so #9 for.
• 21:29
  You, my number 9 was your number 10.
• 21:33
  So my #9 is a masthead in Cleveland, OH.
• 21:38
  And you know, I'll, I'll, I'll talk a little bit more
• 21:41
  differently, not so much different from what you said
• 21:44
  because great place, great space, great beer.
• 21:47
  The great thing is, and I talked about a few minutes ago, we were
• 21:50
  prepped from asset. You know, our friends in
• 21:53
  Cleveland, Keith and Elizabeth, they had sent us beer in a beer
• 21:57
  trade, you know, way, way before that to prepare to prepare us
• 22:02
  for the Masthead experience. And we had gone to Masthead.
• 22:06
  That was, we knew we went to Cleveland.
• 22:08
  There were a couple of breweries.
• 22:09
  We had to get to one of those Great Lakes.
• 22:11
  Masthead was like #2 we got to get there.
• 22:15
  And I'll tell you, I would tell anybody this, that if you were
• 22:19
  going to Cleveland, OH for the brewery experience, I think
• 22:23
  Masthead would definitely be a destination brewery.
• 22:28
  There's plenty of space in there.
• 22:29
  They got plenty of beer on top as well.
• 22:32
  Yeah. And you talked about that day
• 22:33
  that we were in there. We get a flight and some more.
• 22:36
  You know, I had a bunch of IPASI.
• 22:38
  Remember I had, I had a pilsner and a Mexican lager.
• 22:42
  And so when we were at Mass Head, I also remember there was
• 22:45
  a beer that you had had that I did not have that I ended up
• 22:49
  having later in a can. And it was there a doppelbock.
• 22:51
  Really. Yeah.
• 22:53
  OK, All right. Yeah, so it was.
• 22:55
  So you like that one, huh? I did, yeah.
• 22:56
  In fact, I was sitting there thinking that day when you had
• 23:00
  the doppelbock and you're sitting near me and I'm like,
• 23:02
  you know what? Because we, we're going to
• 23:04
  leave. We're going to go on to another
• 23:06
  place and I'm going why didn't I have the doppelbock?
• 23:10
  That is one of those styles when you see one you you really want
• 23:12
  to get one because I usually done.
• 23:13
  One. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:16
  And I don't, I don't even remember how.
• 23:18
  I do remember having at least three flights there.
• 23:20
  So and I think I got pretty much every style they had on the
• 23:23
  board. Yeah, yeah, definitely,
• 23:25
  definitely. Well, yes, Masthead, as you said
• 23:28
  earlier, it was a great place and we really enjoyed Masthead.
• 23:33
  And again, I think as I said it, it's a destination brewery.
• 23:36
  So if you're in Cleveland, OH, go to Masthead.
• 23:39
  Yeah, if if we had not got there for some reason, we definitely
• 23:42
  would have regretted it. Yeah, I think so.
• 23:44
  I think so. Yeah, so.
• 23:46
  Probably we went. Yeah.
• 23:47
  All right. Well #8 on the top ten list.
• 23:52
  What is your #8, Sir? My number and we've learned
• 23:55
  something since we've met the Hill Tappers and we've learned a
• 23:58
  lot about Louisville and some of the great breweries they've got
• 24:01
  there. And we've been just quite a few
• 24:03
  of them. Well, this is 1 from there.
• 24:04
  So it's called Mild Wide Beer Company and they're in
• 24:07
  Louisville, KY. And I went after a bunch of us
• 24:11
  went to the Tailspin Beer Fest back in the spring, the one that
• 24:13
  was so damn cold. And we, we, we finally cut the
• 24:17
  beer fest loose after a few hours and they took us to a
• 24:20
  bunch of breweries. It took, went went to three, as
• 24:22
  a matter of fact, And this was one of them.
• 24:24
  And this place was great. It was dark, so we didn't get to
• 24:27
  see the outside so much. I don't have much to say about
• 24:29
  that, but the inside was huge, really great beer.
• 24:32
  And I knew mile Wide before it had a lot of their beers.
• 24:34
  I used to get out of Kentucky. So I knew the beers were good.
• 24:37
  And when I got a chance to go, I was like, Oh yeah, this is
• 24:39
  great. And it really was my favorite on
• 24:41
  that trip for the multiple Brewers that we went to was mile
• 24:43
  wide and we went to some other good ones too, but really great
• 24:46
  place, really friendly. We had another another great
• 24:49
  group, right? We had a whole bunch of people
• 24:51
  with us there and that was a lot of fun.
• 24:54
  There's a beer there and the minute, the minute I drank it, I
• 24:58
  it was very burial light to me. You know, I talk about burial a
• 25:00
  lot. Yes, that's high ground right
• 25:02
  there. Yes.
• 25:03
  And it was, I was like, holy shit, there's something about
• 25:05
  this. It's called, and you can get
• 25:07
  this. It's called the Savior of the
• 25:09
  Broken, The Beaten and the Damned, which is a very burial
• 25:13
  light name to start with, right? Yeah, it's kind of so the name
• 25:16
  alone is pretty great and it's man, but it was tasted, it kind
• 25:20
  of tasted like that too. Very kind of citrusy and like a
• 25:23
  double IPA and just just perfect beer.
• 25:27
  And and that's, I still think about that beer sometimes.
• 25:30
  I do, I wish, I wish I could get that beer again because if I
• 25:33
  come across again I would get it.
• 25:35
  But Mile Wide Beer Company in Louisville, I don't know that
• 25:38
  I've heard a lot of people talk about it.
• 25:39
  I think they do well there. But man, it is a sensational
• 25:42
  place. And we had multiple beers there
• 25:44
  too. They were all fantastic.
• 25:46
  Well, that's one that has eluded me in that lovely city, so I
• 25:49
  definitely will have to put that on the list, hopefully in the
• 25:52
  new year. Definitely do because it might
• 25:54
  make your top ten one day. It may, yeah.
• 25:56
  You never know. So we're #8 to you, Sir.
• 26:00
  Yeah, the number eighth of my top 10 new breweries of the
• 26:05
  year. Man, I was so happy to get the
• 26:08
  Johnson City Brewing and Johnson City, TN the home of our good
• 26:12
  friend the man who owns the place, Eric Latham.
• 26:16
  We've had him on the podcast now a couple of times.
• 26:18
  What a great guy. Yes.
• 26:20
  Yep. And this is another place where
• 26:23
  and thank you, Eric, you know, he had, he had given us some
• 26:26
  beer before I ever got there. And you know, I was over in that
• 26:32
  area for something else for it was the Speedway Classic.
• 26:37
  But I had made a special trip the day before.
• 26:40
  I was going to meet up with some friends.
• 26:41
  I spent the night in Johnson City.
• 26:43
  I went to their brewery there on Main Street twice and I loved
• 26:49
  each visit. And that was, that was something
• 26:51
  I said earlier. And not only does a guy who's
• 26:54
  serving the beer, he's friendly, he's knowledgeable, but all the
• 26:59
  people that were there, just people sitting at tables and
• 27:02
  everybody wants to talk to you. There were some people that I
• 27:04
  knew that were local, some other folks that actually were there
• 27:08
  from Cincinnati that were going to the Speedway Classic the next
• 27:11
  day. So it was just fun to share like
• 27:13
  the experience of what they were drinking and what they liked.
• 27:17
  And it was early Oktoberfest season there.
• 27:21
  It was in, it was in August and Eric was doing some
• 27:25
  experimenting with some different versions of
• 27:27
  Oktoberfest. And, and the great thing was, is
• 27:33
  that they had a Butterscotch Oktoberfest on tap, which I
• 27:37
  looked at that and I went, now that is different.
• 27:40
  I would never have thought about a Butterscotch Oktoberfest.
• 27:45
  Never even heard of 1. Never even heard of 1.
• 27:47
  Nope, I had that. I had some other things on a
• 27:50
  flight as well but man I enjoyed it.
• 27:53
  I enjoyed Johnson City Brewing and the thing I love about him
• 27:56
  and their brewery. And we also have to talk, talk
• 27:59
  about the, their, their, their new Brewer, Anna Anna McKay.
• 28:04
  She, she was named their head Brewer earlier this year in
• 28:08
  2025. They do so many fun styles of
• 28:11
  beers, you know, and, and that's what makes craft beer so
• 28:15
  interesting. You go in there and you look up
• 28:17
  on the board and you see some of the interesting beer styles that
• 28:20
  they have, but also traditional beer styles too.
• 28:23
  So they they have that middle ground that if you go in there,
• 28:27
  there's something for everybody. And that's what I really liked
• 28:30
  about that my visit. So yeah, they had to make my top
• 28:33
  ten list this year. He even admits it.
• 28:35
  They're not afraid to play around, to experiment, to have,
• 28:38
  yeah, multiple Oktoberfest styles on it.
• 28:42
  Wants is cool. I like the butterscotch idea.
• 28:44
  As a matter of fact, on that last episode, he mentioned he
• 28:46
  goes, people thought he was crazy because apparently
• 28:48
  butterscotch is an off flavor for beer.
• 28:51
  Like if something wrong with the beer, you might get a
• 28:53
  butterscotch. He goes, they're like, you're
• 28:55
  gonna make one with that on purpose.
• 28:59
  He told us that. So that's that's great.
• 29:01
  And by the way, I had a pumpkin beer from them this year, top
• 29:04
  three all time from Jonathan. It was awesome.
• 29:08
  And actually on the can, it says they use real pumpkin to make it
• 29:12
  with. And I think he says on the can
• 29:14
  every year, I don't want to make this beer.
• 29:16
  My wife talks me into it. I'm always glad I did kind of
• 29:18
  thing. So sounds like it's a lot of
• 29:19
  work if using a real pumpkin. So yeah, great.
• 29:22
  Great choice. Yeah.
• 29:24
  Awesome, yeah, and hats off to Johnson.
• 29:26
  Say they're doing fantastic stuff and we're getting a bunch
• 29:28
  of it here in Nashville, by the way.
• 29:29
  Here we are. Yeah.
• 29:30
  If you go to, if you go to beer stores, some of the ones that
• 29:34
  sell, you know, individual craft beer, you'll find them.
• 29:37
  I also think if you go out to the airport, if you're flying in
• 29:39
  and out of Nashville Airport, you can find some of his beer
• 29:43
  there, too. So.
• 29:44
  Yeah, they another thing they had just done and I saw it on
• 29:47
  their social media, they did a like a flight of pickled type
• 29:51
  beer. So like pickled olives and
• 29:54
  pickled pick, like dill pickle and I forget what the other one
• 29:57
  like a pickle lineup. They had pickled some things and
• 29:59
  made a beers out of them. So that's pretty cool.
