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Episode 49 - Rhinegeist
121 Plays4 years ago
On this episode we welcome Rhinegeist to Chicago by drinking some beers with Matt and Chris. We learn a bit of history, their plans for the future and what "turbo hopping" is all about.
https://rhinegeist.com/
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Milestone
00:00:00
Speaker
use biotransformation and primary hopping as part of the science of, you know, how these beers are brewed. And the sales guy, me and our owner, Bryant, call it turbo hopping. Our production team does not find it funny. Because we say, what happens when you just like, you're hopping, then you're primary hopping and then you're dry hopping. You're basically turbo hopping. On this episode, we're joined by Matt and Chris of Rhine Geist Brewing. This is episode 49 of The Molting Hour.
00:00:29
Speaker
What's the Haps on the Hops? Guy, use that speech 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 Gotten to get a cab, the friends you wish you had Join us for a drink, join us for a laugh Time is never wasted, way you're getting wasted The Molten Hour here, people, people taking places People, people taking places People, people taking places
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to The Malting Hour. We are so close to episode number 50. I can feel it. I can taste it. It's in the air. I can't believe we've made it. We've got a special episode for you this week. I am Tony Golic, one of the hosts of The Malting Hour, joined Always With.
00:01:14
Speaker
Brandon winning, too. And Clark, thankfully, is not here to ruin another episode. So we're just doing it old school. I mean, old school, I mean, it's just when it was me and Brandon, when it was better without Clark.
Rhine Geist Brewery Beginnings
00:01:26
Speaker
But we got a special show today where we're welcoming into Chicago, a brewery that has been around for a little bit. And Brandon, when did we get a chance to try their beers again? Remind me?
00:01:40
Speaker
So this was in the Great American Beer Festival in 2018. Seems like a lifetime ago, especially. Well, it's funny. It's it's it's two events ago. One event to go because it was only one last year was virtual. And we've talked about going back since. And we just we never made it. But we are super stoked and excited to introduce both Chris and Matt from Rhine Geist Brewery.
00:02:09
Speaker
I hope I'm saying it wrong. I don't think I'm saying it wrong. I think it's right. I think it's right. Right on. Yeah, let's say that one. Let them think. Chris, thanks a lot, guys, for joining us here today. This is exciting. Thanks for having us. Yeah, absolutely. So we got Chris and Matt from Rheinguist. Rheinguist is a brewery based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Sincey made, it says on the can. Sincey. Yeah, sincey made. Got to shorten it, baby.
00:02:37
Speaker
So I've done a lot of reading kind of on the background of. I thought you were gonna say on the back of the cans. I do a bunch of research on the back of this can. I'll just keep talking about his government warning and I don't know what that is Bob. These guys are legit. I am not pregnant so this is not for change to me. Yeah so but yeah so sorry I'm like kind of like cutting myself off.
00:03:00
Speaker
I kind of want to just kind of dive right into this. So you guys were gracious enough to kind of give us a couple of beers to sample. One of the beers
00:03:09
Speaker
that we've heard about. One of the first ones we saw in Chicago was the the Rhine guys truth. And when Matt dropped off beers today, the first thing he did was like, hold up. He's like, look what we got. And I was like, awesome. And then we got some other offerings from you guys, too, that I think we'll go ahead and we'll sample as well.
00:03:31
Speaker
But I just kind of want to just kind of diving into the brewery and your history with the brewery and kind of the process of coming into Chicago.
Roles and Expansion in the Midwest
00:03:40
Speaker
If either one of you guys want to start off talking about your history with the brewery and how you started with Rengeist. Chris was here first, so I'll give the seniority for the old time. Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. And then like that'll be it'll be a good transition. You can talk about Chicago.
00:04:01
Speaker
Um, yeah, so, um, I'm Chris and, uh, uh, I actually, so, uh, I moved to Cincinnati February, 2015, uh, kind of born and raised in North Carolina. Um,
00:04:22
Speaker
was working for a really small brewery down there that is no longer with us. Yeah. And it was, you know, the classic story. My wife got a job in a different place and moved up with her. And we were, you know, we were excited to check out a new place, a new town. Neither has ever been to Cincinnati when we went up for our visit. And
00:04:47
Speaker
We were like, all right, there's some cool vibes here. There's some cool stuff going on. And I did the classic, like, asked every person I knew in the beer industry if anybody knew anybody in Cincinnati or near Cincinnati that I could connect with. I think the only
00:05:11
Speaker
Like we got very little Ohio beer in North Carolina at the time. We got some Great Lakes, we got a little bit of Hoppin' Frog, but really like, I didn't know any of the Cincinnati breweries at all. And kind of through friends of friends, I had two connections to Rheingheist, which was like for at the time, less than 18 month old brewery, I was like, okay, like there's some buzz going on here.
00:05:39
Speaker
And so went in and sat down with Jim Matt, who was the founding head brewer and a couple of our, one of our owners was in town when I visited and just kind of sat down with them and was like, Hey, I'm a brewer. I'm moving to the area. This looks like a cool operation. Like, can you tell me more about it?
00:06:01
Speaker
and ended up joining on right as we were kind of putting in our new larger brew system, which is really very often for me. I went from a seven barrel direct fire system to a automated 60 barrel brown.
00:06:18
Speaker
I was like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. It's fine. Just flip that switch and good. You do it first, though. Yeah. I mean, like, I remember I was telling some of my friends back home, I was like, the seller at Rheinguist, the old one, the little one, filled at once. That was all the beer I made the previous year. It was like a thousand barrels. That was it. Oh, my God. And we're getting ready to fire up this huge brew house.
00:06:44
Speaker
So I came on, was brewing exclusively for like a couple of years. And then as Ryan guys continued to grow, we were kind of on this wild growth trajectory that, I mean, really was pretty nuts. And eventually we, you know, we were bringing more people onto the team, you know, expanding markets a little bit. And it got to the point where we wanted to do some more kind of education and bring on some,
00:07:15
Speaker
you know, keep everybody kind of informed on what was going on with our beer, even if they weren't able to be in the building all the time or connected to the brewers because we were growing. And that was some of the stuff I missed from being kind of like the only brewer at a small place where I wasn't even brewing every day. I'm doing events and I'm doing, you know, working with the rest of our staff and cross departmental stuff. So I just sort of started shifting into that role
00:07:42
Speaker
I always joked that I was always the brewer that got selected to be on the brewer panel for every event. You know, I was like, I've been at Rhyme Guys for four weeks, but sure, I'll be on the brewer panel.
00:07:55
Speaker
Talk about everything you know, like our setup. Yeah, but I was like, you know, but I enjoyed doing stuff like that. So that sort of led me into the sort of more public education role. And that's kind of what I'm
Quality Control and Beer Education
00:08:10
Speaker
doing now. Just celebrated six years with Ryan Guest, which is pretty cool. Congratulations. Awesome. Like two weeks ago.
00:08:17
Speaker
And then, yeah, so now I do, I'm not production brewing anymore, but I really work kind of as a liaison between like sales, marketing, and production. Kind of translating some of that language and making sure that everything makes sense. And also I work with some of our wholesalers. I work with obviously our sales team and our team.
