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Episode 47 - Three's Company
115 Plays4 years ago
On this episode we try out three beers we've never had before. Do we like any of them? Only one way to find out...
Featured Beers:
3 Floyds "Barbarian Haze IPA" - https://www.3floyds.com/
Bells Brewing "No, Yeah" - http://www.bellsbeer.com/
Odell Brewing "Wolf Picker" - https://www.odellbrewing.com/
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
To Buy or Not to Buy the Beer Again?
00:00:00
Speaker
Will I drink this beer again? I probably will someday. I probably will drink this beer again someday. Do I enjoy it? I do, I enjoy it a lot. But the real question, will I buy this beer? Chances are, when you get down deep into it and you start to explore my wallet, you start to explore my want and my need for this beer, I have to say,
00:00:28
Speaker
when it really comes to what I'm trying to say is that I will not hide this beer again.
Introduction to Episode 47: The Beer Adventure Begins
00:00:38
Speaker
On this episode, we try three beers we've never tried before. This is episode 47 of The Malting Hour.
00:00:46
Speaker
I had to reload this song. Five minutes in and we have another drink yet. Ha!
00:01:16
Speaker
March 1st. Here we are, the beginning of March. February, January, down the drain. 2021, it's the malting hour. I'm Tony Golic. Join Always With... Brandon Wininger. And Sprinkled Amongst episodes that work while they record... The Sprinkly Clark Fetridge. Welcome Sprinkly Clark Fetridge. Welcome back. You've been missed. You've been missed a little bit. Good to be back. Good to be back. Yeah. Well, it was only one week, actually. It worked. Technically. Yeah, I know. Technically. It's weird. It did feel like a month or something for some reason. Yeah. I don't know.
00:01:45
Speaker
Well, because the Brixton episode was a little spread out slightly, whatever. Anyways, welcome everybody. It's a new month, new week, and this week we're drinking new beers. And by new beers, Clark, do you want to explain what this is all about tonight?
The Art of Podcast Planning: A Humorous Take
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Well, as everyone knows, we plan out our episodes at least six to seven months in advance. So last August, when the three of us sat around,
00:02:10
Speaker
to plan out our schedule tony asked both of us any any new ideas i said okay maybe you know march this is in the meeting of march our large meeting room in our office in the uh tower that we have our office in uh it's like the avengers tower downtown yeah we're covid safe masses and everything uh socially distance of course sanitizer for all
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, I shouted out, okay, you know, knowing that I'm gonna wanna try new breweries in the new year.
Venturing into Uncharted Breweries
00:02:40
Speaker
I'm gonna wanna try things that are different. I thought, let's do beers that we've never bought before. Ooh. Yes, not only new beers, but what I was trying to do was a brewery that I've never bought before either. So I walk into Binny's,
00:03:02
Speaker
Ready to go. I'm going to find a new brewery, a new beer I've never bought. I've never drank before. Here we go. Going to find it. Going to walk down the aisle. Not this aisle. I've had these all. Get married. Let me walk down the next aisle. No. No new breweries. All right. Circle back. Just going to go for a new beer. You have a drinking problem. You need to stop buying so many beers. Well, that's kind of what I'm getting to. Not so much that you're drinking so much beer, but you're just buying a lot of beers. And you've hit up all the breweries, pretty much.
00:03:30
Speaker
This is the episode where Clark tells us he can't do the podcast anymore. So after leaving Binnies, I wrote a letter that I'm going to read on the air today.
00:03:42
Speaker
Dear Jessica. So I did revert to just a beer I've never bought before or had before. So I think we've got three beers that all of us haven't bought nor have drank. Correct. Yeah. As far as I know, and all three of these, I know for sure two of them are pretty new as far as I think they were both only released this year in 2021.
Unveiling Three Floyds Barbarian Haze IPA
00:04:04
Speaker
Brandon, the one that you picked, I think has been out for a little bit. I could be wrong. I don't know. Clark, I'm going to need you to pull up that data on that.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I know I'm right on top of that rose. I just saw. I saw it. I don't know if it was on after the final pour. We talked about this, but I think I had mentioned I saw a new beer from three Floyd's that looked interesting, went back to Jewel and I looked for it again and I.
00:04:30
Speaker
That's where I saw it. And then Clark was kind enough to procure it during his shopping trip to Binnie's. Yeah, it looks like last fall, it was probably the first time it came out. So it's fairly new as well. So yeah, as Brandon, you had said, you picked a Three Floyds beer. Why don't we start with that? You guys want to start with that since we've already done that? All right, cool. And Brandon, why don't you introduce your beer? And why you chose it? And maybe a little bit about the brewery.
00:04:58
Speaker
So I chose Three Floyds Barbarian Haze IPA. There was kind of a reason specifically that I went towards this one was coming off of doing our Homebrew episode and all of the talk about Clark's Fudgy Dust and how much it reminded me of Zombie Dust. Made me kind of want to try this one and see how this one varies from Zombie Dust as well.