• 30:02
  It's pretty experimental stuff. It's a lot of fun.
• 30:04
  Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Well, that is my number 8, so
• 30:07
  we'll go to #7 on your list of your top ten.
• 30:12
  What is #7 for years? You and I travel a lot together.
• 30:15
  We do a lot of breweries together.
• 30:17
  At some point, our paths are going to cross on these lists,
• 30:20
  right? We're going to have some
• 30:21
  overlap. There's just no way.
• 30:22
  To happen, it's. Going to happen, you know, and I
• 30:25
  looked at your list before and I, you know, try to make it.
• 30:27
  So was it completely the same thing?
• 30:30
  Yeah, some things are just you. Can't lie.
• 30:32
  You can't lie when you're having fun and you're liking the place.
• 30:34
  It isn't what it is right? If it's, if it's if it's, if
• 30:36
  it's that good, it's going to be on a list.
• 30:38
  So this one, it was on your list as well.
• 30:41
  So narrow path is my number 7. And for all the reasons you
• 30:45
  said, we had a perfect lovely day.
• 30:47
  The patio. Brad was out there doing his
• 30:49
  George Bush impressions. It's a place we hadn't
• 30:54
  experienced. And that area was cool.
• 30:56
  And just to see all the people sitting outside, Yeah, again,
• 30:59
  picture perfect day. You know, we got to try their
• 31:02
  beers. They had a couple that really
• 31:04
  stood out. They had an English Mile and you
• 31:06
  don't see a lot of those. I remember that one it, as a
• 31:09
  matter of fact, they had another one called Path, Path Blue
• 31:12
  Ribbon. And it was kind of like the
• 31:14
  chalkboard look like path. I remember that.
• 31:16
  Yes, it was very similar to that.
• 31:18
  It was the same style, but this, that mild English, the English
• 31:22
  mild was like 3.7%, which is what those are, right?
• 31:25
  They're really low, but a lot of flavor in them.
• 31:28
  And then something else there. And I was reminded of this today
• 31:31
  when I was doing my some kind of last minute research.
• 31:34
  They had a Mexican lager there. It was called El Sandero.
• 31:38
  And that was the trip where everywhere we went had Mexican
• 31:42
  loggers. We must have ran into 100
• 31:44
  Mexican loggers in that week. We.
• 31:46
  It was like an obsession for me. Every time I win, I was like, I
• 31:48
  have got to try your Mexican logger.
• 31:51
  And it was Mexican logger season.
• 31:53
  In fact, going back to Masat, I remember I got theirs up there
• 31:56
  and I was like, I know there's all these Ipas, but I also want
• 31:59
  to try something else. You got a Mexican logger.
• 32:02
  So it became like a theme of the trip too.
• 32:04
  They got a Mexican logger, you know.
• 32:06
  Because we saw it early. We, we, we saw it early at Mad
• 32:09
  Tree and then we saw it esoteric and we saw it there.
• 32:11
  And I want to say forget it was everywhere we went.
• 32:14
  They had one. So, so we just kept getting them
• 32:16
  over and over and over again. And it became a theme, kind of a
• 32:19
  running joke, you know? But they were all excellent
• 32:20
  beer. So, so not to duplicate a lot of
• 32:22
  what you said, but Narrow Path had to make the list, man.
• 32:25
  There's no way they couldn't is so good.
• 32:30
  All right, all right, so we're on to your #7.
• 32:33
  My #7 You know, we're staying in Cincinnati.
• 32:37
  You know, we did a big Cincinnati trip and so we hit
• 32:40
  even even though we hit a lot of breweries we've hit before, we
• 32:42
  did hit a lot of new ones this particular time in the past
• 32:46
  year. And this other one had been
• 32:48
  again on my list. Yes, Steve, the list, the
• 32:51
  Christmas list, the beer list, whatever it is always with the.
• 32:53
  Lists. Always with the lists.
• 32:55
  Yeah, there are a lot of them. The, the, this one actually is
• 33:00
  one of the more talked about breweries in the Cincinnati
• 33:03
  area. And it's Little Miami Brewing in
• 33:06
  a town called Milford. And it's a very quaint town.
• 33:09
  It's a very cool town. There's a lot of, there's just a
• 33:13
  lot to do around the whole area. And you know, when we walked
• 33:18
  into Little Miami that day and our good friend, our Cincinnati
• 33:22
  correspondent, Liz, she met us there too.
• 33:25
  The only downer was the fact that it was starting to monsoon
• 33:28
  outside and we couldn't sit outside.
• 33:31
  Yeah, it started to rain. We got in.
• 33:33
  There. It rained and The thing is,
• 33:36
  here's the picture of it there there.
• 33:39
  Obviously it's a little Miami brewing.
• 33:40
  There is a next to the the the brewery and it's a massive
• 33:44
  place. It's called the Little Miami
• 33:46
  River and they have Adirondack chairs all around the river.
• 33:51
  So I can foresee meaning we probably would have been
• 33:53
  outside, sitting outside and the nice weather next to the river
• 33:58
  doing that. But we got in there.
• 34:01
  What a massive place, What a great place.
• 34:03
  And I said this before, it's the only place I think I've ever
• 34:06
  been where they had something up where it where it where it was
• 34:10
  showing on a busy day, like the how long the wait time was.
• 34:14
  That's right. And I and I looked.
• 34:16
  At that and that. Struck me because I'm like, you
• 34:18
  know, a place has a lot of people in it when it has that.
• 34:22
  Yeah. And so I, I said, I said, man, I
• 34:26
  can imagine on especially on a weekend, if you're not there by
• 34:30
  11:00 on a Saturday morning or a Sunday morning or over there
• 34:33
  after church or something, you are waiting a long time because
• 34:38
  we didn't eat there that day. But they had a great food menu,
• 34:42
  an expansive beer menu. I mean, I got a couple of beers.
• 34:45
  The one that stood out to me was it was Peaches and it was kind
• 34:50
  of like then the same that the, you know, that we just talked
• 34:53
  about Johnson City Brewing. They also have one that was like
• 34:56
  a Peaches ale and that thing, they knocked that one out of the
• 35:00
  park. And so that really stood out to
• 35:02
  me. So, yeah, Little Miami, that's
• 35:05
  a, that's a place that I think in my opinion, you could go and
• 35:09
  you could probably spend at least four or five hours if you
• 35:12
  wanted to, just sitting out, having a good time, enjoying
• 35:17
  everything, absolutely everything.
• 35:19
  You know, it looked like a place too.
• 35:20
  And they're. Actually having some kind of, it
• 35:22
  looked out of a retirement party or teachers party or something,
• 35:25
  but it looked like a place that you could do events that would
• 35:28
  be cool for like events and things.
• 35:29
  Yeah, Like you said, they've got food, they've got drinks, you
• 35:33
  know, it's a really nice space. So you could big enough you
• 35:35
  could have a separate event and then still the place would still
• 35:37
  be open too. And the other thing I remember
• 35:40
  we didn't get to partake, but we will, is there's a distillery
• 35:43
  across the street and it looked like a really big and nice
• 35:47
  distillery too. So, and we will have to hit that
• 35:50
  at some point. Next time we go, we'll plan to
• 35:52
  do both, yes, literally walk across the street and there's a
• 35:55
  nice big distillery right there too.
• 35:56
  So absolutely, we'll do that too.
• 35:58
  Yes, I wish we could. Spend some more time with.
• 36:00
  I wish we could have spent some more outside time out there, any
• 36:02
  outside time there that would have added to the experience
• 36:05
  even more. Yeah, definitely so.
• 36:08
  Yep, that is that. That wraps up my #7 What is your
• 36:12
  pray tell? You're number six on not your
• 36:15
  Christmas Day list, but on the Top New Breweries of 2025 list
• 36:20
  2025 this. One is called Ebony and Ivory.
• 36:24
  Yeah, out of Knoxville. Tennessee.
• 36:27
  And that's one of the ones until I was looking on my list today
• 36:30
  or just kind of going through stuff, forgot about it.
• 36:33
  And not that it didn't stand out is that they're just so many.
• 36:36
  You just start going over in your mind.
• 36:37
  My thank God for the references and in on tap.
• 36:39
  But Ebony and Ivory, Knoxville, TN, we know Knoxville from some
• 36:43
  other breweries that we always talk about.
• 36:45
  Zoo will be in one of them. But Ebony and Ivory has been one
• 36:47
  I've been wanting to for a long time.
• 36:48
  And last time I went, I made it a point to get out there to do
• 36:51
  it and glad I did. We didn't get to stay for a ton
• 36:54
  of beers, but really nice place, great staff, happy I went.
• 36:58
  The beer is good. I had some beer before.
• 37:00
  I never got there, but to bit to to go and see the place and it
• 37:05
  was really, it was really nice. I was happy that when I was
• 37:07
  sitting there, I was just taking in the moments like I'm glad I'm
• 37:10
  here. Fine.
• 37:10
  You know, it's worth the wait when I got to check off.
• 37:14
  But there's another there's a beer that they have and I had it
• 37:17
  before I had it in cans. Otto brought me one back and but
• 37:21
  they had it on draft while I was there and it's called Steel Arm.
• 37:24
  And when I came back, I think I brought you one back.
• 37:26
  It's about the Yeah, yeah, I've had it, yeah.
• 37:29
  The pitcher from the Negro. Leagues from the early 1900s and
• 37:32
  his name was John Steel Arm Taylor and the can has got a
• 37:37
  really nice write up on. I mean, I think there's even
• 37:39
  more than maybe QR code on the can that you can reference will
• 37:42
  take you to like a whole the full story and the whole thing.
• 37:45
  But I thought it was really cool to have it on draft.
• 37:47
  The story of the beer is fantastic and it's a really good
• 37:49
  beer. It's not just hype and gimmick
• 37:51
  and stuff. So to have that, it is.
• 37:53
  I had it recently and it is. A really good beer.
• 37:55
  Yeah, it is good. It's a great story and.
• 37:56
  Happy to see the place finally. I'm going to Zul.
• 38:00
  Excuse me, I'm going to Knoxville this week.
• 38:02
  I am going to Zul. While I'm there, maybe I can get
• 38:05
  back to Ebony and Ivory and spend a little more time there
• 38:07
  because it's really high on my list.
• 38:08
  And man, one I've been wanting to go to for a long time.
• 38:11
  Can I go to Knoxville fairly regularly and just never got to
• 38:14
  go? It's it's not really near
• 38:16
  anything. You kind of had to kind of go
• 38:17
  out a little bit to get to it. But yeah, well worth it.
• 38:20
  Get it? The beer's grade.
• 38:22
  Great environment. High on my list.
• 38:23
  All right. Good for Ebony and ivory.
