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LGP 42 - Espinosa Sumatra
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This week, we try out the Espinosa Sumatra!
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Transcript
Welcome Back & Introduction of Espinosa Sumatra
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. This is episode 42, The Return of the Prodigal Son. Welcome back, Dennis. Today, we are smoking the Espinosa Sumatra.
00:00:13
Speaker
We'll get into that. We'll tell you what we're pairing. We'll tell you how it pairs. But first, grab yourself a cigar. Grab yourself a drink. Let's get it.
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome back. As always, I'm your host Tripp here in the Casa Monte Cristo studios and joining me once again after a couple weeks out from the dungeon of Dank Dark Doomness is Dennis. Dennis, how you doing?
00:00:53
Speaker
Hey, I'm so happy to be back, man. It's good to have you back. It's hard. It's hard taking a week off. It's even harder and I miss it so much that it's even harder to come back after multiple weeks and Now this is good. it feels normal. I like this.
00:01:09
Speaker
Got some cool things to pair. I do too. i In honor of you, I kind of brought a little bit of funk today. little bit more funk than I usually bring. Good. We can both suffer together then because I... It may be painful.
00:01:22
Speaker
and You saw my face in the green room a little bit. That was rough. and look and It looked pretty rough. All right. So episode 42, Espinosa Sumatra. This is the cigar we're smoking.
00:01:35
Speaker
but ah i mean i got of Look at that thing. Beautiful cigar. It's super clean, like That wrapper looks great. Yeah, the band looks great. The contrast. So, Espinosa Sumatra. So, this is a cigar that came out earlier this year.
00:01:49
Speaker
um I believe...
00:01:54
Speaker
They were, I ah believe we got some samples last year at Lizona Palooza. Not last year, but the year before, 2023. um Happy New Year, everybody, by the way.
00:02:06
Speaker
ah But this came out early 2024. um Ecuadorian Sumatra by, sorry, Ecuadorian Sumatra rapper. Nicaraguan binder and filler made. ah This is the first ever Sumatra cigar after, I think this is the third Sumatra cigar that Espinosa has made.
00:02:24
Speaker
The others have been made at San Latino, which is AJ Fernandez's factory. This is the first one ever made at the Lizona cigar factory with a Sumatra wrapper, which is pretty cool. Today, we were both smoking the Toro six by fifty four So it doesn't feel like a 54 to me. The different companies have slightly different ring gauge measuring ah standards, I think, tolerances.
00:02:50
Speaker
um And this is a core line. So this isn't a limited edition. This is something that you should be able to find year round on the shelf. um After just a couple little sips from the cigar, what do you think so far, Dennis?
00:03:04
Speaker
I love that white pepper. This is the thing that I get almost every time with Sumatra is white pepper. A little bit of like a baking spice. Maybe not cinnamon necessarily, but but something along those lines, like a nutmeg maybe. um To me, it reminds me more of spicy cinnamon. like Like not cinnamon toast, closer to red hot.
00:03:25
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. Or like Red Hots, the candy. The candy, yeah. I thought of Big Red. That's what i was. I was thinking of Big Red Gum. I mean, Big Red Gum has that same flavor where it's like, um it's kind of that spicy candy cinnamon, not just natural cinnamon.
00:03:44
Speaker
That's what this reminds me of. It's just got a little bit of that going on. Retro Hail is fantastic on this. Have you tried that yet? um don't think I have, actually. You got hit it, man.
00:03:56
Speaker
And this is my first cigar, as I mentioned, this is my first cigar and in quite a little bit of time during my time off and stuff. ah It's nice. I realized that I miss cigars a lot more than I thought.
00:04:11
Speaker
I might actually have to, you know, smoke a couple more of these things. You should try it. You should try it. On the Retro Hail, for me, there's like, there is like a blast of white pepper on the Retro Hail.
00:04:25
Speaker
But when I retrohale, it really brings out the sweetness on my palate. Like evacuating that smoke out through my nose brings the sweetness out more than just blowing the smoke out.
00:04:38
Speaker
What's up, Steve Luddington? Thanks for watching, brother. Hey, Steve.
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, i'm I'm digging this. go I think this is the second one I've
New Year, New Habits & Bazaar Brewing
00:04:48
Speaker
ever had. I haven't had many of these. I've been meaning to get my hands on them for a long time. When we ah started doing this show again at the beginning of 2024, this was high on the list of stuff to buy.
00:05:01
Speaker
And it just never happened. I never found it at the right time. or you know i like to order stuff in batches, and I would always look for it when I'm ordering a batch of stuff, and that shop is out or doesn't have it. and you know So I'm glad to finally get it going.
00:05:16
Speaker
Did we smoke? I feel like we smoked at least one of these at Lozona Palooza. Yes, definitely. Definitely. At least one. yeah You mean last year? Now it's 2025, man. Oh, it's last year. Oh my God, dude.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yes, last year. It's crazy to even think about it. It was a couple months ago last year. Well, it's only a couple days. Five days ago was last year. Wow. January's a hell of a time. It messes with your brain.
00:05:42
Speaker
Everyone's got the meat sweats. People are stuffed full of cheese and feeling bloated and weird. Nobody's worked in weeks. Nobody's worked. Yeah. People are suddenly trying to get back into the gym. You see people like ah cockroaches running back to the gym.
00:05:58
Speaker
Exactly. amazing It's an amazing time. All right. On that note, let's keep pairing. ah john John said I should do that. And i was like, you know what? I shouldn't. Let's get pairing.
00:06:11
Speaker
All right. So first up for me. I have from Bazaar Brewing in Seattle, Washington. Bazaar was founded in 2022 by a couple named Derek Brown and Colette Boilini.
00:06:26
Speaker
They actually met while working at Fremont Brewing in Seattle. Later, they worked at Holy Mountain Brewing in Seattle. And then 2022 in Seattle, Washington, they started their own Bazaar Brewing, North Seattle, up in an industrial neighborhood there.
00:06:43
Speaker
And almost immediately, they started in the summer and Hop Culture named them one of the best new breweries of 2022, which is pretty neat. 2022 was not a great time to start a brewery, I don't think, because that's right around when breweries started apart. Everybody was shutting down. People were really shutting down. But also, people were, in shutting down, they were trying to liquidate as much as they possibly could. So maybe they they got in on some of that.
00:07:12
Speaker
That's a good point. Maybe they got a good deal from some of their friends in the brewing community on some brewing material or some brewing equipment. um But the one that I'm smoking or smoking, the one that I'm drinking from them is called Westminster Thing. It's got a very cool cow being abducted kind of logo.
00:07:31
Speaker
um And this is a smoked corn lager. I told you I was bringing some funk. They what now? They smoked corn. All right. um So this yeah is a, ah ah it's brewed with a blend of, for the malts, Pilsner Vienna, Munich, Beechwood smoked, and oat smoked and wheat malt.
00:07:55
Speaker
So it's got wheat in there that's been smoked with two different woods, um as well as blue corn masa that's been smoked. That's amazing. It doesn't come out looking too crazy. I'm accidentally showing you my new glassware. Nice glass.
00:08:12
Speaker
A little Christmas gift from my mom. um It doesn't look too weird, but this is ah very smoky on the nose. Hold on, tell me tell me the style again. Lager.
00:08:24
Speaker
Lager. This is a lager, okay. So this is, they say it's kind of a pilsner. So a lot of their beers, really interestingly, are kind of a blend of two styles together.
00:08:37
Speaker
um You know, like a... I didn't look at their list as much as I should have, but like, i don't know, a sour IPA or something like that, where therere they're taking two different styles and blending them together, yeah not through blending, but through an actual recipe that... Oops, muted.
00:08:56
Speaker
They're actually brewing those two styles together at the same time, rather than making each one and then blending. So I'm gonna take a couple
Beer Hunting & Nostalgia for Cascade Brewing
00:09:06
Speaker
sips this. Oh, I forgot to mention it's 5.8% ABV.
00:09:10
Speaker
This is, as with most of the beer that I have lately, at least most of the interesting beer, because,
00:09:18
Speaker
you know, I don't get a lot of interesting beer around here. There's interesting beer, but usually it's pretty old. unfortunate but Unfortunately. Unfortunately, which we'll get to a little later.
