Latest / The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel / Scott Mertie & Nashville Brewing Company: German Beer, Festbier & Oktoberfest | Re-Release of Episode 39

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Scott Mertie & Nashville Brewing Company: German Beer, Festbier & Oktoberfest | Re-Release of Episode 39 · The Brewery Underground Podcast | Craft Beer Interviews, Reviews and Beer Travel

• 0:09
  Welcome today to the Brewery Underground podcast, where once
• 0:14
  again, it doesn't happen often, but it's happening today.
• 0:18
  We're on location from Blackstone Brewery and Nashville
• 0:21
  Brewing. Steve Sullivan here along with
• 0:24
  Scott Tehran and an old familiar face.
• 0:26
  Not old, but a familiar face. Who we we had.
• 0:30
  We were at your brewery. Saint Patrick's Day.
• 0:33
  Mr. Scott Murray, How are you? My.
• 0:34
  Friend, I am doing great. Glad to have you guys here.
• 0:36
  Thank you for for us being here and coming back on with us.
• 0:39
  Sure thing. We were here Saint Patrick's
• 0:41
  Day, if I remember. That's right.
• 0:43
  So that was one event. This is a whole nother event.
• 0:45
  Today we're talking about the the next big celebration of the
• 0:48
  year. Which, that's right, we are.
• 0:50
  We are all Oktoberfest today on this podcast episode and and
• 0:55
  Brewery Underground tradition boys, let's hoist our beers.
• 0:59
  And say. Prost Roast Roast.
• 1:01
  Yes, yes, we did our homework, Scott.
• 1:03
  I know it's we are drinking the Natural Fest beer today, Natural
• 1:08
  Brewing Fest beer. That's right.
• 1:09
  And this is good stuff. Well, I've had it before and
• 1:12
  look forward to having you guys. Before we get started, our
• 1:16
  friends at Deep South Growler say.
• 1:17
  Hello to you good there. Saw them yesterday, definitely
• 1:20
  great people. Yep, they've got some of this
• 1:22
  coming, they said. They're just, I think it's
• 1:24
  whatever. Yeah.
• 1:24
  So our fest beer, we just packaged, packaged it and then
• 1:28
  so it's going out in the market. So the first, the first question
• 1:33
  off the bat, because we were with a group of friends over the
• 1:36
  weekend and everybody sat around talking about this.
• 1:39
  Does it seem like Oktoberfest season?
• 1:42
  Does it start earlier and earlier every year?
• 1:43
  What do you what do you think about that?
• 1:45
  So it, it does seem to So what, what what happens is and there's
• 1:50
  there's several different arguments with this, but it all
• 1:53
  comes down to distribution, which means dollars.
• 1:57
  And so the distributors or the retailers kind of dictate to
• 2:01
  distributors they want to have certain things set up in their
• 2:04
  retail establishments. And part of that had to do with
• 2:08
  particularly Oktoberfest is Sam Adams.
• 2:11
  They started kind of dictating this.
• 2:13
  And so to have, you know, in the retail establishments, all the
• 2:19
  Oktoberfest beers out. Initially, again, it was Sam
• 2:22
  Adams, but then the retailers wanted other beers outside just
• 2:26
  Sam Adams. So they reach out to
• 2:28
  distributors and then distributors who are buying the
• 2:31
  beer from us dictate, yes, we want Oktoberfest out.
• 2:36
  And that's the same thing with the Blackstone Pumpkin Ale.
• 2:39
  They wanted out earlier and earlier.
• 2:40
  And everyone's like, why is a pumpkin ale out in August?
• 2:42
  Why is an Oktoberfest out in August?
• 2:45
  So we have it ready in August. We consider the Oktoberfest
• 2:49
  season officially start in September, which is, you know,
• 2:53
  really what it does in Germany and in mid September's truly
• 2:57
  when Oktoberfest starts. But so we definitely have
• 3:00
  everything ready. This is a Logger beer and as you
• 3:04
  guys know and all your listeners know, Logger means to age and
• 3:09
  it's a Martin style beer. Martin is German for March, so
• 3:13
  it was brewed in the spring, loggering all summer long,
• 3:18
  recently packaged and now ready to enjoy.
• 3:21
  I have to admit I am one of the first people, not one of the
• 3:23
  first people. But when I saw that Oktoberfest
• 3:27
  Sam Adams was out on the shelves the other day, I had to go out
• 3:30
  and get it. But I also have your beer now,
• 3:34
  which I plan to get anyway. And you know the question I
• 3:37
  have, because I I am a big Oktoberfest guy.
• 3:40
  Why do you think Oktoberfest is such a popular beer with so many
• 3:44
  people across the country and really across the world?
• 3:46
  Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it just
• 3:48
  has to do with the theme of the party, just like when you guys
• 3:52
  were here for Saint Patty's Day and everyone wants to drink a
• 3:55
  Guinness or a green beer. And green beer obviously had
• 3:59
  absolutely nothing to do with Saint Patrick's or anything like
• 4:03
  that. So but it's it's an excuse to
• 4:05
  party. So you know, it's hot,
• 4:08
  especially here in Nashville, it's very hot.
• 4:10
  We've had a long summer. We've had a few mornings now
• 4:13
  recently where it starts, you start feeling that fall football
• 4:17
  weather and to me Oktoberfest kind of coincides with that when
• 4:21
  you start feeling, even though it's still getting 90 during the
• 4:23
  day, we are having some cool mornings.
• 4:26
  And so I think everyone just gets in the mood and Oktoberfest
• 4:31
  truly is just about a party and is originally a wedding festival
• 4:35
  and I'm sure we'll talk about that later.
• 4:37
  I'm sure you got some questions about that, but it's just an
• 4:40
  excuse to party and enjoy and everyone has been drinking
• 4:46
  summer beers and now all of a sudden we got a beer, amber
• 4:50
  colored beer. It's a little more malty and
• 4:53
  just starts to go well with cooler temperatures.
• 4:57
  It it does and part of that is OK, I don't mind it coming in
• 5:01
  early. It also goes away early too at
• 5:03
  the same time. So that's the other set.
• 5:05
  Like, I love Oktoberfest beers, but then that goes away and then
• 5:08
  you got the next stuff. That's what, October.
• 5:11
  Yeah, technically with the new wave will come in.
• 5:14
  The the way a lot of the retailers work is, is so they'll
• 5:17
  have beers that they contract to be year round and then they have
• 5:22
  beers that they contract with to be seasonal.
• 5:24
  And so Oktoberfest was viewed more as a September, October,
• 5:29
  November beer and that's turned into in August, September,
• 5:35
  October beer. So now it's, you know, at the
• 5:38
  end of October, it's gone. Now, we'll certainly make it as
• 5:41
  long as people want to buy it, but that's just how it works.
• 5:45
  And then we Gallison jump into winter beers.
• 5:47
  So that's when we get in our box and, and all that, but the the
• 5:51
  Blackstone pumpkin that fortunately does kind of still
• 5:54
  lag behind a month right now. So that's more of the September,
• 5:57
  October and November. So we're still having that at
• 6:00
  Thanksgiving. And I love that because that
• 6:02
  tends to be a little bit heavier.
• 6:03
  It's got those, those those holidays, Christmas flavors, you
• 6:06
  know, which are really good. And it was my when I would see
• 6:08
  the pumpkin come out in September, I'm like, OK, all
• 6:11
  right. Now we're really kind of getting
• 6:12
  in the fall. Yeah.
• 6:13
  And one thing I just want to throw out about the pumpkin, I
• 6:16
  know we're here to talk about Oktoberfest, but that Blackstone
• 6:19
  pumpkin beer, that one gold last year, so as the number one rated
• 6:23
  pumpkin beer in the United States, right?
• 6:25
  Now it's really good. It is fantastic.
• 6:27
  Look, and I know we've talked about on tap.
• 6:28
  We don't have to talk about on tap, but it's one of the three
• 6:30
  beers I rate of 5. That's that's awesome to hear.
• 6:33
  It is, thank you one of my favorite no.
• 6:35
  It really is. So your best beer would, would
• 6:38
  you say over the the last few years since you've had it?
• 6:41
  Well, you've had it for a long time certainly.
• 6:43
  Have you seen a spike in production because of the demand
• 6:46
  over the years? Where?
• 6:47
  Where was it stand? I wouldn't say Spike.
• 6:51
  It is always popular in the fall.
• 6:53
  Yeah. So it's a seasonal beer.
• 6:55
  You know, we have, you know, as far as our loggers and the
• 6:57
  national brewing brand, we have our Amber beer, which is year
• 7:00
  round. But our, our, our fest beer
• 7:04
  certainly is a different beer than the Amber.
• 7:06
  It's much more multi year and so that spike definitely goes up.
• 7:11
  You know, when it comes out, people want it, we sell out of
• 7:14
  it. You know, we always try to have
• 7:16
  that magic ball to figure out how much do we need to make.
• 7:21
  And so, you know, we, we ramp up, you know, because we're
• 7:25
  brewing it months ahead of time. And so when it sells out, it
• 7:30
  sells out because it's not something like now also know we
• 7:33
  need to make more. We we can't because, you know,
• 7:36
  it's a beer that truly needs to lager and it takes time.
• 7:39
  It traditionally it's been brewed in March, in March.
• 7:42
  So. Modern day, is it still that
• 7:45
  way? So yeah, so we're able to to
• 7:47
  speed up things a little bit with modern day science.