• 38:25
  Good to hear and all right. No secrets, but we're trying to
• 38:28
  get them on the podcast. Hey, it'd be great.
• 38:32
  Yes, yes Sir, on. Onward and upward.
• 38:35
  Number six for you. All right, my number six.
• 38:38
  Here in the hometown of Music City, USA in Nashville, you
• 38:43
  know, Crazy Gnome has been in operation for a couple of years,
• 38:46
  but they moved into a new location.
• 38:49
  So you know what, we're including that into new
• 38:52
  breweries because you know, it's, it was new.
• 38:55
  It was new to us, even though we had been to their old location.
• 38:58
  But you know, we did a podcast episode from there.
• 39:02
  They moved over in the East Nashville area, You know,
• 39:05
  Grayson and we love Grayson so much.
• 39:08
  The owner. I, I love the fact that they,
• 39:11
  they have their own bigger space now and he's got a lot of great
• 39:15
  plans for that place that the, the tap room.
• 39:18
  It's, it's, it's a little bit bigger than the one that they
• 39:20
  had. And now serving food.
• 39:22
  And to me, ever since I started going to Crazy Gnome 3-4 years
• 39:26
  ago, the beer only gets better and better.
• 39:29
  And so I am really happy to see Crazy Gnome really become such a
• 39:34
  institution into the brewery world in the Nashville area.
• 39:39
  Me too. We love that that building.
• 39:40
  Wasn't even he was still building out the building when
• 39:42
  he did the podcast from there that day.
• 39:45
  And remember, there's plenty of parking out there and.
• 39:48
  I think he has a lot of different plans for the other
• 39:50
  buildings, maybe to do some bigger events inside there and
• 39:54
  things like that. So we love Grayson.
• 39:56
  Grayson is always forward thinking on on trying like
• 39:59
  what's the next bit? You know, bigger thing that you
• 40:02
  can you can bring in the brewery experience.
• 40:05
  And again, that was another podcast episode.
• 40:07
  You could go through our podcast episodes and listen to that one
• 40:12
  that would that we did. The thing that always stood out
• 40:14
  about Grayson was the day we went there.
• 40:17
  And they were, I mean, the guys were outside and they're
• 40:20
  hammering and everything else. And you can hear the hammering
• 40:23
  on the podcast. But the day we got there, I got
• 40:26
  there before you did. And he had been around the
• 40:29
  corner like working on some water line and it splashed up on
• 40:32
  him and he's drenched. And it was probably like 30°
• 40:35
  that day. And I'm just feeling, I felt.
• 40:37
  Sorry for the guy, but. I'm like, you know what?
• 40:39
  He still came on the podcast. He never complained and he just
• 40:42
  rocked it. But yeah, Crazy Gnome has made
• 40:44
  some big inroads in the brewery scene in in Nashville, and I
• 40:48
  think only great things are to come for them.
• 40:50
  I I agree 100% we're. We're we're happy.
• 40:53
  We love that building. And more to come from Crazy
• 40:56
  known for sure. Yeah.
• 40:58
  All right. Awesome.
• 40:59
  Well, we are. We are getting down to some of
• 41:02
  the nitty gritty on the list. What is your #5 top five?
• 41:07
  Rid of the top. Five man, all right.
• 41:09
  And these men, these were harder than the the first top, the 1st
• 41:14
  5, because it's just hard. It's like the best of the best.
• 41:18
  You know, you really got to boil it down.
• 41:20
  But my number 5, it was on the trip that we made to Cleveland
• 41:25
  from Cincinnati, our own works to Cleveland.
• 41:28
  We made a little stop along the way.
• 41:30
  We did a little place. Called in Akron, OH.
• 41:33
  Called Hop and Frog Brewing the Hop and Frog Hop.
• 41:37
  And frog we had. Had that on the list.
• 41:39
  We loved we've had their stuff prior to that and we were we
• 41:43
  were touring where we're going to stop.
• 41:44
  We're going to Cleveland anyway and the weather was so bad.
• 41:47
  We've talked about the podcast previously and it was so bad and
• 41:51
  so rainy. We, we kind of kind of we're
• 41:53
  going to go, we're not going to go and thank God we went yes,
• 41:57
  you know, we could have spent 3-4 hours there.
• 41:58
  We had another destination we had to kind of get to so we
• 42:01
  didn't spend a lot of time there, but we will next time for
• 42:05
  sure. Like that'll be the destination
• 42:06
  probably fantastic. And then on top of that, you
• 42:11
  know, the beer was good, the space was great.
• 42:14
  We both had flights. I think we did, you know, and
• 42:18
  they're so diverse in their styles of, of what they do
• 42:21
  between the shanties and the, the barrel aid stuff.
• 42:24
  And then there was a pilsner you had got on your flight, I
• 42:27
  believe, and I didn't get it on mine.
• 42:29
  And we were kind of wrapping up and you kept raving about how
• 42:31
  good that pilsner was. And I said, well, fuck it, I'm
• 42:34
  getting a pint before we leave it.
• 42:35
  I'm not leaving here. I'm not leaving here without
• 42:38
  having that thing. So, and thank God, it was good.
• 42:40
  I mean everything. I mean they do and they do all
• 42:43
  sorts of variants and they do all sorts of adjuncts and
• 42:45
  different things. But they can do a clean Wisner
• 42:47
  like that too, which says a lot. So it does say a lot.
• 42:51
  Really high. On those guys and then on.
• 42:53
  Top of that we had them on the podcast later, so we were
• 42:56
  already fans right we had been and then we get them on and now
• 42:59
  we're just they're just they blew our minds right how great
• 43:02
  is that episode love those guys on there so good so I'm hopping
• 43:06
  frogs my #5 and I'm so glad we if we skipped it just because of
• 43:12
  the weather we've been missing out completely I agree yeah
• 43:15
  totally it. Made it was one of the things
• 43:17
  that made that trip. It was a lot of fun, yeah.
• 43:19
  And if we didn't? Have a destination.
• 43:21
  After that we had to stay there all day, probably so you barely
• 43:25
  scratch. The surface of the stuff they.
• 43:26
  Had. Yeah, exactly.
• 43:28
  I agree. So hopping frog is number. 5 All
• 43:31
  right, Hopping Frog is number 5. So your number we're cracking
• 43:34
  into your. Top five now, Yeah, here we go,
• 43:37
  ladies and. Gentlemen.
• 43:38
  Well, I'm drinking their beer tonight.
• 43:40
  It is esoteric in Cincinnati, and I'll tell you what, man,
• 43:46
  what a great place that is. And by the way, this is a stout
• 43:50
  beer. I didn't say that in the
• 43:51
  beginning. I meant to.
• 43:53
  But yeah, this is a stout beer and it is pretty good.
• 43:57
  So esoteric. You know, this was such a, a
• 43:59
  great place. And again, this is one that had
• 44:03
  you had been there once before, I had not.
• 44:05
  Yes. And it eluded me.
• 44:07
  And I, I put in my notes that man we got there.
• 44:11
  And it wasn't anything that I didn't think I was going to
• 44:14
  enjoy myself or anything, but I looked at this as my sleeper
• 44:17
  brewery of my top ten. I thought they were going to be
• 44:20
  good. I had a couple of cans a couple
• 44:24
  couple times before I actually went to the brewery.
• 44:26
  And then when we went there, you know, we walked in, we got to
• 44:29
  meet the owner, we got to meet a couple other folks as well and
• 44:34
  you know, we had them on the podcast.
• 44:36
  What a great time. We also got to share some beer
• 44:40
  as well. An additional great time at
• 44:43
  Esoteric Scott. Yeah, we we were in.
• 44:46
  Negotiations with them to be on the podcast at that time.
• 44:49
  So we'd already made some contact with them and John and
• 44:52
  Anit, who's who we ultimately met when we got there.
• 44:54
  And Brian, the owner, yeah, he'd already kind.
• 44:57
  Of been talking to John and then told.
• 44:58
  John, what days we were going to be there, right?
• 45:00
  And then we kind of coordinated when he was so we could just
• 45:01
  meet him, you know. And man, he took such good care
• 45:05
  of us. We met him and then we say, hey,
• 45:07
  man, come back here. And we kind of went in this not
• 45:09
  back backroom, but kind of, you know, room kind of towards the
• 45:12
  back, kind of little, you know, away from the rest of it.
• 45:15
  We must. I don't know how long we were
• 45:16
  there, an hour and a half. He just kept bringing us more
• 45:18
  beers at least. Yeah.
• 45:20
  Yeah. 2 beers, maybe two hours. Something I don't remember, but
• 45:23
  and he goes, well, let me let me go get you this one and and and
• 45:25
  try this one and try this one. And it was so damn.
• 45:28
  And I kept feeling bad. I was like, we're not taking you
• 45:30
  guys away from anything like more.
• 45:32
  No, no, no, no, no, he goes, our stuff's done.
• 45:34
  He just just stay here. And he kept bringing us great
• 45:36
  beard. And then that even, I think that
• 45:38
  even bolstered the podcast because we'd already met them
• 45:41
  and had some conversation and kind of shared some beer and
• 45:43
  stuff together. So that was some more stuff we
• 45:44
  could talk about when they came on.
• 45:46
  So I, and the only reason they're not even on my list is
• 45:48
  because I had bet previously. Right, Right.
• 45:51
  Yeah, yeah. Otherwise they would be high on
• 45:53
  my. List too, but you know, this is
• 45:55
  new breweries for 2025 and it's such a great podcast.
• 45:58
  Episode. You can find that on the Brewery
• 46:00
  Underground podcast. It was so great.
• 46:02
  Monique, who is their head Brewer, she started out there a
• 46:05
  couple of years ago. Basically, it was like a beer
• 46:07
  tender and then she studied and then worked her way up, learned
• 46:11
  and everything else. And man, she is just killing it.
• 46:14
  So if if you were the one that brewed this beer, and I'm sure
• 46:17
  you were, it is banned. Damn tastic.
• 46:20
  So yeah, Esoteric. Can't wait to get back there.
• 46:24
  Man, that place is absolutely fantastic and we learned a lot
• 46:27
  about them on that. Podcast too, you know, I did.
• 46:30
  Yeah, I guess I had been, but I. Didn't know much about.
• 46:32
  Them and and just doing that, that's again man, just more
• 46:34
  experience, right? Just ask for the whole thing and
• 46:37
  the more knowledge you have about it just makes you
• 46:39
  appreciate it that much more. Yeah, right.
• 46:42
  Well, that is my number. That's my #5 if that was your 5.
• 46:47
  I can't even imagine what the other ones are.
• 46:49
  If that was five, it was getting serious.
• 46:52
  Now, isn't it? Wow.
• 46:53
  OK, we're nitty. Gritty here.
