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Episode 50 - Rabid Brewing
124 Plays4 years ago
WE MADE IT! EPISODE 50!!! On this episode we talk to Raiye and Tobias of Rabid Brewing. We drink through several of their beers (and a hard seltzer) while discussing numerous topics including the pros and cons of having chalk boards walls while kids are allowed in the brewery. HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has been listening and following our show from the beginning. We love doing the show and look forward to doing 50 more. https://www.rabidbrewing.com/ Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli) Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Celebrating Episode 50
00:00:00
Speaker
But the other thing is that we have penises on our walls here. And there's a certain amount of, you know, adults' humor at home. Okay, for the people at home. I'm on my way! Clark, pick me up, we're going! I'll be there in two.
00:00:20
Speaker
On this episode, we're joined by Ray and Tobias of Rabbit Brewing. This is episode 50 of The Molting Hour. What's the haps on the hops? Guy, yeast, that's peace. This the molten hour where we talk about our drink and tell you what we think every other week. And if we get drunk, well, we might slur our speech. Got the gift of ab, the friends who wish you had. Join us for a drink. Join us for a laugh. Time is never wasted. When you're getting wasted, the molten hour here. People, people taking places. People, people taking places.
00:00:53
Speaker
And take our places we have. It is official. We have made it to the big episode number five. Oh, round of applause. Everybody. You don't have a round of applause thing for that, Brandon? Dude, you can't just throw that at me. I just kind of thought like episode 50, you'd have like a round of applause sound thing ready to go. That's not the case. Actually, the only reason I'm here is to clap for the 50th episode. I'm out. I like your style, dude.
00:01:19
Speaker
I got that, I got that, I got that. Is that the only sound you have for the episode? No, I got it going. Okay, good, good. There's more surprises. But it is, it's official. We've made it to 50 episodes. This is the Malting Hour. I am one of the hosts, Tony Golic, joined always with... Brandon Winniger. And for his 50th appearance... Mostly Clark Fetridge.
00:01:42
Speaker
Oh, outstanding, outstanding. Well, guys, congratulations. We made it to 50. I hope to see 50 years old. So that's something to look forward to
The Backstory of Rabbit Brewing
00:01:51
Speaker
as well. There you go. But we did it. And it's been a weird couple of years, but, you know, we found ways to make it work. We've had some fun times. I would say we had some bad times, but I don't think we've had a single bad show or experience with us doing a show. The audience might have thought, man, that's a bad show.
00:02:11
Speaker
But us doing it, I don't think it was ever a bad show. I never had a bad time. Did you guys have a bad time ever? No comment. That's why you don't get a paycheck. But it is a special show, not only because it's the 50th episode, but a little backstory behind it. You know what, Brandon? Again, I'm going to step away from the mic for episode 50 and let you
00:02:41
Speaker
Like Tony said, the backstory here is when we were first starting this podcast, we did a couple test episodes that we wanted to kind of get a feel for what we were doing.
00:02:52
Speaker
we thought about breweries that we knew that we would want to interview. And the first brewery that came to mind was Rabbit. I was like, oh, my good friend Matt's brother has an awesome brewery in Homewood. Let's go down there and interview them. So we had it planned. We were going to come down early one morning. It was in December. It was over Christmas break. I had taken the entire week off, and then I got sick. And I was like, so we're going to have to reschedule.
00:03:21
Speaker
You texted me and I was like, yeah, I think I wasn't feeling great either. And I was like, this is not a good start to something we're planning on doing all the time. Yes. So that we kind of put that on hold. And then even further down the line, I think
00:03:38
Speaker
I think COVID had hit right around list, no, not this time last year, but around May of last year, I remember, I think I may have reached out to Tobias again and said, hey, we got to try and do something over Zoom. He was like one year later almost. He was like, let's do it.
Origins of Rabbit Brewing
00:03:54
Speaker
And then, you know, I was like, man, how are we going to get their beer? I was like, I don't want to leave the house. Like, I'm not going anywhere. And then, I know, right? So fast forward to,
00:04:08
Speaker
What is now April, what is April 12th is the day this is being released because this is our 50th episode. April 12th, we have- April is so beautiful right now in Chicago. Ah, lovely. Everybody's been vaccinated. The world is free again.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yesterday was my birthday. Oh, happy belated birthday. Happy belated birthday. April 11th, never forget. So we do have the pleasure of having both Tobias and Ray from Rabbit Brewing join us today for the show. Yay. Insert the applause zone. I was hoping you would have.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so super excited. Um, what, what kind of led to this too is it was our 50th episode and we were kind of talking about what should we do. And I said, you know what? Screw it. Let's get rabbit on here for the 50th episode. And I will make the trek down to Homewood. I'll tell my wife. I need to go and we need to bring the kid and let him ask. You asked back. You didn't tell her you're going.
00:05:11
Speaker
Don't make it seem like you're some big. No, I told her and I said she can come if you'd like. And then we let my kid play around a park that Tobias informed me later that was a drug den or whatever. Where people would go and just.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yes, Wampum Lake. So we had some fun there, found some drugs, you know, touched some needles. And then we came over. This is taking a very bad turn. So we went and picked up some beer. So anyway, so I picked up some beer and I delivered some beer to our co-host, both Tony and Clark. We all have the stout that we're drinking right now. And I kind of, so since we had,
00:05:57
Speaker
like a variety of other beers, I kind of mixed it up and I just kind of gave them a little bit something else to try. So if we move into a second beer while we're talking on the show, then we'll all have a different experience and be able to kind of give our thoughts about what we enjoy about
The Shadow Stepper Stout
00:06:11
Speaker
the beer. I hope mine's laced with psychedelics because that would really make this for an exciting 50th episode. It's made with wampum water.
00:06:25
Speaker
So yeah, so thanks again guys for coming on. So but just kind of like diving right into it. So you guys are a local brewery out in Homewood, Illinois. How did that concept kind of come into play? Well, I had a
00:06:48
Speaker
How did it come into play? That's a very broad question, Brandy. How did it happen? Before I dive, go kind of step backwards into the hot deal of starting the brewing and all that stuff, just the concept of starting a brewery, how did you decide? You lived in Homewood, but how did you decide? We had just gotten married. And we had just spent the year buying a house, setting up, getting
00:07:17
Speaker
getting this wedding together in a year. And we just- And Brady Bunching. And Brady Bunching five kids together. I do love that term, by the way. And so we went out on a little honeymoon and I think it was there that I said, hey, you know what? We need a five year plan. I want to do something different.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I don't want to sit behind a computer anymore. I think that five-year plan should be opening a brewery.
00:07:53
Speaker
I mean, that's how it actually came out. Yeah. Wow. OK, I thought there was going to be a little bit more to that, but that was it. That was the fire. Well, I mean, according to the question, there's a lot more in the story. It is kind of funny, though, because I do remember when you kind of announced that this was happening because we were both working at the same company for that for a short stint of time. And
00:08:21
Speaker
They were like, Tobias is leaving. And I was like, God damn it. Somebody I know and like is leaving. I was like, what are you doing? You're like, I'm opening a brewery. And I was like, oh, take me with you. Let's go. They're like, let me get off the ground first. We'll talk about it. But I was like.
00:08:37
Speaker
That's awesome. And I think that was the first time I, I knew you were into beer because I know you had been to like FOBAB in the past and we've had passings like at those events but I, and I think it was probably just a couple months prior to that that I realized that you actually brewed because I was
00:08:58
Speaker
hanging out with your dad and your brother and your dad was talking about brewing beer and I'm like, wait, you brew? He's like, I used to do it all the time and Tobias used to brew with me. I was like, Tobias brewed? I was like, that's awesome. And I had brewed in the past. I hadn't been doing it as much anymore. So I kind of knew that you had been brewing. So when I heard that you were opening a brewery, I thought that was awesome.
00:09:22
Speaker
I was super excited to kind of see where that went. So, you know, with that, what was like, you know, you had your five year plan. I know you, you know, the company we were at together, you kind of stepped back and left. And then I know you kind of went full force because I remember just like seeing you posting and like updates and you were, you know, talking about, you know, talking with city officials and kind of getting approval and all this kind of stuff. Just following the saga on Facebook,
00:09:50
Speaker
Um, but how did, you know, how did you end up, how did you end up like, was Homewood always the place? I know you were living there, but was that like your, we're going to make this a hometown brewery type of thing? Yeah. Uh, it was pretty clear that it's exactly what Homewood was lacking at the time. And the rest of the area had, you know, Lansing kind of, you know, okay, well, if Lansing's got a brewery, Homewood should really happen.