• 7:50
  But yeah, so we we still do lager it.
• 7:52
  And if you want me to jump in a little of the history of that,
• 7:55
  I'd be happy. To you've done you've done a
• 7:57
  YouTube video on that really it's fascinating to.
• 8:00
  Share about the so so yeah, just to clarify, so Oktoberfest is
• 8:05
  not a style of beer. It's a more of a generic term.
• 8:10
  Oktoberfest is a festival, a Volks festival as they call it
• 8:13
  in Germany. Originally for a wedding, which
• 8:19
  we'll get into that in a second. But as far as the beer styles
• 8:22
  go, Oktoberfest was originally a that style beer was a Dunkle,
• 8:28
  which is German for dark. It was a dark beer and really
• 8:32
  all loggers were dark beers. But as Oktoberfest first started
• 8:36
  in 1810 was the first Oktoberfest.
• 8:39
  It was a dark beer until the 1870s when some changes in
• 8:45
  science with malting the the barley malts and going from a
• 8:49
  killing method from a a roasting method with an open flame able
• 8:55
  to come out with lighter beer. So the amber style marts in as
• 8:59
  we know came out at that point and it was always referred to as
• 9:03
  a Martson because it's brewed in the March and lager in the
• 9:05
  summer. But the modern day Martson that
• 9:08
  we know came out in the 1870s and that is a amber colored
• 9:12
  beer. So it was lighting down purely
• 9:16
  because of popularity, what people wanted at that time.
• 9:21
  And then it wasn't until really a century later that we came out
• 9:26
  with, or I say we, that the Germans came out with fest beer,
• 9:30
  the, the, the breweries of Oktoberfest.
• 9:32
  And they select breweries that are allowed to participate in
• 9:35
  Oktoberfest. But they came out with the fest
• 9:37
  beer, which is a little bit lighter in color, lighter and
• 9:42
  alcohol. Most of them tend to be slightly
• 9:46
  Hoppier, but they were really made to be able to be where you
• 9:50
  can consume a little bit more in a festival format than the multi
• 9:55
  year little higher alcohol Martsen beer.
• 9:58
  But so both the Martsen and the fest beer are kind of fall into
• 10:03
  the category of Oktoberfest beers, but they're really are
• 10:06
  two different beers. So that was that was one of my
• 10:08
  questions. Oktoberfest is kind of the
• 10:10
  generic term covers all of them. Let me throw some words at you
• 10:13
  that I kind of get confused about.
• 10:15
  And maybe they're all synonymous roast.
• 10:18
  And I know that means cheers in German, but also I see that on
• 10:20
  labels, pros beer, a Martsen, a fest beer, an Oktoberfest, Are
• 10:25
  they all similar? They're all.
• 10:27
  Basically the same thing. So a pros beers, they're just
• 10:31
  using the German term as cheers. You know, just a beer,
• 10:36
  celebratory beer. Martsen beer again would be the
• 10:41
  more say traditional Oktoberfest beer.
• 10:46
  When I say traditional, going back a century prior to that it
• 10:50
  was a dunkle. It was a much darker beer.
• 10:53
  And then you know, mostly what's been served in Oktoberfest.
• 10:57
  And I, I go to Oktoberfest quite a bit in Germany.
• 11:00
  They are a lighter version. So even though we call our beer
• 11:04
  a fest beer, it is truly a Martin beer as far as the style
• 11:09
  goes. It's more of the amber style.
• 11:10
  We call it fest beer that was purely just for marketing
• 11:13
  purposes. Because if we called it
• 11:16
  Oktoberfest, people think October only drink this beer in
• 11:19
  October. We call it Martin.
• 11:23
  When we first came out with this, you know, not no discredit
• 11:27
  to the public, people listening, but people don't know what the
• 11:31
  hell Martin means. So we're trying to think of
• 11:33
  something fest beer, festival beer.
• 11:35
  So we called it a fest beer. But the style truly is a Martin
• 11:39
  beer versus what a German fest beer would be.
• 11:42
  OK, So. All right.
• 11:43
  Yeah. When you were when you were
• 11:45
  delving really into the history of tracing back Oktoberfest in
• 11:50
  other countries and how they did it way back when, what really
• 11:53
  kind of struck your fancy like this is really way out there,
• 11:56
  you know, because it was back in the day where they were just
• 11:59
  figuring it out. Yeah, they, they were just
• 12:01
  figuring out and, and, you know, loggers in general, they're
• 12:04
  figuring out because, you know, that it really was a happy
• 12:08
  accident. I know we briefly talked about
• 12:10
  this before, but you know, going back 7-8 hundred years, the
• 12:17
  originally is the monasteries that were trying in Bavaria
• 12:20
  trying to, you know, put quality with the with their beer product
• 12:24
  saying we're not brewing during the summer because bacteria
• 12:29
  grows during the warmer months. So we're going to brew in the
• 12:33
  winter through the spring, which would be March, and then we're
• 12:38
  not going to brew anymore until the fall comes about.
• 12:41
  So they would that last batch of beer or batches of beer would be
• 12:47
  the Marks and beer would be they take all the leftover malt, all
• 12:51
  the extra malt and brew those beers.
• 12:53
  And then they would logger that all summer long.
• 12:56
  And to logger they would put in caves and later dugout Cellars.
• 13:01
  But originally caves they packed with ice to keep them cool and
• 13:05
  they would drink off it throughout the year.
• 13:08
  And ultimately, that was referred to as old beer because
• 13:11
  they were drinking this old beer from March, waiting for the new
• 13:15
  beer. Because in ale terms, when we
• 13:18
  think of ale, ales are fresh beers.
• 13:20
  So they're like, we're still drinking this old beer until
• 13:24
  fall comes around when we can start brewing again.
• 13:28
  And in the fall, once we start brewing, we have our new beer.
• 13:32
  But we got to get rid of this old beer.
• 13:34
  It's a long before the official Oktoberfest of 1810, they're
• 13:38
  having fall festivals. You know, every culture had
• 13:40
  harvest festivals, you know, to celebrate the fall harvest.
• 13:44
  And with that, they were drinking the old beer to get rid
• 13:48
  of it, to make room, the cellar so they could start brewing
• 13:51
  fresh beer and putting that in Cellars.
• 13:53
  But over time the yeast and this is really getting in the science
• 13:58
  of things, but the yeast cells, the ale yeast cells were not
• 14:03
  surviving in these cooler temperatures.
• 14:06
  And again that that happy accident, what happened was
• 14:10
  there was another type of yeast cell that started surviving at
• 14:13
  these cooler temperatures. And later we found out once we
• 14:16
  had the microscope, this all came about in the 1870s at the
• 14:21
  Carlsberg Brewery, which are ironically, I was there last
• 14:24
  week. They're famous for their their
• 14:26
  laboratory at the Carlsberg brewery, but they're the first
• 14:29
  brewery to to isolate a yeast cell.
• 14:32
  So in 1870s, they isolated that original yeast cell that came
• 14:36
  from Spottin. So Carl Jacobson, who's the son
• 14:41
  of the founder of Carlsberg Brewery, he brought yeast from
• 14:45
  Spottin in Munich to Denmark to Copenhagen.
• 14:50
  And their lab, they were able to isolate the yeast cell and come
• 14:55
  out with what now we know is what the lager yeast cell is.
• 15:00
  And so we have our ale yeast, we have our lager yeast, but over,
• 15:03
  you know, centuries prior to that, you know, we really didn't
• 15:08
  know the difference and just start happening over time.
• 15:11
  And but because we weren't distributing beer, beer was just
• 15:14
  drank locally as those ale cells, ale yeast cells were
• 15:19
  dying off the lottery. Yeast cells were surviving.
• 15:23
  And they would use old batches of beer to bring the yeast into
• 15:27
  ferment, new batches of beer, even though they didn't know
• 15:29
  what yeast was, again, they knew something was happening,
• 15:32
  something was alive in that. So they would, you know, like in
• 15:36
  the bourbon industry, we call it heads and tails.
• 15:38
  So bring kind of a little bit from the old batch, the new
• 15:40
  batch. That's how they were keeping
• 15:42
  that. And over time they started
• 15:44
  isolating yeast cells, but it wasn't till Carlsberg that they
• 15:47
  truly isolated the East. So I'm, I'm going off on a huge
• 15:50
  tangent. No, it's great.
• 15:52
  But from from the science standpoint, yeah.
• 15:55
  They knew something was happening.
• 15:56
  They didn't. Know quite what it was exactly
• 15:57
  they knew something was happening so but they had these
• 15:59
  volks festivals that to celebrate in the the fall
• 16:03
  festival for this fall harvest and drink up the old beer.
• 16:06
  And that's where Oktoberfest, the original Oktoberfest,
• 16:09
  started until 1810, which became the modern Oktoberfest.
• 16:14
  Yeah. I mean, one of the things that
• 16:16
  that I think is really cool is that the National Brewing Fest
• 16:20
  beer, you've actually been able to trace it back to the first
• 16:23
  Oktoberfest in 18th century. So, yeah, so that that original
• 16:27
  Oktoberfest was a wedding celebration.
• 16:30
  So King Max Maximilian, who was the first king of Bavaria.
• 16:37
  So I don't know if you ever heard of the, the, the Viddle
• 16:40
  box. So the Viddlebox are the royalty
• 16:44
  of the No Yeah, please. Yeah, we're we're going to open
• 16:46
  some more beers here for those that are listening.