00:09:30
Speaker
I have one that's that's a little, a couple years old. ah you may not know it that well we'll see okay so it's not the one that was no it's not the not the grenade but its exploded in my face violently everywhere just I and it really so that for just to catch everybody up we were in Miami last not last month at the end of November november year it was last year end of November beginning of November in November I guess it was early November
00:10:02
Speaker
It was mid, I think maybe mid-November, yeah. um Yeah, it was some kind of teint. Something like that. Anyway, we were in Miami together, which was great. We have an episode for you that Dennis needs to get to me so I can get it edited and uploaded.
00:10:16
Speaker
um But we did an on-location episode. We went to Lozona Palooza. We had a blast. We met some old friends. We spent some time with our good buddy, An Fon, from Drew Estate. I know. uh and one of the things we did was we went uh hit some beer shops so that we could get some supplies and we found so recently cascade brewing i've talked about before they closed down last year yeah due to the death of the owner who had sold the company but hadn't transferred the ownership yet so it was like a whole thing um
00:10:51
Speaker
But they shut down. They were still doing dock sales, I read, until about two weeks ago when the signs came down and they are now officially gone. Cascade Brewing, Portland, Oregon, one of the best sour breweries in existence. love them so much.
00:11:07
Speaker
We found some very old Flanders style red, which Dennis has long talked about how how many how how forgotten Flanders red is as a style. I love that style. so It's such an exciting style. I love talking about it. i love sharing it with people. Everyone I give it to loves it.
00:11:24
Speaker
But we found a four pack of their cans of Flanders red. And I said, that is a brewery that no longer exists. they We're never going to be able to get that a again. So we should buy it. ah We got back to the house, found out that it was like, when was it brewed? 2020 or something? 2018. 2018, which for a style like that is actually a good thing.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yes. For barrel aged sours like that, aging is fantastic, even if it's in a can. ah But we went to take the cans apart.
00:11:54
Speaker
And what happened, Dennis? Well, listen, they were in the car. They were in the trunk of the car for, oh I don't know how long. It was hot. A day, maybe 12 hours. A day. A warm day.
00:12:06
Speaker
I don't know how hot. was It was pretty hot, actually, right? 80 or 90. Yeah. That's like 40 degrees too hot for me. So, yeah, it was really hot. Uh, and yeah, I went to grab the can. I picked up the can from the table and it exploded violently, like a grenade. yeah literally like it Like in my mind, it reminds me of those scenes in movies.
00:12:26
Speaker
Like think of a movie, uh, like ah a CIA kind of movie where they're, they're moving into, uh, I don't know, to, to capture the, the, the terrorist.
00:12:38
Speaker
and they open the apartment and they go in and they're kind of searching the apartment and they pull open a drawer and as they pull it over, pull it open and you just hear, and then it's all smoky and it has that effect where it's blurry and the camera's going like this and it's going,
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, when it comes to sound, it comes back to ears. Yeah, and the sound is slowly coming back. That's how it felt in that moment, because it was so shocking for that beer to just explode and start spraying everywhere. it can And the can was mangled.
00:13:07
Speaker
It was completely mangled. Yeah, it blew the side open. Yeah. It was crazy. I did salvage some of that. we did salvage about half a beer out of that. I will have to say, very proud to say that it made it home safe. I don't know how.
00:13:22
Speaker
And I still have a can in my fridge, and I may or may not open it later this year at some point. Hell yeah. On to that baby.
Lancaster Brews & Wet Hopped Pilsner Exploration
00:13:29
Speaker
Anyway, I don't know where that came from, but I'm going to take a couple sips of this and let you tell us about your first pairing.
00:13:36
Speaker
Oh, man, I'm really digging one. My first pairing is actually really interesting. um Let me pull up my notes real quick. All right. So during the holiday season, um usually we do a little bit of travel and tend to visit family in Pennsylvania. So I always try to go out and find a new brewery or somewhere cool ah to to get some beer from, right?
00:13:58
Speaker
I found this really cool, interesting brewery out in Lancaster. Sure, it's Lancaster County, but it's actually in, hold on, let me look at the can and I'll tell you. Beams, Breamstown, Breams, Breams, hold on.
00:14:10
Speaker
Everybody from Pensutaki, don't kill me. I'm trying. Breamstown, all right, it's close. Breamstown, Pensutaki. Almost got it. So this, that's what founded by,
00:14:22
Speaker
brothers James and Ben Burden, and they opened their doors somewhere around late 2023. So pretty new brewery. These guys have been brewing about 2008, between 2008, 2010, around that time.
00:14:36
Speaker
And then eventually, like the classic story, right, with breweries is homebrew starts, you get into it, you meet some people in the industry, you get more serious about it, and suddenly you open up your own brewery. So they kind of follow that typical ah typical recipe, which I love, and it's always cool to hear about.
00:14:52
Speaker
um but So they they have a taproom in Lancaster City and their production facilities in Reamstown. So, okay, that's what it was. Taproom in Lancaster City is where we visited and had some food. It was awesome.
00:15:04
Speaker
Definitely worth checking out. um But they're kind of kind of interesting, kind of different. Like that that building is also really cool because it's from 1911. It was an original, ah like a hardware store.
00:15:17
Speaker
So just a massive, this like really long building, massive ceilings, ah brick, steel, like all this cool stuff. I guess they kept most of it original. It looked pretty old and cool.
00:15:29
Speaker
um And they do a lot of interesting styles, which when I say interesting, I mean, for Pennsylvania, let's be fair. A lot of smaller breweries in Pennsylvania generally tend to play it on the safe side, right? They'll do classic styles. They'll do stouts and, and you know, lagers and things like that that they know people would like.
00:15:46
Speaker
It's not often that you see a brewery like that doing sours or even cask. sure I think this is one of the only breweries that I've seen in Pennsylvania in ah like in a relatively small area actually serve cask.
00:16:00
Speaker
yeah That is very rare these days. And more so, what they had on cask was an IPA. Wow. which is but like completely blew my mind.
00:16:11
Speaker
It was, I guess if you want people who don't know about what cascale is to try cask, that's the way to do it. Cause if you're going into a tap room, 90% of people are just going to say, what's your IPA?
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. Usually, usually people will say that or people will say, Oh, just give me a logger. But you know, get whatever you got, give me a logger. um Their other thing, and supposedly I haven't been able to confirm if this is actually true, but supposedly under their building in the Lancaster City location where the taproom is, supposedly there are still tunnels that were used during Prohibition.
00:16:49
Speaker
Oh, that's neat. So that's kind of a fun and fun deal. I'd like to think that's true. So my first beer from them, I have two. I'll tell you front, I have two from them, but My first beer is this really snazzy.
00:17:04
Speaker
Check out this can. Inseparable.
00:17:10
Speaker
And this is a wet hopped Pilsner, which is kind of cool. like right It's a style that you don't see a whole lot of. And when it does come out, it's so exciting and kind of cool and little bit different.
00:17:22
Speaker
It's got the Pilsner quality, but it's a little bit different. This can is actually a collaboration. So was brewed. It was brewed. brewed by them and canned by them at their facility. um But it was a collaboration between ah a bunch of different breweries.
00:17:35
Speaker
So each one of those, those symbols represents different- each one of the wrist watch kind of symbols? Yes, each one of the hands. Yeah, each each one of the wrist watches or the hands is a different ah brewery. So it is, let me give you the names of them actually. Mad Chef, Our Town, ah Rainy Cellars, which is cool. And Rural, I can't say this word.
00:17:58
Speaker
you're gonna You're gonna laugh at me. I can't say rural. rural The Russian coming out. I can't say it. Say it for me, Tripp. Rural. Rural. Hold on. Let me put my American hat on.
00:18:10
Speaker
Rural. There you go. You did it. Just think of the the Russian car, Earl. No, but that's what all. It's like, it's different. Oh, is it? What all? Yeah. Okay. what I didn't know that. i always thought it was Earl or Udall.
00:18:26
Speaker
I never met an Earl I didn't like.
00:18:30
Speaker
So let me show you this beer. It's pretty cool. um Pilsner, plastic style Pilsner. The wet hop is so cool because it gives it that little bit of back end something, right? It's that when we talk about cigars, we talk about that little bit that stays on your palate after.
00:18:44
Speaker
That's what wet hopping does, at least for you know for my palate. Mm-hmm. To your point, you mentioned the retrohale on the cigar and how you had that sweetness on your palate. The wet hopping, I find, brings out not necessarily the bitterness of the hops, but it brings out the but of the more floral, wider characteristics of the hops, depending on the hop, obviously, right?