• 46:55
  Yes. Well, my next two, I'm only
• 46:58
  going to give one now, but my next two are Nashville
• 47:01
  breweries. Got to get, got to get some
• 47:03
  Nashville. We got to get some little home
• 47:04
  love, you know, some local love here.
• 47:06
  And my number 4 was 1. You just mentioned Crazy Gnome
• 47:10
  Brewery, and it's because they they got the new building.
• 47:14
  All the things you've said we love.
• 47:16
  Great. I see Grayson everywhere, by the
• 47:17
  way. See him.
• 47:18
  I see him. He's all, he's all over the
• 47:20
  place. I'll see.
• 47:21
  Him in a liquor store I'll see him in.
• 47:22
  Another brewery. He's like Flash Gordon.
• 47:24
  There's Grayson. There's Grayson.
• 47:25
  There's Grayson. And he's great on social media,
• 47:28
  does a lot of great videos, too. He was our first.
• 47:31
  And still third time guest, huh? Yeah, third, he made three
• 47:35
  appearances, the first crazy known the the previous building
• 47:38
  he was in cyanide cider when he opened that and then the new
• 47:42
  building that we're just talking about now.
• 47:44
  So he's been on three different times for three different
• 47:46
  episodes. So love crazy, no love Grayson.
• 47:49
  I can't wait to see what they continually do with that space
• 47:52
  now. They're just now starting to
• 47:54
  brew in that facility. Now he it took him had a
• 47:56
  contract for a while as we're getting built out in the in the
• 47:58
  brewery park, kind of took a while to get stuff done, but
• 48:01
  they're now brewing their own beer in house.
• 48:04
  They had to contract it with some others.
• 48:07
  And so so they've got that going, which I we're going to
• 48:09
  give him some more flexibility on the stuff he can make and
• 48:12
  will make beer wise. They've got food in there.
• 48:15
  It's fab. Pizza is in there.
• 48:17
  Great place. And they got a cool thing I've
• 48:19
  never seen anywhere. And we were in the doing that
• 48:21
  podcast. It came up the the quiet room.
• 48:24
  The quiet room. Yeah, never heard of that before
• 48:26
  in a brewery. I.
• 48:26
  Think it's awesome? No, basically.
• 48:27
  Just if you want to go in and. Just sit down and close the door
• 48:31
  and be away from everybody. But maybe maybe just go in there
• 48:34
  and maybe bring in your laptop or read a book or something,
• 48:37
  have a beer at a brewery. I don't know.
• 48:40
  Maybe it's for for for guys and gals that are just trying to get
• 48:43
  away from the distractions of life.
• 48:45
  You can go in there and it is, it is.
• 48:47
  Yeah. It's it's a quiet room.
• 48:49
  So it's a lot of fun. It is.
• 48:50
  And and you know the tap rooms could be.
• 48:52
  Pretty loud sometimes just for people talking or if there's a
• 48:55
  trivia night and you don't want to participate in the trivia but
• 48:57
  you want to drink your beer and stuff.
• 48:58
  So that's a good thing for that. So really cool idea.
• 49:02
  You don't get 50 people that you might get 10 or 12 or something,
• 49:05
  but it's a really nice size. It's really cool.
• 49:07
  It's just right off the the tap room when you walk in.
• 49:09
  You know, interestingly enough, we did the podcast.
• 49:12
  Episode from the choir. Yeah, we did.
• 49:14
  We did. And you?
• 49:15
  And you were anything but quiet so.
• 49:18
  That's probably not anywhere that you would necessarily end
• 49:21
  up. Now, ordinarily, Scott's not.
• 49:23
  Going to the choir. Room.
• 49:24
  They would kick me out of the choir room for being too loud.
• 49:26
  That's right. It'd be like, get the heck out
• 49:28
  of here, man. You're way.
• 49:29
  Too loud, for God's sake. Get the hell out of here.
• 49:31
  Get the hell out of here. What's wrong with you?
• 49:34
  They're the loud. People you know, I know.
• 49:36
  You belong out there with the rest.
• 49:38
  Of them all get out there your loud mouth.
• 49:42
  Well, that that is that's. Awesome.
• 49:45
  Yeah, so crazy. No, I'm glad that made both of
• 49:47
  our. Lists.
• 49:48
  Yes, definitely. All right, man. 4 #4 for you.
• 49:52
  Oh, number four, where you mentioned them already.
• 49:55
  And you basically said everything that I could say, but
• 49:58
  I'm going to continue to say. And that would be the hopping
• 50:02
  frog. We love, love that trip so much.
• 50:05
  You know, and I think you mentioned this earlier, that was
• 50:07
  more of a hopefully we can get there place because we're on our
• 50:12
  way up there. We hit a monsoon of rain and we
• 50:16
  actually got up there and then the monsoon of rain came back to
• 50:20
  us as we were leaving Hobby frog.
• 50:23
  I you know, you, you, you hit it all in the nail on the head on
• 50:26
  everything. What I will say, you mentioned
• 50:28
  the Pilsner. I my take away on that was for a
• 50:31
  place it does. You know, we had them on the
• 50:33
  podcast for a place that they admittedly do a lot of fun beers
• 50:38
  and they do a lot of sweet beers, a lot of stouts.
• 50:40
  I mean, I had them and and can before I ever got there as well
• 50:44
  to also rock out a great tasting pilsner that's as good as all
• 50:49
  the other things on the flight. It's not just an afterthought.
• 50:53
  Good for you, Hop and Frog. You have my absolutely
• 50:56
  admiration and respect. You're right, because it's one
• 50:58
  thing to. You know, create those things
• 51:01
  with all those adjuncts and just add a bunch of flavors and and
• 51:03
  things to it. It's another thing to put out a
• 51:06
  clean beer, yes. I mean, it shows you're a good
• 51:08
  brewery and a good. It's not just an afterthought
• 51:10
  because sometimes. And, and I think breweries are
• 51:13
  getting away from this, but sometimes we've gone in the
• 51:15
  breweries where maybe it's a lager and maybe it's just a
• 51:18
  pilsner just to appease a certain crowd.
• 51:20
  I mean, we like to drink everything, but I like to drink
• 51:23
  good beer. And I don't care what beer style
• 51:25
  it is, you know, if it's a good beer, I want to drink it.
• 51:29
  So, you know, that's just a little commentary on that and I
• 51:32
  think any good brewery who puts. Out a pilsner or a logger knows
• 51:38
  that better be good because there's nothing to hide behind.
• 51:41
  We've said it 100 times, it better be good because it will
• 51:44
  be flawed if not and it will get picked apart.
• 51:46
  Yes, absolutely, so well. Yeah, that's our, that's our.
• 51:50
  Glowing review. Of Hop and Frog and and one
• 51:53
  other thing, and this is on the podcast.
• 51:55
  Too is the fact that they ship. They have shipped to many other
• 51:59
  countries, 22 countries. Crazy, yeah.
• 52:02
  Serving 18. States across the.
• 52:05
  United States, they shipped a lot.
• 52:07
  I think this is right, like 22 countries and go back on the
• 52:10
  podcast and listen. We had them on their owner,
• 52:13
  Fred. And I love the story that he
• 52:16
  talked about when when he started many years ago that
• 52:19
  basically he was kind of like almost a little bit like what
• 52:22
  Eric Latham does. He goes to places and here's my
• 52:25
  beer and and things like that. This guy was an acronym and he
• 52:29
  was taking beer from his trunk and going into beer stores and,
• 52:33
  and, and trying to, hey, will you sell my beer?
• 52:36
  And now he's in like 22 foreign countries, for God's sakes.
• 52:40
  I love that story he tells. Yes, he just gets a call out.
• 52:43
  Of the blue from some other country and they wanted the beer
• 52:45
  and the first he thinks it's kind of a joke or something and
• 52:47
  then they keep calling him or something so it's Yeah OK well
• 52:50
  if you want it we'll ship it to you so yeah go back and just
• 52:53
  have yeah yeah that's just absolutely awesome yeah I.
• 52:56
  Love that we'll we'll move on. Up now, Sir.
• 52:59
  We are in the the medal. Round, if you will, 3IN May and
• 53:04
  I'm telling. You and I know.
• 53:05
  Yours are too. These are bangers.
• 53:10
  Bangers. These are the best of the best.
• 53:13
  Obviously made the list. All right, so #3 and a lot of
• 53:18
  people might not have heard this one yet, but we in this area
• 53:21
  have and for very good reason. And I'm going to give you a
• 53:25
  little a little tease right here.
• 53:27
  Stoke House, Stoke House Brewing and Barbecue in Nashville, TN.
• 53:33
  These guys have only been up open a few months.
• 53:36
  I was there for lunch today, as a matter of fact.
• 53:39
  They do everything perfectly. The food is amazing.
• 53:44
  What Mike's doing on that food truck.
• 53:46
  And they got a food truck, but it's theirs.
• 53:47
  It's right on camp. It's a permanent thing right
• 53:49
  there. BBQ.
• 53:51
  They do ribs. I had the smoked burger today.
• 53:54
  The sides are amazing. It's it's the best barbecue in
• 53:57
  Nashville. And they've only been open a
• 53:58
  couple of months. It's really good.
• 54:00
  Yeah, it is excellent. And these guys.
• 54:02
  Came Mike and Chad came from Tenfold.
• 54:05
  They were on with us early on in our podcast career.
• 54:09
  Wonderful guys. We see them all the time and
• 54:11
  have and we love what they're doing.
• 54:14
  The the beers, traditional style beers.
• 54:17
  This is a pub ale. The my favorite beer right now
• 54:21
  in Nashville is there. It's called original.
• 54:24
  It's just a logger. It's the original logger.
• 54:26
  And it's perfect. It's absolutely fucking perfect.
• 54:30
  And that, I mean, even without that, they'd still be #3 on my
• 54:33
  list. But that is just amazing
• 54:35
  brewery. They got nothing but good things
• 54:37
  coming for them, you know, ahead of them because they're,
• 54:40
  they're, they're so. And they're just getting off the
• 54:42
  ground. Yeah.
• 54:43
  And they, they're, they may just be hitting.
• 54:45
  Off the ground, but they hit the ground running.
• 54:48
  I mean, they really did everything.
• 54:50
  They had everything nailed from the beginning and I've been
• 54:53
  there a couple of Times Now and he, you know, Chad is increasing
• 54:58
  their, you know, their tap menu as as time goes on as well.
• 55:02
  So you're going to get a lot of good beer and a good diversity
• 55:05
  of beer there too. Yeah.
• 55:07
  Like it's traditional styles. I.
• 55:08
  Talked to him today and I won't give anything away, but he's got
• 55:11
  some others. He's working on them are going
• 55:12
  to come out for like the winter and they've got some.