00:08:42
Speaker
And then I do, like I do like our Instagram live sessions on- I saw it today. I saw it today. I hopped on and I said, there's no way that's the guy we're talking to today, right? We don't have good looking gentlemen on this show except for me. He's a TV superstar. Yeah. So yeah, I've been on Instagram a lot over the last year, feels like, but
00:09:09
Speaker
but yeah but that's that's like uh i think that's fun i like connecting with you know the people that are enjoying our beer and selling our beer and talking about our beer because that's what i like to do so it's sort of a strange role um you know there aren't a ton of breweries that have somebody in a
00:09:27
Speaker
education role. We didn't invent it, but there aren't a lot. If I start trying to reach out to my peers, it's tough. But there's a lot of breweries doing the same type of thing, just with a different setup. That's something that's been really fun, is learning how other breweries tackle some of these same problems.
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, I will say you kind of your comment about like you know breweries not having this education role. It was kind of funny when Matt was like you want to talk to our director of education who used to be a brewer.
00:10:03
Speaker
And I was like, education? What? And it's like, wait. What do you mean? But then I thought, I'm like, I mean, there's so much to know. And so my, personally, I come from, I don't have an education background for my full-time career, but I do do extensive training with clients like across the almost world at this point.
00:10:31
Speaker
Uh, but so I do a lot of work with, uh, adults and I have some, you know, adult learning certifications and all that stuff. So when I saw that, I was just like, that just makes perfect sense. Like that is something that, you know, breweries that are looking to expand, whether it's physically like your business or the locations or your product, like that's a smart thing to do because I have.
00:10:57
Speaker
You know, from, you know, a previous life, I used to work with some local bars in Chicago. We've talked about it extensively. I'm not going to go and do it again, but it's fishermen. It's fishermen's name of the bars. Yeah, it was fishermen's. Um, so I worked with them and like, just some people that would come in there that were selling the product that didn't know anything about the product and.
00:11:19
Speaker
didn't care to know about the product. And like, the problem is a lot of them come from the distributor and the distributor is not being educated at all. You know, they get like some pamphlets like, here's your new IPA. This one's hazy. And it's like, okay. And they come in, they're like, we got a hazy IPA. But yeah, so again, so just kind of going back to that whole having the education thing, I think that, you know, as silly as
00:11:45
Speaker
it may seem to some people it's smart because it's going to help you in the long run. It's going to help. Let's say it makes a difference just for me working at some of the, like you were saying, the bar. Like I worked a lot of festivals where I pour beer and me being a fan of beer, I happened to know a lot about the beers and the breweries themselves. So I ended up getting, I managed the beer tents, which I just basically is a nice way of me saying, I make sure everybody shows up and leaves on time.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then I drink throughout, which is a lot of fun. But I also love talking about the beers. I happen to know about the breweries as well. And, you know, that education goes a long way as far as people, you know, getting people's interest and creating almost a buzz about yourself. Just being able to say like, this is what we do. This is what we have. This is where we're from. Learn it and you'll love it. And good night, everybody. Matt, we didn't have time for you. I'll see you next time. Sorry, Matt Damon.
00:12:44
Speaker
Matt Damon, oh God, I gotta call my sister. Which is a great segue. So Matt, you actually were the person I got put in touch with first, just because you're local.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah. And you sell. Brian Guy's beer. So what's your, what's kind of your history? You made him sell like a drug dealer. You're local and you sell wink, wink. I already sell him. What are you holding, man? I'll give you the speed dating version. Cool. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area. Went to school in Manuka, Illinois, when you actually live in Chicago.
00:13:28
Speaker
That's like the deep South of Illinois. If you live in the area of that, you tell people you live in Chicago, and then if you run into somebody that lives in Chicago, they're like, what park? I'm in Wicker Park, where are you? And you're like, I'm in Manuka. Like, you don't live in Chicago. But I grew up, I went to school in Manuka, I grew up in the Joliet area. I live in Plainfield now. I bounced around in the Anheuser-Busch system for a long time. Ended up running the Midwest division of the high end
00:13:57
Speaker
for a while, working closely with the team over at Goose Island, looking for a change, found Ryan Geist shortly after Chris did, came in to run their sales organization. At the time, they were flirting with the idea of getting the 30,000 barrels at the ripe old age of
00:14:13
Speaker
two, three. When they brought me in, I was like, do you think we can get there? I think so. We weren't even in all of Ohio and we were in all of Kentucky and self-distributing Cincinnati, part of Dayton and Columbus aisle. We went over 31,000 barrels of change, which would have says the fastest growing brewery at the time to ever get to 30,000 barrels
00:14:40
Speaker
But I came in to kind of offer the team some stability and some experience. I'm pushing 40 and I've been in this since I literally graduated college, took my last final in a suit and tie, then went and interviewed at a local distributor for a route rep job. And like got the job the next week. I was like, okay, I guess I'm not going to practice.
00:15:02
Speaker
Visual arts anymore. Almost 20 years later, I'm still doing it. I'm impressed you had a suit and tie as a visual arts major. It was purchased at men's warehouse the day before. Was it returned the next day? Or was it rented? If you're renting a special men's warehouse...
00:15:25
Speaker
Also, who takes a final in a suit and tie?
Market Success and Flavor Profiles
00:15:28
Speaker
I took it from a suit and tie to go to the interview. Yeah. Immediately following. Touchรฉ. Touchรฉ. Follow me, Brandon. Let's go. Keep up. Yeah, it's been a fun ride since. I'm kind of the, as Chris is the conduit to a lot of departments that work close with our ownership and our leadership team. Sales and Ryan Geist is heavily involved in innovation,
00:15:53
Speaker
We have people that work on the sales team that work inside the production office. So like I have a sales logistic coordinator that works alongside our head brewer and our packaging director and our production director, and then breaks off with Chris and fills him in on what's going on, weekly production updates, what we're coming out with, with styles. And Chris writes all that up and makes sure my field team is in tune with the new beers that are coming out. We've got somebody in Pittsburgh.
00:16:20
Speaker
and they're not tasting a beer maybe before it gets wholesaler, but they're pre-selling it. Chris will film a five minute video, suck it out. Here's the tasty notes. Here's what it's all about. And he's being humble. He's trained up probably more sister owns arguably than any brewery in the country. He puts them through class, a very detailed, long three month program at least. And then puts them out to get certified. So. Cool. That's awesome. Yeah. We've been growing ever since.
00:16:47
Speaker
We take market expansion very seriously less is more, in our opinion. we're not in very many states and the states that we're in we don't cover the whole state. we're still not in all of indiana we're not in all of Pennsylvania we're not in.
00:17:04
Speaker
all the way we're in eight counties around Chicago land. If you look at the way we vote, apparently all of Illinois is probably the eight counties you cover. Staying out of this stuff. Staying out of this conversation. But yeah, I mean, we're a sales organization that loves beer and we
00:17:34
Speaker
to your point, we try and find great distributors to work with. We're with the Windy City Group in Chicago, and they're awesome. They're just awesome. They're all craft house, they care about the beer. But we also put a lot of my friends are with Windy City, so that's awesome. Yeah, they're good. They're good folks. And Bob Collins was flirting with us a long time ago and the team at Raya, so we're happy to be with them.