00:10:21
Speaker
Yes. Great comparison. Well, amusingly enough, that brewery specifically is One Trick Pony and they're kind of like, we consider them like a godfather brewery to us. Very god. Very, very god brewery. That's a good return. I like that. So yeah, do you, I mean, do you want to talk about that a little bit?
00:10:49
Speaker
No. This is going great. I want to talk about how what you brought to the first date. Oh, I want to hear that. Yeah, we want to hear that. This is probably this is probably one of the most critical stories in rabbit's history. And that was when Ray and I, I had rick mover in over to my place. And I was actually living Lansing. And
00:11:18
Speaker
And I very first dating very first. Yeah. And and I said, you know, I'll be right back. I'm going to run out to the store, grab some stuff so I can, you know, really some food, have some drinks or whatever. And so I brought back, you know, some meat to grill and a 12 or of Miller Lite and boy.
00:11:45
Speaker
Not on the first date, man. I mean, that's like, if nothing's going, this is like date six and you know for sure what's gonna play out for the rest of the night. That's when you grab the 12 pack of Miller Lite. I'm just saying, just saying. I'm gonna say you never grab a, no. I mean, I'm being as nice as possible about it. Yeah, right.
Exploring Hard Seltzers
00:12:06
Speaker
So she just looked at me, shook her head and said, no, honey, we're gonna go back to the store.
00:12:15
Speaker
And so she takes me back to the liquor start and we picked out some stuff. I think it might've been Apocalypse Cow and Alpha King. And we took those back and I had those and it's just like, man, that was just, that was the moment right there when I realized, well, I realized A, I was going to have to probably marry this woman.
00:12:45
Speaker
and be that this was absolutely something that I loved and wanted to get my hands on all of it. I'm glad that you clarified that because you said when you started with that was the moment and I was like, he's got two ways to go. He's either going to go craft beer way or love of his life. And man, you chose the right one first. Good job. I actually thought the story was going to go.
00:13:09
Speaker
Ray walked out to her car and opened up the trunk and pulled out like six packs. He was like, this is what we're doing. I used to sell these at Lake Wampum.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, and it's funny. So you mentioned like Alpha King and that that ironically that was one of my first beers from Three Floyds that I had that I fell in love with. So much so that when I wrote my first beer recipe, I basically looked at Alpha King or like what they said was used online and I kind of
00:13:48
Speaker
jobbled that around and kind of changed the hop schedule a little bit and ended up making that a beer that we ended up brewing with Almond Brewing in Chicago. They let us brew at their place and then they tagged it for us and sent it off so we could serve it at our wedding. So that was pretty awesome. So that is... He's talking about our wedding, all three of us when all three of us got married. Yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Um, it was, it was, so that's, that's a very, uh, special beer to me too. So, but that is, that's awesome that kind of how that revelation kind of came into play. So, and then you guys got married, you had, you know, your five year plan, you know, Homewood, you know, was needing a brewery. Um, how did the name come into play?
Barrel Aging and Festivals
00:14:30
Speaker
How did like, you know, yeah, actually that's a big one. Rabbit, Rabbit Brewing, like, how did that come into play?
00:14:38
Speaker
Right. So, um, I, I had been playing around with some mythology ideas and I was really into, I, I really liked this concept of a rabid God. And, um, so we made our first beer and we named it error of the God. And,
00:15:04
Speaker
And then it was kind of like, ha, you know, if we use that rabid God concepts for this beer, you know, like, what if we called it hair of the God, and then the name of the company was rabid God. Well, that was exactly what the plan was for a very long time until we brought on investors. And one or two of them got a little squeamish about wisely. Yeah.
00:15:33
Speaker
And, and so, uh, so I just said, well, fine. How about if we just drop God altogether and just, just make it rabbit? Because I like that a lot, you know, drop God. Yeah. So it just simplified it. It, it made sense to me. It worked.
00:15:52
Speaker
And, and so we kept all the mythology without using rabid God as, as the name, but we kept the rabid God name as the name of the parent company. So, so we're still rabid God, LLC, rabid brewing as a company. So that's pretty much how we came up.
00:16:17
Speaker
Hey, you know what? So kind of to just jump into like the beer itself, I think right now we're all drinking shadow stepper. I don't know if we talked about exactly what we're drinking. So we have not yet. We have not delved into it.
00:16:33
Speaker
So I was lucky enough to get this beer when I came down on Saturday because they were actually getting it at the time that I like walked in the door like literally he's like we're about to start canning I will give you I'll give you some of it that comes off right off the line and I was lucky enough to grab this and this is a phenomenal beer. So
00:16:55
Speaker
just kind of talking about the beer itself. So how, you know, how old is this recipe? How long have you guys been serving this one? And what is, you know, kind of the general feedback that you guys have gotten from this, from this beer? That beer was my very first stout recipe. And it is one of my oldest recipes. And
00:17:23
Speaker
Man, so I've been doing that one since like, about 2013, I think it was, was when I first came up with it. And the people that I was sharing my beer with at the time were just like dropping their jaws left and right saying, you know, I would just drink shit out of this.
00:17:45
Speaker
That was the phrase that was used very frequently. I love drinking shit out of beer. That might be the intro of the show right there, Brandon, be careful. So yeah, it was very popular. It worked out really well. People came in and seeing people's eyes pop
00:18:12
Speaker
you know, when, when they would drink it, it was, it was a pretty amazing experience when we opened the doors and that was kind of one of the things that we were like, okay, this is definitely going to be, you know, a standard for us. Um, so yeah, the, just recently though, we've been getting a ton more attention. Well, you know,
00:18:39
Speaker
One of the things that the pandemic brought on were just all kinds of new ways to have beer festivals. And so like the Crapper's Guild last year did a beer box in the middle of summer. I think they called it Christmas in July. And so we put, even though I think maybe y'all thought I was a little crazy to put a stout in that box, I thought it would stand out in the field of IPAs in the middle of summer.
00:19:07
Speaker
And it really did stand out, and we got a lot of really neat attention from that, from doing that box, just from getting that beer into people's hands at that time. I always give a whole lot of feedback about it being, you know, like a really adult hot chocolate, because it's an adult chocolate milk, because it's got that really dark grossiness
Collaborations and Inclusivity
00:19:30
Speaker
to it. Yeah, there's a little bit of coffee kind of undertone to it.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah this and this period especially so I have this thing where it's like people always say oh it's stout weather and I'm like dude if it gets below 65 in Chicago it's stout weather for me like whatever um but this summer of the stout last year yeah
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah but this is a perfect like I don't care if it's 70 degrees like sit by the fire drink this like if I was cooking up some s'mores at a campfire or whatever like this would pair perfectly with that like um so I think the idea of throwing that in through in a July box is brilliant because nobody else would do that so you would stand out so that
00:20:15
Speaker
Some thought went into that, and that is brilliant. Yeah, if you knew our show, that would probably be the first one all three of us would have picked if we hadn't presented. Oh, that's ours. We're here for the Stout, thank you. That's for sure. We're big Stout fans.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yep and just kind of my my take on this beer kind of what you said is it's got that adult hot chocolate kind of vibe. It's obviously obviously not hot. I poured mine, I think we all poured ours a little bit before we started just to kind of let it warm up a bit and as I'm drinking it as it warms up that chocolate is kind of developing more and dude this is a phenomenal phenomenal beer and
00:20:56
Speaker
If you start pushing your beer into the Chicago market, getting it out there, I will be all over that because it's easy drinking. It says it's 7% on the can, but it tasted almost like it was a little hotter than that.
00:21:14
Speaker
Like when I first started taking a sip, I got a little bit of booziness on it and I was like, what's that? And then it's funny. I think it's funny how you're like on the outsides, it says seven percent. I'm not buying that shit, though. No, but then we talk about that. We talk about that a lot, how like we'll drink something that's 10 or 11 percent. And I'm like, man, this is kind of easy drinking and like this is not a 10 percent beer. Yeah. But then five minutes later, when we're done recording, we're like, that was 10 percent.
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, but then I look at it like seven percent. I'm like, man, it feels like it should be more like it's it's got that mouth feel and like that, you know, all of the good things you would want out of a like a, you know, a nice thick stout without the booze, which is a kudos for that recipe, man. Yeah. So that's I think that part of what you're alluding to there is is is the mouth feel you were saying is, you know, kind of like that.
00:22:06
Speaker
that thick kind of creaminess that it has. And that is that is definitely something that we love about that beer. We did adjust the recipe to balance the water a little bit differently, to give it a little bit of a smoother kind of feel. But yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's it's one of it does use lactose sugar, but it's, we don't
00:22:33
Speaker
do a heavy dose on it. And I think that that comes through too, is that it's kind of very mild undertone, but it works.