• 55:14
  He's already planning some stuff for the spring.
• 55:15
  So, yeah, you know, not a lot of heavy adjunct stuff, none of
• 55:19
  that stuff. Just traditional Starbucks in
• 55:21
  it, man, just crisp and clean. And he's got an English mild on
• 55:25
  draft now, which might be one of the newest ones that he's come
• 55:28
  out with. And oh God, I, I wish I had the
• 55:31
  whole list, but you, you know, you've been.
• 55:33
  So you know how good this. Yeah.
• 55:34
  And what's really cool about that is, you know, we're.
• 55:36
  We're diverse beer drinkers and we like going to different
• 55:39
  breweries in Nashville. And there's a lot of them, some
• 55:42
  of them that do have, you know, like the the same traditional
• 55:45
  styles that you're talking about with Stoke House.
• 55:47
  And then there's others that may have other different styles, but
• 55:50
  you go, you know what if you're hitting breweries and they're
• 55:53
  going, OK, where can I go now that I can get a different
• 55:56
  variety of beer and it's clean beer, She said.
• 55:59
  Like that not as many adjuncts and that that Stoke house that
• 56:04
  describes them as as to a tee, that's a place where you could
• 56:08
  take a guy who only. Likes Middle Light, Bud Light,
• 56:11
  that kind of stuff, but you could probably take him there
• 56:13
  and find something because it's going to be traditional stuff.
• 56:16
  It's not going to be anything that blows.
• 56:18
  You know, that's like, God, I'm not drinking this chocolate
• 56:20
  stout thing that, you know, it's like, here's something similar
• 56:23
  to what you like, you know, it's obviously way better.
• 56:26
  Exactly. No, it's, it's another.
• 56:28
  Thing again, that makes that makes a national brewery scene
• 56:31
  so fantastic because you know a lot.
• 56:34
  There's so many different beer styles that choose from wherever
• 56:36
  you go, and everybody's doing a good job at what they do.
• 56:39
  I like this place so much. Steve.
• 56:41
  I am a Mug Club member. I bought a Mug Club membership.
• 56:45
  Do you remember the commercial where it was the I think it was
• 56:47
  shake razors or something And the guy, the previous he goes.
• 56:50
  I like the I like the company so much I bought it or something.
• 56:52
  I like this razor so much. I bought the company or
• 56:54
  something for many years ago. I like this so much.
• 56:57
  I got a Mug Club membership. Yeah, that's great.
• 56:59
  You want to be there quite a bit.
• 57:01
  That is great. Stoke House Brewing and Barbecue
• 57:03
  in Nashville. Tennessee.
• 57:04
  And by the way, they're in the original crazy known building.
• 57:07
  Yes, they are. Yeah, next to.
• 57:09
  Main Street Liquors, by the way. Yeah, I said to go to Stoke
• 57:11
  House and then you can go. Next door and get.
• 57:14
  You can get all those stouts and pickle beers and everything else
• 57:17
  that you want at the at Main Street.
• 57:19
  I don't go to 1 without going to the other every single time.
• 57:22
  It's on today. I didn't say.
• 57:23
  That's right, yeah. Exactly.
• 57:25
  So that was my bronze medal in man.
• 57:28
  And I'll tell you, 3 is really high, especially for for a
• 57:31
  brewery that just got started, Right.
• 57:33
  I know it. Yeah.
• 57:34
  So, all right. What?
• 57:35
  Is your bronze. Medal Brewery.
• 57:38
  It was about time I got here. And had I waited, I would have,
• 57:42
  I would have got there because you know, we know as we know,
• 57:47
  one of the biggest news that happened in Nashville this year
• 57:50
  when it came to the brewery scene or comes to the brewery
• 57:52
  scene as it pertains to the brewery scene, is that Zul is
• 57:56
  moving into Nashville and taking over the Southern Grist
• 58:00
  locations. And that's going to be happening
• 58:02
  soon. But I went to their Knoxville
• 58:05
  location when I went over to East Tennessee over the summer,
• 58:09
  I had to stop through Knoxville and go to the original zoo
• 58:13
  location because I had had their beer, you know, and had their
• 58:17
  beer here and can had it on top at certain places.
• 58:21
  And it was like, now it's time to go.
• 58:23
  The only bad thing was it was kind of like the hop and frog
• 58:26
  situation that we had. Is that because I was on the go,
• 58:30
  I was only there for like an hour and a half and, you know,
• 58:34
  went through there, got myself a flight, actually checked in my
• 58:38
  thousandth beer there. Yeah, that's right.
• 58:42
  That was a. Highlight of 2020.
• 58:43
  Five. That's a good one.
• 58:45
  That's a good one, yeah. I probably would.
• 58:47
  I would have said longer had. I not been on the road and I
• 58:50
  remember the day because it was like it was in August.
• 58:54
  That's when we held that heat wave of like 100° and you're
• 58:57
  driving, it's 100° outside. You're like, yeah, and I'm gonna
• 59:00
  stop in and get some beer and got a quick light, got some food
• 59:04
  and I was on my way. But I said this on a a podcast
• 59:08
  episode when we're talking about that trip is that there's not
• 59:12
  too many breweries I've ever been to where you go in.
• 59:16
  And I was there on a Thursday and it was like, you know,
• 59:18
  12/30, 1:00 in the afternoon. And you look around and there's
• 59:21
  like 15 people in there and everybody's sitting there with a
• 59:24
  case of beer from the cooler. Ready to take home?
• 59:29
  And a couple of people that I talked to, you know, that were
• 59:32
  from out of town and like we had to get the Zool.
• 59:34
  And that place, not only is that place a destination brewery,
• 59:38
  they just don't put beer in their cooler.
• 59:40
  That's an afterthought. They put some really top line
• 59:43
  stuff in there for people to take home and enjoy and that
• 59:48
  really impressed me. So Zul, you got my respect and
• 59:52
  we look forward to having more of your beer when you take over
• 59:56
  the Southern Growth locations here in Nashville.
• 59:58
  Hopefully sometime soon you won't have to go all the way to
• 1:00:00
  Knoxville. To get it.
• 1:00:01
  I know it won't go very far, but I.
• 1:00:03
  Agree, every time I go in there they're just people.
• 1:00:05
  With just cases, you know, and those flats, you know, the flat
• 1:00:08
  just full of stuff because it's like, you know, they're passing
• 1:00:09
  through or make it the point to go there and take the shit home
• 1:00:12
  because it's so it is so amazing.
• 1:00:14
  I see it every time I go to. Right.
• 1:00:16
  Great stuff, great brewery. And it would be on my list.
• 1:00:18
  I had been. So I'm glad you were able to get
• 1:00:21
  there this year and experience it first hand.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah. It was an overdue trip.
• 1:00:24
  So nice. There you go.
• 1:00:25
  That's my number. That's number three.
• 1:00:28
  What is your number two? Number two?
• 1:00:31
  I'm going to. Leave the country for this one.
• 1:00:35
  Actually did leave the country for this one, it's called.
• 1:00:37
  Hofbrau House, if you've ever heard of it.
• 1:00:40
  I have, yeah. It's pretty big name and it's
• 1:00:43
  the one in Munich. So it's the one.
• 1:00:45
  It's the most famous beer hall in the world is how they bill
• 1:00:49
  it. Yes.
• 1:00:50
  Been around since. Been around since 15.
• 1:00:54
  Been around since 1589. I mean, we were a toddler then.
• 1:00:58
  For God, just barely. Just crawling around just.
• 1:01:01
  Sipping on Dunkle, you know. They they teach you how to drink
• 1:01:04
  the good. Stuff early over there that's
• 1:01:06
  right at a young age, but you know, this is one of those
• 1:01:10
  breweries the other breweries want to be right.
• 1:01:12
  Like this is this is the thing now I know it's really big and
• 1:01:15
  commercialized with the, the Oktoberfest stuff and they've
• 1:01:19
  got Hopper houses here so if anybody's seen the Hopper house
• 1:01:22
  in Newport in Columbus, and I think Vegas has got 1 and I
• 1:01:27
  think Pittsburgh got one, they're all over the it's the
• 1:01:29
  same franchise. It's them it's Hopper house USA
• 1:01:32
  all right yeah, but it's that same Popper house and I visited
• 1:01:37
  the one in Columbus recently and it brought back memories of
• 1:01:40
  being at the one in Munich. It is it's everything that you
• 1:01:43
  think it's going to be it's massive food is amazing.
• 1:01:46
  They're walking around selling giant pretzels in in the thing,
• 1:01:49
  I mean for like 5 bucks and you know, you're having Schnitzel
• 1:01:52
  and you're having sausages and you're drinking, you're drinking
• 1:01:55
  out of the right, the big giant. When of course, when you go to a
• 1:01:58
  place like that, that's what you get.
• 1:01:59
  You don't get the half pores. You don't get the little right,
• 1:02:01
  get the big ones, you know, right.
• 1:02:03
  Yeah, You know you're in Munich. It's what you get.
• 1:02:06
  Yeah. And and and I think for you to.
• 1:02:09
  Go over there and there's so much tradition with their beer
• 1:02:12
  and with their country. Just to be a part of that is
• 1:02:15
  really it's experience of a lifetime and something we
• 1:02:19
  learned in that whole. Area.
• 1:02:21
  So it's Munich, but they still consider themselves Bavarians
• 1:02:25
  and Bavarian. And you've heard Scott Murray
• 1:02:26
  talk about this, and I'm no expert at it at all, but his,
• 1:02:30
  his voice kept coming into my mind when I was over from the
• 1:02:33
  stomach stuff. He had told us about it and was,
• 1:02:34
  I was making these connections, right?
• 1:02:36
  King Ludwig the 1st and all that.
• 1:02:38
  And because you keep hearing these stories while you're over
• 1:02:40
  there. And but that is Bavaria.
• 1:02:42
  And they consider themselves, they're German and, and, and in
• 1:02:45
  this music, but they are Bavarians.
• 1:02:47
  And that whole Oktoberfest thing that is one culture in itself.
• 1:02:51
  Like everything around it is, is, is, is Bavarian.
• 1:02:54
  And they, and they, and I love it.
• 1:02:55
  I loved the whole culture in the whole area because you know, get
• 1:02:58
  your mega poles all up over the place and just the history is,
• 1:03:03
  you know, and we did a damn, we did a beer walking tour and one
• 1:03:07
  of the stops we had to walk by this before I actually visited
• 1:03:10
  Munich or before I visited the Hopper house.
• 1:03:12
  We went in on The Walking tour. We got to stop and going real
• 1:03:14
  quick to take some pictures, knowing we were coming back a
• 1:03:17
  couple days later to do the actual thing.