00:17:58
Speaker
But yeah, we hire people in market that we open up. So we have that physical presence. And that's the other map that dropped you up here. And we have a Chris and Taylor based out of here and myself. Typically I'm on the road quite a bit, but my family's from here. And after we spent some years in Cincinnati and we started being in seven states more and going to national account meetings that are based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, or Minnesota, or, you know, it was easier to fly out of Midway and bring my family a little closer to home.
00:18:28
Speaker
Chicago is very special to me, as now I sell beer where I live, which is awesome. Yes, it is very awesome. I basically live in Cincinnati, non-COVID, and Chicago. It's a dual residency, so it's nice to actually have my friends and family be able to experience the product without me having to haul it home in the Jeep on a five and a half hour road trip hoping it's not all beat up.
00:18:50
Speaker
Don't open this can right away. So I was like that you'd be like leaving leaving the brewery with a 50 pound piece of luggage. You just showed up yesterday like close. This is all just beer I'm bringing home.
00:19:08
Speaker
That should be a little easier now that we're in Chicago. Shut up. That's a good question too. So were you in Cincinnati when you kind of made that jump over to Ryan Geist? No, no, I was here. I moved down there to join this thing. Culture is important at Ryan Geist. I went down there and similar to Chris, I was my previous employer. I had been in the city and kind of was charmed by it.
00:19:37
Speaker
Cincinnati had this like resurgence and energy. And there's all these old buildings and beautiful hillsides. And the wreckage of all these old breweries from pre-prohibition still stood, but it was kind of a bad area. And every time we go there, people are like, you gotta go check out Ryan Guys. And I would, and I drink the beer, and I'd be like, oh man, it's good. And they're throwing like a weed, and they're in competition. But I'd be at beer festival, and I would stop by the Ryan Guys booth, and the people are always friendly. And when the opportunity came up,
00:20:06
Speaker
took it seriously and started talking to the owners, Bob and Bryant, and kind of fell in love with those two dudes because they are, everything that you read about them is genuine. They are very, very caring and loving people and are turning their brewery into an employee owned brewery later this year and giving it back to the employees. Very cool. They're awesome dudes. So I flew down for a very long interview. I got to the brewery at like 7am and they're like, just go in the back, man. There's like a staircase and there's an old couch. You'll see it. It's no big deal.
00:20:34
Speaker
The brewery is humongous, right? Just make sure you drink before we come talk to you. It's like 150,000 square feet old building from, you know, insane. And sure enough, there is this old couch and I just sit there like, there's just a brewer like on the overnight shift brewing for an interview. Then they had, they had the people that I would end up being my employees interview me in sets of two for 30 minutes at a time. So it was there all day.
00:21:03
Speaker
Whoa. What I didn't know is they were going and putting in both ownership. Like does he culturally fit? Can he work here too? We like him, but yeah. I think it was like, Oh, okay. The A's outweigh the nays and the rest is history. And I've been happy. That's a, that's a really interesting process. That's super cool. That's fun.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, and that's, so that was kind of my big thing too, is when I found out that you were local, I'm like, how's the local guy dealing with rind guys? But your story is pretty amazing. And so I had a question, I lost it for a second, so I'm hoping to get it back, but kind of like switching. So I have another one lined up. I had one that was like, oh, I'm an S and I was like, eh, I thought of another one.
00:21:51
Speaker
going back to Chris who used to be a brewer, how do you deal with, I don't know what I say deal with because you're not dealing with it, but you know what's your perception now of like not being in the brewery day to day and like the beer that comes out like do you have say on like quality control ever or do you just put yourself into quality control ever like you know what how do you feel about the role you have now versus what you know what's coming out of the brewery? Yeah I think
00:22:21
Speaker
I mean, and Matt brought it up and it really did starting with our founders. They would be the first ones to tell you like we're not brewers, right? Like we love beer, but we're not brewers. And Jim, who I mentioned earlier that we
00:22:38
Speaker
He was the original, you know, Brewer number one founding head brewer. He now runs our, he's our chief science officer. He's like runs our lab. And his background is he was a chemist for a lot of years. And so he's always had a really strong eye towards quality.
00:22:59
Speaker
even long before we had the capability to do a whole lot about it other than just tasting the beer. But we had a microscope basically right away and we have a really high functioning lab
Innovative Brewing Practices
00:23:19
Speaker
and sort of quality program. I mean, we run two chefs in our quality lab because with our production, we take it seriously enough that that's a big part of what we do. And as we've grown, that's become even more important because
00:23:39
Speaker
We kind of had every, all our systems were tested pretty heavily when we were doing that crazy growth. You know, Matt was talking about, you know, we did, I think the first year I was at Ryan Geist, we did like right around 10,000 barrels. And then the next year we did 31. And then the next year we did like 55.
00:23:57
Speaker
so I mean we're like adding 25,000 barrels a year for a couple years and so we had to be good and we had to take that stuff seriously because we couldn't afford to lose batches, we couldn't afford to have stuff have to come out of the market so we've always been very focused on
00:24:16
Speaker
you know, we were tasting everything every day and putting things into panels. We bring in outside beer and taste our beer against other beer in the market, just to see where we fit, to see kind of, you know, we do, it's a lot of, it's comparative tasting, right? That part of the job sounds incredibly difficult. Oh, those dudes have awesome jobs. Oh, okay. I was misunderstanding. Talking to Travis. I misunderstood. Yeah.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, and so we have a very robust lab. We have a couple people doing chemistry and micro work. We have Debbie is our quality manager. She's awesome and keeps everybody organized which at our production is
00:25:01
Speaker
I don't know how she does it. Our sensory guy is setting up panels every day, and we've had to adapt a lot of that through COVID. This beer is actually one of our quality samples that I brought home today from the brewery, and we use a program called Draft Lab for our sensory analysis.
00:25:25
Speaker
can plug in make sure we're on target for true to brand, but we're also doing you know we have a PCR machine and we run micro and run a spec and and running a lot of stuff to make sure that the beer is not only
00:25:42
Speaker
good in the sense of free from defect, but good as in like truth is truth. Because that's another thing that, you know, we really pride ourselves on is our consistency. And, you know, to actually answer the question you asked me,
00:26:02
Speaker
I try to plug myself into that stuff as much as I can. I've spent a long time in the industry and tasted a lot of beer in an evaluative fashion. I've done a lot of work with the Cesarone program. I've judged at some pretty big competitions.
00:26:24
Speaker
I like to think I kind of know what I'm talking about with tasting. And we have a whole team of people that fall into that category, which is a huge advantage for us because it's not just one palette that we have to trust. We have a whole team of people that kind of are there and ready to identify problems. And we've empowered our team.
00:26:48
Speaker
You know, Matt knows this. We've had stuff that was running on the can line and somebody from the, uh, the packaging team, you know, they do a taste test as well, just to like, Hey, you never know what's going to happen. And there's been times when it's like, Hey, this doesn't taste right. And we found issues with like rinse water, uh, you know, uh, not shutting off all the way or things like that. Um, and.