00:22:44
Speaker
I was sorry, Clark, you're about to talk, but I'm not going to allow it. What I was going to say about this is that one of the things that this reminds me of is there, especially for it being a milk stout, I don't know a lot of milk stouts that taste like this that have that kind of just
00:23:05
Speaker
American stout taste to it without it being, what am I saying? What am I going with here? It's a very nice, it's a different type of milk stout for me. What this reminded me of as soon as I took a sip of it was Half Acres Original Reaper, which is not a milk stout, but there is that bitterness and roastiness that's very similar that you can find in American stouts that
00:23:30
Speaker
I feel like a lot of milk stouts ditch, they ditch that whole idea. It's just supposed to be sweet and creamy and maybe just tastes like some coffee, but this embodies, I feel like, an American stout and I really like it.
Pandemic Adaptations
00:23:43
Speaker
Whenever Clark has to follow that up with, we can ignore it, because it looked like you guys wanted to say something.
00:23:48
Speaker
Well, I was going to say exactly the same thing you were. But if I weren't, no, what I was going to say was when I poured it into my glass, I took a whiff. And honestly, I don't know if I've smelled that aroma in any other beer I've ever had. It was so interesting, so different. And then I took that sip, and it was also so interesting and so different. And at 7%, it's in a nice little sweet spot between the 12%
00:24:15
Speaker
barrel aged beers that the three of us are always drinking and, you know, Guinness, which we drank last week, it's it's in a nice, well, you know, I had a Guinness. So it's in this category that I often don't have. I mean, I'm always going for these barrel aged things. And I often don't go for these lower ABV. I don't know if I can say that for 7%. But it's in this nice little spot where it's still got that heavy body, but it's not too heavy. And it's quite nice.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's kind of like the big thing too with, especially you mentioned Clark, like going for the barrel aged beers, you're going for it, not specifically because it's in higher ABV, but because it's got some like umph to it and like whatever. But I feel like this has just enough of everything you would want without being too much where like,
00:25:10
Speaker
Oh my God, I just drink a 16 ounce can. I feel like crap. Like I can drink, I can finish this can. Not that I'm going to be like, oh, I'm going to have another one right away, but like I could definitely drink something else. You know, I do have another one up.
00:25:28
Speaker
Got a little X slinger. So that one's on deck for after this one. Clark, did you have one on deck? I'm just curious, Clark, do you have one on deck for after this? It's a secret. Oh, okay. That's lame. That means it's in his fridge. It's a secret. I'm only drinking this.
00:25:47
Speaker
But actually, so that, so we are talking about, you know, the different beers that you guys have. Something new, I think this is something new that you guys did this year was the hard seltzers. Yeah. Oh, you mean my secret beer for later? Oh, it's not a secret beer. It's a hard seltzer. So yeah, you kind of gave me a brief overview when I came down to talk to you, but so what, how did the idea of you guys wanting to do a seltzer come into play?
00:26:14
Speaker
Well, while I go and get something else on deck, I'm gonna let Ray talk about that. Yes, finally. Perfect excuse for me. I think he'd say something around here. That's what we were waiting for. We're actually, we weren't recording. We're gonna press record now. Now. Yeah, the show has just begun. See all of this other hyperbole. Nope. No, you know, I think
00:26:40
Speaker
I think that COVID made us look at a whole lot of things and look at how we could maybe expand our offering. And so I would say probably around the beginning of the summer, I went to these guys and said, hey, I think we should start piloting these. And they looked at me a little bit crazy because I think maybe there's some beer purists that would get a little worked up about it.
00:27:07
Speaker
But the thing is that I'm just so excited about it as a platform. I mean, I think that it allows us to make a delicious, fermented beverage that serves the needs of people who can't, you know, the anti-glue types, you know, the folks who want to be a little bit more diet friendly. I feel like, you know, there were so many folks drinking truly over the summer.
00:27:30
Speaker
And it just made me angry because that stuff tastes like shit. Can I say shit? Not about truly, you cannot. Tony, you got to go. I like the truly lemonade. I like the truly lemonade. But that was the thing. I felt like we could make something in this platform that was delicious. And you know, it wasn't even just about a product meeting a certain need. It was about
00:27:54
Speaker
go and make art with it. Like this is just art you put in your mouth. And I don't know, these guys, I think are doing a fantastic job of doing that. Yeah. And I think that that's, that was the famous, we kind of saw when she said that to us is kind of like, well, yeah, I guess we could, but why would we want to make something that tastes like that when all these other companies are doing it on such large scale and you know, whatever, like is there really a craft to this?
00:28:24
Speaker
Uh, we didn't know. And then it took us a little while. We did started doing a bunch of research on it and trying to figure out what other people were doing. And it turned out that we could actually make it in a real kind of crap format where we're making it like beer, where we are fermenting this thing rather than creating
00:28:47
Speaker
you know, a carbonated water that we're adding basically vodka to, you know. Yeah. Which I've tried on a homebrew scale. It does not work. Yeah. It's just vodka soda. It was gross. Yeah. So that's actually a good question too, because we've talked a lot, not a lot, but I know we've brought it up. Like some of our past episodes, we do focus, you know, a lot on homebrewing because all three of us are also homebrewers.
00:29:14
Speaker
Finding a good recipe and a good way to do this seemed pretty tough because we looked kind of all over the place just to see what other people were doing and then the default seemed to be you know dump some vodka in there and carbonate your water and then like
00:29:30
Speaker
Call yourself a home brewer. And it's like, that's the worst idea ever, because that is not what it is. So how many times did you guys go through some trial and error to kind of dial this in? And truth be told, I have not tried it yet, because I'm waiting until my wife wants to have it too. I'm doing it right now. We started talking about it. It's looking me at the back. How do you pronounce this, by the way? Fade propaganda.
00:29:53
Speaker
I knew it, but I didn't want to say Fay incorrectly and look like a dumbass than I already do. Yeah, this is this is the strawberry tangerine hard seltzer. Just because you were talking about it, I'm like, let's hear in front of me. It's going to be the second beer. I'll save the rest of this right after the show. I will say.
00:30:13
Speaker
Man, that is, you get a lot of tangerine in there. That is like a tangerine dream. It really does taste like there's real fruit in here. This is really good. If everybody who like, you know, drinks hard seltzers because, you know, you put the nutrition facts on there, it is not much different than the average hard seltzer. You're looking to, you know, cut the calories or everything. Guess what? It's just a couple more. Relax. But it's also a bigger bottle. It's a bigger can. It's a 16 ounce can. Do that, do that, do that.
00:30:43
Speaker
So that was the thing when we discovered we could pretty much do that. And that was kind of the turning point for us where we said, okay, you know what, let's go ahead and make a big one. And so we went for it and we ended up doing the cherry line first. That was Ray's idea and that was really cool. And it came up, even people who don't like
00:31:12
Speaker
typically a cherry lime flavoring ended up liking this because it had a little bit more of a champagne quality to it. So, and then after that, we made the strawberry tangerine, which just has this really smooth kind of tangerine flavor to it. The strawberry is a little bit more subtle on it, but I think that the way that it rounds out the flavor is really good. I want this all the time.
00:31:41
Speaker
I'm not even joking because it doesn't drink like a hard seltzer at all. I have carbonated water on tap with Meyer lemon juice in it right now. I do enjoy carbonated water and this does not come off like that at all. It's almost like just carbonated tangerine juice. Like you said, the strawberry is
00:32:04
Speaker
in the background, I don't get a whole lot of it. But I'm sure if you took it out, I would just notice the difference of you know, it just being straight up tangerine. It's very good. It's very refreshing.
00:32:15
Speaker
This is, okay, it's better than truly. It is better than truly. Okay, I will step down for my truly podium. I just like the truly lemonades. They're so good. But this is, you can tell- The lemonades are pretty good. Yeah. Sure, I'm gonna do a mix all up. But this is really good. It's nice. It doesn't, as far as hard seltzers go, I mean, this stands out. I didn't think I'd be talking to you guys so much about the hard seltzer more than the beer, but
00:32:44
Speaker
I personally enjoy the idea of the hard seltzer. I like hard seltzer. This is really, really, really good. The other day I had a beer, then I had like three hard suckers, then I had another beer and I was done. Yeah, it's kind of nice how you can mix it up and then throw it in there. Throwing the hard seltzer in there is pretty nice. Like if I wake up in the middle of the night and I want something to drink and the closest thing to me is a truly, I'll just grab the truly, you know?