00:19:04
Speaker
so Yeah, I totally agree. It feels like you're getting...
00:19:11
Speaker
i'm trying to think of a way to explain You're getting more hop per hop. You know what I'm saying You know what? I do like the The flavor of the hop is more rounded and intensified.
00:19:24
Speaker
More hop per hop. Well, it also, you know, wet hopping is a really cool thing because it allows you to adjust at what point, what are you're really getting out of those hops. When you put hops into your boil, you're going to have a breakdown that's going to give you that that body of bitterness and the IBUs.
00:19:40
Speaker
But then when you start hopping after that, and whether it's Whirlpool, whether you do primary, secondary hopping, dry hopping, whatever it is, um then you really get that that essence of flavor and that aroma, which is really cool.
00:19:55
Speaker
So yeah, man, i'm I'm just, I'm so jazzed about this because it was unexpected. It's a relatively small local brewery, all local sourced ingredients, which is also pretty cool. And they're just killing it with their beers.
00:20:07
Speaker
That sounds awesome. ah For this smoked corn lager, Westminster thing. I really want to I don't understand the name exactly.
00:20:20
Speaker
um It is weirdly smoky. It doesn't taste like a Roush beer. Okay. Like it doesn't have that, um I don't know, Roush beer tends to have a specific type of smokiness.
00:20:37
Speaker
I find it's like almost like that iodine peat. Yeah, it's almost like peat. I think that comes from beechwood because usually Roush beers are beechwood smoke. This is partially beach beechwood, partially oak.
00:20:49
Speaker
And I think that's kind of why this has kind of an in-between flavor. of smokiness.
Challenges in Pairing Cigar with Smoked Corn Lager
00:20:56
Speaker
um It has a little bit more of that campfire kind of smoke.
00:21:04
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. And you definitely taste the corn. like That's cool. It's like a little bit of corn chip mixed in there. And then weirdly for this, it's a lot hoppier than I expected it to be.
00:21:16
Speaker
Like, it's not it's not super hoppy, but I would guess, but I mean, my palate is saying like 30 IBUs, which is very hoppy for ah a pilsner or a lager.
00:21:29
Speaker
um That is possibly hoppy. Like, it's it's halfway to an India pale lager. Not quite. um Which is a wild style in and of itself. Yes, agreed. That's a whole separate episode of discussion.
00:21:43
Speaker
Very true. The weird thing is, it's not working super well with the cigar. At least I don't think it is. For me, they're still two very separate things.
00:21:55
Speaker
They both taste good, but they they don't do much for each other. This is an independent pairing.
00:22:04
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, I can see that. They're both great, but not not mingling very much. And that happens, so you know, that that we, but I think that happens to us a lot more often than even we realize.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's pretty common in pairing, but it's weird for both things to still stay this good. Usually when that happens, one thing kind of is paling a little bit. You ready move on to second pairings?
00:22:32
Speaker
I think so. I'm a little nervous for my final pairing, but we'll get there. I'm a little nervous for two and three, because I got some weird Oh, right. um First up, from Parrish Brewing Company.
00:22:46
Speaker
Made a face. ah Parrish Brewing Company was founded in 2009. Are you drinking this one too? Oh, no, I love that beer.
00:22:56
Speaker
Founded in 2009 by Andrew Godley after he, and there was no information on exactly why, but he moved from Louisiana to Pittsburgh. and was kind of shocked by the craft beer culture that was there because he had never experienced that. So he would, you know, go out to beer bars and um tap rooms and breweries and just thought it was really cool. And Pittsburgh had that when he wasn't used to it. A few years later, he ended up moving back home to Louisiana and ah decided to bring some of that beer culture back from Pittsburgh with him.
00:23:30
Speaker
um So he started Parish Brewing Company. Since 2009, they've been, they're one of the larger brewers in Louisiana now. um They're kind of thought of at least as the first major craft brewer in Louisiana. I'm sure they're not, but they're the first one to kind of hit it big, I think.
00:23:53
Speaker
This beer is called Strawberry Mochi. If you've never had mochi or never heard of it, um it is a gummy rice that is usually flavored with artificial fruit flavors.
00:24:08
Speaker
But sir the most common way to eat it, which is where this comes from, is like that little strawberry. They take ice cream, they wrap it in a layer of delicious soft mochi, coat it in a little powdered sugar, and freeze it. So a lot of times at Japanese restaurants, you can get at grocery stores now, it's like a little ball of ice cream covered in this gummy paste, I guess you would call it.
00:24:34
Speaker
It's weird because it's not quite like fruit snack consistency, but it's kind of similar to that. It's delicious. I'm trying to think of
00:24:46
Speaker
It's almost like ah it's almost like yeah an airhead that's been sitting out in the sun for a while and it gets really soft and gummy. Yeah, it reminds me of like airheads for roll-ups, those kinds of things. Ah, for roll-up is a good one. If you bunch it up into a little ball and bite into it. But it's delicious. If never had it, highly, highly recommend.
00:25:05
Speaker
But that inspired... What inspired this beer? So... ah This company had previously collaborated with a ah brewery out of Portland, Oregon, my old hometown, called Great Notion.
00:25:23
Speaker
They make a bunch of weird, funky, fantastic beers, ah ah one of which is the Mochi series. And Parrish did a couple of collaborations with them a few years ago and ah did the, you know, the this is mine meme.
00:25:40
Speaker
This is what? This is mine. I made this. That's what it is. I made this. but so i don't It's it's ah a meme where there's a stick figure giving something to a dude and he goes, I made this.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then the dude takes it and turns around and goes, I made this.
00:25:57
Speaker
Oh, never seen this before. Am I getting too old for this stuff? I guess so. You need to spend more time on Reddit eight years ago. Because that's, but I mean, maybe 10 was when this one was about.
00:26:07
Speaker
Oh, that's cute. and but So they collaborated with Great Notion. and They loved the Mochi series. And they decided, we want to do our own Mochi series. So with the blessing of ah Great Notion, which they have their little, that's the Great Notion logo right there.
00:26:25
Speaker
um They have their little bear on the logo just to show that they're paying homage. um So kind of in a tribute to Great Notion, they used the Louisiana state fruit, the strawberry, to make their first version. They've got a bunch out now.
00:26:40
Speaker
Apparently it is. I never knew that either. ah This is a dessert Berliner Weiss brewed with strawberry, vanilla, milk sugar, and toasted rice to give you a little bit that mochi mochi flavor.
00:26:54
Speaker
um I'm going to have to say it. I'm so sorry, Tripp. I thought the Louisiana state fruit was catfish.
00:27:03
Speaker
but All right. I got out of my system. Continue. It doesn't look too too fruity or anything like that. It's not neon pink like some sours. um But it's got a little bit of a pinkish hue.
00:27:16
Speaker
Now, what I had said before about old beers, we picked this up in Miami on that. That beer run I was talking about. I didn't realize at the time that this was canned in 2022. Oh, I didn't know that. So this this has been sitting around for over a year now.
00:27:32
Speaker
um Wait, over two years. ah But hopefully hopefully it's still good. We'll see. When did we first drink? We first drank that at a watching the Tyson fight.
00:27:47
Speaker
Did we? I couldn't remember if it was one that we had there or not. You might be right. I think you are right. Well, the beer was certainly better than the Tyson fight, I can tell you It certainly was.
00:28:01
Speaker
Not a lot to say about that Tyson fight, man. What a disappointment. As expected. ah All right. I'm going take a couple sips of strawberry mochi and see how it pairs. I'll let you talk about your second pairing of the evening.
Holiday Brewery Visits & English Style IPA
00:28:14
Speaker
Lazing through the cigar. I got to put this thing down. I'm like, I can't do Jeez, I'm going have to light a second one.
00:28:21
Speaker
All right. Let me, hold Let me take a sip. going to take a little sip, refresh the palate, see where I'm going with this.
00:28:30
Speaker
See if it's still worth talking about. Oh, yeah, it's grape beer. Oh, man. Lovely, lovely, lovely. So we're going to go back to rural city. I'm going to avoid saying that R word as much as possible.
00:28:43
Speaker
The brewery I just talked about um from Lancaster County in Lancaster City. Sorry, Lancaster City in Pennsylvania. um this one is a little bit different and it's odd i couldn't figure out the full details on like where they were going with the ingredients what the what the mash bill looked like um uh and here let me show the cameras hail mary all right so it's english style west coast ipa it comes in at i believe it's six percent let me let me see where it's
00:29:19
Speaker
I have to tell you, I really do appreciate breweries that there's 6%. Not all breweries, especially not all craft breweries, put on, um which is weird, in Pennsylvania, don't always put on the ABV.