00:27:11
Speaker
And we empower them to like, hey, put a hold on this. Like, we'll look into it. Hopefully it's okay. But, you know, as much as it has been for a lot of years, like, oh my God, we have to get beer out the door.
00:27:27
Speaker
But it has to be Ryan Guy's beer, or it doesn't matter. You want it to be the best thing possible. That's really awesome to hear. Before we hopped on mic here, Brandon and I were telling you guys, there have been a handful of breweries that we've talked to. We've talked to a lot of breweries, actually, and a lot of brewers.
00:27:47
Speaker
and different people who do different things throughout the actual brewery itself. To hear the amount of detail you guys put into the quality of it alone, that
00:28:02
Speaker
That's something, you know, if you want to talk, people talk shit about, you know, Budweiser and Miller, they put out consistent products. It's consistency. It never changes. You know what I mean? Like, that is one of the things that you could say about them. And I think for any brewery in particular, that's something that matters a lot. And consumers might not maybe even think about that. Like, you know, oh, well, I'm buying this beer. I know what I'm getting. But the amount of detail and time and energy
00:28:28
Speaker
And blood sweat tears go into that. I mean, that's that's that's awesome. It's awesome to hear that perspective from someone at a brewery because I think a lot of people take that for granted as consumers. You know, we do take that for granted. And truth was the.
00:28:45
Speaker
Brandon talked about we went to the Great American Beer Fest. I don't remember what I drank from you guys. I know that I waited in the line to grab something. Brandon showed me the check-in of what we had. I possibly had that stuff as well. But I will say that Clark, the stupid other host who's not here,
00:29:04
Speaker
We love Clark. Clark who's not here. He was the, he grabbed the truth first and I said, okay, I mistakenly thought that we were doing our, this interview sooner. So I'm like, shit, I gotta go and get some. I gotta do my research real quick.
00:29:20
Speaker
This is truth. IPA has easily become something that, Brandon, I'm not going to speak for you. I believe that you'll probably agree with us, but Clark and I absolutely love this beer. He and I are big. We went balls to the wall in the haze, balls to the wall with a haze craze. We love hazy beers. We like New England IPAs. And then just recently, as December ended, we came to the beginning of this year, I was like, I need a break.
00:29:51
Speaker
I need a break from fucking hazy beers. And I still have some in my fridge, which are good. It was really nice to...
00:29:58
Speaker
have something like truth, because it is, it reminds me of why I got into craft beer, because, you know, all us craft beer nerds, we all start with IPAs, you go with IPA, most start with
Sour and Barrel-aged Programs
00:30:14
Speaker
IPAs, you love IPAs, and you want to get all the IBUs that you can, and how high can you get those IBUs in this beer, and you're just looking for IPA after IPA after IPA, and you forget.
00:30:24
Speaker
And IPA really can be something just very kind of refreshing. There's a crispness to it. It's not too sweet. It's actually, I don't find it very sweet at all, to be honest. I really like the balance, and people say you shouldn't use balance for describing beer, which I think is stupid. I like the balance of like the piney-ness and the citrus from the hops you guys use in this.
00:30:51
Speaker
Clark and I have agreed that this is definitely going to be a beer that will find its way in our fridge from here on out, just to be, you know, a beer that I constantly drink. So I know you guys just got in Chicago. Let's get the 12 packs. I don't want to buy all these six packs to work on the 12 packs like start buying those. No, but and yeah, that was just a good segue from what you were saying about the quality and what you're what you're saying is
00:31:17
Speaker
here gets it. Yeah. And what you're, what you're saying, like we were talking about the same exact thing. Again, like you said, we were talking about this before the show. I think this is 75 IBUs, but it doesn't drink like that. I was just going to say that it's got all the flavor and all the hoppiness, but none of that, like, you know, that they're touching me in the face. Yeah, it is. It is dangerously easy drinking at 7.2% too. Yeah. So like, um,
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, this beer is phenomenal. So just kind of go back to what we were talking about, how we first got introduced to Ryan Geiss. So the first beer, or maybe the only beer I checked in at Great Lakes, Great Lakes, the Great American Beer Festival was Roar. So I had Roar, I'll be honest with you guys. I gave it a 4.25 on untapped. I drank a lot.
00:32:16
Speaker
And it was in the mix, but I was like, this beer is awesome. And then like, I do remember distinctly, that's when I went and took the picture and I was like, how do I find this again? I was like, oh, it's Ohio only. I'm like, fuck this place. We walk around. And I'm like, but if I ever go to Ohio, they're on my list.
00:32:37
Speaker
Jesus. But we didn't, we actually, I think we went back like once or twice and we tried other things. There was only a point, there was a couple of various. I'm not going to point it for you. There was, there was, there was.
00:32:50
Speaker
There was only two breweries that we went, there's only a couple of breweries that we went back twice to. And I, I think you're right because Brandon, I think you went and got some. I went someplace else that was nearby because it was kind of like in an opening. There was like a, there was like to the back of- Yeah, we were right at the back of the building by the bathrooms and stuff. Yeah, and every time we went over there, I was just like, right. Did you guys go here? That's how we called it. We just had the end cap location. Yeah.
00:33:18
Speaker
It's like when you're walking, it's like when you're walking through Target and you're like, you find all the cool shit in the clearance aisle. It's like, this is what I want. This is where I want to be. I'm right here. I'm like, you guys were talking about that booth before we went live on the mic, but kind of a cool little story. We have an in-house woodworking team. Right. Guys, if nothing is cares about quality, as you know, from Chris, just opening Pandora's box, they're like emphatically cares about quality.
00:33:47
Speaker
Um, but also cares about entrepreneurialism and like having that attitude across all departments. So if we need something built at Ryan guys, we build it in house to the point that we got our, we have our own woodworking team department that just works around guys. We built that booth in house, fabricated it all ourselves. All right. We're put like four or five of us flew out and built it on site and then took it down.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like when we needed lumber, it was crazy. We didn't have cars and stuff, like to pack it back up. We'd like hitch rides to Home Depot and like dudes were just like helping us out. And we were lugging two by fours down the streets of Denver, like calling them up the convention. You know, a bunch of you in Ryan Guy's shirt, like five people in Ryan Guy's shirts, like carrying two by fours.
00:34:41
Speaker
Like, what is happening? That was one of my favorite events ever though, because I think there was a little bit of shock and awe to that setup. And we had quite a bit of variety of beer and a lot of people were like, we don't know who you are yet. Why is your line so long? Like,
00:34:57
Speaker
I think it's because of this thing we built and our beer is pretty good and people are coming back. So what can I tell you? I think that's exactly what stood out for us was that we noticed there was that, I mean, we'll, we'll put the picture up because Brandon has the picture that he, that's what he shared with me to remind me like, Oh right. That's who they are. That bad ass just fucking shrine that you guys
Turbo Hopping and Hazy IPAs
00:35:17
Speaker
built. Uh, it's so cool. And I think that that brought in a lot of people and you guys, there was a line when I remember waiting, uh, to get the beer and I'm like, well, it's gotta be good if there's a line, right?