00:33:15
Speaker
Need 11 A's. That has to open up, it opens up a whole other world of people to, I mean, buying, you know, your hard seltzer, you know, people that wouldn't, that haven't found your beer, like they may find your seltzer first and be like, or find out you have seltzer. Yeah, I just saw a report that basically said that over the past few years,
00:33:44
Speaker
hard seltzer has been outselling or the demand has been on a path that's like beyond like well beyond craft spirit. Yeah, it's much higher than almost everything else. Appreciated products, you know, that is it's something anyone can do.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah. I was just saying, I know in the beginning, the demographic was more women buying it and now it is even both men and women are buying it equally right now. I, you know, and you know, the, the caloric intake thing is a big factor. You know, these are indulgences, drinking craft beer is an indulgence. We like doing it and it's something we indulge in. If we do a whole lot of it,
00:34:29
Speaker
we're going to be fucking gigantic. Wait, what? So I'm done. I'm done. So a lot of people, no, no, a lot of people really do dig that.
00:34:43
Speaker
I do, I like, that is kind of one of the reasons why I do like it. I like to be able to sit around in my yard and have a couple drinks and it not be, you know, 240 calorie IPAs, or if we decide to dig into the barrel age stout that's, you know,
00:35:01
Speaker
500 calories. Right. Right. So then that's your entire diet. Yeah. It's like all I ate was a salad. So I can drink this. Then I'm done for the day. Until you wake up in the middle of the night and you eat a pizza and then you fall back asleep. Top it off with the hard seltzer and it's a typical Saturday.
00:35:26
Speaker
Um, so it kind of brings me into like barrel aging. So I know you guys have done some barrel aging. How did you guys kind of start that program? Uh, where do you source your barrels from? You know, kind of talk about that. Beryl aging. Yeah. Beryl aging is
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And I'm learning a lot about what other people have done. Oh, yes, there it is. There it is. Manticore Double Barrel Age. Way to rub it in our face, Brandon. That is one of my favorites that we've ever done. And honestly, Brandon, we released that back in October. So right now, it is...
00:36:16
Speaker
It's hitting this really sweet spot. And so I hope you drink it soon. But not too soon to get away from me to get my shots. Yeah. I'm sure you're going to hold that for a month. But yeah, that beer was phenomenal. We got the barrels from, I typically go to Journeyman, which I did for this. I went to Journeyman and got some of their bourbon barrels.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I also picked up a pecan whiskey barrel from Thornton Distillery, which is just right down, it's right down the street. So we picked up one of their pecan whiskey barrels and that imparted a really nice flavor to it. And that combined with, you know, because we did a double barrel here, we combined that with the journeyman
00:37:12
Speaker
man, there's just, there's something really special about the flavor that's coming out of this thing. So. Sounds awesome. Did you, so you said it being a double barrel, did you blend like portions in each and then blend it? Yeah. Okay. So. I can't wait for you guys. Sorry. This one's getting over done.
00:37:35
Speaker
Uh, that's awesome. It's funny because so my wife loves, um, I don't say loves because my love for barely stuff is way greater than hers. Uh, but she, she definitely appreciates doubts and stuff like that. So the joys, you know, you know, trying stuff that I have. Um, and when we walked out, she looked at the bottle and she's like,
00:37:55
Speaker
What's a pecan barrel? She didn't see the whiskey part. She just saw a pecan barrel. And I was like, so we had this argument on the way home about what a pecan barrel was. And I was like, I don't know, maybe they aged pecans. And then I was like, we got out of the car. And I looked up, it's pecan whiskey barrel. And I'm like, my assumption is that it's a pecan wood that they aged whiskey in. Yeah, so that we were both like, yeah, well, we're both wrong. But I bet it's good. So excited to try this one. And yes, Tony, I will wait for you. And maybe Clark.
00:38:26
Speaker
So that Manticore is actually my, this is pretty funny. This is actually my second stout recipe. Guh. Wow. Yeah. Brandon and I are under like a hundred stout recipe that we finally just settled down. Yeah.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, the step by a journeyman barrel didn't quite turn out the same way that I assume yours did. And if you want it, you guys, Clark still has them. He'll send you a bottle for you to try. Yeah, we'll compare it. I'm sure they're really very similar. Very similar. Very similar. We've been quite fortunate with a lot of these recipes, the fact that some of them just hit right away and that we're not going through so much of the trial and error
00:39:25
Speaker
people typically go through. I don't know why that is, but I'm not complaining. It saves you money in the long run.
00:39:39
Speaker
We've only had a few issues with barrels, like a 55 gallon barrel that had Knob Creek in it. And we brewed 55 gallons. Well, we brewed 50 gallons of a stout. And, you know, it smelled good until the pellicle formed on top because, you know, we didn't know what we were doing and not killing any headspace. And it's just all this oxygen exposed to the beer because we're a bunch of morons who got a free barrel and he blew it.
00:40:05
Speaker
Also, the guy who cleaned the barrel, cleaned it with his garden hose in his kid's pool right before we put the beer in it.
00:40:14
Speaker
Why did he clean the barrels? The question. We had no idea what was happening until we showed up. Our second attempt that we did at a barrel is we did get a barrel. I can never remember the name of this small distillery and like wheeling. I think it was a 15 gallon barrel. Wait, it's in a wheeling? I can find it. I work in wheeling. Yeah. But we brewed 15 gallons through it in there. And that one actually...
00:40:39
Speaker
Now, it's not OK now. The gallons that we have left are not good. But initially, it was it was really good. We need to dump it, Brandon. I need fucking space in the keezer. I just want to try it. Just just for you. I'll play about it. Let's see how bad it is.
00:40:55
Speaker
and then cry a little. But yeah, so that one actually sat in my basement for like a year and we just had it and nurtured it. And it was great. It was great. It was great for a long time. We had a guest of ours try it who was working at Goose Island's barrel room at the time. We pulled the
00:41:12
Speaker
the nail out, filled it up. We all took a sip because we had done an episode two years ago and we were all like, shit, this is going to be good. This is tasting really good. And we also took it to Great Lakes Brew Fest and people loved it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And then, well, that's a different story. It's the same beer. We just hit it. We just masked. What was wrong with that beer? Sorry, we got off topic. Hi, welcome back to the show, guys.
00:41:43
Speaker
I might edit that part out. That is something that people often talk about with beers, and especially barrel-aged beers, and how oftentimes a barrel might just be used to mask some of the imperfections in a beer. We just recently discovered an imperfection in one of our beers, and we're pulling that off. We're not sending those out. And it happens once in a while.
00:42:12
Speaker
Uh, it happens to everybody. And so don't ever feel bad about that. It's, it's okay. It's part of, uh, part of the whole thing. You know, all the probers do it all the time. Thanks man. I feel better about myself. Hey, listen, I mean, even the grades, like, uh, three Floyd's put out a hazy beer that was perfectly clear. You know, I mean, it happens, you know,
00:42:41
Speaker
I don't really feel that bad anymore about it, especially because it's been so long and now it's literally just, in fact, what I tried doing recently, it had been in, my keys are here, two kegs of it, by the way, or about two and a half kegs, or one and a half kegs of it.
00:42:57
Speaker
And I hit it with the CO2 because I wanted to make sure that was still carbonated and everything. What I'm finding out is that some of these other kegs, they need their profits replaced because I did that. And I was like, okay, great. And this morning went to go fill up my water bottle with my carbonated water, as I mentioned, to bring to work. And I'm like, uh-oh, there's nothing happening.
00:43:16
Speaker
I realized that that keg is leaking CO2 constantly. So the barrel-aged beer is just a constant reminder of how much money I'm just throwing away constantly. But like you said, it happens, it happens. And then, you know, Brandon and I came up with a really good imperial stout that will eventually hopefully find a way into a barrel. So, you know, it's trial and error. Right on, right on. And yes, that's absolutely the way to go, is perfect your stout first.
00:43:46
Speaker
You know, definitely do that. As I drove away from it and I was talking to my wife, I was like, you know what? I should have left Kavias with some homebrew. I should have brought some down. And I, of all the people, of all the people you didn't bring that stout to.
00:44:02
Speaker
I know I was like I didn't think well it was kind of a rushed morning too and then like getting uh almost two-year-old ready to go do something adventurous is like you know it's an adventure for us so uh we did not get him like it was like finally he was ready we just ran out the door it was like nice weather like let's go uh and then like yeah after we started to leave I was like damn it
00:44:26
Speaker
So I will make sure that I either this version or next of our stout I will get down to you so you can try. Or you know you can come up here when things are nicer again and you can just come drink in my yard.
00:44:42
Speaker
Or we can bring in your house on your big ass grill that you were saying you have. Hang out. Yeah. We'll smoke some wings all day. That's right. We'll bring a whole bunch of homebrew that time. Yes. Yeah. I'm inviting myself because Brandon was just mentioning himself. I'm coming too. Is that cool? Because I really like the hard seltzer too. Look at that. That works for me.