00:29:31
Speaker
Really? In most states, you have to. You have to. Correct. And many of them are are hidden, like just barely there. I've seen ones that are only printed on the bottom of the can.
00:29:44
Speaker
It's not anywhere on the label. Oh, interesting. That's weird. Yeah, I haven't seen it. This brewery, let me reveal... That brewery often does put ABV on their cans.
00:29:58
Speaker
Weird. If the artwork is like really wild and vibrant, I don't i don't know what it is. Anyway. I find that very strange because like, you know, and yeah what what if you think you're drinking a 5%er and you're drinking a 15%er?
00:30:13
Speaker
You're just getting absolutely wrecked on accident. Sounds like you're going on a ride, man. Yeah, that's true. You just hold on. but Just, um I mean, that's that's the theme, right? it's been We've talked about this shift that we've seen happen with like the what session beers used to be to where they're now. Session beers used to be like 3.5% to 4.5% roughly.
00:30:37
Speaker
Somehow in the last probably, what, 9, 10, 10 years, I can say comfortably, yeah roughly the last 10 years, session beers have gone into like 7.5%, 8%. Yeah. eight percent yeah ultra like we're talking session beers and now baby imperials the old imperials are now at 12 plus whatever it is it's one so this is really interesting because um it's an ipa but as they mentioned it is a which is very curious like english style i try to understand when they say english style what could it possibly mean and i thought well maybe
00:31:15
Speaker
the the The malts that they used are little little bit more on the toasted biscuit side of the house. You get a little bit more color. So you can see they said West Coast, but really i wouldn't call this a West Coast. I'd call this a East Coast adjacent.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's what that looks like to me. I would say, right? Because, you know, West Coast IPAs, when we say West Coast, really mean they're they're really crisp. They're really bitter. You get those really intense, crisp flavors of pine, whereas on the West Coast, they're a little bit, little rounder, a little smoother in a sense. A little sweeter, usually. Sweeter? Exactly. So sweeter is one thing. They're they're more focused on the the back end of the hops, what I mentioned earlier. It's the secondaries or the even hopping, dry hopping and in primary.
00:31:59
Speaker
um which is some people like it. Some people don't like it. It's a personal choice, I guess. But yeah. So I think this is more of an East Coast adjacent. It's a great beer, though. It's a fantastic beer.
00:32:11
Speaker
The flavor I can't pick out, though. I think some of that that I'm feeling like that malt profile is really what's making it different. OK. I mean, it could also be the hops they're using, but hops don't usually have a huge effect on the actual beer.
00:32:28
Speaker
Typically when I think of English beer, I think of the opposite of an IPA. Like yeah an English bitter is like 30 IBUs.
00:32:38
Speaker
Like it's got a little bit of bitterness to it. Usually not a sharp bitterness. Usually it's more, um less on the dry hop side and more on the, uh, whirlpool. Is that what you call it Yeah, more on the whirl Whirlpool side or or the, you know, when you're cooking the hops in, right?
00:32:56
Speaker
but you're When you're putting the hops in the boil, that's usually what I think of when I think of an English beer. They don't typically do any kind of secondary hopping. No, no. And I think, you know, what we end up seeing with the a lot of the malt characteristics that are very popular over there, they're not really focused on the hop profiles. The hops are pretty, you know, fairly mild hops.
00:33:19
Speaker
they're They're just balance things out, right? Right, right, right. So they're balance things out and the malt really gets to shine with that. So you get a lot of these fuller flavors, more of that bread characteristic, that toasted, well, toast, we can just say.
00:33:33
Speaker
that toast quality that you get with an ESB or you can get with even something like Boddington's, which is just ah a cream ale, like a pub ale, if you will.
00:33:44
Speaker
I think that has a lot to do with the head retention on this. That's been sitting there for since we started. That's been like that. um And see the lacing also on the side, that just sticks, man. That foam is just sitting there.
00:33:59
Speaker
And to me, that's like a classic old school style English beer. but So maybe maybe that's what it is. I like it. I'll take a couple sips while you see how it pairs.
00:34:11
Speaker
ah This strawberry mochi, I feel like it's less sour than I remember it being the last time I had it. I've had both this one and the Great Notion one before.
00:34:24
Speaker
um But I haven't had one that's been sitting around for two and a half years. Yeah, two-ish years. It's like, think it was December 15th of 2022. Two years and a couple days.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, December 15th, 22. um I feel like it's less sour. It's got less of that biting sourness and acidity, little bit at less that like mouth pucker.
00:34:49
Speaker
um but it's got all the strawberry flavor in the entire world in it. Like, so strawberry forward. And it's so like, it's just got this texture from, I think a combination of the rice, the mochi rice and the milk sugar.
00:35:06
Speaker
It has like this chewy coat your mouth, ah almost syrupy, but not quite kind of texture. It really does stick. um Yeah, it really sticks to your palate. And I find that's actually working really well with the cigar. That acidity brings out a little bit of sourness in the cigar, brings out a little more kind of cedar flavors in the cigar for me.
00:35:28
Speaker
um This is a pairing that's shockingly working well. I had no idea if this one was gonna work. I'm still worried about my last one because that's a weird one, but we'll get there. How'd your second pairing go?
00:35:42
Speaker
Just doing this back and forth now. I like it, I don't like it, I like it, I don't like it. i keep going back and forth. To your point earlier, sometimes ah sometimes each each thing is fine on its own, right? Individually, it's great.
00:35:56
Speaker
And then when you put it together, it's fine. Other times, when you have them together, they just like cancel each other out. bounce off each other, right? They get weird, right? So I don't know. I think...
00:36:10
Speaker
I don't know, dude. I think the creaminess is working really well. So the body of the beer is holding onto a lot of that, the flavor from the cigar, but I think it's a little bit too hoppy, too hop forward to let the cigar come through the way that ah the way that it was before.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah. um Before we move on to our last pairing, you thinking cigar? Any flavor changes or anything like that that you're picking up? I'm... I'm really enjoying the fact that now that I've smoked pretty heavily through it, it's warmed up.
00:36:43
Speaker
Now I really, really dig it. And you know, this is the thing for me, I struggle with the first third with a lot of cigars. Yeah. Because they're ramping up, there' it's it's just getting to that, it's heating up, it's getting a little more wet.
00:36:55
Speaker
um A lot of those flavors are starting to develop as you go through the you know but parts of the tobacco. So I generally try not to think about the first third of any cigar. Midway through is when I really go like, okay, I like this or I don't like this.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah. You try not to judge it on the first third, you mean, right? It's hard. It's, yeah, exactly. It's so hard. Especially because your palate is, in a sense, also getting used to that cigar.
00:37:22
Speaker
Which, it does take a little time. It's like the first sip of ah the first sip of a whiskey. Most whiskeys generally is going to be very different than every subsequent sip. Yeah. Your palate's like, kind of, in a sense, getting bombarded.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah. And it's recalibrated. Especially if you haven't smoked in like a month. Well, yeah. All right. I guess it's time to move on to our final pairing. We're moving along quick
Adventurous Flavors of Hoppin' Frog Shandy
00:37:48
Speaker
this week. I think we're both just excited to be back.
00:37:51
Speaker
um I got a little bit more funk for my last one. So this is from Hoppin' Frog Brewery. ah Founded in 2006 in Akron, Ohio by an electrical engineer named Fred Karm.
00:38:07
Speaker
He started homebrewing in 1994. And after about 12 years of that, he decided to start a brewery. um His focus, according to them, is on ah on quality ingredients and interesting flavors.
00:38:23
Speaker
But I think it's really on being kind of weirdos. um They're known for their Fruit Smash Blonde series, which is where they do, they have like a smashing cherry, smashing strawberry, smashing blueberry, where it is a blonde ale that is heavily, heavily, heavily fruited.
00:38:42
Speaker
They have a funnel cake stout that I saw, or a funnel cake ale, I think. um A chocolate-covered raisin porter. And they're very successful, very extensive line of Shandy's.
00:38:57
Speaker
So today from them. Oh, my. but I have Hoppin' Frog, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Turbo Shandy. Oh, dude.
00:39:08
Speaker
So I didn't say the B-O. I was going to say turd turd something.