00:35:27
Speaker
I think we were right, but I definitely think that structure definitely brought people in. That was pretty rad. That was a fun year, and Matt and I talked about it. Oh, you can't see us. Too much glare. Too much glare. Matt and I have talked about it. We were both at GABF that year. I don't know that I tried more than 10 other years. And there's a line. Because we were just...
00:35:53
Speaker
You know, we had this, we're like, oh, well, like one or two people in the booth at a time, it'll be no problem. And we just got slammed. And I mean, we were like, just like the session would start and then all of a sudden it'd be over and we'd be like,
00:36:08
Speaker
What happened? So tired and thirsty. All right, so this is kind of funny. I'm looking at my picture now, and it looks like Matt is possibly in my picture. I think I might've been pouring beer for you. I'm telling you. That's hilarious.
00:36:24
Speaker
When we're done with this, I'll email you guys this picture because I want you to I want to confirm confirmation if that's actually Matt in the background. Small world brother. That's awesome. That's not just an actor we hired to do this interview. Matt Damon.
00:36:50
Speaker
Sorry, couldn't make it today. So I actually I opened it while you guys were going there. I dipped off the camera real quick. I grabbed something else because I went through truth very quickly. I'm not going to lie. I drank that fast because it's like I said, it's delicious. And I.
00:37:07
Speaker
By the way, I also thank you again for the selection that you guys gave us. Right now, from what I know in Chicago that I can find or what I've seen on the shelves in Binnies has been Truth and the Rosรฉ. And my wife, Brand and I were talking about both our wives. We think they would enjoy that. So I decided instead of going with what would have been predictable, you guys also gave us a hazy beer. I went with Zango because I think Zango. Hey, look at you. Awesome.
00:37:32
Speaker
That just sounds awesome. An apple with ale, mango, and tangerine. Chris's favorite thing to talk about. Is that true? Is that true, Chris? Do you really like talking about it? I do because it's weird. It is weird. In a great way, I will say my first impression when I saw that combination, I really enjoy that fruit combination. I like both those fruits.
00:37:59
Speaker
I was like, I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel about it. I'm really shocked. Like in my head, after I had the first like two sips, I was like, I'd fucking had this in my fridge too. Why not? I'm not being facetious at all, Chris. Chris came over with that cider background and innovated our cider program. So Ryan guys makes beer, we make this fruit out, and then we make cider. Yeah, I just found out that. But the genesis of fruit out was cider. They were at one point all apple based fermentation.
00:38:28
Speaker
No, I was being serious. Chris enjoys talking about these, because he's kind of one of the early forefathers of this innovation in the brewery. Oh, sweet. Yeah. I made the mistake of when I started, Bryant, who's one of our co-founders previously mentioned, he's like the like dreamer, crazy idea guy. And we were like starting, they were like really interested in cider. And we were like at a meeting with the brewers, it was like, have I ever made cider before?
00:38:59
Speaker
And my idiot ass was like, you know, homemade, like, brewed, I poured apple juice into a carboy before. So can you develop cider for us? And I joke, but it actually was, I mean, it was super fun. And what a great way to connect it to, I mean, I was real and maybe six months into the company and like to be able to get an opportunity like that.
00:39:28
Speaker
was really, really pretty amazing. Tons of support, you know, everybody was into it. And so we started with cider and I always say like, these fruited ales are weird and they really wouldn't make sense if we weren't already making cider. The reason we started making these is we were making beer and we were making cider. And so we had all this apple juice and it was like, what if we,
00:39:58
Speaker
know like put these together and so the it's basically it's just like a co-ferment with a very simple malt base like Greenville and a bunch of apple juice and then we back sweetened with different other
00:40:18
Speaker
fruit juice. I gotta say, this is great. I was talking to Brandon recently. I've said it before in the show, I don't like blowing smoke up people's asses. So if I don't really like something, I'm not gonna say it. I'm not gonna say, hey, I don't like this. I'm actually gonna say I like it because you're on the show. I will talk about it here. I won't say I don't like it, but I'll talk about it. I will still talk about it.
00:40:42
Speaker
I fucking like this. I fucking love this. This is really, really good. I really enjoy the God. I'm I'm I'm kind of speechless because balance. Do you enjoy the balance of it? Shut your mouth. You shut your mouth. How dare you use that term against you? There is no balance in this. No, there is a man. No, it's yeah, actually, there is a balance.
00:41:09
Speaker
It's beer and cider and fruit juice. God, it is good, man. And it's, you know, it's a little colder tonight in Chicago. You know, we always talk about seasons when it comes to our beers. We should have a whole fucking section of an episode go to call, you know, what season would we drink this beer?
Rhine Geist Culture and Chicago Presence
00:41:27
Speaker
But this beer would definitely be good in warmer weather.
00:41:31
Speaker
but I'm loving it right now in my cold cold. Yeah. So actually that one, that one is like, it comes out like February, March, like it's, it's, it's the transition here. And I, to me, that's where it fits. Like I don't, once we get into summer, the next, like the next release in this series is pineapple and passion fruit. It's screams summer, right? I mean, it's like, yeah, that sounds amazing.
00:42:00
Speaker
And it's called Wowee. It's awesome. Wowee! So let's schedule that episode. But with Zango, I think Zango is probably my favorite one. Because of that, I love this time of year. I'm not like, I'm not a winter hater. I like the cold. But there's something about when you like, it's still kind of cold, it starts to break, you get the sun.
00:42:27
Speaker
Like to me, this is like the cold sunny day beer. But- That's a great, great description. But those flavors, they're bright and I mean, it's citrus and tropical, right? I mean, they work.
00:42:40
Speaker
They they work time. Perfect. You could drink this in the middle of summer. But to me, it like symbolize me like, you know, citrus is is like, all the like Cara Cara oranges are super good right now. Like blood oranges are right now. Like it's, it's that time of year for me. And that's what I love about Zango. And I think balance is a perfectly fine word. And
00:43:06
Speaker
I don't know if my like advanced Cicerone gives it a stamp of approval, but I think it can be misused. Yeah. But it doesn't mean it shouldn't be used. And like in Zango, I think there is balance. And actually in truth too, one of the things I talk a lot about truth is that it's not just bitter. It is bitter.
00:43:26
Speaker
there's more there you know yeah it's there's way more to that there's there's more character to it there's Vienna malt there's some cara red there's a little bit of rye in there like it and so that's why it doesn't melt your palate because yeah there's a lot of ibus there's a lot of bitterness there's a lot of hop character but there's malt too and not to say that you can't have the like
00:43:48
Speaker
you know, okay, this is like Pilsner malt and 650 IBUs of something, but that's a different beer. And that would not be in balance, right? So, you know, I think people mistake balance for even, and that's not the same thing. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I think that it's balanced for an IPA. It's going to be more hop, but
00:44:14
Speaker
It's not- Not in the sense even of anything like, oh, this is evenly as good as this, or this is all here. Yeah, that makes sense. Brandon, you wrote down what he said was in that beer, right? You're writing down the ingredients. Totally. I did mention a couple so we can brew this by ourselves now. Okay, great. We also recorded the entire thing, so. Wait, this is being recorded? Yeah, by the way, guys, surprise.