00:05:22
Speaker
Zombie Dust, as we know, is actually classified as a parallel, even though it is extremely happy. But this is an actual IPA, so I will be curious to see how this one kind of comes together. And then for those who don't know, Three Floyds is located about 45 minutes outside of Chicago in, is it Munster, Indiana, I believe.
00:05:46
Speaker
They had a really awesome brew pub there that they announced this past year that they were closing indefinitely, not just strictly for COVID reasons, but for business reasons as well. And they are actually distilling now too, if I remember correctly. And I don't know if I've ever had any of their spirits.
00:06:10
Speaker
But yeah I am looking forward to this one because it's been a while since I've had a three Floyd's beer and it's been a while since I've had a new three Floyd's beer. Well it's a good choice I think you've chosen wisely and we have talked about you know Clark's fudgy dust based on zombie dust which I did buy some zombie dust in
The Freshness of Beer and Local Store Recommendations
00:06:31
Speaker
was that like almost a month ago now that I bought that. I just drank my last one over the weekend. So I really, and it's funny because I kind of made it like a special thing where I'm like, yeah, tonight, tonight I'm going to have a zombie dust. I was pretty happy about that. But upon opening this, this smells great. This smells very fruity, tropical. Definitely. That smells like your, I don't want to say run of the mill, but it hits all the,
00:06:55
Speaker
the aroma marks as far as a hazy IPA. As far as haze goes, yeah, it's hazy. You can still see through it, which I got to be honest, I don't really care if it tastes good. One thing I will say, what I hate about the idea of the classifying when someone says hazy IPA,
00:07:19
Speaker
I'd rather just let's get rid of the idea of calling it hazy IP as a style and just call it annoying on IPA because he's not a taste you know i mean he's not a flavor granted yes you you do eat and you can drink with your eyes and everything don't pour beer in your eyes anybody but like the idea of that because it's hazy you're gonna get this type of.
00:07:40
Speaker
fruity tropical flavor you expect from these New England IPAs, hazy IPAs. I would just call this New England IPA in my opinion. It's really good. It definitely lends itself more to the IPA side and not so much of the overly sweet and that hot burn that you get from so many dry hops or hops during the brewing process.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, there's definitely a difference as it pertains to New England IPAs on the larger scale breweries like Bell's, I mean, Three Floyds. But then obviously when you get into Hot Butcher, a place like that, they're hazing it up as one says in the beer industry. But yeah, but for a larger scale brewery like Three Floyds, not huge obviously, but pretty large. Yeah, it's a hazy-ish New England IPA.
00:08:36
Speaker
Also, I'm realizing it says barbarian haze IPA. It's not really calling it a hazy IPA. It's just a clever name, barbarian haze IPA. My bad for going off on that little bit of a rant. Unless the name is barbarian and then the style is haze IPA or is it actually barbarian? If they're calling it haze IPA,
00:08:59
Speaker
Three flights, change your marketing. That's dumb. Here's what they say about it. It says, at long last, we bring you our take on a hazy IPA. OK, so it's barbarian haze. Yeah, it's no secret that most of our portfolios hop forward, flavorful and unfiltered with barbarian haze. We took the hopping protocol a bit further using some new age brewing alchemy coupled with our old school heavy handed approach.
00:09:23
Speaker
So I'm going to brew a beer and just call it Hayes IPA or call it like make a style. It's called not hazy. Just call it Hayes IPA. Perfect. Let's do it. And it's didn't we discuss this to one of the times we had Eric in the earlier episodes. We kind of believe episode two. It was around the Bourbon County mess that we were doing.
00:09:47
Speaker
And it was a good mess. Yeah, that was another recording that was done a couple of times. Yeah, we were trying to because we had not even really got into the whole New England IPA, hazy IPA. As far as the style that we drank or brew or brewed, we made Clark, maybe you had more so than us at that time. But I know Brandon, you and I were not really on the Hays train just yet. But yeah, this this this barbarian haze, I like it. It's
00:10:16
Speaker
Very, in fact, it reminds, you know, I'm, I had last night I had, I don't know how do you pronounce, um, half acres, uh, A-Z-I-P-A. Is that it?
Exploring No Yeah by Bell's: A Midwestern Delight
00:10:27
Speaker
I drink that like Marissa Tomei Marissa Tome. I believe it's Marissa Tome. I think you're wrong, Brandon. Uh, that I thought was really good, kind of in the sense of this, that it's not overly sweet and doesn't have that, like,
00:10:42
Speaker
punch in your face, hoppiness. It's a good IPA that lends itself more to the fruity tropical side with scaling back on the bitterness. But there's still a bitterness there that comes through that makes me feel like I'm drinking an IPA. So that hits the marks. This beer hits the marks as much as the Tomei from Half Acre did. Yeah, and that's par for the course for Three Floyds. They do their IPAs very well. So it's no supply lanes. And their wheat beers.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, and their, their stouts are tasty too. So, um, I don't, I, I didn't have any, there was no low expectations on this. Uh, this is basically lived up to what I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I enjoy this a lot. I enjoy it as well. It's, it's very good. I could, uh, I might grab this next time. I like that you said you saw it in Jewel because, uh, I don't.