00:39:16
Speaker
PB.
00:39:19
Speaker
I was looking to see if it has an ingredient list on here, but it does not. just says ale with natural flavors. um and Okay. So Turbo Shandy is their citrus shandy.
00:39:31
Speaker
um And I believe they there's not a lot of information on their website, but I believe Turbo Shandy for them means Imperial Shandy. Because this is a shandy that is 7% ABV, which is crazy for a shandy. Typically, a shandy is going to be a beer that is half mixed with like a lemonade or some kind of juice. Yeah.
00:39:53
Speaker
2.8 to 3.5%? Yeah, very low ab v um And this is their their Turbo Shandy, but the peanut butter and jelly variant of it. um And like I said, there's not a lot of information on this. I'm guessing it's, yeah, it's got to be grape jelly because the dog's got a grape above his head. well and um they They have a bunch of wild beers on their site. It's something that I would get immediately in the store if I saw it without even thinking twice. I mean, you know, I saw it and I was like, I got to try that.
00:40:25
Speaker
And then it only intrigued me more when they don't have a canned on date. But on the bottom, it says Best Buy September 26th, 2027.
00:40:36
Speaker
twenty twenty seven Oh, wow. That is a very, like, very long shelf life for a beer. Most beers, the Best Buy date is like three months. And this one is three years.
00:40:50
Speaker
I don't know why. I can't explain it, but ah I'm going to give it a shot and see what it's like. so It doesn't look super crazy. well looks fine It looks fine.
00:41:01
Speaker
But i don't I don't really know what to expect. I'm expecting peanut butter and some kind of grape flavor. going to be grape soda? Is it going to be real grape? i don't know. But I'm going to find out and let you talk about your final pairing tonight.
00:41:15
Speaker
Oh, as I gag pouring my final beer of the evening. ah I may know what this is just based on that. I'm curious. I don't know if you.
00:41:27
Speaker
Oh, no, it's not. It's not. It's similar. It's not what you think. Let me let me show you what it looks like first. I don't want you to hold on. and you think It doesn't look like the one I thought it could be. It's not it's not from Trogues, which is a great brewery in Pennsylvania if you've ever been. but
00:41:45
Speaker
Oh my. Okay. Let me smoke my cigar. I'll tell you a little bit about this brewery. because they're pretty cool. I know I say that a lot about breweries, but um as a home brewer, I'm so jazzed by breweries.
00:41:57
Speaker
And again, i love the stories. They're so common. When you go and you sit at a small brewery, you talk to people and you talk to the the staff and the owners, and the people the people that work there and and brew the beer behind the scenes, they all have a very similar story of how they got started, that they were super excited and about beer, and they made some friends, and like one thing led to another.
00:42:20
Speaker
It's a lot like the cigar business, right? A lot of people ended up, a lot of people that own cigar shops, it wasn't their dream to own a cigar shop. They went into a cigar shop every day. Eventually, a guy wanted to retire, and they thought, you know what?
00:42:34
Speaker
I can make that work.
00:42:38
Speaker
Unfortunately, that has led to similarly with beer.
Double Nickel Brewing & The Pickle Gose
00:42:42
Speaker
lot of breweries have closed because of this and a lot of cigar shops have closed because it ended up just being a hangout for friends. So true it's a bit dicey. It can be dicey. So this beer, going to show you the can yet because you're going to really feel some things about this can. ah Let me tell you about it first. So this is from Double Nickel Brewing Company, which opened their doors in October of 2015.
00:43:07
Speaker
And they started very similarly. couple of friends were hanging out at a Christmas party and they started talking about doing this this brewery that was community centered and they wanted people to be as involved as possible from around the community.
00:43:22
Speaker
And they clicked on the vision and just kicked off, right? The brewery's name, Double Nickel, interestingly, started from its location. it was inspired by the location that's near, I'm gonna mess up this name, Tacony Palmyra Bridge.
00:43:37
Speaker
Hopefully Jersey people will tell me if I'm right or wrong. I mean, I'm not, i I don't know, but it sounds good enough to me, but it's right by the bridge. And the name came from double nickel because it used to cost the nickel each way to cross that bridge back in, you know, back in the olden days, not now when it's like crossing the bridges, 25 bucks each way.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. um So they have a 22,000 square foot space, which used to be, ah I guess, a fitness center or a spa, um kind of like a gym, a big gym. So they took over that space. 22,000 square feet is no joke.
00:44:09
Speaker
That's a lot of space. They've got a 40-foot long bar in their tasting room, which is kind of cool. Wow. Generally, you even even Double Nickel, I would say they have a massive production a volume, but they're still technically a small brewery.
00:44:25
Speaker
So it's really cool to see someone like them have just a big space for people come and hang out. ah Their flagship beer was the Vienna-style lager. It won Philadelphia's ah bruviational Brew Brew... Did I say that right? The Brew Vitation. Brew Vitation, yeah.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, for flagship beers in 2017, which is kind of fun. And they do a whole bunch of community events, including this Friendsgiving thing that they they basically raise a ton of money for food security during the holiday time, which is kind of cool.
00:44:54
Speaker
That's awesome. So good for them. And I love that they're they're really into the community. They've definitely been, um they're just all over Jersey. if far as i've As long as I've lived in Jersey, I've seen them everywhere.
00:45:07
Speaker
which is awesome. I know they've been expanding in recent years. They've been really kind of very happy with their growth and they've been releasing a lot of limited beers, kind of weird beers, fun stuff, right? they They've established themselves with their their flagship, if you will, their flagship offerings. And now they're using that opportunity go and do fun things.
00:45:28
Speaker
and I mean, maybe that's that's the way to do it, right? Make something solid that people will come back for again and again. and then you can make weird stuff. and not have to worry about going out of business because you made weird stuff.
00:45:40
Speaker
That's the best, that's the whole best part of it. And, you know, ideally maybe one day I get to, like like I can do that myself. um I should have mentioned Pensacan. I believe it's in Pensacan, New Jersey.
00:45:52
Speaker
Pensacan, Pensacan. I'm always bad with these things. um Let me show you. me let me Let me get you in to just prepare your mind for, oh, I love the brewery. Clearing my head.
00:46:05
Speaker
I was not prepared for this beer. All right, check this out. There we go. The Double Nickel Pickle. It's the Double Nickel Pickle. Here, I'll tell you exactly what Say Nickel's Pickle.
00:46:23
Speaker
Um, it's, there are instructions on the side here too. So when you're done drinking the beer, you pop the tab, you put a little thing and then you hang it on your tree and now you have the hidden pickle on the tree. You know that game? Of course. Yeah.
00:46:34
Speaker
Right. Uh, I have a ah lovely pickle in my tree. Um, made out of glass, which is very fragile. But yeah, we have that. It looks just like the one in that picture. It's that crazy thin blown glass.
00:46:48
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. And like, it feels like if you breathe on it wrong, it's just going shatter. and Somehow it hasn't broken yet. Oh, four and a half percent ABV, should have mentioned. Now, what is this beer exactly?
00:47:03
Speaker
let me Let me read you there. That is what I'm curious about. but It's a pickle inspired Gosa. Oh, that's interesting. You would think.
00:47:14
Speaker
Let me tell you what it tastes like. ah It tastes like the other pickle beer that we drank recently. I have not tried that one yet. Which one? the The spicy pickle one. Oh, no, that's lovely. I love that beer. That was great.
00:47:27
Speaker
What other pickle one did we have recently? Um... Uh, uh, Brondo. Oh, yeah. Uh... I mean, that one wasn't pickle, but it... It wasn't a pickle, but all the electrolytes were intense. Yeah, had a lot of electrolytes, dog. What?
00:47:45
Speaker
And the color, when we when we poured it, we had it next door with my neighbor. When we poured it, it had a color scale, like a gradient of color. Yeah. I don't know, what was it?
00:47:58
Speaker
Nerds? It looked like chunks of something. don't know what it was. It was bright green, right? It was bright green with some kind of blue stuff at the bottom. Okay. So apparently, this is completely unrelated to Tonight Show because neither of us are drinking that, but apparently that Brondo beer exists in like four or five different flavors.
00:48:20
Speaker
They don't tell you what flavor it's going to be. You open it and so just randomly throughout their releases, they release different colors, I guess. So is one single pack the same?
00:48:31
Speaker
i don't know. Oh, my God. You got to open. yeah i opened one and it was green. I still have one left that I am going to suffer it through on the show at some point.