00:45:04
Speaker
I really do like it. So just kind of transitioning too. So Ray, you recently, recently did the, it was like the women, it was International Women's Day and you did something with a bunch of the women in craft beer with the peaches and her. Can you kind of talk about that? Yeah, so I'm part of the Pink Food Society, which is an international guild of women in the fermented beverage industry.
00:45:32
Speaker
you know, so that encompasses wine and cider and distilling and the whole shebang. And here in the Chicago chapter, we do an annual collaboration through, which we actually hosted last year in 2020. It was one of the very last fun things to have to happen here before everything shut down. But this year, it was at So Hopped in Huntley. They have, I don't know if you guys have been there. Have you been there?
00:46:03
Speaker
They are the cool, they're in this really great historic building and they are owned by the same folks who own, oh my gosh, forgive me, this United Standard sewing machine company. So they make these big industrial sewing machines. So the name makes sense. Exactly, so it's the same owner. You guys should talk sometime.
00:46:34
Speaker
This is somebody else's business, man. That's true. But saying that, that's awesome because I always wondered about the name and that literally kind of puts that piece together. That is awesome. Unless the name is just random. It was a cool year though. It was unfortunate in so many ways because a lot of the ways that we would have collaborated
00:46:59
Speaker
in the past we weren't able to do, we weren't as able to be as hands-on. We were fortunate though to even be able to gather. I mean, there was a certain point where we didn't, you know, we thought maybe we were just gonna have to hand our recipe off and have somebody make it for us, just to say. But we were really excited about it. That was, it was, I think, a challenge to design a beer recipe over the phone based on a spider graph.
00:47:29
Speaker
You know, and like that hot blend, none of us had even had an opportunity to rub it or, you know, get our faces up in it. And so just knowing that had that real pineapple vibe, that was what to lean into. Pineapple, I'm sorry, peach vibe, not pineapple. I was about to ask, I was about to ask, so what does the peach come in?
00:47:53
Speaker
Well, it was, did you say that my head was running through all the, the pineapple-y kind of hops. I'm like, okay. Yeah. It was definitely more of a peach vibe. And, you know, so we wanted to just make something that was really, really tasty, really easy drinking. And, um, I think that we really achieved that. Like it came out beautifully hazy. Um, we called it peaches and her, you know, obviously peaches to,
00:48:20
Speaker
referenced that peachy vibe, but her was really all about Kamala and her inauguration that happened the same week that we broke that beer. We were just really excited for the representation. But it was, yeah, it's always a really great experience. I think there were 15, 15 of Chicago's best breweries represented there. And we all carried the beer and I think almost everybody sold out within two, three days. One of the cool things about it was that
00:48:50
Speaker
They used acnem in the blend, which I never would have picked. Not in a million years would I have even gone there. But for some reason, they ended up throwing that into the mix. And I mean, it was a great beer. I really liked it a lot.
00:49:15
Speaker
The Sundrop yeast from Omega. Yeah, the Sundrop yeast from Omega. That was really cool. A nice impact on it. And that's what's so cool about that beer is... Sunday. Thank you. I'm sorry. We're getting donations though from all of the different vendors. So Country Mall Group participates. No Omega yeast participates. And then when we purchase the hops, that hop blend,
00:49:42
Speaker
a portion of that purchase goes right back to painting society and it goes to fund different education programs for other women in the industry. So it's just a really fun program to be a part of and a good opportunity to network. And well, I mean, it's like front page news when women make beer.
00:50:03
Speaker
Which is, yeah, totally. And a friend of mine recently posted an article on Facebook. I forgot what it was. Something about, oh, how,
00:50:14
Speaker
witches during Salem witch trials were, you know, consider witches because they brewed. And I said, I responded to her post and I go, well, women were the original brewers. Like that was it. And she responded, she goes, I had a feeling you were gonna post something like that. Like, well, it's true. I mean, that's, it's still, you know, we've had Shalanda Afro-beer chick on here a couple of times. I think the first time she was on here, the second time,
00:50:40
Speaker
We talked about that and how it just, you know, it's it's a very male dominated
00:50:46
Speaker
feel that it blows my mind still that it's it's it that it like you said you know it makes front page news like oh women brewed beer no shit man you know it's it's it's a thing it's it's it's it's it's how it was created it's how it started uh and but this is something that's that's very very cool i didn't get a chance to try it um it sounds lovely uh but uh yeah it's it's it's that one of those one of those things it still kind of blows my mind
00:51:16
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, sorry, go ahead. No, sorry. That was my rant. That was my rant for the episode. The fact, like we are seeing, we are seeing definitely a slow, but sure sea change happening. And that's evidenced by, if you go to the Illinois Brewers Guild meetings, then you will find that, wow, okay. You are now looking at a population of maybe 30% women. Whereas what?
00:51:46
Speaker
three years ago. I don't think it's 30%, but I agree that it is three years ago. It was like two women out of 130 guys, you know, and
00:51:57
Speaker
Now you're seeing about 20 to 30% women. And then she says no. Her face says otherwise, but I think it weird. It's kind of funny that you say that because back in 2012, when I started working at a local bottle shop and bar, Fishman's up here on the north side. Yeah, I remember that. I had gotten them into the Craft Brewers Guild as like members. So we sponsored them. We had given them a lot of money.
00:52:28
Speaker
they would invite us to all of like their meetings like hey come to the meetings come to the meetings and the owners were like you should go like you're the connection i was like all right so i'd sit in there and i was like dude sitting around drinking beer and i was like this is awesome and then like the next year it was like
00:52:45
Speaker
there's dudes and finally there's women here. Like this is great. Like, you know, it's not a sausage party. And by the time, like by the last one that I had gone to, it was, I wasn't evenly divided, but it was definitely like more of a relaxed vibe and not all uptight dudes, just like kind of like chugging beers. It was more kind of like, it was more of a social gathering too at that point. And I was like,
00:53:10
Speaker
okay, this feels a little better, but it's cool to see that that's happening. And it's happening, not to say that like, you know, oh, guys brewing beer is a bad thing, or, you know, anybody else brewing beer is a bad thing, but like, they deserve, anyone deserves an equal footing. And if they make good beer, drink their beer, like, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's no reason. Everyone deserves a shot. There is zero reason it should be a voice.
00:53:39
Speaker
It just doesn't make sense. Women love beer. When Ray first introduced me to beer, shortly thereafter, my ass was planted over at the Three Floyds Tavern all the time. And there was a bartender there named Phil. And Phil, one of the first things that I ever asked Phil was, you know, what his sense was about what women like to purchase.
00:54:09
Speaker
you know, when they go into a three-floid, into the three-floid sapper, which is ripped, now closed. But he said absolutely not. There's no, there's no difference whatsoever. Women like bitter beers just as much as guys do. They like the hops, they like the IPAs. There's no, you know, sure if someone's completely uneducated, they might lean towards something fruity looking, but
00:54:39
Speaker
really once it gets down to it and they like beer, if they're there to taste beer, then it does not fucking matter. There is no difference. And so that was an interesting point for me because it was like, it was an affirmation for me, a validation. I knew my wife was the one who introduced me to beer. She got me into the craft beer scene. And so I knew that there was definitely something to this
00:55:08
Speaker
that this idea that, you know, it's all like dudes with beards and weird mustaches, you know? I think that was- To knock at me because I don't- All of us have beards. I've got the weird mustache. We all have beards. Yes, we do.
00:55:29
Speaker
You're not missing anything. Trust me. Yeah, the like the beer douche stereotype, you know, it has kind of been versioning right around that and developing and coming into mainstream awareness, you know, that there are all these dudes out there doing it. And that was there was just something and
00:55:59
Speaker
It was just something that we didn't like it. We didn't like seeing that. We didn't like that feeling of it being some kind of exclusive club or whatever. It shouldn't be. Here should be for everybody to enjoy.
00:56:15
Speaker
And people like what they like. I got a question for Ray. When he showed up with the Miller Lite, you obviously had experience and a better taste for beer. When did you get into craft? We've talked about this by the way. When did everybody get into craft beer? When did you get into beers that weren't just no offense Miller Lite, yellow fizzy water?
00:56:44
Speaker
Well, kind of right away, actually, when I think back to when I very first turned 21, I was working at a, I don't even want to say what it was, but I was working at a popular chain restaurant that's
00:56:56
Speaker
famous for serving burgers and never ending fries. And they had a selection. I still have a gift card for them. A selection of, you know, craft beers. But the thing was, it was not yellow beer. It was, you know, I remember there being a honey brown ale and there being like a stout that wasn't quite a Guinness. Pretty sure they have fat tire available regularly.