00:11:36
Speaker
necessarily like to venture out all the time to the store because then I spend too much time there and then I spend too much money. So if I'm grocery shopping and I walk through the beer section and I see something like this on the shelf, I'd be like, ah, yeah, I had that. And it's great because local stores are carrying more local craft beers. Just a word of advice to everybody out there. If you are trying to do what I'm doing, double check those dates. They don't care about how fresh that beer is, but you will when you open it.
00:12:14
Speaker
And we're back. Yeah, what I was going to say is I feel like that's where Tony started singing. That has been less of an issue. I think, you know, during covid, I feel like more people have been buying stuff. I've you know, the only time I'm seeing like kind of dated beers I've noticed is like in the you know, the the single shelves where it's you know, make your own six pack. That's where like the old beers end up getting rotated to. Sure. But I do see a lot like especially at Benny's, you know, the one
00:12:32
Speaker
There's my PSA for the month.
00:12:43
Speaker
Tony and I, the one we go to, definitely goes through their stock fairly reasonably. And I see breweries having empty space on the shelf a lot, which is a good sign to me because it means the beer has been bought. And they're not filling that space in with anything else. They're waiting for that brewery to provide more stock. So that's kind of awesome.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, Elman at the binnies we go to, they're running low on stock there. So I'm looking forward to the IPA to jump back in there because that's what I was looking for recently, not for this episode. Obviously, we've had it before. But yeah, when the local grocery establishment I go to, the Jewel, they have a bunch of like Maplewood and Alarmist and some of the dates on there are back from November. There's in October and I've seen September.
00:13:35
Speaker
So when I see that, I'm like, this is really crappy, number one for the brewery, because someone might be like, oh, I'm going to pick this up for, you know, try this out. You know, I've heard about this brewery and I happen to be a jewel. And then if it's a, you know, four month old IPA, crack it open and be like, never mind this again, that was gross. It just feels like it sucks.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a good representation of the brewery.
Golden Ales: The Quintessential Easy-Drinker
00:14:01
Speaker
And I know for a fact that a lot of the breweries too, if you see that stuff, they would welcome you to let them know, hey, you've got beer from September sitting on here. And I know some of these small breweries will go there and take it back. They'll go there and be like, no, you're not selling this crap. Because like you said, one bad beer could spoil you on an entire
00:14:23
Speaker
you know, brewery, you know, kind of going back to, and again, I don't know how this happened. Remember we talked about you had the, uh, the cherry beer for pizza and it was not, you were not a big fan of it when you first had it. I was not a fan of it at all. Cause you didn't exactly know what they were going for and knew that there was cherry in there. Yeah. And all I knew that was all I knew was that there was cherry in there, but didn't know everything. Okay. Yeah.
00:14:48
Speaker
You also didn't know that there was another option besides cherry beer for pizzas. That would have been something that would have turned me off from buying it completely. But you had it again now that you knew what it was supposed to be like.
00:15:04
Speaker
It was really good. And just having the regular beer for pizza. We're talking about off colors beer, in case anybody don't know. Both of those beers were, I love them now. I don't know if I necessarily got to run out and buy it all the time, but it would definitely be nice to have a four pack of that in the refrigerator for times like pizza.
00:15:27
Speaker
or any other fun food you're going to have. I still had a burger tonight, but I didn't open my beer for burgers because I had my last one. Because I knew we were doing this. I didn't want to dive deep into a barrel-aged blogger. Anyway, so I think our overall thoughts on this beer is that it's good.
00:15:48
Speaker
We like it. A solid beer we've never had before that we will have again, most likely. I would say yes, I will. Yeah, let's do that. We'll go around the table as we are sitting at our table in our office in the sky. Clark, would you have this beer again? I will buy this beer again. We're going to add some more sound effects to the sound board. Brandon, will you buy or drink this beer again?
00:16:13
Speaker
I will totally let Clark buy this beer for me again. And I will let you guys give me this beer at my... Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. At nine o'clock in the morning. I'm the only one that's bought this beer, so. Thank you. Yes. I bought my beer. Oh, you guys. Boy, jeez. We're going to have to think about that again.
00:16:35
Speaker
Nope, that's fine. We've raided Brandon's cellar for after the final four so many times. No kidding. He's off the hook. All right. Well, that's a good first choice. Where do we... You know what? I'm gonna... If you guys think you... Place. I don't know. What do you guys think? I have my thoughts about what I should drink next, but I just second guessed it.