00:48:44
Speaker
Oh, man, I'm so excited. You got to do it on the show. ah Yeah. So this. I don't know. Listen, I love Gosin. You love Gosin. We have both you and I have explored the realms of, I would say, uber sours.
00:49:00
Speaker
Not just sours like goos and lambics and like really unique like foderd sours, but also the weird sours that somebody just says, I'm going to see if I can really mess someone up real good with this thing. Yeah.
00:49:12
Speaker
Where you're like, you were you you can't believe that it's as sour as that it is. Like a warhead. Yeah. Warhead sours. yeah. Warhead sours for sure. Which actually was an ale that was released for a period of time. was warhead beer.
00:49:25
Speaker
And there was a seltzer. And the seltzer, that's right, yeah. So I love, we both love the style. I think, I don't know what to make of this pickledness. it I mean, it tastes like juice, but not.
00:49:39
Speaker
I once did have a pickled watermelon rind goza that was incredible. Okay, let me tell you. But I think that's probably a little different than this one.
00:49:52
Speaker
Sit on my lap while I tell you a quick story about Soviet Russia. I grew up eating pickled watermelon. I love pickled watermelon. it It's one of my favorite things, um which is so crazy when I tell my friends I think I'm an idiot. like i would you My mom ate it when she was a kid too.
00:50:07
Speaker
And she is of no Soviet descent. She was just Southern. It's popular. Yeah, it's popular stuff. You know what? Now that I've chugged, I forced myself to chug half of this glass. Not bad.
00:50:20
Speaker
It's growing on you? because you were you know what it is You were not into that in the green room when you tried it. No, the initial, it was, that's what I said about the palate, right? The palate takes time to um so adjust to a new thing.
00:50:32
Speaker
Certainly if it's very abrupt, whether it's like high alcohol, whether it's ah intensely sour, whether the tobacco is super spicy, if we're talking about cigars, your palate takes a little time to recalibrate and adjust so that you can actually like really taste what's going on.
00:50:50
Speaker
I think with this, my... um
00:50:54
Speaker
This is going to sound weird, but I think my gripe is it's too salty.
00:51:01
Speaker
I've never complained about a salty Goza. I love salty Gozas. You know, but the moment you mentioned that, I thought ah a Goza on top of the flavor of pickle, I could see how that would be too salty.
00:51:14
Speaker
Because they're both... They both have just the right amount of
Incorporating Peanut Butter in Beer
00:51:18
Speaker
salt, right? And if you double that up, yeah you might have double the salt and too much salt. I think, you know, i what I suspect, it smells great.
00:51:29
Speaker
You know who doesn't love the smell of pickle brine? It smells great, but I think what happened was they just added pickle juice. to the to the end of this thing, this beer that was produced, without, to your point, right, without really considering that they're both fairly salty on their own and just intensifies that salt flavor.
00:51:47
Speaker
I still have, man, I don't know, five or six cans of this left. So I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to try it with different cigars and I'm going to come back and say, you know what? If you're smoking, but if you're drinking Goza and it's really salty, this is the kind of cigar that you might want to try. Something maybe a little...
00:52:06
Speaker
A little softer on the minerality, something that could absorb some of the the salt really well. More on the earthy side. But not salty, because if you add more salt to that, it just seems like a bit... Oh, no. A mineral-rich cigar, I would not... I think it would it would be too much.
00:52:23
Speaker
All right. So on to my Turbo Shandy. Peanut butter? Yeah, I was like that. Peanut butter and jelly Turbo Shandy. It is bizarre because it is, every sip of this is a journey of flavor.
00:52:39
Speaker
It starts off and you taste just a little bit of grape. There's not a lot of that like grape flavor, but it is, it does remind me of like a, a, a candied grape, you know, a shape grape jelly, shape crele.
00:52:57
Speaker
Then the, the
00:53:01
Speaker
in my opinion, too intense lemon flavor. There's a lot of lemon juice in this Shandy. Oh, that's right. You mentioned the base was citrus. Yeah, it's a citrus Shandy. So I assume that the base is kind of a classic Shandy that they're then adjunct brewing the peanut butter and jelly flavors into.
00:53:23
Speaker
But once that really intense flavor really sour ah lemon hits your palate, it kind of starts to fade and then you get like the peanut butter just kind of like working its way in and slowly amplifying. So it's got like a weirdly long finish for a beer where you take the sip, you get grape, then you get lemons, then you get peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter, and it intensifies.
00:53:51
Speaker
And then the peanut butter cuts off and you just taste that. that lemon flavor. And that, uh, I think that this could take the rust off of a Chrome bumper.
00:54:04
Speaker
Like it is that kind of lemon acidity. That's amazing. It's intense, but it it is actually really good. I like this. Man. I, so tell us about the the, I'm very curious about the peanut butter thing.
00:54:21
Speaker
What, when you say peanut butter, is it like uh, Is it the peanut butter flavor you would get from like ah a candy bar with peanut butter or is it peanut butter like from the jar? If that makes sense.
00:54:32
Speaker
It does make sense because i am always searching for, part of the reason I bought this, I love peanut butter beer because peanut butter is like my favorite flavor in the world. I love cigars that are peanut buttery. I love peanut butter. I love and peanut buttery candy. I'm not so big on because it's too sweet most of the time, but I just love the flavor of peanut butter.
00:54:55
Speaker
What about that, what was it, Sweet Baby Jesus? Sweet Baby Jesus is the one that nails peanut butter. Like, it's got that creaminess that you want. It has just the right peanut butter flavor. It tastes like real peanut butter.
00:55:08
Speaker
It does. This one tastes more like roasted peanuts. Okay, all right. Which is close, but there's a little difference there, you know?
00:55:20
Speaker
And again, to be fair, from a brewing standpoint, let's be real. The oils from classic peanut butter, peanut butter is just notoriously so hard to brew with because it just, wherever you put it, it either falls apart in flavor, you throw it in your boil.
00:55:34
Speaker
If you throw it into secondary or whatever else, The oils will destroy a bunch of different things. So you really don't want all that. Yeah. You don't want all that oil in your brew process.
00:55:45
Speaker
um If you use powder, you sacrifice a lot of potential flavor. If you use extract, you sacrifice making it taste, you know, to kind of fake. Yeah. Really. It's a super delicate, very difficult thing. So I give props to any brewery that even tries.
00:55:59
Speaker
I would think even roasted peanuts would be difficult because there's still a ton of oil in roasted peanuts. absolutely. Absolutely. And it's a very subtle flavor. if i If I were to brew a beer just thinking about it, I would i would want to infuse the peanut butter flavor into something else.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah. That I can, like an oak stave, if I could extract peanut butter flavor with a neutral spirit and then get that into an oak stave and then soak and then throw the oak staves into a secondary.
00:56:28
Speaker
See, that's what you do. You take a barrel, you coat the inside with peanut butter. then you give it a good Then you give it a good wipe down. um But no solvents or anything. You use a little bit of bourbon on a rag to wipe it off.
00:56:43
Speaker
Well, O-Trip, you just went full circle. Do you know what you just said? You literally just brought it back to the the wonderful world of cocktail art and science. Oh, yeah.
00:56:54
Speaker
Fat washing. Mm-hmm. What if you just took a neutral spirit and you fat washed it with peanut butter? And then, well, might be the way to do it. But then you're adding all this alcohol that's going to kill a bunch of your yeast. and well thank you You give me ideas. I might do a peanut butter beer before before PCA. No, here's here's what you do.
00:57:16
Speaker
You fat wash it in a neutral spirit, but then you cut that with water and you heat it just below boiling to evaporate off all the alcohol.
00:57:29
Speaker
And then you just have liquid peanut butter flavor. True peanut butter flavor. Oh, We have some experimentation to do, guys. We got to go. Just kidding.
00:57:41
Speaker
Oh, dude, i think I got it. All right, my gift my gift to the team for PCA is need two separate beers. One of them is going to be a grape beer or strawberry. We'll do strawberry. I like strawberry jam. I like strawberry jam more, too.
00:57:53
Speaker
We do. We do a strawberry beer, clean, just strawberry, and then we'll do a clean peanut butter beer, and then we're going to put them together on site. Pifty-pifty. Then you're going to put them together. Pifty-pifty.
00:58:06
Speaker
going to get our our sandwich, bready sandwich. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm liking that idea. Anyway, this is surprisingly working okay with the cigar.