00:57:21
Speaker
was before all of that dating myself. Um, but the person who really got me into, uh, into checking out like the little small guys, um, who's my stepdad who, um, he had a club actually, they called themselves the league of strange beer drinkers. This was back when all guys like really had commitment, man. They had like, they had a logo.
00:57:45
Speaker
They had caricatures of all of them. They let me into the club and gave me a ring. They gave us the secret rings. Whoa, cool. Dale likes to tell people that he's the smartest guy you know, and that he saved the world when Y2K happened. And he did that by traveling for work and going and fixing your Y2K issues wherever you went.
00:58:10
Speaker
finding that, you know, he was bored in all of these little places. So he would go and visit the closest group club. And so when, when he started becoming part of my family, that was one of the ways that he and I connected. So it was probably, probably in the late nineties, when he first started giving me beers and, you know, and I mean, I remember him giving me a devil dancer back in the day. And he kind of like, that was a real palate attack.
00:58:41
Speaker
pallet attack. Here's something that'll wreck your mouth for the rest of the day. That was, I think that was back at a time where, you know, it was starting to become almost a marketing ploy to say, we're using 75 pounds of hops per barrel. Like diminishing returns after one per burden. It's 150 IBUs at 5% alcohol, which is not a double answer now, but still, yeah, I know what you're saying.
00:59:10
Speaker
That's pretty, that's, that's awesome. I wish I was apart. I wish I had someone in my life that had a really cool club like that. That's awesome. He's still, Dale, even some first year dark Lord in his basement. Um, I'm pretty sure that soy sauce by now, but, uh, for sure, for sure. I love the photos though. I mean, like him and the league of strange beer drinkers and you know, which is like four guys and like one of those six tables.
00:59:41
Speaker
It's like, what are those? Do they have a Facebook group? Oh yeah. Yeah. But like probably 10 cases of beer. That was like the first Dark Lord day. I think they were hoping they would sell tickets. There's actually a surprising number of people in the Facebook group. Like I, you're talking about- Now we're going to look for it. Yeah. Gotcha. I want to join. Like 1400 people.
01:00:05
Speaker
No, not the League of Strange Beer drinkers. Yeah, that's pretty big. Oh, I don't know about that. Maybe it's not, maybe 400, I don't know. 400, 1400, give or take 1,000. Either way, it's much more than the four guys in the basement. I think you're in a weird, you're in some other weird group. It's the other group that saw 30% women in the Illinois.
01:00:32
Speaker
It's definitely not the league of extraordinary beer drinkers. It has 36,000 members. So that's where you basically found your interest was number one working at that chain restaurant that won't be mentioned and then your stepdad as well. Yeah. That's awesome. That's super cool.
01:00:52
Speaker
And, and thank God for that. Cause you know, otherwise, uh, some, some of us here on this call may still be drinking that yellow fizzy beer and just working together nine to five next to Brandon. How depressing would that be? No offense, Brandon. Okay. So all, all three of me, I've got a question for you guys for each one of you, because this is a rare opportunity to have, uh, three, three guys who are like very into beer.
01:01:22
Speaker
sitting here talking to me. Says the guy who owns the brewery. And Brandon, you especially, since you are a fairly new father, everybody has been going in over the topic of kids in breweries. Where do you guys fall in that?
01:01:53
Speaker
I bring my kids to breweries all the time. I'm going down to Charleston next week for vacation. And all I'm doing is searching for kid-friendly breweries that have either an outdoor area or are friendly with kids or don't care that kids are there. And I bring kids to breweries all the time. I mean, I'll pick one. Just random kids. Oh, there's a kid. Oh, there's one. I can't do a brewery. I'm Uncle Clark for the day. Hey.
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah but there are some that I can probably tell some breweries that I can tell probably aren't as friendly towards kids so I won't bring them there. But I live down the street from revolution here in Chicago and when you know besides the past whole 365 days it's a nice open spot. It's okay for kids to be there at the right time but if they start acting up you know I'll tell them to
01:02:43
Speaker
go over into the corner. But I think at the right time, I'll bring kids to the brewery any day to work. My thing is I follow the vibe of the brewery.
01:02:56
Speaker
and even the bar, so what the brewery or the bar wants. And a perfect example is one of my favorite places in Chicago is Hopleaf. And they are anti kids, like, you know, just like kids are not allowed. I mean, they're not anti kids or kids are just not allowed in the bar. And I'm friends with the owner and like I've seen him post on Facebook and like his reasoning is legit. It's like he wants us to be an escape for adults.
01:03:25
Speaker
And you take away from that when you introduce kids in any capacity, whether it's a baby that's just going to sit there and sleep the entire time or whatever. So I get that and I respect that. But I'm also kind of like if a brewery has
01:03:43
Speaker
let's say they have a beer garden, and it's an outdoor beer garden, and they want people there. Like, beer garden, the whole premise of a beer garden is a family-friendly place. Like, if you go back to, like, the historic, the historical of Germany, when I was in Germany for my honeymoon, every beer garden we went into was people and there's kids running around, like, I mean, the kids, you know, little German kids running around, I'm like, holy cow, like, this is like, it's legit, like, it's a beer garden.
01:04:07
Speaker
So I get that, but then like indoor private spaces where it's confined and like things can be loud. Like I'm cool if people are just like, no kids. And I'm like, all right, then I, I will not bring my kid there or I will move on. Like if I had my kid and I was really itching for a craft beer, I'll move on to the next place that will allow it.
01:04:27
Speaker
My, in my opinion, my daughter is gonna be 21 in October. So I'm gonna give a fuck. Yeah, I'm gonna take her to the brewery. She's gonna have some beers. Honestly, at least you're waiting until she's 21. Good, follow up, follow up. Yeah, she's never had a beer in my house. I'm serious, she's never had a beer in my house.
01:04:55
Speaker
that you know of. We, you know, Clark, you and I have gone to Temperance numerous times and they had a cutoff time from when I remember going there where it was during like a certain part of the day and then like after, I don't know, seven or something or eight o'clock, it was like maybe the nine. I don't remember.
01:05:18
Speaker
That I was kind of a good idea. I get wanting to go out and being able to frequent, you know, your favorite local watering hole that makes their own water. But I also understand the idea of people who are like, man, I just don't want to be around kids. I've never really experienced that at breweries that I've gone to where there's kids, where I've noticed someone like, man, that person with their fucking kid running around, this sucks.
01:05:47
Speaker
I've always just kind of seen as everyone just being like, whatever, we're all just here. I'm with my group of friends. Oh, this is just how it is type of deal. Me personally, it doesn't bother me. I do like the idea though of like maybe at a certain time, you know, it's like, hey, kids, go the fuck home. It's time for bed. I'm going to drink and swear at night. That's the same thing though. It's like, cause as a father, like as a newer father, like I,
01:06:13
Speaker
Like I've been to places where it's like nine, 10 o'clock and there's people there with kids that are infants. And I'm like, why are you here? Why are you here? And then I feel like it's not just, if I notice it, because if I go out, I'm drinking and I'm gonna be buzzed and I'm like, most things don't bother me. But if I notice that and I'm like,
01:06:41
Speaker
Why the fuck is that kid here? Then I feel like other people are like, why the fuck is that kid here? And it's like the top, the focus of the entire place. And I feel like that it has happened a few times. And even before I had kids, like, I mean, I have four siblings and they've all had kids before me because I'm the youngest and I've been around kids my entire life. So like,
01:07:06
Speaker
even as like, you know, before I was married, and then they go into a place and when they come with kids, I'm like, why the hell? It's 830. That kid should be in bed. What is going on? Like, get this kid out of here. And you get to the parents are just rolling in for the night. And I'm like, oh, come on. So yeah, I am partially hypocritical, but I also like, I'm very strict on like,
01:07:33
Speaker
I'm not gonna bend my personal rules of like when my kid has to sleep to go out and enjoy myself. That's why I get a babysitter and then I go out and enjoy myself. I'm gonna start coming down and dropping them off by Tobias because here you're gonna be an empty nest soon. So when that happens. I was gonna say, you asked that question. Where do you stand? Where do you guys stand?
01:08:01
Speaker
Oh, well, we have since the beginning, we have always wanted to split it kind of down the middle. It made a lot of sense for people during the day who wanted to get out and have a craft beer, you know, if they can't necessarily get a babysitter or whatever, maybe they just want to get out for 45 freaking minutes, then want to hire somebody to come over and watch the kids for that long period of time.