00:44:41
Speaker
Um, what's so what's funny about the, the Zango, like everything you guys said, I agree with, but when I first sipped it, my thing was.
00:44:50
Speaker
my wife would like this. And my wife, like she likes stouts and like things that are not happy, but she loves fruit and fruit and things and like fruit and beers, you know? And I took a sip and I was like, holy hell. This is well-balanced as far as the fruit goes. But it overpowered like anything that would be reminiscent of an ale, like it's just not there.
00:45:18
Speaker
you know, and the fruit just kind of like holds its own. And I was like, yeah, I don't know if like, and so Tony, I was gonna say I was like, Laura might like this, too. Your wife might like it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitively an owl, because it does have, I mean, it's a beer prop, right? It has decent, it has work in it, it is a beer. But the like the sales guy pitch on that stuff, what makes that different from other things you're tasting and trying is, in my opinion, is that, is that group non COVID that we sit in the room and
00:45:47
Speaker
that we call it our production meeting, but we bring real fruit straight from the vendor and we play with different concentrates of it for a year before it finds its way in there and different balance of it. And it's not essence, you know, it's, it's real fruit juice. And you could tell, you could definitely tell. Yeah. And it's, it's high quality fruit. And I think that I think you can taste the quality. It's one of the most expensive things we make in our portfolio.
00:46:16
Speaker
as a series of beers. When we were doing slangria, which is the winter one, pomegranate, blueberry, a little bit of lime, we were struggling to find the last ingredient in our head of production. Our director Cole came in with an eyedropper full of lime juice and literally dropped a drop of lime juice in each of our tasting glasses. I was like, try that. The citric acid just cuts right through that. It's a perfect one. It makes it like a cocktail.
00:46:46
Speaker
We all took really, that's it. It was like months and months and months to get there. I mean, we thought the group was there and then that happens and they're like, go. But yeah, we think we have something special there. That paired with Bubbles, which is our other through the Dell.
00:47:01
Speaker
I also want to say that the color, like it's nice and clear and the color almost comes off either as a hard cider or like a blonde ale. I mean, also in the dark. I'm also in a very dark basement. As people have listened to the show, I don't sit in the light. So Brandon, I almost called you Clark, sorry. Brandon, what are you getting on the color of this?
00:47:25
Speaker
No, same thing. It's definitely like a blonde ale. It's got like a slight golden hue to it. I would not have... Good descriptor. I would not have put it as like, you know, a fruited ale. Like I would have put it like, you know, a pal ale, like even like a light, you know, small time IPA, whatever.
00:47:48
Speaker
But man, dude, I love this beer. This is something I will drink all the time. No, I will say that there are a few things there. One, just so happens that Zango is the least wildly colored of these. Like Slangria that Matt was just talking about, it's purple.
00:48:07
Speaker
Sweet. Like it's not like a little bit it's purple. With a name like that you it's got to be that color though. I mean, I think you guys got some bubbles like it's pink. It is like, but it all comes down to what fruit is in it. Sure. You know, tangerine, mango, like they're orange, yellow color, they're beer colored. You started adding cranberry to stuff and you're going to get
00:48:35
Speaker
some different hues. I didn't think I was going to crack into that bubbles but I think I'm going to before we're done here. I'm plowing through. I told myself I was like one, two maybe. But after I mean, you guys, this was a full glass when we, you know, a little while ago, I'm going I'm going through this. No, these are these are super drinkable bubbles is a little bit higher.
00:48:57
Speaker
ABV, Zango is five, Bubbles is six two, a little bit higher acidity as well, just with that cranberry. It's a little bit higher acid balance, and there's more of that sort of like tartness from the cranberry that you don't get in, you know, tangerine is citrus, but it's very mild on the acidity for citrus fruit.
00:49:23
Speaker
which is why it works great in here, but... And then that, you know, Mango is just, you know, soft and bright and tropical. I love Mango. Mango is such a great... Everything. You don't like Mango. That's my dad. My dad is like Mango. What a weirdo. What a... Rog. You grew up in the house. He's also a Packers fan. What's wrong with him? Oh my gosh.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, Chris, I don't know if you could tell, I'm looking directly at your screen. Oh, I can tell. That's right. I gave him one of the beers this year and I'm a Packers fan. Go, Packers. That's actually really funny. I have a neighbor who's like two doors down. He's a Bears fan. Or maybe he literally gave up, I think, a week ago. And he was like, I think I'm just going to be a Packers fan and watch games with you. He didn't trade like that. That's not okay.
00:50:21
Speaker
Matt, I might have done that as well for this. I'm out too, but I used to work for the Bears. Okay. That makes more sense. Let's go with Cincinnati. Sure. That makes sense. Maybe I'll just become a Colts fan for a year.
00:50:39
Speaker
Hey, the Buffalo Bills fan base is tempting as well. I've been thinking about that if it wasn't such a long drive. Trading cold Chicago tailgate weather for Northern New York Buffalo tailgate weather. Hey, Trubisky is now the backup quarterback there. So if he gets a ring, fantastic. I'm all for it. I'm all for it. You could drink some truce in Buffalo tailgate weather.
00:51:01
Speaker
Welcome to the sporting hour. Don't move yourself on a tangent. Sorry, man. I got to get out something. The one episode Clark's not on, sports are being discussed. Amazing. I'm glad that worked out that way.
00:51:15
Speaker
Oh, God. Actually, so I piggybacking off the Zango real quick. Oh, great. Sorry, Brandon. You were going to say something. Yeah, I was going to take this in a completely different direction because we were talking about, you know, Zango being a seasonal beer. And one of the things that we saw when perusing the website
00:51:33
Speaker
And one of the things that we love is there is a barrel age program. So I was going to go cider. I was going to go cider, but go barely. Oh yeah. No, we'll go barely. Because the big question is, is a, let's talk about your barrel age program and be, when is that coming to Chicago? If it's coming to Chicago. Oh, look at that. There's a barely. I want to let Chris take this one, but I will say he just car will drive. He just sent me a note the other day that said,
00:52:02
Speaker
Outer reaches needs to be in Chicago soon, which is our sour program, which is run by the same two geniuses that run our barrel age program. And yeah, we are, we baby step our way into everything. It will come. If you ask for it, it shall come. Chicago is very, very much into the sours and very much into, I mean, barrel aged beers. We've been doing phobab for years. We've got some phobab metals that are some of our proudest
00:52:30
Speaker
accomplishments. Right. We mentioned Luke are the two dudes that run that program and that they are awesome. And Luke's an OG at Ryan guys, he's been around since the very beginning. And we think that those beers stand up anywhere against against a lot of stuff that's being made in the country. So in Ohio didn't have a lot of that happening. It does now there's a lot of great breweries making really great barrel age and sour beer, wild beer, but Chris is very
00:53:00
Speaker
affectionate about his sours and wilds. And I'll let him kind of talk about the program. Yeah, I mean, just that program in general, it's.