• 16:50
  This is a beer podcast after. All why not?
• 16:53
  Steve there you go. Prost Roast.
• 16:59
  And so the Viddlebox were the royalty of Munich and Bavaria.
• 17:05
  And you know, of course, 1000 years ago Germany was not the
• 17:08
  Germany we know of today, but it was many regions that started
• 17:12
  coming together. And so there's a lot of history
• 17:15
  with the Viddle box. But in 1810 or shortly before
• 17:20
  1810, a few years before that, Napoleon declared because of the
• 17:23
  relationship with Bavaria, they were all Dukes then, but he
• 17:27
  declared that a Kingdom. So Maximilian became the first
• 17:31
  king in modern day Germany and he was not very popular because
• 17:38
  he started uniting. So originally it was the area in
• 17:41
  in Munich and bringing in Bavarian kind of uniting all
• 17:45
  this. And so he was not the most
• 17:48
  popular guy in the world because all some people are paying taxes
• 17:51
  to a king that they didn't necessarily want and it was
• 17:54
  dictated and, you know, like any monarchy also, and they're
• 17:58
  having to do things that they weren't used to.
• 18:00
  And so when his son was getting married in 1810, his son was
• 18:05
  Prince Ludwig. Again, this was the first king.
• 18:08
  So Dukes for centuries. So the first king, he's trying
• 18:12
  to figure out how can I get popular?
• 18:15
  You know, basically he used his son's wedding as APR.
• 18:20
  So his son was Ludwig was marrying a, a, a woman named
• 18:25
  Teresa. And he decided to invite all the
• 18:29
  commoners of Munich to this wedding celebration and which
• 18:34
  was unheard of. I mean, this is royalty.
• 18:37
  And also you have commoners coming and of course beer is
• 18:40
  provided, there's other activities, a big horse race
• 18:44
  and, and all that. And that was in 1810 and it was
• 18:48
  in October back then. October 12th, if I remember
• 18:52
  correctly, don't quote me on that, but I think it's October
• 18:57
  12th, was the the wedding celebration.
• 19:00
  And then it lasted for five days.
• 19:03
  And what happened was the people were so appreciative that they
• 19:05
  got invited to this event. They wanted to celebrate the
• 19:09
  wedding again the next year. And it continued to continue a
• 19:12
  few years after that. The Napoleon Wars ended up we
• 19:16
  had a few year hiatus of Oktoberfest and after that it
• 19:20
  picked back up again and then we had a few plagues and then we
• 19:23
  had World War One, World War 2, and then COVID.
• 19:27
  So Oktoberfest had been cancelled I think about a dozen
• 19:31
  times over the years. But it's either been with
• 19:33
  plagues or or wars but. Major events still.
• 19:37
  Stands the test of time. But yeah, it was originally a
• 19:39
  wedding celebration. And again, it was that that dark
• 19:43
  Dunkle beer, which was all of the beer of the time until later
• 19:47
  in the in the 1800s when they were able to develop lighter
• 19:52
  malts. You eluding to back what Steve
• 19:55
  mentioned on your YouTube video that you would send us.
• 19:59
  You had mentioned something about Oktoberfest coming out of
• 20:02
  KLLS and Ipas that goes back even further in.
• 20:06
  Oktoberfest. So how does that?
• 20:08
  Yeah, So again, beer being dark, so dark beer was the thing they
• 20:14
  they had no way to control when they were starting malting.
• 20:17
  Beer and malting started as a way to really get more bang for
• 20:22
  the buck when it comes to getting more sugar out of the
• 20:25
  the malt out of the barley go through a malting process, you
• 20:29
  get more starches that are convertible into fermentable
• 20:32
  sugars. So you get more alcohol out of
• 20:35
  your your your bushel of grain with malting.
• 20:40
  But to do that, yeah, to go through a a sprouting process
• 20:44
  where the, the, the, the malt would germinate and it starts to
• 20:48
  sprout. And then you would, you would
• 20:50
  dry it out. And it used to be open flame.
• 20:53
  And with open flame, you really cannot control the color.
• 20:56
  So the beer was dark, and it's really dark all over the world.
• 21:00
  In the 1700s, the British figured out a killing method to
• 21:06
  kiln malt rather than the open flame, and so they were able to
• 21:10
  control color. So it was a a pale pale malt or
• 21:14
  pale ale that the Brits first came out with.
• 21:18
  And so the the founder of Spottin Brewery out of Bavaria,
• 21:24
  he sent his son supposedly a training mission, but it's a
• 21:30
  little bit of espionage involved at the time again bring.
• 21:34
  Something home with. Yeah, breweries weren't
• 21:36
  exporting beer at that time and stuff, so he wasn't really
• 21:39
  viewed as competition. But he sent his son and another
• 21:45
  Brewer over to England as apprentices to learn what the
• 21:49
  Brits were doing. And one of the big things that
• 21:51
  they learned and they were supposed to be there to learn
• 21:54
  about fermentation, but what they learned about was molting
• 21:58
  and what they took back with them.
• 22:00
  And with that they brought back how to malt beer using the
• 22:05
  killing method or malt barley using the killing method, having
• 22:08
  lighter colors. And so that first official light
• 22:11
  color came out in 1840, the 1841 brewing season, of course, this
• 22:16
  is the winner. And that was in Vienna, which
• 22:19
  was the the partner of Spot and Sun that went his name was Drear
• 22:25
  DRUEHLI think I'm I'm not going to be able to pronounce it, but
• 22:31
  he came out with the first amber lager, which nowadays we call it
• 22:35
  a Vienna lager, right? So the next year in Pilsen,
• 22:42
  Czech Republic, they recruited a Brewer.
• 22:45
  They had a whole meltdown there. The whole town review revolted
• 22:50
  in pills and because their beer was shit and they, you know,
• 22:54
  honestly, they they complained, they threw all the beer out in
• 22:56
  the streets and said our beer is shit.
• 22:58
  And they, you know, protested town council bring in a Brewer
• 23:02
  that can make some decent beer. Wow.
• 23:04
  And so these were just, you know, they were they were doing
• 23:07
  loggers. They were shitty loggers and and
• 23:10
  and they wanted something different.
• 23:11
  And so they recruited this guy named Grohl from Vilshoff in
• 23:15
  Bavaria, which is right on the Danny River, recruited him and
• 23:19
  he brought that killing method. But Pilsen, they had something
• 23:23
  different. They had soft water, so the
• 23:25
  water was different. And then their size hop that
• 23:28
  came out with Pilsner beer. So then that came about.
• 23:31
  And then later again, a couple decades later, Spotting came out
• 23:36
  with an amber lager, which then became the Oktoberfest that we
• 23:40
  know in the 1870s. Yeah, it's really, it's it's,
• 23:44
  it's really progressed. You can really see it.
• 23:47
  Something that stands out that you talked about a few minutes
• 23:50
  ago, you're going to some of these countries where it was
• 23:53
  like where Oktoberfest was born and you're seeing this first
• 23:58
  hand. What what is your reaction now
• 24:02
  having had that experience? Yeah.
• 24:03
  So it's, I mean, I'm kind of dubbed a beer historian, but I'm
• 24:09
  like by no means a historian And you know, I'm just, I'm
• 24:12
  fascinated by it. I appreciate it and I try to
• 24:14
  share that the information I learned.
• 24:17
  So I love to travel and I mean, growing up I hated history and,
• 24:20
  and now I'm fascinated by history.
• 24:22
  But going to some of these places, particularly in Bavaria,
• 24:25
  northern Bavaria, where loggers just were first developed and,
• 24:31
  and in, in Munich, where or Teresa Vice, which is Theresa
• 24:36
  Vice, in which is the, the area where the original Oktoberfest
• 24:40
  happened in 1810, where that wedding celebration was, is
• 24:44
  still where Oktoberfest is held to this day.
• 24:47
  Over 200 years later, it's still held in the same spot and they
• 24:50
  call it Teresa Vice. And because it Teresa was the
• 24:53
  bride and Vice, Vice is Meadow and so is Teresa's Meadow is
• 24:58
  what where that wedding was. And that's what they call it to
• 25:02
  this day. So in Germany, they don't say
• 25:04
  we're going to Oktoberfest. They said we're going to advise
• 25:07
  them. OK, so and that's not advising
• 25:09
  to be confused with like half of vice in or, you know, Vice beer.
• 25:14
  But as a as a beer historian, as you say you are now, is that on
• 25:19
  there? Is that part of your bucket list
• 25:20
  like you've checked that off? Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 25:22
  I mean, it's fascinating. I do it again and again.
• 25:25
  It's it's not something, it's not, it's not a one and done.
• 25:28
  It's one of those things that's, you know, it's, it's just
• 25:30
  fascinating to be part of and you're sitting there drinking an
• 25:34
  environment where people have been celebrating this for over
• 25:38
  200 years and unlike. Oktoberfest like sober fests
• 25:45
  here in this country, there are only 6 beers represented, right?
• 25:49
  And they have to be from Munich to be a part of that October
• 25:52
  fest. That's.
• 25:52
  Right. So these were breweries that
• 25:55
  were around in 1810. So when this original wedding
• 25:59
  celebration happened in the, the city of Munich and there, there
• 26:04
  were 8, and that there was some a little bit consolidation.