00:16:55
Speaker
I think, I'm kind of going both ways. My first thought was let's go. You're definitely known for going both ways. Let's go to the, exactly. Let's go to the other IPA we have just because that's sort of what's on our palate. Yeah. But yeah, that's where we noticed the difference more if we go to the other one. Yes. So let's let Brandon make the final call. Uh, no. Yeah. No. Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
That's funny. See what Brandon did there hilarious. I see what he did. That's good. I didn't put it together until I took the cannon and remembered that that's what it's called. Clark, why don't you tell us where the next beer is? We're drinking No Yeah by Bell's out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. No Yeah is an easy drinking beer that's bright and fun, both inside and out. The label and design plays into the meme culture that pokes fun at Midwestern politeness. There we go.
00:17:41
Speaker
Perfect. We're going to go with your beer, Clark.
00:17:56
Speaker
Attention grabbing and fresh as golden ale stands out on the shelf and just like many of the Midwestern phrases we use, demands repeating. Just a really nice beer. No, yeah. Alcohol by volume, 4.5. Shelf life, six months. Calories, 144. Should I go on? I didn't need to know that. How many calories? 144. That's not bad at all. That's not bad. Here we go. I have enough calories left in my day. Sure you do.
00:18:25
Speaker
I already calculated these in, so I'm good. How many calories in the other beers, Brandon? Thanks for sharing that. So you didn't calculate it. You're guessing. Yeah. I put everything in as IPA, so I think I went above. That's a smart move. Smart move. All right. What do you guys... I'm pouring mine. Can you guys talk about the flavor and what it looks like? Very light, crisp, refreshing bubbly. It's a golden ale.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, I could see through it. No. Yeah. This is really good. We should know. Yeah. A lot on the show. No. Yeah. Uh, sweet multi-ish, you know, very well done. It's sweeter than I thought it was going to be totally.
00:19:13
Speaker
But it's also very reminiscent to me, personally, of the, it tastes like a sweeter version of the single hot beers I've been doing lately. The single malt, single hot beers, my Smash Blondes, as Brandon has dubbed legally blonde. Thank you. But yeah, that's what this reminds you of. It's nice, this like grainy, not like biscuity or anything, but very like grain centered,
00:19:39
Speaker
flavor, the hops, kind of fruity, but not too bitter. I wouldn't say piney. Let me give another sip here. No, I'm not getting any pine. No, I'm not getting pine, but there's a slight. No, I don't know. Yeah, there's something there. It's nice.
00:19:59
Speaker
Definitely a daytime drinking beer, lawn mower beer, fishing beer. You can tell it's bells too. Yeah. It's definitely bells beer. There's also this aroma to it that reminds me of going to a baseball game.
00:20:14
Speaker
As in like, you know, that beer smell, like just straight up beer. Does that make any sense? It smells like- Sporting in it, maybe? Like going to a hospital? It does. Filled with old style. Exactly. Well, now that you say it, and it obviously makes sense because this beer I'm thinking of is also a golden ale, I believe. Goose Island made this White Sox beer last year, and I assume this year, which is also a golden ale. And it tastes pretty darn similar. There it is. We can't go one episode without mentioning the goose. Goose is silent.
00:20:42
Speaker
The goose is loose. Hey, you got to get that on the soundboard anytime someone mentions Goose Island. The goose is loose. Maybe not. Yeah, it's. There was at first, when I first smelled it, there was kind of like the sulfury. Bad aroma that I was getting, but I'm realizing it's just beer.
00:21:05
Speaker
Aroma, does that make sense? I mean, for sure. Not skunky, but a good, I don't know, it's hard to explain. Well, I'm asking because I guess I don't know. One of you two explain a golden ale to me. What is it? What's a golden ale? To be honest, this is a golden ale. Yeah. Let's see. I mean, I looked it up, but I was just curious if you guys had your own thoughts.
00:21:34
Speaker
My idea is that it is a, it's almost like a pale ale that doesn't rely on any, oh, look, I just brought it up. Yeah, it's like a pale ale that doesn't require, like, that is, there's no other, like, specialty malts with it that's just really focused on a base malt that's usually pretty clean. Yeah, it's just gonna be a lightish, you know, very
00:21:56
Speaker
tone down. It's funny though, because when I looked up what is a golden ale, the response is like, it's a pale ale. Yeah. It's an easy drinking beer that's visually appealing. It has no particular dominating malt or hop characteristics. It can be fermented with a lager or alease.
00:22:16
Speaker
Excuse me. That's kind of what I assumed the Golden Ale was, or Blondale, when I brewed the Smash, basically, because when I poured off my first beer, I was like, it's a Blondale. It's just one hop. It's very simple and easy.
00:22:35
Speaker
A pale ale has a little bit more hop characteristic to it. There's a little bit of a malt backbone to it, but I'm burpee now from sipping through these. I will say that I really like this. Do we know, does it say what yeast, what kind of yeast they use? I know it's considered a... I've been trying to find that too. It's a golden ale. Easy drinking golden ale. Interesting.