00:58:18
Speaker
It's not great, but it's it's okay. How's the pickle beer work with the cigar? ah You know, I but don't know. Hold on. I feel like the intensity of that lemon flavor and the in this beer is really, ah really ah kind of shocks the palate, so you don't taste as much.
00:58:41
Speaker
You know what? I don't hate it.
00:58:45
Speaker
I don't love it, but I definitely don't hate it, which is a good sign.
00:58:52
Speaker
I don't want to dump it. I just don't know that I want to keep drinking it with this cigar.
00:58:59
Speaker
Okay. How is the sweetness? i'm very curious now. was so but Sorry, what? Is there any sweetness in the shandy that's bringing out the sweetness from the cigar? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of sweetness.
00:59:10
Speaker
It's a very sweet shandy. It was weird because I had just said that I don't think they work together. And then I hadn't taken a sip in a few minutes. I still have that, like, very intense lemonness lemoniness on my palate.
00:59:29
Speaker
And I took off the band off the cigar, just casually took a puff off the cigar, and I was like, That just tastes like peanut butter. um So maybe it is doing something.
00:59:40
Speaker
I'm going to have to think about and for a few more minutes. But yeah, the this is very intense beer. It's very sweet. It's, I mean, not crazy sweet, but it's pretty sweet ah with all that sugar going on and then just intensely sour.
01:00:01
Speaker
Oh, you know what? I will have to retract my previous statements. I love Double Nickel. Big fan. i will always I will always support Double Nickel and all their different beers.
01:00:14
Speaker
Some of their juice, I think they're called the ah Ripe. They do a series called Ripe, which is like ah pale ales, IPAs, sorry, that are fruited, like single fruit.
01:00:28
Speaker
The whole series is really great. and Love those beers. This one... Oh, man, my stomach is is moving. It's doing things. I don't know. That happens. It's like the Macarena right now.
01:00:40
Speaker
ah The Macarena. but A lot of pickle action in there. I bet. All that acidity is going to be messing with our stomachs. Oh, for sure. um I just went back to the smoked corn lager.
01:00:55
Speaker
It's working a lot better with cigar. It's still got like this... I think it's the smoke that brings like this brightness to it. There's like a brightness to the to the corn lager that is, i think, what was clashing with the cigar before. But at least in the final third, it's actually working a little better.
01:01:12
Speaker
Well, and it's warmed up a little bit too, right? Mm-hmm. So that always I find that almost always helps. That just reminded me of something. I didn't put it in my notes. But I thought it was super interesting interesting that Hop and Frog, if you ever make it to their tap room, they have a big thing on the top of their tap list on their website that made me very proud.
01:01:36
Speaker
It says, we serve our beers at three distinct and appropriate temperatures. Oh. Which I was like, um oh that's amazing. I love it. That's nice.
01:01:48
Speaker
Very nice. um And they also do side pull, cask pull, all sorts of crazy stuff with their beer. I love that hand cask. Just seeing somebody crank this thing out and the beer is room temperature. The sweat running down their face if they're trying to get one pint out.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah. And you think, you people look at it and go, man, that's going to be awful. Who's going to want to drink room temperature beer? And then you you take a sip. I've bet people- And it's incredible. It's got like this extra creaminess because of the way it's pumped and- It's just such a fantastic, and it's again, it's an homage to something that was that was the norm for the longest time. That was the norm in beer culture before there was this modern kind of thing that we call now beer culture.
01:02:34
Speaker
yeah Before there was a beer culture, there was a separate kind of culture where it was old school and communal and and like taverns, right? You go to a tavern. There's a place in Portland that I've always missed. I haven't been there.
01:02:49
Speaker
in
01:02:51
Speaker
in 12, 13 years now, because January 1st of 2012, I believe it was, it might've been 2013, they had to abide to the smoking ban.
01:03:04
Speaker
There was a time where you could go into this pub, smoke as many cigars as you want, drink a couple of cask ales. They had two cask poles, so they would almost always have a mirror pond, which is a Amber ale, I think, from Deschutes Brewing.
01:03:25
Speaker
And um they would have a rotating tap um on cask. And it was amazing. You would be drinking a this room temperature beer that tastes fantastic, smoking a cigar.
01:03:36
Speaker
And when they banned smoking, it hadn't been back. But it's called the Horse Brass Pub in Portland. If you're ever there, go check it out. Can't smoke a cigar, but you can have a good beer. Parking sucks though, beware that.
01:03:50
Speaker
ah Peter Janettatos, I think I said that right, says, Tripp, you have a cigar in mind that has peanut butter as a flavor? um I'm trying to think, I know there's at least three that I've had that are like, wow, peanut butter.
01:04:05
Speaker
The one that comes to mind is the,
01:04:12
Speaker
I'm trying to remember the name of it. It's a Crux. crux pb5 is that what the name was it was ah it was a limited edition so it's not something you can you can really find easily lead number five yes lead five um but the pb5 is like super peanut buttery to me um typically i'm gonna get peanut butter flavors from a habano cigar i'm trying to think of another one just i can give you an example that you can actually find
01:04:45
Speaker
but I can't think of Nortenio, at least from my own palate. Nortenio's got a little bit of that going on. Rest in peace, Nortenio.
01:05:00
Speaker
there's one on the tip of my tongue that I can't think of.
01:05:04
Speaker
I can't remember what it was. No, it's definitely Nicaraguan. no There is a Dominican one that you just reminded me of, LFD Coronado. To me, LFD Coronado has a lot of flavors of raisin and a little bit of peanut butter.
01:05:20
Speaker
It's got that funk to it that it's really cool. It does.
01:05:25
Speaker
I'm going back through my pairings here and I think my pairing of the night, I mean, I'm having all weird beers tonight that I didn't expect to pair well, but one of them I'm shocked at how well it pairs.
01:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. Blue corn masa? No, strawberry mochi. Oh, wow. Okay, cool, man. just It's so well-rounded. um It's got just the right amount of sourness so that it doesn't really stick to your palate.
01:05:49
Speaker
It's got a sweetness that is intense but falls off fast enough that ah it doesn't really stick to your palate and cover flavors up. And it ah it actually works really well with the flavors of this cigar, I think.
01:06:05
Speaker
that That white pepper spice, that cinnamon you were talking about earlier, this got a little bit of heat to it. A little bit of bread, little bit of... trying to think. There's one more flavor that I'm forgetting.
01:06:28
Speaker
Cedar. It brings out that cedar flavor a little bit too, um which makes a ah already great cigar. Just a little bit more interesting for this pairing.
01:06:39
Speaker
So if you if you ever see it, check out Strawberry Mochi from Parish. Even if it's an old can. For three years old, and this is great. It's amazing that it's, and I really loved it.
01:06:51
Speaker
I had at least two cans of it. Yeah, I think you brought home two or three. We've got a four pack, right? yeah Yeah, I love this beer.
01:07:02
Speaker
What about you? What's your pairing of the night? I i don't even know what it's going to be. I'm... I... um i oh Are you just at a loss? Well, it's definitely not. It's not going to be this pickle goza, which... Oh, I just think it's so... It's so salty, and... I don't know. I might mix it with something. Honestly, I think that it would go really well with a... um something like an old ale something that has like a really thick raisin quality to it i was thinking something with a little sweetness might yeah might calm that down a little bit because i think that's what makes this the peanut butter shandy work so well is that it is crazy sour but not like not uh
01:07:52
Speaker
not fermentation sour it's It's got a little bit of that, but it's really like it's lemon sour, like biting into a lemon kind of sour. That's wild, man. um And I love those normally.
01:08:04
Speaker
I do, too. um Where was I going with that? don't even remember. thing Mixing the gosa, the salty gosa with the sweet beer. Oh, yeah. um I don't remember what I was going say.
01:08:19
Speaker
I still lost my train of thought, even though you reminded me of where I was. I can't remember where I was going. I will paraphrase, essentially. What you're trying to say is that I need to do an homage to Bear and put some lactose in this thing.
01:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think just a little bit of sweetness. Oh, that's what I was going to say, is that this is a crazy sweet beer, but the amount of acid in it um keeps it from being off-putting. And I think the amount of sweetness keeps the acid from being off-putting.
01:08:46
Speaker
um They balance each other out because it's very sweet, but it's also very sour. So like you know they kind of cancel each other out a little bit. salt, acid, fat, heat.