• 26:07
  So now there's six, but those are still the six breweries that
• 26:10
  are only allowed to participate. And, and, and so they are a
• 26:14
  couple of brands we know because they're exporting here in the
• 26:17
  US. Polliner Yep.
• 26:19
  Spottin Hofbrau, which is the royal Brewery.
• 26:22
  That's, that's, that's what the, the, the, the Viddle box, that
• 26:25
  royal family that I mentioned, that was, they started that
• 26:28
  brewery centuries earlier, Lowenbrau, Hacker Shore, and
• 26:33
  Augustiner. And Augustiner was the original
• 26:37
  Monk brewery. Pauliner was also a Monk
• 26:39
  brewery. But Augustiner is the oldest
• 26:41
  brewery in Munich by far. But those are the only 6
• 26:44
  breweries that are allowed to sell beer at Oktoberfest.
• 26:48
  Do you know of the best places or places in town liquor store
• 26:52
  wise where you can find those brands?
• 26:55
  You can't put me on the spot because I I do not know offhand.
• 26:58
  I know most of them are going to carry Polliner, Spottin and a
• 27:04
  lot of them carry Hofbrau as well.
• 27:07
  The Augustiner, the Hacker Shore and Lowenbrau I do not see as
• 27:11
  much exported into the USI. Have to say, Cool Springs Wine
• 27:14
  and Spirits does a good job. They've got, I don't know if
• 27:16
  you've been in there in a while, in that beer section, they've
• 27:18
  got one wall that's kind of nothing but exports or imports,
• 27:21
  I guess, on this one, and they do a good job of that.
• 27:23
  I don't think I've got everyone, but I recognize a lot of those.
• 27:25
  And there's a lot of other German Oktoberfest beers that
• 27:29
  are sold here in the United States and a lot of other
• 27:31
  Bavarian Oktoberfest beers. But as far as Munich, October
• 27:35
  Vest Beers is just those 6. The the the originals, so to.
• 27:39
  Speak. Yep.
• 27:40
  So we mentioned, you know, in the beginning of this podcast
• 27:43
  that we had you on a couple of months ago on our Saint
• 27:46
  Patrick's Day podcast and we actually did a two-part series
• 27:49
  on that. You can check it out.
• 27:50
  Check out you know, episode 16 and 17 Sullivan's are on brewing
• 27:54
  adventures dot. Com shameless plug and on.
• 27:56
  Spotify and of course on nashvillebrewing.com as well.
• 28:01
  One of the things that we talked about, and This is why I'm
• 28:03
  bringing it up, it's not just a shameless plug.
• 28:05
  No, you have a beer can collection of over 10,000, which
• 28:10
  we know is impressive. Do you know how many Oktoberfest
• 28:15
  ones you may have from around the world?
• 28:18
  Yeah. So, yeah, surprisingly, I do not
• 28:21
  have that many now. Yeah, I'd say in the past
• 28:24
  decade, we have a lot of breweries in the US that are
• 28:28
  craft breweries that are starting to can and but I those
• 28:31
  are not really things that I collect.
• 28:33
  I collect older cans. So I have a spot in Oktoberfest
• 28:39
  beer can probably from the, I think the 60s.
• 28:45
  But you know, as far as the German breweries do exports,
• 28:48
  they they just did not export. They do not can, you know,
• 28:52
  canning came, came later. They, you know, beer was, was
• 28:55
  more of a local thing. So in the 70s in the United
• 28:59
  States, we started seeing a lot of breweries starting to do
• 29:03
  Oktoberfest, particularly in Wisconsin, Cincinnati.
• 29:07
  I know you're a Cincinnati guy. You know, really not so much out
• 29:12
  of Saint Louis because I was so much of A Anheuser Busch
• 29:14
  environment. You didn't see Budweiser doing
• 29:17
  that. But a lot of the breweries in
• 29:18
  Wisconsin, we were doing that, you know, towns that still had
• 29:23
  mid sized breweries, not national breweries.
• 29:28
  Of of your collection in at Saint Patrick's Day, you had
• 29:33
  shared a video, You had shared with us a video of a Guinness
• 29:37
  that you had that was many years old.
• 29:40
  I don't remember it was. 50 years old, yeah, I think that
• 29:42
  was probably 19. Late late 50s or early 60s.
• 29:45
  Guinness can. And the video?
• 29:47
  You drank it, you drank one. Do you have any unopened
• 29:50
  Oktoberfest? I do not.
• 29:52
  I do not. And again, I mean historically,
• 29:56
  I mean back until just the past couple of decades, you know,
• 30:01
  October Rest beer, it was truly just a seasonal beer.
• 30:04
  It was made to be drunk. At that time it was not
• 30:07
  exported. It was just a considered a local
• 30:10
  beer. Whereas Guinness at that time
• 30:12
  was an export beer. Yeah, just funny you talk about
• 30:15
  that because we, you know, we mentioned in the beginning of
• 30:17
  the podcast where it's it's almost become like on your mark
• 30:20
  set go here comes Oktoberfest season.
• 30:23
  I know I had seen some Oktoberfest out already, like
• 30:28
  the end of July and I was going wow.
• 30:32
  Yeah, it's it's. Pushing it, pushing it every
• 30:35
  year. But, but we were also, there
• 30:37
  were a group of friends, we were talking about this.
• 30:39
  Do you think if you go further north, maybe where the weather
• 30:43
  is sometimes a little cooler, even maybe in the summertime,
• 30:47
  that the Oktoberfest beers are coming out a little bit even
• 30:50
  sooner than that? Probably so I, I travel up north
• 30:53
  quite a bit for business and so I, I definitely see it out.
• 30:57
  Yeah. What about the way to, to
• 31:00
  Steve's point, the way we come out with it earlier and earlier
• 31:03
  here? Is that even a thing in Germany
• 31:06
  or Eastern Europe, or do they wait for Oktoberfest for those
• 31:08
  beers? They are very, very traditional
• 31:11
  over there. So we're not going to see this
• 31:13
  style beer out until September, right?
• 31:16
  Do they? So the Oktoberfest, just to kind
• 31:19
  of let you know how that officially starts.
• 31:21
  So that, that official wedding that I mentioned was in, in
• 31:26
  mid-october and that's how the celebration was for a number of
• 31:30
  years. And then you know, in the later
• 31:32
  1800s, because of cooler temperatures and not having
• 31:36
  daylight, once daylight savings time came around, they said
• 31:39
  let's push Oktoberfest up. So that's why we have
• 31:42
  Oktoberfest and September. So Oktoberfest is always in
• 31:46
  September. It ends the first Sunday of
• 31:51
  October. So that's officially how we've
• 31:53
  had for decades now. The Munich Oktoberfest is always
• 31:59
  two weeks. It starts two weeks prior to
• 32:02
  that first Sunday of October. So it's three weekends, two
• 32:06
  weeks back-to-back. And so our Oktoberfest that we
• 32:09
  have here at our brewery, we always coincide with the Munich
• 32:13
  Oktoberfest, but we try and push that back as late as possible
• 32:17
  just because people in the United States, they don't
• 32:20
  understand Oktoberfest and September, which I appreciate.
• 32:23
  Cincinnati. Cincinnati has the second
• 32:26
  largest Oktoberfest in the United States, or I'm sorry, in
• 32:29
  the world. I went the largest in the in the
• 32:32
  United States and that's always in September.
• 32:34
  Yeah, I went about five years ago.
• 32:36
  I hadn't been since I was younger and it's extraordinary.
• 32:39
  It's fantastic. It's such a fun of, yeah.
• 32:41
  I was there last year and but they always start the same time
• 32:46
  that Munich Oktoberfest starts. They don't go the entire two
• 32:50
  weeks. Yeah, it's a it's about a three
• 32:54
  or four day event. Yeah, they get hundreds of.
• 32:56
  Thousands of people? Yep.
• 32:57
  And they come in for that. No, it's, it's fantastic.
• 32:59
  So I definitely recommend that you to to to to go to
• 33:04
  Cincinnati's Oktoberfest. Well, let's talk about the
• 33:07
  German Oktoberfest a little more.
• 33:09
  If someone were to go for the first time, what would they
• 33:12
  expect? What would you recommend to
• 33:14
  them? Could you give them any advice
• 33:16
  or just what? What would you expect to go?
• 33:18
  Yeah. For the first time.
• 33:19
  First thing is, hotels are a nightmare in Munich.
• 33:23
  But German transportation is awesome.
• 33:27
  So you can stay, you know, an hour, 2 hours outside of Munich.
• 33:31
  You can stay in Austria, you can stay in other countries and take
• 33:34
  a train in, it's no problem at all.
• 33:36
  Take a train into central Munich and then a subway station or the
• 33:40
  subway from there is 2 stops to the, the, the Theresa Vice where
• 33:47
  where Oktoberfest is. So two stops and you're there.
• 33:50
  So it's very simple to get to. You do not have to stay in
• 33:53
  Munich and pay outrageous hotel prices.
• 33:56
  Second thing is just for those that are going, you can't bring
• 33:59
  backpacks or anything like that. And so they have lockers out
• 34:02
  there. So keep keep that in mind.
• 34:04
  You're not going to be able to carry stuff in.
• 34:06
  Third thing is dress up. If you don't dress up, you're
• 34:11
  going to be a minority. So wear your turtle where your
• 34:16
  leader Hosen. Don't wear your slutty Halloween
• 34:19
  Durndal outfit though. Beer wench outfit.