00:22:58
Speaker
I think it's this one I might actually, no, I'm not going to do that. I was like, I think I'm just going to pour the rest of this and drink it now. My problem is from the past couple of episodes, I'm finding way too many beers and I'm going to want to pop open in the summer.
00:23:11
Speaker
You're rubbing your face like you were stressed. It's a real serious problem I'm having. And I'm like, what am I going to do? I mean, especially after Brickstone a few weeks ago, their APA, I've kind of delved back into pale ales all of a sudden. I bought a keg of fist sitting last week because I needed more beer in my fridge. Yeah, you definitely were running low. I was running low with my other 20 cans that are sitting in there. But no, it's kind of
00:23:37
Speaker
geared me towards lighter IPAs and pale ales lately, which is nice. Nice to take a little break from the heavies. Yeah, it reminds me of why I like this style of beer. This one in particular, I'm trying to find the way to describe this where it doesn't insult the beer. Here it comes. Everybody brace yourself. It's a throwback to like,
00:24:03
Speaker
Like the commercial big beers like an MG D or something like that It's not as heavy as that but the flavor is there but it's a much cleaner flavor and it's more pronounced like I'm getting more of you know, the malt flavor I'm getting you know, the subtleness of the The hop setter in here and I'm getting you know More of some of the yeast characteristics from this So it's like an elevated version of like the beers that I grew up with, you know, like
00:24:33
Speaker
It tastes like a lager to me, like a really awesome lager. Yeah, there's a lot of lager in there. Yeah, it's definitely a beer you could give to, like Jeff. I think Jeff really likes beer, but if you want Jeff or my dad or any of our dads that enjoy beer. Jeff pretty much drinks whatever we give. That's true.
00:24:52
Speaker
Hey, Jeff, try this. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Jeff's due for an episode coming up soon. We'll see. Uh, we, uh, she's episode fifties. Um, we, uh, I agree. I think we all agree that this is kind of an everyday drinking beer. It's, it's very familiar with it being very new. I remember seeing, I think, I think I sent you guys a screenshot when this was,
00:25:20
Speaker
When I saw it was being released in our text message as we were rounding out our big stout drinking extravaganza for the winter, that this was something I was looking forward to. And I had seen it only one time before you had purchased it. So I'm glad you grabbed it and I got some. I really like it. Clark, would you buy or drink this beer again? I would buy this beer again.
00:25:49
Speaker
Hey, where were you on the first round? I was adding the sound afterwards. Brandon, will you drink or buy this beer again? I would. And tell me, would you drink or buy this beer again? I most definitely will.
00:26:14
Speaker
Excellent. Three for three. That sound reminds me of the original movie, Halloween, when Dr. Loomis is talking to the sheriff when they're in the Myers' home after Michael Myers has already been there. And there's like this little noise in the background that's like that bell. It's like ding, ding. And it's just it's off. Next time you guys watch it. And now you're going to watch it anytime soon. You probably won't remember it. But if anybody out there that is very familiar with the Halloween movie, they know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:26:44
Speaker
Now we're going to watch it just for that. Perfect. I will watch it with you. Let's do a little Zoom party this weekend. Start Friday, maybe 9 o'clock, guys. You want to do it? We'll send out the link to everybody who follows us. We're going to do a Zoom Halloween original movie with a multi-hour. Can't wait. Let's move on to the third beer. Editor's note. Remove that line by Tony. Not at all. Not at all. Thank you. Yes, very sad. He lives a sad, sad life, everybody.
00:27:14
Speaker
All right, that's two for two. Good first choices. I'd say these are kind of knocking out of the park here, guys. This is a smart move. Now it all comes down to your beer, Tony, the beer that you purchased. Will we make it three for three? I hope so, man. So I decided to go with...
00:27:34
Speaker
Wolf Picker from Odell Brewing. And if you don't know, now you know. Odell Brewing is in Fort Collins, Colorado. According to this little stand, I'm looking here, as of 2018, it was the 23rd largest US craft brewing company by the Brewers Association. They only have 108 employees. How cool is that? So about this, here we go. This is Wolf Picker Experimental IPA.
Wolf Picker Experimental IPA: A Dive into Experimental Hops
00:28:02
Speaker
Wolf Picker, named after the classic hop harvesting rig, celebrates the decades-long relationship with hop farmers and our obsession with new talent in the world of experimental hops. Wolf Picker 2020 features HBC 586, an experimental hop. Is this the right beer? No, it is. Why don't I make sure? I know there's other hops in there.
00:28:24
Speaker
Well, I saw the 2020 and I was like, wait a minute. It is. I'm looking at the bottom of the can. Sorry. We'll figure 20 pages, HPC 586, an experimental hop variety that exudes bright hop flavors and aromas of mango pineapple orange balanced by a mellow malt backbone with a medium body feel baby. I think they should add baby in there. I think it also has a mosaic in it as well. And if I'm not mistaken, another hop
00:28:50
Speaker
that they don't list here, but it is on the box. So it's so experimental. It says, so experimental for the HBC 586, it doesn't have a name yet. So pretty cool. You guys already cracked it open. What do you, what are your thoughts? Light and color. Not too much head. Some really good descriptions so far. I'm getting like guava.