01:08:30
Speaker
you know there are all kinds of situations like that and for the most part I have absolutely no problem with kids in breweries uh at at you know earlier in the day yeah I think that I think that you're oh it's okay well Ray has her own take on this you have to add into that
01:08:52
Speaker
kids at the brewery is not the problem. It's free range toddlers. Yeah. And, and I feel like we're total of like, cause the thing is people get vilified if they're a little bit against this, you know, as an, as a brewery owner. And they said, you don't like kids. Well, we raised five of them and we're here to tell you free range toddlers don't belong in breweries. Yeah. 100%. 100%. We raised five kids and we opened a brewery. We know what we're talking about.
01:09:23
Speaker
I just like the term of free range toddlers. That's a good one. But the other thing is that we'll have penises on our walls here. Yeah. And there's a certain amount of, you know, adults humor at home. Okay, for the people at home. I'm on my way. Clark, pick me up, we're going. I'll be there in two.
01:09:47
Speaker
We have chalk walls and chalkboard walls, like completely covered, like our bathrooms are completely covered. I don't know, everything, anything that, if there's drywall, it's covered in chalk paint and chalkboard paint. And so we've designed a,
01:10:09
Speaker
a place that encourages some interaction from the patrons. The only thing was when we were doing that, we weren't really thinking so much about underage patrons because that's not what we were trying to attract since we didn't have any products for them. So it was kind of funny, you know, it was kind of like, well,
01:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure you can bring your, you might not want to let them go to the bathroom. Just a lot of dicks. There are a whole bunch of dicks on the wall.
01:10:55
Speaker
I'm this close to using them for the intro. I was just gonna say, and there's the intro to the show. I can't use, there's so many dicks on the wall though for our 50th episode and for Rabbit Brewing, like, everyone's gonna be like, why do they tell you about dicks on the wall? That can't be- Yeah, I'll allow it. It is tempting. It is tempting. So kind of like, kind of rounding this whole conversation out, like, so,
01:11:23
Speaker
Pandemic hits this year. You know, you guys have faced a lot and I know, you know, we're, we're close friends with breweries up here on the North side, like Lake Effect, Almond. We've talked to them during the pandemic. Um, how is the pandemic shaped you? You know, obviously moving into hard cider or seltzer was kind of something to do, but, uh, beyond that, like business wise, like how is that kind of helped you? Well, sorry, shaped you.
01:11:55
Speaker
So, you know, a year ago when things first were getting shut down 100% of our products were sold by way of a keg. And we found ourselves in that, like, I mean it was it was horrifying as a business person to go oh my god how stupid are you, all of your stuff is in a keg.
01:12:16
Speaker
What we found, I think, is that it maybe accelerated some of our plans to get into canning and do some packaged goods. It accelerated it because we had to do 100%. And so by the end of May, 100% of our product was in a can. And that's how it remains right now, even, because
01:12:36
Speaker
Because frankly, I still have nightmares from us filling $2,000 in two months. And I'm afraid to put beer in a keg. Because we can always sell a can. Yeah. What if something happens and some new variants? The sugar's the thing. Yeah, right. But I think that there's a possibility that this ends up for good for us.
01:13:04
Speaker
If we're able to somehow build up the same kind of business that we used to have in our tap room, if we're able to replace it with some of the, you know, we were able to do some really cool retail stuff here in downtown Homewood with the different events that they have here.
01:13:20
Speaker
If we're able to do that and add it to the self-distribution business that we've been able to create and the to-go business that we've been able to create around canned products, there's this possibility that we could end up stronger in the end.
01:13:39
Speaker
I think it showed, this pandemic showed us what we were made of, that we were really tenacious, that we stayed on to the North Star of what we were about as a company and we didn't stray. We just, we stayed the course and we stayed alive and stayed healthy and I don't know, it was. And we continued to make beer for gods. Rabbit and otherwise.
01:14:09
Speaker
One of the things that kills me is that what we missed out on in this last year was the real important direct feedback that happens when I get to stand in front of you and look at you while you put the beer in your mouth. Because when you do that, your face, you can't lie. You can't tell me some bullshit like, oh, I love it.
01:14:31
Speaker
Like it doesn't work out. Does your poker face translate to your beer face? So like for Tobias to have to make beer for a year in almost like a visual vacuum, because we really never got that opportunity to see people at beer festivals and to see, to really see your face while you were trying things. So, you know, for these beers to be coming out right now, I'm really proud of them.
01:14:58
Speaker
Cheers, man. Oh, thank you. You're doing the shit. Thank you. That's awesome. Cheers. Yeah. Cheers. You know what? I'm not going to lie. I went and grabbed the random beer that he gave me. I'm going to drink this right now. Oh, right on. I'm going to do it. I was just going to say real quick, that's awesome to hear that that's where you guys took the opportunity of basically
01:15:25
Speaker
The pandemic presented something to you guys and you were able to transform it into something that was positive. And like you were saying, the accelerated the canning.
01:15:34
Speaker
It sucks that you're not able to see the reaction of people drinking your beer, yet you're still making something that people are buying and now we're coming. There's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like we've said this numerous times on episodes. I'm happy to say that I really do believe we are getting really close to the end of the tunnel here with the way things are going. And I'm really looking forward to coming down there to actually see you two and have some beers with you guys with Clark.
01:16:04
Speaker
Maybe Brandon, wait, flip that around. Brandon, maybe Clark. Clark thought I was really invited to go to something. Brandon knew what I meant. Loser. We are looking forward to coming down to see you guys and having some beers with you and be able to sit in your tap room. Brandon had high praise for your space down there. And so far, so good for as far as the beers. I'm about to go to my third drink from you guys. And that was awesome. Hart Seltzer was...
01:16:33
Speaker
I gotta say pretty, pretty, pretty good. The Lycan Pilsner is next. Brandon, you were gonna say something. No, so the whole pandemic thing kind of brought on
01:16:47
Speaker
you know, it forced you into canning and then delivery was not something you guys had done before locally. Cause I regret not taking a picture of the, the bad-ass van when I drove up, I was driving down and my wife noticed it right when we tried the garage and goes, Oh, it's over there. And I'm like, Oh yeah. Like you guys have bad-ass van use for deliveries. So like with the, like there's been legislation that was opened, you know, throughout the pandemic to allow breweries
01:17:17
Speaker
to do local deliveries, I would say. And now there's new legislation that's on the floor. I know that's being supported by our local state representative, Lindsay Lapointe. And it is HB 3495, which allows for local breweries to deliver statewide and actually across state lines to other states that would accept that. How do you guys feel about that?
01:17:47
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, anything to cut out the old gangsters, you know? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. All right. Watch it, man. I'm Sicilian. No, I'm pretty excited about the Beer Act, too. So the partner in crime on that one is Will Davis, who is the representative in our district. And I'm just so excited and proud of
01:18:15
Speaker
what they are trying to do. I know that the third tier in that three tier system, I know that they're really, really chomping at the bit. And here's the thing. They are not providing a product by which I can give a consumer what they want. Consumers want specialized, curated,
01:18:38
Speaker
products they want to be able to buy the best of the best from wherever it is and they want something unique and and so the thing is if
01:18:48
Speaker
if the distribution channel we're providing sort of a Netflix of beer for people, well then cool. But if there's not. If there is enough to read direct to consumer, then fine. You know, but the thing is I'm never big enough for them to care about anyway. And so I feel like this is business that is just going undone. This is not them, you know, losing out on business. This is an entire industry losing out on us being able to innovate.
01:19:15
Speaker
and to meet customers where they want to be met. And right now, where they want to be met is in a fucking box on their front door, left by a PS driver, sorry. And they don't, that's the thing.
Supporting Local Breweries
01:19:28
Speaker
I think that is, I'm sorry, I'm on a soap box now. Do it, do it. This is your soap box, this is it, this is the place to do it. I can see somebody paying 30 or 35 bucks for a four pack of beer, just so that they can get some unique shit. And how cool is that for us?
01:19:44
Speaker
You know, I think it just it's no brainer to if you really want to support small, small, small, local flavor. Like it's a no brainer and it doesn't take money away from those guys. I think if anything it develops
01:19:59
Speaker
a field out there so that maybe a little guy like us can grow into an interest that a distribution partner really even needs to be brought into. A man mandated middleman strangles the small business. That's right. Totally. And funnily enough, people may pay a premium to have Tobias come and drop some beer at their front porch and cheers them and drink that beer with them.