• 34:22
  They're more traditional durndals.
• 34:27
  I I guess I don't have a slutty leader Hosen outfit.
• 34:29
  So leader hosen or leader Hosen. But yeah, for for the girls, you
• 34:34
  know, just just a a traditional journal.
• 34:40
  The beer there is I think right now it's going for 14 year old
• 34:45
  for a a Moss, which I'm holding up a leader mug right now.
• 34:51
  Do not call it a Stein. It is not a Stein.
• 34:53
  Steins are are Stein mean stone. A Stein is a clay pottery type
• 34:59
  thing that you see the fancy, you know, molded Stein.
• 35:04
  More of a decoration. A glass mug liter mug is a Moss.
• 35:09
  Moss is German for measure that goes back centuries.
• 35:13
  But you would get a measure of beer and that's a liter of beer.
• 35:16
  You're not going to get any other size.
• 35:18
  You're only get a going to get a beer in the leader.
• 35:21
  You're only going to get those six breweries that we mentioned.
• 35:23
  They all have their various tents.
• 35:26
  A few of the breweries have multiple tents.
• 35:29
  So like Augustine or has a couple different tents.
• 35:31
  I recommend the Augustine or yeah, Augustine or is again the
• 35:37
  oldest. And I just think Augustine or
• 35:41
  Oktoberfest beer is phenomenal their their their Marks and is
• 35:44
  phenomenal beer. I would you definitely check
• 35:47
  them all out but but Augustiner is by far the one to check out.
• 35:50
  I assume they're all kind of close proximity too.
• 35:53
  When Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's like a a State Fair.
• 35:56
  When you go in there, you're going to have the beer tents,
• 35:58
  you're going to have food in the backside of October of the, the,
• 36:03
  the festival area. You're going to have rides and
• 36:05
  stuff. Honestly, I've been Oktoberfest
• 36:08
  many times. I've never made it back to the
• 36:09
  rides. I always hang out in the beer
• 36:11
  tents, but these beer tents, I mean, they hold 6 to 10,000
• 36:15
  people. They are huge.
• 36:17
  And I'll tell you too, the efficiency is amazing.
• 36:21
  And I mentioned €14.00, just have a €20 bill.
• 36:26
  They're not used to tipping in Europe.
• 36:29
  Now they do have a lot of tourists.
• 36:30
  There's a lot of Americans. If you give them a 20, say keep
• 36:33
  the change, they're going to remember you.
• 36:35
  So you're not going to have to wait for a beer.
• 36:37
  Once your beer starts going down, they're going to remember
• 36:40
  you because of the tips, OK, Because most Europeans are not
• 36:43
  going to, particularly the southern Europeans that are
• 36:46
  coming. There's a lot of Italian,
• 36:47
  Spanish, Greeks that come up and they don't tip it all.
• 36:51
  So €14.00 they're going to cut out and give €14.00.
• 36:54
  If you give them €20, if you start going down, they're going
• 36:57
  to make sure to make sure your beer is full.
• 36:59
  So I'm not going to put you on the spot and ask how many
• 37:02
  different Oktoberfest beers you think you've had in your life.
• 37:06
  You, you can tell me if you if you think you know.
• 37:08
  However, I do want to know what do you think makes for a good
• 37:12
  Oktoberfest beer as a guy that likes to drink it?
• 37:15
  Like, do you know right away if you're drinking somebody else's
• 37:18
  and you're just like, Nah, this is.
• 37:21
  OK, so so two-part questions. So first, I have no idea how
• 37:25
  many different beers I I've had, but I will say at one
• 37:29
  Oktoberfest, I think this was in 2018, I had 11 liters.
• 37:34
  So 11 of these boss beers. Now it's throughout the day, but
• 37:40
  11 liters. And so 4 liters is a gallon.
• 37:44
  So, so if you do the math, you know, so roughly, yeah, almost 3
• 37:50
  gallons. I'm, I'm a big guy, but still
• 37:54
  that, that's, that's a lot of beer, a lot of trips to the
• 37:56
  bathroom too. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Oh, I will say, I, I, I mentioned the efficiency.
• 37:59
  Their bathrooms are so clean. You would not believe how easy
• 38:02
  it is for both the men's and women's bathrooms.
• 38:04
  It's not like beer festivals here in the United States with
• 38:07
  board of bodies and stuff. The bathrooms are so clean.
• 38:09
  They're so efficient, particularly for women.
• 38:12
  I mean, go in there, you walk in, go to the bathroom.
• 38:15
  There's no lines or anything like that.
• 38:17
  And the bathrooms are clean. Phenomenal so back to 11 leaders
• 38:22
  that about killed me it it was ended up being a horrible
• 38:26
  experience, but it it was it was still fun.
• 38:29
  I passed out on the train, slept on some random stranger's
• 38:32
  shoulder, but. And this wasn't last year.
• 38:36
  Right, No, this was in 2008. But to, you know, as far as
• 38:42
  other Oktoberfest Spears that I, I generally outside of ours,
• 38:49
  obviously I'm partial, I tend not to drink.
• 38:53
  And yes, people that, that know me, that hang out with me and
• 38:56
  stuff, you know, in other locations, I don't drink many
• 39:00
  loggers that are made in the United States.
• 39:04
  I mean, I will try them, but you know, unfortunately there's
• 39:08
  just, you know, in general, you know, lager beer is hard to hard
• 39:13
  to make. It's hard to make a good logger.
• 39:16
  Yeah. We take pride in the loggers we
• 39:19
  make here. And, you know, so, you know,
• 39:23
  unfortunately the, you know, there's just not a whole lot of
• 39:26
  loggers that I like in the US. You know, we mentioned Sam Adams
• 39:30
  from the get go. Sam Adams has great quality
• 39:31
  control. You know, they they always make
• 39:33
  good beer. But you know, for the most part
• 39:36
  I will go to a German Oktoberfest beer.
• 39:40
  Well, you know, a lot of guys and gals around here that sure
• 39:44
  reason, not that not to criticize or bash anybody.
• 39:47
  We're not. We're not into that.
• 39:48
  Yeah. But do you think there's always
• 39:50
  pressure that everybody needs to have an Oktoberfest beer?
• 39:54
  Is that why that's really something that.
• 39:56
  Yeah, I think that's the pressure from the public.
• 39:57
  The public definitely wants an Oktoberfest beer no matter what
• 40:00
  brewery they're going to when fall starts, you know, like we
• 40:04
  mentioned at the beginning of the podcast and that cooler
• 40:06
  temperature comes, people get in mind they want that Oktoberfest
• 40:09
  style beer and. So, yeah, so they expect every
• 40:14
  brewery to have an Oktoberfest beer and not all craft breweries
• 40:18
  one make loggers. So some of them will do an amber
• 40:21
  ale and, you know, sometimes they'll call it an Oktoberfest,
• 40:24
  which is fine, you know, that's that's no problem doing that.
• 40:27
  But if they're doing a true Martson or a fest beer, you
• 40:30
  know, those are truly logger beers.
• 40:32
  Again, Oktoberfest is a generic term.
• 40:35
  And you know, they need to have the equipment for that too, to
• 40:37
  be able to log it. Right if you don't.
• 40:39
  Have it then that's. Yeah, yeah, you got to have the
• 40:40
  equipment and the time and, you know, the lab expertise because
• 40:45
  again, you're dealing with different yeast, you're dealing
• 40:48
  with cooler temperatures and, and time is the big thing too,
• 40:51
  because it's, it's expensive to to, to, to make a logger.
• 40:55
  I, I think I mentioned on the Saint Patrick's episode, I had
• 40:58
  tried it at home. Don't kids, if you don't have
• 41:01
  the equipment because it didn't come out.
• 41:04
  I didn't have the equipment to do it and it just didn't come
• 41:07
  out good. That was actually something I
• 41:08
  was wondering because you're a guy.
• 41:10
  I don't think you brew anymore, right?
• 41:12
  But you used to years ago. No, I mean, I've been home
• 41:15
  brewing since the late 80s, but you know, I don't.
• 41:21
  You know, when I have access to a brewery like this, I don't
• 41:24
  need a home brew. Right, right, right.
• 41:25
  But home brewing. But home brewing back in the
• 41:27
  day? Did you even try your hand in
• 41:29
  Octoberfest? I, I tried a couple times and,
• 41:31
  you know, in fact, my first lager I ever tried was an
• 41:33
  Oktoberfest. Yeah, it did not come out well
• 41:36
  as, as you said, because you got to have the, the right equipment
• 41:39
  and, and you can't expect it. You know, even if you got the
• 41:42
  right equipment, you can't expect it.
• 41:43
  Be ready to drink in two weeks like an ale.
• 41:46
  I mean, you've, you've truly got to let it, you know, halftime.
• 41:50
  Has the ingredients of the fest beer from the original to now
• 41:55
  changed at all? Have you changed much?
• 41:57
  Yeah. As far as the ingredients, no,
• 41:58
  no, no. And your, all your ingredients
• 42:02
  are all your beers come from Germany.