• 1:03:19
  So just it's just history everywhere.
• 1:03:23
  Their Oktoberfest beer is legit like it is.
• 1:03:28
  You would expect that to. It's been around 5:00. 100 years
• 1:03:30
  or whatever. So it's like it's good.
• 1:03:32
  It's one of it's, again, simple. I mean, it's why it's so damn
• 1:03:35
  popular. It's because it's so damn good.
• 1:03:38
  That's one of those beers where I have given a higher score to
• 1:03:44
  more recently than when I used to rate it, you know, when I
• 1:03:46
  have much more depreciation for the style, you know, the
• 1:03:50
  experience. I mean, I'm this is like I'm
• 1:03:51
  giving this like a four two. You know, I was probably in the
• 1:03:53
  low threes before, but just not understanding, understanding
• 1:03:56
  those clean traditional beers. And now you have such an
• 1:03:58
  appreciation for them And and if I'm not mistaken, you left
• 1:04:01
  something over. There, right, I left a lot we
• 1:04:04
  got we have brewery. Underground stickers all over
• 1:04:07
  there. Yes, I was going to say some
• 1:04:09
  more stickers. Are over there.
• 1:04:11
  Good job, Sir. Yes, it's all I got them in
• 1:04:13
  Austria. I've got them in Germany, I've
• 1:04:15
  got them all over Eastern Europe.
• 1:04:16
  So they're on bridges, they're on, they're on everywhere.
• 1:04:21
  I could stick a sticker and they're there.
• 1:04:22
  Awesome. Well, glad you had a great time
• 1:04:25
  there. Thank you.
• 1:04:26
  And that was man, that was, you know, I'd mentioned.
• 1:04:28
  Earlier some brews I forgot, so I looked on my list that wasn't
• 1:04:30
  one of them. That was like, Oh yeah, that's
• 1:04:32
  that's I don't know if that's going to be one or two, but
• 1:04:34
  that's it is pretty high. That was it was right up there.
• 1:04:38
  It's got to. It's got to memory.
• 1:04:40
  Yes. What is?
• 1:04:41
  Your silver metal brewery, my silver metal is what you just.
• 1:04:46
  Talked about. I don't really have much to add
• 1:04:49
  other than just to say Stoke House is my #2 so happy for
• 1:04:53
  these guys. We had them on the podcast a
• 1:04:55
  couple of years ago when they were a tenfold.
• 1:04:57
  We know that they've been around for a number of years.
• 1:05:00
  Chad and M2 great guys. We're going to have them on the
• 1:05:03
  podcast soon. We're going there on location
• 1:05:06
  and to talk to them, and that's going to be a future podcast
• 1:05:10
  episode. Cannot wait.
• 1:05:11
  I mean, it's just, yeah, Stoke House.
• 1:05:15
  I mean, you, you, you pretty much took the words out of my
• 1:05:18
  mouth a few minutes ago as far as like everything about them
• 1:05:21
  and every beer that I've had from them so far, I've certainly
• 1:05:24
  have enjoyed. And the food is just tremendous
• 1:05:27
  and I just want to go back again.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, we've got our friends. The hill tappers are.
• 1:05:31
  Coming down, we just we found out yesterday, I guess they're
• 1:05:34
  coming down in early January and that is on the list that like
• 1:05:37
  that is high on the list. That might be priority number
• 1:05:39
  one or or or timing around lunch or dinner, right, because you
• 1:05:42
  got to have the food there. So we're going to make sure they
• 1:05:45
  get there too. But yes, that is a place you
• 1:05:47
  anybody comes to town, we're taking them there.
• 1:05:51
  One of the many places we're taking them to absolutely.
• 1:05:54
  We'll certainly Stokehouse. All right, Scott, we're down to
• 1:05:57
  our. Number one new brewery.
• 1:06:02
  Of 2020. Five say it with me.
• 1:06:05
  It's both of ours. Yes, Great Lakes Brewing
• 1:06:08
  Company. Lakes Brewing in.
• 1:06:10
  Cleveland, OH You mean you mean this Great Lakes?
• 1:06:14
  Right here with the, I mean this Great Lakes right here by that
• 1:06:17
  one. Too, they do.
• 1:06:18
  So here's a floor for. You, Oh my God, look at that.
• 1:06:20
  You get the Christmas ale going. Christmas Ale.
• 1:06:24
  On Christmas Day. Juicy.
• 1:06:26
  Vibacious. I got blood of orange down there
• 1:06:29
  somewhere I couldn't find in the fridge, but I got it down there.
• 1:06:32
  By the way, Merry Christmas again, everybody.
• 1:06:35
  You got the appropriate beer for it, I know.
• 1:06:37
  It in my Christmas ale. Glass from Great Lakes Oh, it's
• 1:06:42
  a great glass and a great. Beer.
• 1:06:44
  Yes, Steve, we couldn't look. This was the this was the reason
• 1:06:48
  we went to Cleveland was Great Lakes.
• 1:06:50
  Ultimately, you know, we talked about going to hopping frog on
• 1:06:53
  the way. We had masthead.
• 1:06:54
  We were here. There.
• 1:06:55
  We hit some other places, too, but Great Lakes was the goal.
• 1:06:58
  And man, it did not disappoint. We finally got to meet Michael
• 1:07:02
  Williams, yes, who'd been on the podcast and so generous to us.
• 1:07:06
  Man, he's been so generous for this time.
• 1:07:07
  He's been on twice now, actually.
• 1:07:08
  Yeah. Shout out to Michael.
• 1:07:10
  Yeah, he'd been. Really cool with us.
• 1:07:12
  And we hope to have him on again.
• 1:07:14
  We got something up maybe planned for him later on in
• 1:07:16
  2026. But just two way so I don't
• 1:07:20
  steal your Thunder. Tell a little bit about the
• 1:07:22
  brewery from your experience. Well, it it is, I mean.
• 1:07:27
  A destination brewery of course, and I I mean the place has been
• 1:07:32
  around. The brewery has been around
• 1:07:34
  since 19901988, and really, you're going to find a lot of
• 1:07:39
  places you're going to go there, you're going to find some beers
• 1:07:41
  on tap that you're never probably going to get anywhere
• 1:07:44
  else. By the way, some beers you're
• 1:07:45
  not going to get in Tennessee yet bring Great Lakes to.
• 1:07:49
  Tennessee people sign a. Petition we're going to get them
• 1:07:51
  here one day by the way, the the beer that we both.
• 1:07:54
  Have came directly from Great Lakes.
• 1:07:57
  I went and got it. Yes, we did not pick this up
• 1:08:00
  locally. That's right.
• 1:08:02
  That's right. But no.
• 1:08:03
  Really, honestly and truly the, the, the food there is
• 1:08:06
  outstanding. The beer is outstanding.
• 1:08:10
  And I, I, I said this, I wrote this down.
• 1:08:12
  It's like when you go there, it's really a combination of
• 1:08:15
  like a cheers atmosphere, but also a classy joint that really
• 1:08:21
  feels special. When I say classy, I mean it is
• 1:08:24
  classy. It doesn't feel uppity or
• 1:08:26
  anything like that. You just know that you're in a
• 1:08:29
  very, very, very special place and it's just they they've taken
• 1:08:34
  things to a different level. Yeah, it's a thing that the the
• 1:08:37
  history. The history and the historical
• 1:08:39
  part of the buildings they're in is amazing.
• 1:08:43
  The bar, the actual bar that's behind the the bar that you said
• 1:08:46
  at the bar bar, it's like 120 years old.
• 1:08:49
  It's like a tiger mahogany or something.
• 1:08:51
  Like that's got a story in itself.
• 1:08:52
  There's a bullet hole in the bar that apparently was meant for
• 1:08:57
  Eliot Ness. Who was a frequent regular at
• 1:09:01
  that establishment. It was market something maybe
• 1:09:03
  Market Square something that wasn't Great Lakes, obviously,
• 1:09:05
  but it's the same. It's the same place like all the
• 1:09:07
  history. Yeah.
• 1:09:08
  Is there the mass of fact that the bullet hole even have
• 1:09:10
  flagged? They have a flag in the bullet.
• 1:09:13
  So yeah, we got. A.
• 1:09:14
  And you're talking about the. Tour that we got.
• 1:09:16
  The take there as well, they do give tours and there's a couple
• 1:09:20
  of different floors. I mean, that's the thing too.
• 1:09:23
  It's like that struck me when we went there is how many floors
• 1:09:25
  they have and different areas. Like if you go in there, they
• 1:09:29
  got a bar area and they got seating, you know, like a
• 1:09:32
  traditional bar. And then you can go upstairs or
• 1:09:35
  go to another floor. And they've got like private
• 1:09:37
  areas where you can go and, you know, just enjoy your enjoy
• 1:09:41
  yourself with the family. And and again, to say it's a
• 1:09:44
  destination brewery would be an understatement.
• 1:09:47
  Oh, it is an absolute gem for Cleveland.
• 1:09:49
  Oh, yeah, it's great. The gift?
• 1:09:51
  Shop itself was amazing. It's like you could you buy
• 1:09:55
  anything you want in the gift shop like merch, tons of beer,
• 1:09:59
  which is why I got this when I stopped in recently on my way
• 1:10:02
  back from New York, I went to the gift shop and loaded up on
• 1:10:05
  some stuff. I'm it's like a giant grocery
• 1:10:07
  store in there with every beer and mixed packs and things that
• 1:10:09
  you want. You can get everything really
• 1:10:11
  cool merch. I mean you could spend 2 hours
• 1:10:13
  in there and you know, sever your bank account.
• 1:10:15
  I mean, it's good quality. Stuff in there too, so it's so
• 1:10:19
  much fun. I mean, they got buildings
• 1:10:20
  across the street. I think maybe the big breweries
• 1:10:23
  over there and there's some maybe some offices and things.
• 1:10:25
  I mean, it's the place is massive.
• 1:10:27
  Well, and they're always doing different beers.
• 1:10:29
  And different unveilings and if you go on their website, I mean
• 1:10:32
  whoever does their website, they got it going on because it's
• 1:10:36
  very interactive all the time. There's always things going on.
• 1:10:40
  And the other thing, the biggest, one of the biggest
• 1:10:41
  events that they do every year, the, you know, we're drinking
• 1:10:44
  the beer is in October, they, they do their big release for
• 1:10:48
  the Christmas Ale. And people were standing in
• 1:10:52
  line. I mean, we when, when the guy
• 1:10:54
  Scott, his name was Scott was giving us a tour, I asked him.
• 1:10:57
  I said, so tell me where are people lined up at?