00:53:12
Speaker
Matt talked about Mitch and Luke. Matt, you'll appreciate this. I ran into Luke at the brewery today and I was there an extra half hour, but he was bringing samples up from the basement and saying, what do you think about this? I'm like, what is this magic? It's just two guys that are
00:53:35
Speaker
they work really well together and they kind of just focus, you know, that's all they do is they do our wild and sour program and they do our, we call it like fresh aging, like for like bourbon barrel. And we do it a little bit seasonally as far as when these things come out. They're making, I mean, as you guys know, like these are beers that take
00:54:00
Speaker
minimum six months to make. So they're kind of working on them all the time, but we focus our releases for the sort of traditional barrel age stuff starting in the fall, late summer, early fall through kind of the beginning part of the year. We just released probably the last one until fall. I'd have to double check, but I think that's for the barrel age stuff. And then
00:54:30
Speaker
over the next four, five, six months, more of the wild and sour stuff is gonna be coming out. And that's kind of how we balance those programs. But yeah, I mean, it's something that we, you know, when we come into a market, we like to hit with, you know, we don't wanna overwhelm
00:54:52
Speaker
both the market, our team, you know, our brand new team, our wholesalers are, you know, we try to stay focused with some of our core stuff that we really love, you know, the truth, the Zango, the bubbles, the cloud harvest. And then we can say, okay, well, we'll, you know, as some of these things start to come out, you know, we've built a little bit of a reputation. And that's what like Matt and I were talking about is I was like, okay,
00:55:19
Speaker
From what I've heard, it sounds like, you know, the Chicago launch, it's so far so good, been well-received. Now we can start saying, hey, here's some cool bear-like stuff we do. Here's some cool, you know, fooder sours, fruited sours that we do. If we just started with that, nobody, like, I don't know who we are. So we have to introduce ourselves first, and then we start doing the like, hey, one of these? You wanna try that? So,
00:55:48
Speaker
Chris is right. The one thing I want to add there is like, we would, we typically would bring a few of them. And we do these big events, and we bring out a ton of geisters, what we call our team, you know, right guys, the geisters will come out and we'll introduce these, these great beers that we're really prideful of. As we introduce ourselves to like the great on premise retailers and the and the and the fans of craft beer, they come out to these kinds of events. But with
00:56:18
Speaker
without the ability to really do that at scale under the current climate in the city. We just waited, man. We just waited. So like, we'll get there too. But there's a, there's something special about pouring those beers for the first time and being in the room with some of the brewers that made them or the people that have been around the brewery a long time that can story tell those things. Another barrel-aged booze bomb. Here's what makes this unique.
00:56:45
Speaker
And when you lose that message and you sprinkle in a couple cases and they end up at binnies and you find it on the shelf, that's nice. But like, we love the on-premise to introduce those too. And we're kind of waiting for that to happen. And unfortunately, when you launch in March, the tail end of COVID, the season's kind of changing too, but you'll probably see outer reaches.
00:57:05
Speaker
our wild and sour program before you'll see more barrel age. Hey, that's totally fine by me. And I know much many people in Chicago won't be upset about that either. We're big fans of barrel aged beers, but also sour beers. Chris, you had mentioned with Zango, it reminds you of the end of winter getting into those spring months. The last two years in a row without me realizing it,
00:57:35
Speaker
you know, here in Chicago, our barrel aged in drinking starts in October and ends in January. You know, there's so many, there's so many different barrel aged beers that you know, come through and and I did a dry issue January this time. But it's a good time for me to stop and reset my palate as well. And the first thing that I found myself brewing now two years in a row was a sour beer, I did a kettle sour. And it's the first beer that I come back to. And it's like the perfect
00:58:05
Speaker
way to start the year for me is having something a little tart and fruity. So, you know, that idea of Zango being that makes sense. And so like when you bring up like the sour beers, I've developed this, I didn't used to like sour beers. I just was not a huge fan and many people still don't really get it. Maybe it takes a long time to come around to it. But there are so many
00:58:30
Speaker
different types of sour beers out there to just say sour beer is so such a blanketed statement that I finally have realized that like, just because something says sour, I love that when there's a full description of what makes it sour and what they did with it, I'm way more interested. So I'm super excited about just getting the sour beers here. I'm super excited with this bubbles as well. So I'm gonna throw that there. How's that for a transition? Because I went for the third beer.
00:58:59
Speaker
Knowing that, I know that Bubbles and Truth, for sure, as I said this before, were available at the Binnies by me, are Zango, and what's the other one, Brandon? I know you just opened that, the hazy one. Yeah. Are those also available right now in Chicago? Or is that from the big retailers? It's pretty mixed up, but we're in most Juleos because you can find with a variety of product. Same with Mariano's.
00:59:26
Speaker
Binny's is those two right now. We're hoping to get more like everybody else in sales. Ask your local Binny's. Ask your local Binny's. We'll do it. Yeah, everybody do that. I'm going to do the same thing because I would love to be able to have the opportunity to get all. Well, I haven't tried the cloud beer. What is it called? Cloud harvest. Cloud harvest. Nice. Fluffy one. The hazy shit that I said I like, but I'm not drinking right now.
00:59:54
Speaker
You know, and so to that point, it's an unfiltered, juicy IPA, but it does not, I don't know, it doesn't drink like that. It's got that whole mouthfeel, that thickness, that imparted juiciness, but like,
01:00:11
Speaker
I don't know. This is like a better version. Like I don't drink this a lot. And I know we talked about this before too. Like I just, I don't get into this that much. Is that a big haze bro? Yeah. It sounds like I'm not a big haze person. It's just like, like if somebody tells me, oh, there's a new hazy IP, I'll go get it. I'm like,
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, I don't care. Whatever. Just give me something. This is delicious and easy drinking. And what is it clacking in there? 6.5%. Yeah. So we're in the same area, right? We kind of waited out the haze craze.
01:00:50
Speaker
And that's a really nice version of the way that story went down. We worked the science angle of it for a while and waited till we were absolutely ready for something that we loved and we're proud of and that we could drink and seasonally we mix up the hop variations and they're supposed to inspire you of like these tropical places where these hops are grown and transform you there. We use biotransformation and primary hopping as part of the
01:01:20
Speaker
science of, you know, how these beers are brewed and the sales guy, me and our owner Bryant call it turbo hopping. Our production team does not find it funny because we say, what happens when you're just like, you're hopping, then you're primary hopping and then you're dry hopping. You're basically turbo hopping. We're like, that's not what it's called. No one calls it that. There's no standard. I'm going to start saying turbo hopping when I make my easy IPAs. Yeah.
01:01:48
Speaker
I love it. I'll get somebody from like our social media guy or somebody will be like, can you explain turbo hopping to me again? And I'll be like, I don't know what it is. It's not a production word. Stand back, stand back, guys. We're about to turbo hop. Yeah.
01:02:12
Speaker
It needs to be balanced. We only do balance turbo happy over here, okay? Get away from the bro-con. Matt really told that story with a very polite deference to the production team that I'll add some color to because I was at the time part of it. There were a lot of us in production at the time
01:02:41
Speaker
of when the sort of hazy IPA discussions first started happening around Ryan Geist. And we were pretty hesitant. I always say, I spent my whole career trying to make beers that were clear. That, to me, was a symbol of quality.