• 42:03
  So we import 100% of our ingredients except for the water
• 42:08
  from Germany. If you look behind you right
• 42:10
  now, all those bags of malt, that's Vire, Vireman, Walt,
• 42:14
  that's comes from Bamberg, Germany, which is Northern
• 42:16
  Bavarium. That's where we get most of our
• 42:19
  malt for our loggers. When the brewery first opened
• 42:23
  back, way back when were they? Was this one of the original
• 42:28
  beers that they were out there? So in when when Nashville
• 42:31
  Brewing Company opened in 1800s, yes, Yeah.
• 42:34
  So they actually do not brew an Oktoberfest beer at that time.
• 42:39
  So they they start out doing a dunkle and an amber, but they
• 42:44
  were not doing a as far as a seasonal Oktoberfest, that was
• 42:48
  not a thing in the United States really until after World War 2
• 42:54
  when we we had troops stationed. Come say hello.
• 42:58
  So we got Tyler coming in and Tyler's making sure everyone is
• 43:02
  hydrated. Hi, Tyler.
• 43:03
  Great. Job.
• 43:04
  Thank you. Nice to see you.
• 43:04
  Hi, everybody. The whole world is watching.
• 43:12
  I'm good, I'm good. I'm good, I'm good.
• 43:15
  Thank you very much. Thank you.
• 43:19
  Yeah. So, yeah, it wasn't until I
• 43:21
  think we had a lot of veterans coming back from Europe that
• 43:26
  start picking up that German culture where they started going
• 43:28
  to Volks festivals. Not necessarily Oktoberfest, but
• 43:31
  you know, every little town in Germany has what they call it
• 43:34
  Volks festival, which is the people's festival.
• 43:37
  So the people come and and have fun and that is a perfect pour
• 43:41
  by the way, like that. Yeah, that is.
• 43:43
  Absolutely perfect. Do you?
• 43:44
  Want to get some foam out? Yeah, my, my mom on my mother's
• 43:48
  side, it's really heavy German. And we found out years ago and
• 43:52
  this is something that, as you just said, I kind of wonder
• 43:54
  about. So we had found out on her
• 43:56
  mother's side that they migrated to the United States from
• 44:00
  Germany and France in the mid 1800s.
• 44:02
  And so I, you know, sometime now I wonder, I'm going, you know,
• 44:06
  did they come to the United States going?
• 44:08
  Where are some of that October Fest beer you know?
• 44:14
  You called and we can't call them steins, we call them Moss.
• 44:17
  Moss, yes. How many can you carry?
• 44:19
  Have you ever tried at one time? I have never tried because I
• 44:22
  will say this is a little personal thing for me, but I
• 44:26
  find it very sexy for women. Seeing women the more the more
• 44:29
  the more mosses they carry. I find that very sexy and I just
• 44:33
  don't think it would be sexy for me to be carrying a bunch of
• 44:36
  those around. So yeah, I will not carry more
• 44:41
  than two, one in one in each hand.
• 44:43
  I. Don't know what it says about me
• 44:45
  but it comes up in my YouTube shorts quite often so maybe it's
• 44:48
  something along the lines. It's better than some random
• 44:52
  porn thing, right? You know, women carrying, you
• 44:56
  know, you know masses of beer. It's.
• 44:59
  Awesome, you think? Just when she's got as many as
• 45:01
  she can carry, they stack. Them.
• 45:02
  Yeah, yeah. So there's a science behind it
• 45:04
  and I think it's if you get 7 of these together, the handles all
• 45:09
  come in together. So I think 7, then you can stack
• 45:12
  6 around on top of that. Then you get one in the center.
• 45:16
  So you're getting 14 total. And then the arm wraps around
• 45:20
  and I'm not sure the video is picking this up, but the arm
• 45:22
  wraps around and so that 14. And apparently if you're less
• 45:28
  than that, that seven in the bottom, they don't all fit
• 45:34
  together and makes it harder. So if you have the extra 1 and
• 45:38
  then you stack them on, it makes it easier to, to carry.
• 45:41
  And I'm not sure as far as how many, how many pounds that is,
• 45:45
  but it's definitely impressive. It's a true sign.
• 45:47
  So that that's something in Oktoberfest too.
• 45:49
  You know, everyone applauds and you know, if you're at a table,
• 45:52
  everyone orders around and, and you know when they bring it.
• 45:56
  At that time, 11 time, I was on the train and I was coming, I
• 45:59
  was staying in in Innsbruck, Austria, and I was going to
• 46:02
  Oktoberfest in Munich. So I was on a train like at 7:00
• 46:05
  in the morning because I wanted to be there when I think it
• 46:07
  opened at 10. So I got on the train and it's
• 46:10
  going from Innsbruck. It's a couple hour train ride.
• 46:13
  And somewhere along the way it picked up a woman.
• 46:17
  She's in a journal and she's got like these wrist things like
• 46:21
  what a boxer or something would wear under their gloves and
• 46:24
  she's strapping these on and I'm like, is this she going to a
• 46:27
  fight or what's going? On.
• 46:29
  And then I found out she was a server Oktoberfest, and so she's
• 46:32
  getting all these wrist restraints to support her to be
• 46:36
  be carrying all these these masses all day long.
• 46:39
  That's amazing, Yeah. It's impressive.
• 46:42
  It's a skill. No doubt.
• 46:44
  So you're going to Austria and Germany for Oktoberfest with the
• 46:48
  National Brewing Company on September 16th of the 24th,
• 46:52
  Yeah. And tell us about that through
• 46:54
  how what you going to do? Yeah, so it's it's partially
• 46:57
  sightseeing, but of course we're doing Oktoberfest as well.
• 47:00
  So it's one of those things, you know, I always enjoy going and I
• 47:04
  like sharing the culture, you know, and so trying to get a
• 47:10
  group to go along. So that's what we did, partnered
• 47:13
  with the travel agency and they, you know, kind of put a lot of
• 47:16
  stuff together. So, you know, once you get
• 47:18
  there, you know, you're bust. And we're going to a lot of
• 47:21
  other breweries, you know, outside of just Munich.
• 47:23
  But we're hitting the hot spots in Munich, Hopf, Bra House, of
• 47:28
  course, Oktoberfest for a few days.
• 47:30
  Also going to Augustine your beer Keller, which I know I
• 47:35
  brighted on on Augustine your beer earlier, but their beer
• 47:38
  Keller is the largest beer seller in and I mean literally
• 47:46
  dug about 3 stories underground massive dinner areas in these
• 47:52
  old Cellars where they would originally logger the the beer.
• 47:56
  Then then up above is their beer gardens, largest beer garden in
• 48:00
  the world. I think it holds 6000 people
• 48:02
  their beer garden. And so historically, they would,
• 48:06
  when they would dig out beer Cellars, they would plant
• 48:08
  chestnut trees up above to shade, to help cool the Cellars
• 48:14
  underneath so the ground wouldn't heat up.
• 48:16
  And then people start hanging out under the chestnut trees.
• 48:18
  And that's where the beer gardens, you know, start coming
• 48:20
  about. So it's largest beer garden in
• 48:22
  the world? How many people you got going
• 48:24
  with you on that? Trip, I think there's 14 signed
• 48:26
  up right now. Yeah, that's fine.
• 48:28
  One thing we haven't talked about yet is the food over
• 48:30
  there. What can we expect food wise?
• 48:33
  There's probably some obvious stuff, but I'm sure there's some
• 48:35
  other things too. Yeah, so Germany is quite
• 48:39
  diverse. I would.
• 48:40
  I literally just came back from a trip.
• 48:42
  I was in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
• 48:46
  Just came back on Sunday or no, on last Tuesday.
• 48:51
  But in northern Germany, seafood is huge.
• 48:54
  You don't see it as much in Bavaria outside of trout.
• 48:58
  But don't be confused. They call salmon trout and trout
• 49:02
  salmon there. So if you see it on the menu, it
• 49:05
  says salmon. It's really trout in in in
• 49:09
  Bavaria. Yeah, OK, but it's great.
• 49:12
  But outside of that, pork is definitely king in in Bavaria.
• 49:18
  So pork knuckles are huge. That's always a very popular
• 49:22
  thing. Of course, Bratwurst vice worst
• 49:26
  is, is the big thing to get. And that is a white sausage.
• 49:31
  It's veal, it's a white sausage. It's, it's, it's simmered in, in
• 49:35
  warm water. So it's not a grilled sausage
• 49:39
  and it's phenomenal. That's very popular.
• 49:42
  And you're only going to find that really in Munich, in the,
• 49:44
  in the Bavarian region. But it's it's that white
• 49:47
  sausage. But at Oktoberfest chickens,
• 49:52
  that's that's what you're going to find is the grilled chickens.
• 49:55
  They've got like stacks and. Stuff they're doing thousands
• 49:59
  and thousands of chickens. So basically you get a chicken
• 50:02
  in a Moss spear and it's a half bird and it's just cut in half
• 50:06
  it, but it's the best roasted chicken you're ever going to
• 50:09
  have. I mean I I love Costco chicken,
• 50:11
  Costco's roasted chicken, but it's 100 times better than a
• 50:13
  Costco's roasted chicken. Anything better than National
• 50:16
  hot chicken? I mean, come on now, you're in
• 50:18
  Nashville. It's it's not, it's not spicy,
• 50:20
  but. Will it be giant pretzels I
• 50:23
  assume? Yes, they they they have pretzel
• 50:25
  girls that walk around and and sell pretzels.
• 50:27
  I. Wonder how many they can carry?
• 50:31
  You know, I've never counted, but they, they definitely carry
• 50:33
  a lot. Their pretzels are more of a
• 50:37
  harder pretzel. We're used to a soft pretzel.