01:08:57
Speaker
Exactly. so you just need to boil that, add bacon to it, and little bit of something sweet. That's right. um I think, you know, my pairing of the night, I'm going to go with this one, man. I think the inseparable, this wet, hot Pilsner from Merle City was awesome. This collaboration, the the recipe that they did with all these other breweries, super cool.
01:09:21
Speaker
Not overly, again, not not very strong. Like 4.7%, I think, is really a great sweet spot for this particular style. I love that they did wet hopping for it, which is fun. And it again, it doesn't take away from the beer, even though it does have a little bit more of a hop characteristic than you would be used to for a Pilsner.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, the IPA was great. I loved the creaminess of it, the smoothness of it. I understand now more, that now that I've had it, ah I've had about half of it. I kind of get what where they're going with this English style, this inspiration.
01:09:56
Speaker
But even that's a little bit too hoppy for the cigar. And certainly the saltiness of that goza was no go. It was a no goza. No goza for me. Perfect.
01:10:08
Speaker
It did not goza very well.
01:10:11
Speaker
I love that. All right. Well, that brings us to our pairing of the night. ah Sorry, we just did Perry the Night. One for Road? Our one for the road. I was reading a beer that Hoppin' Frog makes called Peanut Butter Hazelnut Caramel Chocolate Cake Stout.
01:10:29
Speaker
Oh, no. And was like very distracted. yeah that sounds like yeah sounds like my stomach would explode drinking that. like Oh, Jesus Sounds so filling. um Yes,
Pop Culture Interlude: Squid Game & Nosferatu
01:10:40
Speaker
one for the road. Thank you very much.
01:10:43
Speaker
ah You want to go first since you haven't done one in a little while? Yeah, I'm actually late to the game. So if anyone out there, if you're watching, if you're listening, whatever it is, don't don't tell me what happens because I'm so close, so, so close to figuring out where this season ends, what happens. I think Trippie already know.
01:11:02
Speaker
Squid Game 2, season two, very lovely. um Started watching it. Just recently, and I actually fell asleep. Second to last episode last night, fell asleep.
01:11:14
Speaker
Of season one or season two? Season two, season two. The second to last episode of season two fell asleep last night, so I have no idea how that ended. And I still have to finish that and then also get into the final episode of Squid Game. but Markedly different.
01:11:30
Speaker
I'm not going to put any spoilers out there for anyone that hasn't watched, but it's markedly different than the first season. Not in a bad way. I think it's just different. I think it's different. For me, it's different in a very good way. I've heard so from some people who hated it, um which I was like, I don't get that. My wife kind of explained that just the... just with the the contrast between the two season one and season two might be why some people didn't like it, but I thought it was fantastic. I, you know what?
01:12:02
Speaker
I understand what you're saying. And I, and I, I can absolutely see a lot of people being annoyed or upset or whatever, man. It was cool. It's been cool so far. I've been really digging it. I didn't know that it was loosely based on a kind of like a real thing.
01:12:16
Speaker
is it? Yeah. So not in terms of like games and stuff, but a ah place in South Korea that I guess it was a like walled kind of deal, right? Walled off concrete kind of deal.
01:12:33
Speaker
Everybody had uniforms with numbers. Nobody had a name. um and I guess they were pulling people off of the streets, like homeless people, and putting them in these Basically, it was a labor camp, effectively.
01:12:46
Speaker
But it was some kind of a sadistic labor camp similar to Squid Game with winding... Google this, because I think this is like real, actually. Are you sure you didn't fall asleep during a Mr. Beast video about Squid Game and just thought that was all real?
01:13:03
Speaker
That doesn't sound real.
01:13:07
Speaker
No, well... But i you know I'll believe you. I'm going to go look into it. Squid Game Creator reveals the real life of violence of, I guess, something back in the olden days. I don't know. um But yeah, check it out. I could be wrong. Fact check me if I'm wrong.
01:13:22
Speaker
just I ain't fact checker. If you're telling me lies, I'll just believe them. Only sweet little lies for you, baby. but what what's your What's your one for the road?
01:13:34
Speaker
Mine is a spicy one. Oh, big spicy. A very late game addition to my movie of the year contention ship, which it may have just won right off the bat.
01:13:49
Speaker
Robert Eggers directed Nosferatu 2024. What? Really? really You didn't know about this? It came out on Christmas. It's like a huge movie release. um Keanu Reeves?
01:14:02
Speaker
No, not Keanu Reeves. Oh, this is... a
01:14:07
Speaker
Sorry, I'll let you... So Nosferatu, which um we watched three years ago when we were doing the the Monster Mash sampler from Tetuaje.
01:14:21
Speaker
ah We talked about Nosferatu being the oldest vampire movie made in 1922, banned across the entire world. They ordered every copy to be destroyed. Somehow a few made it through, and we can still watch it today.
01:14:38
Speaker
ah The remake came out on Christmas. I saw it a couple days ago and it might be my movie of the year. One of my favorite movies that I've ever seen. It's beautiful. It has a bunch of homages to the the silent film. there There are shots taken directly out of the silent film.
01:14:59
Speaker
That's amazing. Which is super cool. um It's just the same shot recreated with modern cinematography and it looks incredible. ah They nailed the sound.
01:15:10
Speaker
um Some people aren't a fan of Count Orlok's new giant, extremely Soviet mustache.
01:15:21
Speaker
um but I came to love it by the end of the movie. Count Orlok has a mustache. Oh, Bill Skarsgård. Yeah, Bill Skarsgård is Count Orlok, and he does have a big, bushy, Rasputin, Vlad the Impaler-style mustache, which is very... ah It's jarring when you first see it. I kept thinking he was going to rip it off and look like old-school Orlok, but I get why they changed the look a little bit.
01:15:46
Speaker
um Just the acting, Lily Rose Depp in particular is, she's doing her best Linda Blair impression from The Exorcist and she's incredible.
01:15:59
Speaker
good lord what a mustache uh yeah the mustache is wild fuck a duck that's a mustache it's crazy man um but it i don't think it takes away from the movie it took me out of it for a second because i was like what the hell is going on with that mustache i didn't know tom sellick was making a reprisal in this yeah he was the stunt double jesus christ brooke shields tom sellick oh my god all right uh But yeah, I won't be out on streaming or at home for a month or two at least.
01:16:33
Speaker
um But when it does, or if you have a chance to see in the theater, I highly recommend Esferatu. It is probably scary for some people. I didn't find it really scary at all.
01:16:44
Speaker
But I watch way too many scary movies, so I'm... not immune to being scared, but it doesn't happen as often as it used to. So I don't have as good of a gauge for how scary stuff is these days.
01:16:59
Speaker
um But one of the best movies of the year by, like, by no comparison, um like there's no arguing that it's not one of the best movies of the year is what I mean.
01:17:12
Speaker
ah So go check it out. Nosferatu 2024. Oh, and Willem Dafoe. Willem Dafoe's in it. which That's cool, man. Everybody loves Willem Dafoe. Sam Finnell says his one for the road is he's about to start Squid Game Season 1.
01:17:28
Speaker
Enjoy. great it's ah it's It's a wild ride that ah it it's one of those things where like you know you see that it's taking the world by storm and you're like, can it really be that good? Yeah.
01:17:42
Speaker
But it's actually a really good TV show. Super compelling. um Really interesting commentary on just the state of the world. um It's a very good show.
01:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, and the human condition. So yeah.
Closing Thoughts & Future Topics
01:17:59
Speaker
Good on you, sim Sam. Go check it out. And that brings us to the end of the show. One more in the books.
01:18:07
Speaker
Dennis is back. Welcome back, buddy. excited Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for watching, for hanging out with us. um We will catch you next week when we will be smoking the... I can't i can't even... I don't even have all the words.
01:18:23
Speaker
don't space in my head for the entire name of this cigar. Atelier Cote Dior Attaché 2018. twenty eight Something along those lines. It's very long. Yeah, it's very long, and i can't fit all of that in my brain at once. So that's what we're going to be smoking next week.
01:18:44
Speaker
We should have spent more time talking about Lizana Palooza because we had meant to do that when we smoked the cigar when we first got back. yeah But, ah you know, that's right. well We'll get to it when we get to it.
01:18:54
Speaker
can do a recap, separate recap show probably. Yeah, exactly. That might be the way to do it. All right, everybody. Thanks. Have a good night. And remember, as always, Dennis, say the thing.
01:19:07
Speaker
Thanks, everybody, for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.