00:29:21
Speaker
I pull all these random flavors out of my head sometimes when I'm drinking beers. I'm like, what? Am I making this up? No. It's like ashtray. Oh, that's where it is. It's not guava. It's definitely ashtray. I was wrong. Did you say ashtray or ashtray? Yes, both.
00:29:40
Speaker
So kind of your point to saying, you think there's mosaic in here, when I was smelling it, I was like, there's a very familiar aroma that I'm getting. And it was a familiar hop. And that might be the mosaic that I'm getting. And I kind of get it on the on the taste a little bit too. But there's something in there that like, there's a powerful it's like little pineappley.
00:30:10
Speaker
And then they just, you know, slightly bitter. Yeah. But maybe it's guava. I don't know. There is some other flavor that I can't like kind of pinpoint. Um, it's definitely got this juiciness to it. That's like some type of tropical fruit and the bitterness isn't so intense, but it's, it's definitely doesn't come off like a hazy or a juicy IPA, but it's very,
00:30:41
Speaker
It's almost like if you were to try and balance how can you find a way to still have that like somewhat juicy hop flavor to a beer, to an IPA that wasn't going overboard with still maintaining like a good amount of bitterness so that it's still just an IPA.
00:31:01
Speaker
It's like this is experimental or something. Yeah, it's like as if they've used some type of experimental hop that's dumping us. Yeah, one thing. We are confused. But I had to read about this hop. It says it's been described as a large medley of fruit flavors, mango guava. Huh? Hey! Clark, what's your prize? Leche, citrus, and slight sulfur in herbal notes, huh?
00:31:30
Speaker
I think sulfur is what it is. That's what I'm getting. That's what I'm noticing. I didn't know one would get that out of hops. Definitely tasting the tai chi that you had mentioned. That's very sweaty, very karate-ish. Yep. Yeah. Tai chi. My favorite fruit. We're not going to go with that joke? Okay, cool. Moving on. We're all a little behind on everyone's jokes. It would bring us to know, yeah, and you're tai chi.
00:32:02
Speaker
I'm a little behind on the drum, the drum roll there. Just par for the chorus for the day. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. I like this. I want to be honest. I do. I'm going to be honest. I know I lie a lot on this show, but right now I'm going to be honest. I think if anybody else, other than the three of us, would drink this, they wouldn't be so perplexed by it. They'd be like, oh, good IPA. But I feel like since
00:32:30
Speaker
The show is about dissecting beer and really talking about beer. We are focusing a lot on what is presented to us. It's different as far as what I normally have when I expect just something to say IPA on it, but I love it. I think it's really, really good.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, if someone handed me a beer, if someone said, can I get you a beer? And I said, what types do you have? Oh, we got a lager, a golden ale, and an IPA on draft. And I say, sure, give me the IPA. If I drink this, I go, oh, this is great. Perfect. That's all I need. I wouldn't start. Yeah, you can.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. I wouldn't start delving into all these details that were... Yeah. What I was going to say is, I don't know if Tony said it, it's not a juicy IPA, but it definitely...
00:33:22
Speaker
It kind of falls in the middle of the road for me where it's not overly juicy. It's not a dry IPA. It's not overly bitter. I think everything kind of plays really well together in this. And I'd be curious to learn more about this experimental hop because I'm sure that's kind of what's giving it these interesting flavors that we're noticing on top of the other stuff, the mango or pineapple or the guava.
00:33:48
Speaker
Or the Tai Chi. Yeah, the sweatiness from a gi that's getting poured in here. It rounds this whole thing out.
00:34:00
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, this is solid. And it's funny because when it's an experimental IPA, I thought they were just experimenting with hops that they'd never used before. I do like the fact that it actually is an experimental hop that it goes into this. This isn't the first time that I think we've tried or at least I've tried a beer that had like one of these experimental hops. And it's cool to see those beers come out.
00:34:21
Speaker
So is the theme of this beer, I mean, it says on there, it's a seasonal release. Is the theme of it to use experimental hops every time they do this? It's mine. That was my understanding when I when I purchased this. I don't remember. I see Odell beers on the shelf. I have purchased Odell beers in the past. I do like Odell beers. I don't remember seeing this. This this stood out
00:34:43
Speaker
to me. I did see it in an ad I received in an email from Binnies. And then as I was walking through the Binnies looking at stuff and I said, that's where I've seen this before. I decided to go and do this. Yeah. And I saw it and I was like, Oh, that sounds cool. And as I was kind of like, looking, I was like, I was, you know,
00:35:04
Speaker
I was this close to buying a Hubbard's cave for this episode. But I'm like, let's not get crazy. Let's try something else. And so when I saw this as I was rounding the making my U in the large aisle there, I saw it and I said, this is it. That's the one. And I just grabbed it and I left before I could look at anything else.