• 50:39
  They don't do soft pretzels over there.
• 50:40
  And it's more of a, yeah, it's a, it's a big pretzel, but it's
• 50:43
  more of a harder, crunchy pretzel.
• 50:45
  So we talked about the German Oktoberfest and a little bit
• 50:48
  about yours and when it is, but talk about what your German fest
• 50:51
  or your Oktoberfest is going to be here, what kind of activities
• 50:54
  if you're going to have? Yeah, so as I mentioned,
• 50:56
  Oktoberfest is always the the we coincide with the Munich
• 51:01
  Oktoberfest. So it's always that last
• 51:03
  Saturday. So this year it's going to be
• 51:05
  October 5th. And because Oktoberfest
• 51:07
  officially ends October 6th, that's Sunday, so October 5th.
• 51:12
  We always of course feature our Oktoberfest beer, our fest beer
• 51:17
  that's going to be pouring like crazy.
• 51:20
  We have a band, the best, best first band.
• 51:24
  They always play here. They're phenomenal.
• 51:26
  Just great band, accordion, tuba player, all that kind of good
• 51:30
  stuff, playing polka and other good German music.
• 51:35
  So we do a Stein holding competition.
• 51:38
  Which is the Yeah buddy? This is the second year we're
• 51:42
  doing, we, we've been doing it for years, but we're now
• 51:44
  official with the US Stein holding competition.
• 51:48
  We're we're a regional qualifier for the state championship.
• 51:54
  So, you know, whoever wins our competition, we do a men's and a
• 51:58
  women's and yeah, it's literally what it is.
• 52:01
  You're you're holding out a Moss.
• 52:04
  Again, they call it a Stein holding competition, which I
• 52:06
  disagree with, but but you're, you're holding out a, a glass
• 52:10
  Moss and full of beer or it can be water if you don't want the
• 52:14
  beer, you're holding it straight out.
• 52:16
  And there's all kinds of rules that come into play.
• 52:18
  And I'm, I'm a, a certified judge for that.
• 52:22
  And so we have a men's competition and women's
• 52:26
  competition. Before we were doing a certified
• 52:29
  regional competition. The women would do a half liter,
• 52:32
  men would do a full leader. But now that we're a certified
• 52:37
  event venue, the women have to do a full leader as well.
• 52:40
  So sorry to the ladies, but it's a full leader.
• 52:44
  How long, I guess, I guess it's long as the person goes, but how
• 52:47
  long does one of those go? 20 minutes. 20 minutes is really
• 52:51
  stretchy so. That's a long time.
• 52:54
  Tyler, I don't know if you remember last year off hand,
• 52:58
  women's 4 minutes maybe. Yeah, 4 minutes.
• 53:04
  I want to say men's, it's about 8 minutes, but it's it's funny.
• 53:10
  So you get the bigger guys with a lot of muscles and they have
• 53:15
  they struggle the most. They generally drop out and
• 53:18
  generally a skinny scrawny guy that that is in there and you
• 53:22
  know, muscle is mass and mass is heavy.
• 53:25
  And so it's it's, it's, it's not necessarily how strong you are,
• 53:29
  but you got to keep that hand out.
• 53:32
  You can't get into arching your back.
• 53:35
  You can't support, you can't put your hand on your hip.
• 53:37
  You're not even leaning against a wall.
• 53:38
  Or anything. No, So it's it's literally
• 53:41
  you're taking this and you are straight out and you can't go
• 53:45
  too high, too low, OK, you can't break that elbow.
• 53:48
  The thumb can't be above thumbs got to be down there.
• 53:52
  So they're key, you know, supporting.
• 53:54
  So there's there's a lot of rules.
• 53:56
  That come into play, you get a little variance with movements
• 53:58
  or. Just slight variance up and
• 54:00
  down. Yeah, just just any.
• 54:02
  So what what happens is is you get strikes.
• 54:05
  So three strikes when you're out, you have to spill.
• 54:07
  You're you're out immediately. OK.
• 54:10
  But if you start dropping it down too far, you're, you're,
• 54:13
  you're going to get a strike and then again, three strikes in.
• 54:16
  Your end. You start supporting your back
• 54:19
  or. Once the first one starts, I
• 54:22
  imagine the second two follow pretty quickly.
• 54:24
  What happens is there's always two people left and they're
• 54:28
  struggling, fighting. Yourself and the guy with the
• 54:33
  advantage, it's got the one strike versus the two probably
• 54:36
  just hang on. That's going to be a fun time.
• 54:39
  And that's, as you said, October the 5th.
• 54:41
  Yeah, we're going to at the Blackstone.
• 54:43
  So please, please come. We'd love to have you guys here
• 54:46
  are. You going to wear your leader
• 54:48
  hose? And I always wear my leader.
• 54:49
  Standing. Will the GOAT be with you?
• 54:51
  The goat will be here, so we have a different goat every
• 54:54
  year. Sometimes we have multiple
• 54:55
  goats, but Chris Cooper that works here in the brewery Coop,
• 54:59
  as we call him and his wife, they raise goats and so they
• 55:04
  have a little goat farm. So generally there's always at
• 55:06
  least one baby goat or a younger goat.
• 55:09
  And the kids, this is a family friendly, you know, Oktoberfest.
• 55:13
  So kids come, they play with the goat, got little horns on it,
• 55:16
  and no one's gotten hurt yet. Knock on wood.
• 55:21
  But the goat, you know, always makes great pictures.
• 55:23
  And people love beer with the goat.
• 55:25
  Is there a significance with the GOAT with Oktoberfest history
• 55:28
  or? Something cool to do.
• 55:30
  So it's more or less something cool to do.
• 55:32
  So yeah. So if we want to talk about
• 55:35
  GOAT, that's going to be another podcast and we'll talk about
• 55:38
  Bach. Beer.
• 55:39
  There you go. We'll bring you back.
• 55:40
  Yeah. We'll bring, Yeah, if we could
• 55:42
  do that, yeah. Definitely, you know, we cannot,
• 55:46
  we cannot end this podcast and we're not going to end this
• 55:48
  podcast. But you know, before we end this
• 55:50
  podcast, we also have to ask you because your fest beer is what
• 55:54
  we're drinking today. It's fantastic.
• 55:56
  Thank you. I've seen it out different
• 55:57
  stores of ground, Middle Tennessee.
• 55:59
  How far off, how far away can people get it?
• 56:03
  So we really only distribute in in Middle Tennessee, OK.
• 56:07
  Yeah. So, you know, Murphy's
• 56:09
  everywhere around here. Like, yeah, I.
• 56:11
  Can go anywhere and find it, which is great.
• 56:13
  So you know bars, restaurants, you know grocery stores, beer
• 56:18
  stores, craft beer stores. So basically it's a hint that if
• 56:22
  you're listening to US and other parts of the country, which
• 56:25
  apparently we know people are, I mean, we get told that come to
• 56:28
  Nashville, sure, come here and get the.
• 56:30
  Best. So we get emails daily, people
• 56:33
  asking for a beer. Yeah, yeah, we're we're in New
• 56:36
  England working. When we get your beer, we're in
• 56:38
  California, you know, wherever and, and so we, you know,
• 56:43
  there's, there's other breweries that are smaller than us that
• 56:45
  have a further distribution. We purposely do not distribute
• 56:49
  further because we are pretty set here in, in Middle Tennessee
• 56:53
  and we don't need to distribute further.
• 56:56
  And, you know, we don't want to spread ourselves too thin.
• 56:59
  So, you know, my response to those people is it makes for a
• 57:02
  good excuse to visit Nashville. Do that, Steve and I love to do
• 57:07
  beer trades with people around the country, so if anybody's
• 57:10
  interested in that, we'll ship you some.
• 57:12
  We will, absolutely. We.
• 57:14
  Got some now? Yeah, taking some home today.
• 57:16
  Another little plug I would like to make for those that are also
• 57:20
  watching the video. So this label, our fest beer
• 57:23
  label. Put the label back up.
• 57:25
  So the original painting is over the bar there.
• 57:29
  But my godfather, whose birthday is on Thursday, we celebrate his
• 57:35
  birthday yesterday, though, on or on Sunday he turned 90.
• 57:40
  So he he painted the girl on there.
• 57:43
  What? Yeah, Yeah.
• 57:45
  So that's that's that's his creation.
• 57:47
  And funny story with that was, you know, 8-9 years ago when we
• 57:51
  first released this beer, I said, Raymond, we're going to
• 57:55
  put your girl on a beer label. He said, oh, OK.
• 57:58
  You know, he didn't seem too impressed.
• 57:59
  And I'm like, OK, so, you know, we came out with the beer and I
• 58:04
  brought him a six pack. I said, Raymond, here's your
• 58:07
  girl. And he's like, oh, that's cool.
• 58:09
  And he still didn't, you know, he's like, I thought he'd be a
• 58:13
  little, you know, thought he was a little cooler than that.
• 58:15
  So he came to me a few weeks later and he said, I just bought
• 58:20
  this beer at Kroger, my paintings on on the beer label.
• 58:25
  And I said, well, yeah, Raymond. Yeah, I told you it was on
• 58:27
  there. I think he thought I was just
• 58:30
  did a special like thing for him.
• 58:31
  Yeah. He didn't realize this is going
• 58:33
  out to the public. Mass.