• 1:11:01
  Give me the visual. And it's like they're all
• 1:11:03
  outside and they're getting there at like 7:00 in the
• 1:11:06
  morning for a beer that's going to be, you know, on, on tap that
• 1:11:11
  day at about 11:00 or noon or whatever it is.
• 1:11:13
  And it's probably it's like hundreds of people.
• 1:11:16
  And there were some of the same people that come out every year.
• 1:11:18
  It's a tradition that they do that.
• 1:11:21
  And one other note. You know, I've, I've had this
• 1:11:24
  beer in a bottle a couple of times.
• 1:11:26
  I had never had it on tap until recently because we don't get it
• 1:11:30
  on tap here in Tennessee, Great Lakes.
• 1:11:33
  I know you're coming to us soon, but it's, it's making us wait,
• 1:11:38
  right? Right, but in early December.
• 1:11:40
  I was, I was hanging out with our Cincinnati correspondent,
• 1:11:43
  Liz, and she took me into a Christmas themed bar that day
• 1:11:48
  and they had some mixed drinks. And she's like, you're gonna get
• 1:11:50
  yourself a mixed drink. And I looked up and she said,
• 1:11:52
  you know, Steve, they have Christmas ale on tap.
• 1:11:54
  And I said, I'm so yeah, it's an opportunity.
• 1:11:59
  And I got that. And I thought to myself, I can
• 1:12:03
  understand why people are taking their yearly tradition for the
• 1:12:07
  holidays and standing outside to wait for this beer on tap
• 1:12:11
  because it is fan damn tastic. Yeah.
• 1:12:14
  And then one thing Michael said to you said that you can get it
• 1:12:16
  on tap. Later on the day and you can't
• 1:12:17
  he goes. It's also the same beer you can
• 1:12:19
  get in the grocery store on Monday.
• 1:12:20
  Like it's like it's some it's mass produced, but it's such a
• 1:12:23
  it's a turn into an It is. It is.
• 1:12:25
  Yeah, as a matter of fact. I got a.
• 1:12:27
  It came across my. Instagram feed, the day they did
• 1:12:30
  it, they did a live did a live feed out there of it.
• 1:12:34
  And I watched they did like a little parade and the guy
• 1:12:36
  holding the K going down the street and yeah, the whole
• 1:12:39
  thing. I watched it for I don't know
• 1:12:40
  how long it lasted, 15 or 20 minutes or something, but really
• 1:12:43
  cool to see that. And really, you know, we weren't
• 1:12:45
  there, but we got to really experience it as opposed to just
• 1:12:48
  like hearing the story, see it go on.
• 1:12:50
  It looked festive. It looked very festive.
• 1:12:52
  Well, a lot of a lot of fun tradition I was.
• 1:12:55
  Very glad that I got to go there with you.
• 1:12:57
  And again, that was another great tour that our friend Keith
• 1:13:00
  and Elizabeth from Cleveland joined us on as well.
• 1:13:03
  We all had a great day and we all had a lot of fun.
• 1:13:06
  The Cleveland trip was great. Great Lakes topped it off not
• 1:13:10
  only just for, you know, that trip, but our number one for the
• 1:13:16
  year and and of new breweries and.
• 1:13:18
  That had to be. I mean I.
• 1:13:19
  Knew it was going to be number. One for both of us.
• 1:13:21
  Oh, yeah, it's it's look at anybody that follows us or
• 1:13:24
  listen to us or anything. We talk about Great Lakes all
• 1:13:26
  the time. We have a page.
• 1:13:27
  It's bring it's called by like it's called bring Great Lakes
• 1:13:30
  beer to Tennessee. So look at come on, people.
• 1:13:33
  Sign up petitions. Come on.
• 1:13:34
  Great. Lakes sign up petition.
• 1:13:37
  Yes, we want the beer and then we can go do away with the
• 1:13:40
  petition. Once the beers here, we go away
• 1:13:42
  with that account too. But yeah, but we won't.
• 1:13:45
  But when? They come here, we won't stop
• 1:13:47
  talking about their beer. We will continue on drinking
• 1:13:50
  their beer and talking about how great it is.
• 1:13:52
  That's right. We will continue, but that that.
• 1:13:54
  Beer and it'll be multiple of them will be in the refrigerator
• 1:13:57
  all the time constantly. I will always have Great Lakes
• 1:14:00
  and it's everything they do from, you know, they do loggers
• 1:14:02
  and and stouts and obviously Ipas and that ale that you got
• 1:14:07
  there and all sorts of stuff. They've done barrel aged stuff
• 1:14:10
  and we've had the barrel aged Christmas ale and everything.
• 1:14:13
  Talking about him. Michael Williams, he hooked us
• 1:14:15
  up when we were there too. He sent us home with some things
• 1:14:17
  he did. Yeah, if you go, if you go.
• 1:14:19
  And listen to our last podcast of our top 10 beers of 2025.
• 1:14:24
  I think Great Lakes makes at a time or two, yes.
• 1:14:27
  Both of our lists, yes. Yep.
• 1:14:30
  There you go. All right.
• 1:14:31
  Outstanding. Great choice.
• 1:14:33
  On your #1, Sir, great choice on your number one.
• 1:14:37
  Thank you. Great minds.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah. And I like and I like there were
• 1:14:40
  some inevitabilities, like we said earlier, because we we go
• 1:14:43
  to them and they just are, they're just that damn good.
• 1:14:46
  So that's why we had a little bit of crossover, but it was
• 1:14:49
  just, it was going to have to happen.
• 1:14:51
  Yeah, well, you and I both have some.
• 1:14:53
  Notes and some stats about certain things.
• 1:14:56
  You know, we love our stats. Love stats, Love stats, Love
• 1:14:59
  stats well. If you don't.
• 1:15:01
  Mind, I'm going to I'm going to dive into a couple of things of
• 1:15:05
  of kind of my notes for the year of beer.
• 1:15:07
  So I went to 25 new breweries this year.
• 1:15:12
  Nice 25 I didn't realize until. Today I was.
• 1:15:15
  Like, hey, I think it was up in the 20s and I started counting.
• 1:15:18
  I'm like 25. Holy cow.
• 1:15:20
  It's two a month, two a month, two a month.
• 1:15:21
  Yeah. And you know, as I said, the top
• 1:15:24
  ten list was hard. There were a couple of them that
• 1:15:27
  could have easily made my top ten list.
• 1:15:30
  Cast brewing here in Nashville. I've been there once.
• 1:15:33
  I want to get back, I want to have more beer from there.
• 1:15:35
  So you know, I I just haven't been able to dive in enough into
• 1:15:40
  broadcast brewing, but I will 11/3, which was on our on our
• 1:15:44
  list as well up in the Cleveland area.
• 1:15:47
  We went there and that is a fantastic place.
• 1:15:51
  They had a lot of great beer. Love that place.
• 1:15:55
  Another one. Let me clear my throat.
• 1:16:03
  What's it called again? Who?
• 1:16:05
  Parted. Yeah, went.
• 1:16:06
  To went to who parted and that was in that was up in near
• 1:16:10
  Columbus, OH when we went there that day and we took a lot of
• 1:16:14
  great pictures. We posted a lot of those before.
• 1:16:16
  Those are those are a lot of fun.
• 1:16:18
  But that was a that was a very that's a very unique place, but
• 1:16:23
  also a very fun place and they have a lot of great beer.
• 1:16:25
  So put that on the list and you know, I have to say, and and
• 1:16:29
  this one goes into again, what I said earlier about every place
• 1:16:33
  we went to was different. And when we stopped through
• 1:16:36
  Columbus after who farted We had.
• 1:16:41
  Gone to and you've. Been there before Hammock Farms,
• 1:16:44
  the first time I'd ever been at a brewery that was also part of
• 1:16:49
  a big farm. And I mean that.
• 1:16:53
  It was funny that night we got there because it was mid-May and
• 1:16:56
  it hadn't warmed up enough yet in Ohio, and it got really
• 1:16:59
  chilly that night. So we were only there for maybe
• 1:17:01
  2 hours because the inside was busy but there's no seating.
• 1:17:04
  Inside. Yeah, we were sitting outside to
• 1:17:07
  start getting a little chilly. And all that.
• 1:17:08
  But yeah, I want to get back there one day because man, I
• 1:17:11
  decide there there is so many nights I could sit out here for
• 1:17:17
  a number of hours and just really enjoy myself.
• 1:17:20
  So really loved Hammock Farms. They could have been a top ten
• 1:17:23
  list as well, and that's one of those places where locals go.
• 1:17:26
  I mean, it is legit. It is like every time I come
• 1:17:30
  through there now, they took us once and the first time I'm
• 1:17:31
  like, oh, yeah, this is this is wonderful.
• 1:17:34
  Yeah. And then another one that.
• 1:17:36
  I think could have been in my in my top 10, but we weren't.
• 1:17:41
  There that long. But it but we we made the most
• 1:17:44
  of our time and this was fable Brew Works.
• 1:17:48
  Erlanger, KY. What a very unique place.
• 1:17:51
  Very interesting place. I mean that not only do they do
• 1:17:53
  beer, but they also do Mead. And there are two main places,
• 1:17:57
  do a mix of craft beer and Mead. And we have both.
• 1:18:01
  And we were only there for maybe an hour.
• 1:18:04
  Yeah. And then the, the, the, the, the
• 1:18:06
  place is just different, right? I mean, it's I I can't even
• 1:18:09
  really describe the rest of it. It's just a this is a very
• 1:18:13
  unique place. It's very cool.
• 1:18:14
  It's like storybook theme like fables.
• 1:18:17
  As in like Fable stories, right? It's what they had like clouds
• 1:18:20
  on the ceiling that lit up with like lightning and and and and
• 1:18:24
  just decor all over the place and stuff on the walls that were
• 1:18:28
  like storybook places and characters and things.
• 1:18:31
  And it was fantastic. The place was cool is shit and
• 1:18:34
  we had the place to ourselves. We walked in right right after,
• 1:18:38
  I guess when they opened or early in the day because it was
• 1:18:40
  a weekday, right, I guess. And we had the hope he goes.
• 1:18:42
  He turned the the lights on for us in the backroom, which was a
• 1:18:45
  whole another world that opened up back there.
• 1:18:47
  It was like, yeah, like like it had a like a Hut build into the
• 1:18:51
  side of the wall or something. It was so cool.
• 1:18:53
  Yeah. And I think they've been open
• 1:18:55
  for a couple of. Years now, maybe about two
• 1:18:57
  years, something like that, maybe maybe a little bit more
• 1:19:00
  than that. But yeah, just a just a really
• 1:19:02
  interesting place. Those those right there.
• 1:19:05
  Like I said, they were when I started going through my list
• 1:19:08
  and I'm like, man, some of these ones that I went to could have
• 1:19:12
  made a top ten and then I'll end it on this.