00:35:22
Speaker
You know what's kind of funny? How this all turned out, though, too, is I made a clarifying question of are we buying IPAs to drink? There was no buy, you know, something. Whatever. All kind of pretty much went. Yeah. Two out of three end up being IPAs. Yeah, because the original idea I threw out there was let's just do an episode focused on IPAs because we've never just we've done a pale episode. We've done stout episodes. We haven't just done a good old fashioned IP episode, which should come around. We'll do it.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we ever did it. I know we had talked about talking about this year's hop slam. Oh, yeah. I've got one left. You guys want to get crazy? Yes. I think I've got four left. Four left? Even crazier. Yeah. That was the first beer. I'll run one over to you guys. No, I got one. That was the first beer that turned my dry January into driest January because I picked it up and I'm like, I got to have one. I just bought it.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, that was the first beer I had to end dry January, aside from the home brews that I had. That doesn't count. That doesn't count. Home brew is a real beer. It's not true. Yeah. It's delicious beer. It's a good beer. All right. Let's go around the table as we normally do when it comes to this part of the beer tasting. Clark, would you and do you, wait, would you buy this beer and do you like this beer?
00:36:47
Speaker
I'm going to say a couple things. Oh boy. Okay. Will I drink this beer again? I probably will someday. I probably will drink this beer again someday. Do I enjoy it? I do. I enjoy it a lot. But the real question, will I buy this beer? Chances are.
00:37:07
Speaker
When you get down deep into it and you start to explore my wallet, you start to explore my want and my need for this beer. I have to say when it really comes to what I'm trying to say is that I will not buy this beer again. But like I said, I'll drink it again. I'm happy to drink it. I just probably won't buy it.
00:37:36
Speaker
Fair enough. Did I get my point across? Yeah, no, it was good. You were a little, little dramatic, but I think we, everybody gets it. Oh, I think that's the intro to the show.
00:37:49
Speaker
I don't know, man. As good as that is, I kind of want to leave it just in where it's at. That's so good. That might be my video. Yeah, seriously. We don't say what the beer is, so it's a good giveaway. Or it's not a good one. Brandon.
00:38:09
Speaker
Will you buy this beer again and would you drink it again? Take your time. I would definitely drink it again. I would probably buy it again. I'm saying probably because, again, there's tons of beers out there. I don't think I would actively seek this out to purchase it unless I think this would be a once a year buy because if they're using new hops in it every year, I'd be curious to see what they were doing.
00:38:34
Speaker
It does look like they do use different hops every year. Like in 2019, they were using Strata or Strata. Yeah. So then I would say yes. I would definitely buy this again, just to see how it differs next year.
00:38:50
Speaker
Ooh, that might change my answer. That's a good point. Sorry, you already gave a dramatic speech. Oh. Sorry. Yeah, you get the music and everything, dude. There was music. For me, for the rotating series, I'll say yes. I'm going to buy it again. Do it. I like it. Yes. If this just became an actual, if they use this recipe and those hops and this became its own beer, I would definitely buy this again. I like the,
00:39:18
Speaker
much like how we discuss with the barbarian haze IPA and the half acre tome, tumi, tome. Those beers have that fruitiness and also just straight up classic IPA characteristics that I like. And this I feel leads more towards the fruitier side. So I feel like it's not necessarily in, it's not juicy as much as it is fruity.
00:39:47
Speaker
So I think this also would be a beer I'd lump in with those types of beer that, you know, not super hazy, not crazy New England, not crazy, you know, bitterness, but a nice change of pace while still representing the style very well. So that's the yes for me. All right. Cheers. All right. Bye. Cheers to that. Bye.
00:40:17
Speaker
We're sending an episode like that sometime. I mean, three for three on beers we've never bought or had before. I'd say we did pretty well.
00:40:24
Speaker
I think we did great. I'm pretty proud of us. I wasn't really sure where we were going to go or what everybody had in mind once they went to the store. It's funny, Brandon, I thought maybe you would end up being someone who chose something like, no, yeah, and Clark, you're doing something a little crazy. But we were all kind of on the same page. Even when you guys showed me what you bought, I had the option. I felt like I had the upper hand there to
Local vs. International: The Beer Dilemma
00:40:50
Speaker
either go in completely other direction or kind of keep the same path and that wolf, the wolf picker, I feel like, kept in that same path. What I was going to possibly get was the Shit Hubbard's Cave, what is it? Milk of the Hornet, whatever their milkshake IPA, because they keep rotating those fruits out there. I have not had it and I thought that one would be fun. But then I thought about it, I'm like,
00:41:20
Speaker
That's a 16-ounce can, and if we're already knocking out these 12-ounce cans, that's gonna make for a rough evening for all of us regardless.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, I will say that I was close. Thank you. You're welcome. On two other beers. I had a four-pack in my hand, a 16-ouncer. I even took a picture of it because I was getting ready to send it to you guys, so you knew not to buy that one. And maybe this could be like the runner-up of the three. This is kind of the fourth place. It was Illuminated Brew Works Creeper, India.