• 58:34
  Produced so. So everyone that's drinking
• 58:36
  National Fest beer, Ray Roland, my godfather, That's, that's,
• 58:40
  that's, that's his painting, Yeah.
• 58:42
  Show the show the label again. Yes.
• 58:44
  He. Painted that.
• 58:45
  That's amazing, yeah. We love it yeah.
• 58:47
  So the the the Czech background was was was added and but as far
• 58:51
  as the girl. Yeah, well, Scott Terron, can we
• 58:54
  end more on a high note than that?
• 58:56
  Well, I have other questions, Kellogg.
• 58:57
  So we were talking about where you can get the beer and it's
• 59:01
  it's Middle Tennessee. However, you have fans around
• 59:06
  the world not newly discovered because you had mentioned them
• 59:10
  back before we did our first podcast.
• 59:13
  But you've got a band that wrote a song about you, a German band.
• 59:18
  They're called, Let Me Get This right, the BKC.
• 59:21
  The BKC, the. Beer Killing Company, which is
• 59:26
  awesome and they wrote a song about you called Nash, the
• 59:30
  National Brewing Company. Yeah, they did.
• 59:32
  And they, they, they love our beard and they love us and
• 59:36
  they've been very nice to us on social media and everything.
• 59:40
  And so they they wrote that song.
• 59:42
  And so maybe we can feature that song on this podcast and.
• 59:45
  Try to put. That in a post or something?
• 59:47
  Yeah. I tried to put it on some social
• 59:49
  media stuff and it wasn't in the and I didn't know how to import
• 59:52
  it outside. We can put it on this thing
• 59:54
  somewhere. So that was cool.
• 59:55
  As a matter of fact, we reached out to them or tagged them or
• 59:58
  something. We had a little communication
• 59:59
  awesome and stuff. So good, cool.
• 1:00:01
  And I looked up some of the stuff that.
• 1:00:03
  Was it's, it's, it's one of those things I think they
• 1:00:05
  mentioned that, you know, they have traveled to the US quite a
• 1:00:08
  bit over the years and this was the only brewery that they have
• 1:00:15
  found that really has brewed. And I'm talking about Nashville.
• 1:00:19
  I'm talking about across the country that has brewed beer
• 1:00:22
  like what they're used to in Germany.
• 1:00:23
  That is awesome. Which is.
• 1:00:25
  A great compliment and seriously, what does that mean
• 1:00:27
  to you? I.
• 1:00:27
  Mean, you know, you know, winning awards and stuff is
• 1:00:29
  cool, yeah. But hearing something like that
• 1:00:31
  that, you know, from a just a local German saying, you know,
• 1:00:35
  this truly is my favorite beer in the United States because it
• 1:00:38
  makes me feel like home that that's much better than any.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah. Any recognition that you didn't
• 1:00:42
  even, we weren't even trying. Yeah.
• 1:00:44
  Where did that come from? We'll get, you know, A tag or
• 1:00:46
  something from somewhere, Like, how the hell do you know about
• 1:00:48
  us, you know? And it's, it's just a nice
• 1:00:49
  little thing. It's really cool.
• 1:00:51
  The song is good, too. So I actually, I was singing it
• 1:00:54
  the other day. It kind of just kept going.
• 1:00:56
  Can you sing it for us? It's been a couple days.
• 1:00:59
  It's. Kind of like a country rock.
• 1:01:01
  Song Yeah, it does say the National Brewing Company.
• 1:01:04
  It does say that in there quite often.
• 1:01:07
  Something else we talked about last time we were together.
• 1:01:10
  You're writing a cookbook a little slower than I hoped.
• 1:01:14
  But it's it's coming along. I'm wrapping it up.
• 1:01:19
  The thing is, is like as you dive into something, you know,
• 1:01:23
  you realize you got to go deeper.
• 1:01:26
  Yeah. So because you are you making a
• 1:01:29
  lot of those meals even before you put them?
• 1:01:30
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm making
• 1:01:32
  everything before I. Put in the book, what I struggle
• 1:01:37
  with is. Everything in the.
• 1:01:39
  Cookbook is made with beer and I like to hunt so I do a lot of
• 1:01:45
  game and so I, I tend to do things cooking with game with
• 1:01:50
  beer and I know game is not for everyone and I know beer is not
• 1:01:54
  for everyone, but I'm selling a beer cookbook.
• 1:01:56
  Obviously beer is so I'm I'm having to kind of.
• 1:02:00
  Modify. Things to make sure, but in the
• 1:02:03
  old days and and old Germany, I mean, you know, we didn't, you
• 1:02:07
  know, cook with beef, we cooked with venison, you know, we
• 1:02:10
  didn't cook with, you know, you know, a home grown pig, we
• 1:02:13
  cooked a wild boar, etcetera. So those kinds of things, you
• 1:02:16
  know, kind of having to to modify from some of the game
• 1:02:21
  that I'm using to regular meat that you'd get, you know, at,
• 1:02:25
  at, at a Kroger or a publish because you want to make it
• 1:02:27
  something someone can actually get make the recipe for you not
• 1:02:32
  to put you on the spot. How far do you feel like you're
• 1:02:34
  into this thing or is it is it just No, it's it's it's pretty
• 1:02:38
  far along I'm. I'm just, I'm being very
• 1:02:40
  critiquing of myself now before I, I get this out, I, I would
• 1:02:45
  like to get out before the end of the year, but realistically
• 1:02:47
  it's probably going to be early next year.
• 1:02:48
  OK, well, we're looking forward to it.
• 1:02:50
  Yeah, well, be cool, stink and make me a couple.
• 1:02:52
  Dishes he could you got the the recipe.
• 1:02:59
  And stuff. Do you?
• 1:03:01
  Pick a specific beer or specific style when you do, obviously
• 1:03:04
  you've got your own brands. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:06
  So I I in the in the book is is not.
• 1:03:09
  It's not a natural Brewing Company book.
• 1:03:11
  So I certainly, I do a lot of stuff with our beer, but I'm
• 1:03:16
  trying to use a lot of other European beers too.
• 1:03:18
  And that's, that's kind of the, the, the delay too, because I
• 1:03:21
  don't want this to be just promote our brewery.
• 1:03:23
  It's, it's a cookbook. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm using
• 1:03:27
  other beers and so I'm using a lot of English recipes, using
• 1:03:30
  English beers and stuff as well, or Belgian beers, French beers.
• 1:03:35
  Yeah. Sounds like a lot of fun.
• 1:03:37
  Awesome. Was there?
• 1:03:39
  Anything we haven't covered that you would love to talk about?
• 1:03:41
  Oktoberfest. Why is there anything?
• 1:03:43
  Yeah, I think Oktoberfest in general, I just, I mean it's.
• 1:03:46
  It's a reason for everyone to get together and just have a
• 1:03:50
  good time. Celebrate, of course, be safe,
• 1:03:53
  but you know, it's fun to remember that, you know, you
• 1:03:56
  know what we celebrate what we know of as Oktoberfest, you
• 1:03:59
  know, has been going on for, you know, a little over 200 years.
• 1:04:03
  But really, you know, that festival has been going on for
• 1:04:06
  centuries before that and that's been celebrating that fall
• 1:04:09
  harvest. You know what's funny is we like
• 1:04:12
  summer beers. I like.
• 1:04:13
  Summer beers, and I love that transition into fall, no matter
• 1:04:15
  how early it is, it's an advantage, right?
• 1:04:17
  You don't feel anything when you go into summer beers or even
• 1:04:19
  winter beers for that morning when you go into fall.
• 1:04:22
  Yep, that's a different thing. It's a different feeling.
• 1:04:24
  Oh yeah. And the beers are different.
• 1:04:25
  I think here, you know, being in the United States, red blooded.
• 1:04:28
  Americans, it's football season, too.
• 1:04:30
  Yeah, just yeah, It feels like football season.
• 1:04:32
  Oktoberfest season rolls around and I'm ready.
• 1:04:34
  Yeah, and. Like you said, when the weather
• 1:04:36
  starts getting a little cooler. Yeah, it's nice You have those
• 1:04:39
  days where you got the in the air conditioning on at the same
• 1:04:41
  time. Yep, Yep.
• 1:04:42
  Or the World Series. Yeah, having the.
• 1:04:44
  World Series when it's cool out and still watching baseball.
• 1:04:47
  Yeah, sometimes they get snowed out in the World Series so late.
• 1:04:50
  Depends. On the country so we love it.
• 1:04:52
  Awesome. Well, you got anything else?
• 1:04:54
  No, I. Think we're?
• 1:04:56
  Good. And I certainly appreciate.
• 1:04:57
  It Scott Murti National Brewing. We appreciate it guys.
• 1:05:01
  Let's raise our glasses in this man pros.
• 1:05:03
  Hey everybody else in the bar cheers.
• 1:05:04
  Here's the first year. Dollar.
• 1:05:08
  Thank. You.
• 1:05:09
  All right. Thanks, everybody.
• 1:05:10
  Just going to do it for the Brewery Underground podcast.
• 1:05:14
  I'm Steve Sullivan. Where's Scott Taron.
• 1:05:17
  Cheers Prost. The.
• 1:06:22
  The. The.
• 1:07:21
  None. The Alabama boss he knows to
• 1:07:38
  rock the beer. Army crew drinking the heavens.
• 1:07:42
  Favorite Builder 1897.