• 1:19:16
  We also have gone to a couple other unique places this year.
• 1:19:19
  Well, the one up in the river north in Nashville, you know,
• 1:19:24
  they opened earlier this year and they are not a brewery, but
• 1:19:28
  they a they are a self served tap wall of a lot of, you know,
• 1:19:32
  local craft beer ciders and seltzers.
• 1:19:35
  We went there and one of their their opening nights and man,
• 1:19:39
  the place here, the space there is really fantastic.
• 1:19:42
  It's over in the East Nashville area and you can, you can sit
• 1:19:48
  outside, probably not this time of the year since it's cold, but
• 1:19:51
  during the, during the nice time of the year, when it's, you
• 1:19:54
  know, the warmer weather, you're out there, the Cumberland River.
• 1:19:57
  And then you can look across and see the, you know, the Nashville
• 1:20:00
  skyline. So it's just a beautiful, a lot
• 1:20:03
  going on with that place. And then also Mr. Brews, which
• 1:20:08
  had a has a location in Murfreesboro.
• 1:20:10
  They also open up a second tap room in Smyrna near me just
• 1:20:14
  recently. I've been there a couple times.
• 1:20:16
  Hopefully they're going to continue to grow as well.
• 1:20:18
  A lot of lot of great choices and a lot of great beer.
• 1:20:22
  Of 2025. It's a lot going on, isn't it?
• 1:20:24
  Yeah, a lot going. On I got to get to Mr. Brewers
• 1:20:27
  the the Smyrna one. I haven't haven't been to that
• 1:20:29
  one yet. That's just that.
• 1:20:31
  Will that will happen? I've been to the Murfreesboro
• 1:20:32
  one and we know it's a great place.
• 1:20:34
  I'll give a couple honorable mentions myself.
• 1:20:36
  I didn't mention esoteric earlier and they would have been
• 1:20:38
  on my list if I hadn't been before.
• 1:20:41
  So they kind of negated me being on this list.
• 1:20:44
  But worth a mention because we just love them and the brewery.
• 1:20:47
  Pretentious Beer Company out of Knoxville is another one that
• 1:20:50
  could have made my list W 6 Brewing.
• 1:20:53
  Covington. Covington House, where you and I
• 1:20:55
  went there this past trip. And how cool was that friggin
• 1:20:58
  place? Yeah, it's in an old Firehouse,
• 1:21:00
  which is. Which is really neat.
• 1:21:02
  Yeah. And then you in your top 10
• 1:21:04
  beer. List.
• 1:21:05
  There's a mention of a beer in in that episode.
• 1:21:08
  From there you have to go back. And listen to that.
• 1:21:12
  Go back and listen. Might not have made the list,
• 1:21:14
  but there's. Conversation about it another
• 1:21:17
  one Augustiner, which we went to the one in Austria when we were
• 1:21:21
  over in Germany and Austria, you know, it's a big that's a big
• 1:21:23
  name over there. And then darkness and you had
• 1:21:26
  been before, because I know that wasn't on your list, but you had
• 1:21:28
  been before. It was the first time I'd been
• 1:21:30
  this year and Little Miami made my my honorable mentions.
• 1:21:34
  Where am I going to put them? You know what I mean?
• 1:21:35
  It's like, well, where are you going to put them?
• 1:21:37
  I mean the other. The other thing is.
• 1:21:39
  And I almost have this rule and I kind of broke it for for like
• 1:21:43
  little Miami is a lot of times I go.
• 1:21:48
  I'm basing it. On how much beer have I had
• 1:21:51
  before I've gone there? It's it's hard sometimes to
• 1:21:53
  judge a brewery if you've only had one or two beers there and
• 1:21:57
  you hopefully you've liked them. But you know, sometimes you go
• 1:22:00
  back and you're like, I don't know about the second time.
• 1:22:03
  I mean, and, but I never got that vibe from like Little Miami
• 1:22:06
  and I certainly never got that vibe from Darkness, you know,
• 1:22:09
  and based on the the reviews I heard from other people that
• 1:22:13
  that we know as well, they're like, yeah, these places are
• 1:22:16
  just, you know, absolutely just yeah.
• 1:22:18
  And local favorites, again when when local.
• 1:22:20
  Favorites, you know, and we're not going to mention the.
• 1:22:23
  Ones that sometimes you've gone in and maybe you've enjoyed one
• 1:22:26
  or two beers and then all of a sudden you go back again, you're
• 1:22:28
  like, yeah, yeah. Like we have and that's here
• 1:22:33
  that that happens on a rare occasion.
• 1:22:34
  But it's been known to happen, so yeah, it's the same thing
• 1:22:37
  when people come to town here, we.
• 1:22:38
  Want to take them to the the good places, right?
• 1:22:41
  The the places the locals go to, those are the ones you want to
• 1:22:43
  go to so and and those the the ones you just mentioned, those
• 1:22:47
  definitely are. Couple quick notes.
• 1:22:50
  I went to 37 new breweries in three countries this year.
• 1:22:54
  Counting this one. Germany and Austria was the same
• 1:22:57
  trip and they count as different countries.
• 1:22:58
  Even though you take a train back and forth, they are
• 1:23:00
  different countries. Maybe we need to do a thing like
• 1:23:03
  where? Is what country is Scott going
• 1:23:05
  to go next? I would love that.
• 1:23:07
  I would I would like to know. How about?
• 1:23:11
  Maybe you go, you know, since I keep saying, do we, do we have
• 1:23:14
  any listeners in Antarctica? Oh, you want to send me to
• 1:23:17
  Antarctica? Maybe if you went to.
• 1:23:18
  Antarctica and found some. Beer drinkers there, Yeah.
• 1:23:21
  I wonder what the Wi-Fi well, they're drinking.
• 1:23:24
  Right. I wonder what the.
• 1:23:25
  Wi-Fi there is like. Exactly.
• 1:23:28
  I'll have to. Record it onto a tape
• 1:23:30
  physically. Bring it back and then we could
• 1:23:32
  play it. That would be how would you do
• 1:23:34
  that one? Find out.
• 1:23:35
  Are they drinking winter warmers?
• 1:23:37
  There barrel aged stuff. Do they have that there or it's
• 1:23:39
  just, you know, probably a lot of whiskey.
• 1:23:41
  I'm guessing a lot of whiskey. Probably so you know, turned
• 1:23:45
  2000 and. 30 proof. Probably don't get much crap
• 1:23:47
  beer there. They probably.
• 1:23:49
  Ship some stuff in, but yeah it would be.
• 1:23:50
  Interesting once in a while, Yeah, here's an interesting
• 1:23:53
  fact. And I only came.
• 1:23:54
  Across it. Accidentally today I was again
• 1:23:56
  just threw it on tapped. I forget what category it was.
• 1:23:59
  But anyway, I found where I drink more breweries.
• 1:24:03
  They give you a list of where you drink more beers from, from
• 1:24:05
  different breweries, right. So it's not really what this
• 1:24:07
  podcast, this episode is. But anyway, I drink I drink more
• 1:24:11
  beers from Tailgate Brewing than different any other brewery
• 1:24:15
  anywhere. I'm guessing that's probably
• 1:24:17
  almost the same for me and. The fact that it's one of the
• 1:24:20
  closest near my house and it's kind of an in between between
• 1:24:23
  you and I, you know, you get the more Nashville breweries than I
• 1:24:27
  do because you know, you're closer to Nashville.
• 1:24:30
  By the way, we always, we sometimes we, we will talk about
• 1:24:34
  how Nashville traffic, how bad it is.
• 1:24:35
  I wanted to maybe mention this today.
• 1:24:37
  I sent this to you yesterday. There was some study somewhere
• 1:24:41
  that was done that Nashville and Brant now ranks is number 30,
• 1:24:45
  not in the United States, but in the world for bad traffic.
• 1:24:49
  I don't know how they do those rankings.
• 1:24:52
  The Senate, Yeah. It's all subjective and I could
• 1:24:55
  tell you this much right now. I think they're right.
• 1:24:58
  I think they're right too. All they had to do is sit in at
• 1:25:00
  one time and they realize this is somewhere.
• 1:25:01
  On the list Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 1:25:04
  And I think that the. Thing with tailgate too is.
• 1:25:06
  They do so many new beers for every time you go, you get,
• 1:25:09
  you're getting new ones every single time.
• 1:25:12
  So if you're going every single time and you're getting four or
• 1:25:14
  five or six and they're everyone's new, that's going to
• 1:25:17
  add up over, you know, a period of the years.
• 1:25:20
  And, and, and by the way #2 I thought was interesting too, was
• 1:25:23
  Southern Grist. I had 52 new ones from them and
• 1:25:26
  I had 76 new ones from Tailgate. So I just thought it was an
• 1:25:28
  interesting little thing. Neither one of them made this
• 1:25:31
  list, but we had been, you know, not for any, you know, fault of
• 1:25:34
  their own. We had been to those breweries,
• 1:25:35
  but kind of interesting for those two.
• 1:25:37
  And then you kind of mentioned this.
• 1:25:41
  Really curious what our lists are going to look like for 2026.
• 1:25:44
  Yeah, we've got some new names coming to town, Wiseacre and
• 1:25:48
  Zul. Those will count as new
• 1:25:50
  breweries because there would be different buildings and they'll
• 1:25:53
  be located here. Yes.
• 1:25:55
  So got a, got a. Feeling.
• 1:25:57
  One or both of those might show up on our list somewhere.
• 1:26:00
  Oh, I would think so, yeah. We'll probably be there.
• 1:26:02
  Yeah, we're going to add some more when we do our.
• 1:26:05
  You know, annual spring trip, we'll have some stuff in
• 1:26:08
  between, Maybe I'll get a a couple new ones.
• 1:26:10
  I want to go to Knoxville this week and we'll see how it shakes
• 1:26:13
  out. Next year is going to be really
• 1:26:14
  interesting. Exactly, exactly.
• 1:26:17
  I agree. Well my friend, you know what?
• 1:26:19
  This has been fun and we are so glad that we could spend our
• 1:26:24
  Christmas with your Christmas. Yes, I'm drinking Christmas ale
• 1:26:28
  man, I got the hat on today. I've got it all round.
• 1:26:32
  He's jolly. Look at, he's jolly.
• 1:26:33
  His shirt even says. Jolly, that's right.
• 1:26:38
  Well, yeah, Merry Christmas everybody.
• 1:26:40
  We've got a couple more to record this year, but they won't
• 1:26:42
  be out till I guess next year, something like that.
• 1:26:45
  But anyway, Merry Christmas and we will be back very, very soon.
• 1:26:50
  Cheers, cheers. Bring Great Lakes to Tennessee.