00:41:54
Speaker
Pale ale. I've almost purchased that in the past because I think the name and the can design, their beers are really good, by the way. I don't know if you guys have had any from them. So I think I will buy that beer sometime soon, someday, somehow. Nice. I feel like this is, we could, sorry, go ahead, Brandon. Did I forget what I was going to say?
00:42:24
Speaker
We're talking about creepers. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, yeah, but the guy had a dropped-off beard in my house. He's crazy. It works with the theme. I told Laura, stay away from the door.
00:42:33
Speaker
I was actually curious of what you were going to get, because when you had said you had had all the breweries, and I had mentioned going international, I was wondering if you actually were going to. Yes, I thought the same thing. Like, are we getting some German wheat? We could have got some delirium or some good silage. No, delirium was real close. That was one of the other ones I had in my hand was real close. And when Brandon said, well, go international, I'm like, oh, duh, I obviously haven't had many of those. So I went over. There were some interesting ones. All of it was stuff that
00:43:03
Speaker
either we've had something similar to or pretty widely distributed across the world kind of beer. But I did find one brewery, I think it's called Collective Arts, but it's out of Canada. They had some interesting beers and it was an IPA.
00:43:19
Speaker
But this goes back to your date discussion. It was from November, which isn't awful. But if I'm trying a new beer, a new brew I've never had before, yeah, I want something that's pretty fresh, so I get a real feel of it. So I didn't get that, and that's what led me to know, yeah. I was pretty close because Binnies, I think, still, the Binnies by us, still has maybe one or two of them left, four packs of the barrel aged Guinness. I was this close to getting it, but I was like,
00:43:46
Speaker
I don't want another barely aged beer right now. I have been, you know, sticking a couple cans or bottles here and there of some barely aged stuff, you know, throughout the days, but not anywhere near what we were doing. That's for the Sunday matinee show. I would like to say that I think that this
00:44:04
Speaker
This whole approach, Clark, this kind of goes to what your brew year's revolution. Resolution was of trying new beers or new breweries or just kind of expanding your horizon and not just buying anti-hero and everything that revolution puts out.
The New Beer Quest: A Future Commitment?
00:44:22
Speaker
So you got a keg of this city. So we tried something new. You got a keg of this city.
00:44:27
Speaker
I mean, he's going to buy other beers. He's got to have a keg of this city on at all times. So he can meet it. But I think this would be something fun to do maybe, you know, we don't do necessarily once a month, but every other month. It's a quarter or something like that. Yeah. Kind of revisit this whole idea of let's try some new beers together that we've never had. Beers with buds. Just punch me. That we've never bought before.
00:44:51
Speaker
w b t w n b b perfect that's the shortest and easiest academic to remember that's when the sad music should have played no no don't you do it don't you dare to son of a aren't you guys glad that i'm back hey oh that's the joke of the night and on that note right on top of that rose
00:45:17
Speaker
I think we can wrap this one up. You guys, well done. Good choices. I think we all did a good job on picking these beers. Pick up these beers. Pick up the bars. Oh, it's happening. Very good. Like I said, I plan on buying these all. And everybody who's listening, you should check these out. I'm going to
00:45:38
Speaker
You guys will see the pictures for the podcast, but I'm going to throw links in there for the breweries so you guys can find these beers on your own just to go over. It was the Three Floyds Barbarian Hays IPA, and the Know Yeah Bells Golden Ale, and the Wolf Picker Experimental IPA from Odell. So there you go, everybody. That's going to do it for this week. Brandon, I love you, man. Love you too, man. Clark, I appreciate it. Whatever. Oh, yeah, likewise.
00:46:08
Speaker
Ouch, tough week. I like Brandon more now, so. I'll take it. I said it. You guys already have those high life glasses you can cheers from afar, so I kind of like that together. That's right. Yeah, we use those all the time on our other podcast, actually. Brandon, did you go to Clark's birthday? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. But you forgot to wish him a happy birthday while you were there, so you did it the day after. Yep, yep, that's right. Yeah, but he was here. He at least showed up. Yeah. All right, fair enough. Fair enough? Fair enough.
00:46:38
Speaker
Here comes Michael Myers. Good points. All right. Till next time. Bye. Bye. This has been The Malting Hour. Be sure to follow us on all social media by searching The Malting Hour and at themaltinghour.com. You can also follow us on social media platforms individually. Brandon can be found on Instagram as bmdub81. On Twitter, bdub81.
00:47:05
Speaker
An untapped, B-Dub drinks beer. Tony can be found on Instagram and untapped under Asafelp Chicago. On Twitter, TheAsafelpChicago, Clark can be found as Clarkhouseki on all three. Be sure to subscribe, like, and rate the show on your preferred podcast listening platform. Until next time, cheers from all of us at The Malting Hour.