01:20:24
Speaker
It's kind of a joke but like it's also like so yeah during the pandemic I've gotten a lot of beer like my local brewery is Lake Effect Brewing and they brought stuff to my front door and like you know I waved to him I don't cheers him and drink beer with him but you know he goes on his way Clint's a great guy we've talked to him many times on the show we did a few weeks ago yeah but you know that I mean just the experience of like you know that that brewery is bringing you their beer from the brewery
01:20:54
Speaker
And then on top of that, the legislation that's in place, it's not even focusing on the local aspect of you delivering, but the ability to ship across state lines to other states that will accept you. The three tier system has nothing to do with that, because they're not doing that.
01:21:19
Speaker
That doesn't even touch them. You know, they didn't fight for this legislation. So, you know, like now they're concerned now because somebody else is fighting for it. You know, I guarantee if.
01:21:33
Speaker
I hope to God this passes, but if it doesn't, I guarantee there will be another fight by the three tier system for them to be able to take stuff and be able to ship it themselves across state lines. This is a whole nother episode brewing just right here. I know.
01:21:51
Speaker
This is a huge can of worms. Oh, for sure. For sure. You know, it goes so deep.
Craft Beer as an Art Form
01:21:57
Speaker
I like the idea of presenting it of like, you know, here is, you know, here's a $30 four pack that is just specifically, no one's specifically going to be like, you know what? The only beer I'm going to get are these $30 four packs from Rabbit.
01:22:13
Speaker
Fuck everything else. I'm not going to go to the store and buy anything. No, it just allows an opportunity for you guys to like, here's something specific that we're doing that gives us an opportunity to make a little extra money. And it's very specific for you. It's something we love. It almost adds, you know, a little bit more of the craft aspect to craft beer. I mean, craft beer is so huge now. Yes, it's very, you know, when you have these beers, they're very specific. Blood, sweat and tears and all these, you know, device, like you said, you know, your first and second
01:22:41
Speaker
you know, stout recipes. They're so huge. Everybody loves them. Congratulations. We suck. But be able to, be able to, you know, something curated for- What's wrong with this guy? I'm very angry. Clark called it before we started.
01:22:59
Speaker
You know, do something like that very special would just help the business. And it doesn't really take away from the middleman of being able to, you know, someone's going to go out to the store and grab a six pack of the cans and you know, Oh, I got this man. Their beer was really good. Oh shit. Going to try that, you know, special four pack or whatever they're doing or that bottle release that they're doing that I can have delivered straight to my house. And it's not going to be the stores. I happen to get like, that makes it more of a personal experience.
01:23:26
Speaker
That'll push him out to the store and- This aggression will not stand, man. Jesus Christ, what a late, late intro on that, man. I was way past the- I found it. That's good. But I think we all understand where I'm going with that. This Pilsner, by the way, real quick, the Lycan, which I knew what Lycan meant. I didn't realize it said American werewolf Pilsner.
01:23:52
Speaker
I knew it was a Pilsner. I knew it said Lycan. And I saw the werewolf on there, but what exactly is an American werewolf Pilsner? You know, because if you just call something an American Pilsner, it's kind of boring. And the fact is that this is really, it's one of those pills that like you can drink all day, all night.
Tasting the American Werewolf Pilsner
01:24:14
Speaker
And you know, all night. So moon. That's right. Exactly. Here we go.
01:24:22
Speaker
It's very good. It's like you rehearsed this. Yeah. Actually, Tobias and I messaged each other earlier. It's very good. You know what? It's a little sweeter than I was expecting. I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just an observation, which I think kind of makes it stand out. I like it. I'm not a huge Pilsner-y guy. You can ask Brandon. Apparently not, because he gave me the Pilsner.
01:24:48
Speaker
That's why I gave you the Pilsner. It worked out great. It's very good. I like it a lot. Cheers on that one. I can't wait to try more of the beers from you guys. It was a lot of fun. I'm sorry it took 50 episodes for us to finally make this happen. Hey, Danny. It was good for you, at least, to give us an important number. Well, we'll see what happens in our 100. Two years and a half. Yeah. We'll just come down there and talk about that bill.
01:25:19
Speaker
Do you guys remember 50 episodes when it was like, is that gonna happen? And you guys hated truly and the Celtics were just kind of becoming a big deal. Clark got fired from the show. Oh, it was such a great time. Spoiler alert. Oh boy. Well, I just wanna say thanks a lot you guys for, wait, do you guys have anything
Listener Appreciation and Future Plans
01:25:43
Speaker
else to say? I was about to do my wrap-up part of the show. Cause Brandon just fucking took this man.
01:25:50
Speaker
Thanks, man. I just want to say thanks a lot for joining us, especially for the 50th episode and everybody who's been listening since episode number one and going back and listening. It was great to have you guys on here. We are really
01:26:03
Speaker
Like I said, right at the end of the tunnel, I'm about 98% positive. The 2% being all of a sudden everything gets shut back down, which I don't think is going to happen. 98% sure that the three of us will be making our way to see you guys this year during the summer. I think even during the summer makes more sense. But yeah, now we're looking forward to it.
01:26:25
Speaker
beers are awesome. It's really nice to finally get you guys on here, learn more about, you know, Rabid, where it comes from, what the beers are, because I've been following you guys on Facebook since Brandon told me to do it. So that's been a while now. And I'm like, look at all this cool shit happening. And I haven't been down there. So thank you so much for joining us for the 50th episode. Do you guys have anything else you'd like to say when I see you guys? I mean, Clark Clark and Brandon shut up real quick. Well, no, let's make sure that we
01:26:55
Speaker
Where can people find you? That's what I was letting them say. That's what I wanted them to do. You know, 50 episodes, you think you'd know. Do it, do it. I'm editing this episode. So right now in the city of Chicago, we're in three places. We're at Rogers Park Provisions, Uptown Provisions, and Rogers Park Social. And then in the suburbs, we're at Bizzio's Fresh Market in Olympia Fields. We're at Family Wine and Liquor in Homewood.
01:27:24
Speaker
and we're adding several new battle shops that we'll be announcing over the next few weeks. I love that you know all those. Everybody will hear, have heard about already. Right. Right. Sorry about that. We'll have already announced, yes. Right. Yeah. We can update the posting as well. It's in the details, guys. Look in the episode details, all the information's there. And you should actually by,
01:27:54
Speaker
The time you hear this on April 12th, you should be able to check rabidbrewing.com for a complete list. Well, you just held yourself to that, didn't you? You got some work to do. So physically though, physically in Homewood, where can they find rabidbrewing? Ah, we are at 17759 Brett's Drive, which is one block east of Halstead off of Ridge Road, right off of I-80 and Halstead.
01:28:22
Speaker
Yes, it's right behind the Home Depot and Jewel. Brets is a real street. Birds are not.
01:28:30
Speaker
There is a ton of fast food options around there that I've noticed when I was there with my family. So wait, I can go grocery shopping, go get, you know, stuff from my garden. That's right. And then go grab some beer from you guys and head out. Yeah, that's right. I just made it, I just tried to work on my selling point to have my wife go with me. Yeah, no, that's perfect. We've actually heard that a number of times and a lot of people come in on Saturday afternoons and say,
01:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, you know, let's go to the hardware store. Oh, don't you know.
01:29:05
Speaker
Look, I've already got a plan. Look, Laura, if we're gonna get a good deal on doing that garden bed, we need to go down to Homewood. Trust me, they, I know. It's the only Home Depot ever. That Home Depot specifically, I was told there's a deal. Oh shit, look at that brewery. Let's stop in there real quick. Oh, that's weird. Haven't you mentioned, Rabbit? You got to grow. Did you need some guacamole from Zool?
01:29:35
Speaker
This is the only jewel that has those chips that they made in store ready now. Make it in a big store here. Right. Well, so that being said, uh, we got them. Yeah. So we've kept you guys for a little bit longer than promised. Uh, but I do sincerely thank you guys for coming on for our 50th episode of the molting hour, um, with now Clark.
01:30:04
Speaker
And I kind of want to close it, like any other thoughts that you guys have or anything you guys kind of want to give up to the craft beer community or just tell us to go away? Because you can do that too. Well, yeah. I hope he says go away. It will be great to see you in the future, but seriously, just get yourself out of here. Yeah.
01:30:29
Speaker
Best. All right, good. Well, that being said, thanks for being on the show, guys. Brandon, I love you, man. Love you too, Tony. Clark, I'm so happy you made it to the 50th episode before actually getting fired. I'm here for it. We'll see what happens next week. 50 episodes, baby! Here comes 50 more! We're out!
01:30:53
Speaker
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. Branded can be found on Instagram as bmdub81. On Twitter, bdub81.
01:31:08
Speaker
On Untapped, B-Dub drinks beer. Tony can be found on Instagram and Untapped under Asafelp Chicago. On Twitter, TheAsafelpChicago. Clark can be found as Clarkhouseky 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.