01:03:05
Speaker
It was hard for me to understand and some of the other production team to understand, but why does it have to be hazy? And it took a while and it took some time and it took some tasting of some of these beers and trying them and understanding them a little bit better. And at least for me personally, stepping back and saying like, oh, it's not about it being hazy. At least it shouldn't be, I'll say.
01:03:33
Speaker
to Matt and the Bryant and like the sort of sales side, they were like, no, that's fine. We want these exciting flavors and we want these, like you brought up the mouth feel and the fruity aromas, like that's what we want. And we were like, oh, well, yeah, let's do that.
01:03:53
Speaker
So it was like this, but it really was like two years of like back and forth. Like we don't want to do it, but we do it anyway. But then, you know, and so we try something else. And it took, it took us a long time to really kind of dial in both, you know, a grain bill and process that we feel like gets you to a lot of the characteristics that
01:04:20
Speaker
to me drive what being a quote unquote hazy, like hazy is not a flavor descriptor, right? Thank you, thank you. We just did an episode a little while ago where I said, you know, I don't like that it's called a haze IPA or hazy IPA. Haze is not a flavor descriptor. It's visual and you know, you can taste things with your eyes and everything so that makes sense. When you see something hazy, you kind of get the idea of what you're drinking.
01:04:46
Speaker
but that's not the end all be all of that flavor. I have had- We intentionally left that descriptor off the can for that reason. That's why they- That was premeditated. Yeah. Yeah. We do- I think you two are like dangerously close, Chris and Tony, to having like the stepbrothers, that we just become best friends. Do you speak at best friends? Do you want to go to karate in his basement? I'm in my basement? Because you guys are synced up right now. Oh my God, look at that!
01:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, just a whole bunch of new sound effects I got to download. But no, but like, like, like Matt said, like we, we purposefully call cloud harvest, juicy unfiltered, because we're not focused on the haze, we're focused on
01:05:30
Speaker
The mouthfeel, you know, there's close to 30% wheat and oats in cloud harvest grain bilt. And then what we do, you may have noticed that's cloud harvest four. So that's the fourth kind of version. May we rotate through
01:05:47
Speaker
change up the hops, change up the yeast. And that's what brings the, it allows us to play around with different hop combinations. And the other thing that's maybe not as exciting to say, but it allows us to make, to use hops that we maybe couldn't get enough of to do one version year round, but we can do three months of it.
01:06:15
Speaker
So we can get some of these really exciting hops that maybe we can't bring in enough, you know, like Cloud Office 4 is Saburo, Galaxy, Cascade, and VicSecret. Oh, man, I wish, I'm not upset that I opened up Bubbles because I am really enjoying this. Ultra 4.
01:06:34
Speaker
It's going it's going for four people. I don't know. Maybe we'll see. But the cranberry apple and peach in here is very nice. The color is is is beautiful. I just want to get that out there real quick. But that that that hop combination didn't sound so so good. And I'm only just now finally coming around to actually liking Saburo hops because. Oh, really? That we really just said that I had a side. Well, and maybe it was my first
01:07:03
Speaker
beer that I had with Saburo hops, not throwing that brewery under the bus because I love them so much and their beers are really good. But that beer that I had, I messaged both Clark and Brandon. I said, have you guys had this beer with this hop? It's weird. And I don't mean weird in a good way. And I didn't really care for it, but I have had beers with Saburo in it since then. And, and, and, and I like it. I just feel like maybe it was just too much in that retreat new Brandon.
01:07:31
Speaker
Oh, it's all right. All right. All right. Which is a movie reference, bro. I had a fucking sound effect for that and I did not do it. Yeah.
01:07:48
Speaker
I'm not a huge coconut fan. And that, Sabro is a ton of coconut. And so if you love coconut, you probably love Sabro. And so for me- And I do, I do love coconut. But I feel like the coconut is just kind of at the edge here. It's not, it wasn't the first prominent thing. So
01:08:10
Speaker
and it's a big thing that I do with a lot of beards that I drink is I will drink it and then I'll read like the descriptors if there are any on the can unless I know about it or I read about it before getting in but like this was one I was just like yeah I'm gonna take a drink and I got
01:08:24
Speaker
flavors and I looked at the can and I was like I got a little peach and citrus and then I was like there was something that was indescribable to me and it was coconut and I was like that's what it was love you were missing you didn't realize it was coconut love no and that but that's that that plays into what I was saying is I think that Saburo just that hop is very coconut forward and I will say that I don't appreciate it like
01:08:51
Speaker
I've had a couple like single hop Saburo beers that for me personally, I don't love, but I really like having that element in a blend, like with multiple hops. Sure. And, but, but you know, Saburo is a, it's very popular. People, you know, love it. It's an awesome hop. We've played around with it a bunch.
01:09:14
Speaker
But the kids are going crazy for it. But I think it's great in that. And I always assume it's because I'm just not a huge fan of coconut. But I like it. I love it. And we've used it. You want some more of it. I love having it in there.
01:09:32
Speaker
Sorry, I couldn't miss the country song reference on that. Sorry. Yeah, I think I might be with you on that because like I said, I have had that that beer that I was saying I didn't enjoy. It was just Saburo. It was just that that's exactly what it was. It was a double dry hop Saburo beer and I just did not enjoy it at the time I had it. But I've had had beers that had Saburo in it. Welcome to the Saburo everybody that have had that hop in it and
01:10:00
Speaker
I have liked it, so I am really excited, because you said what else? Vic's Secret, Galaxy. And Cascade. Cascade. Cascade, one of my favorites. One of the old C's is the old Tamarind. Yeah, we do a decent amount of, at least not always, but like, we like to sort of mix in some of the, it's crazy to call them like classic hops at this point. They are, yeah, no, they are. I mean, you go back to the, you know, 80s.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, but it's but it's I mean, we love we use a ton of cascade. We like cascade a lot. Centennial is one of the major hops in truth. You know, just go through the seven C's, you know.
01:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, but I think that it's a nice tie-in to bring that little bit of... For people like us that have been drinking craft beer and IPA for a long time, there's a little hint of that nostalgia or these classic beers, but there's some of these new hops that bring these...
01:11:03
Speaker
Really wild. I mean, like Galaxy is wild and, you know, Sabro is like, there's so much happening in the hop breeding right now. There's all these crazy amazing flavors and getting to play around with those is super fun. It engages our production team. I think it's one of my favorite things about the Cloud Harvest series is that it's a series. It's the grain bill is relatively set and they get to play around with hops and yeast. And it's,
01:11:34
Speaker
And that's really fun for them, but they're all sort of bracketed by the style and the grain bill and the sort of framework of the beer. So that like, if you like one of the cloud harvest beers, you're probably gonna at least relatively enjoy all of them, but you're gonna have your favorite and that's really fun.
01:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, I like that idea. We just recently had Brickstone on the podcast and we collectively as a podcast do not care for milkshake IPAs, but they have one that is very good. And I learned on that episode that their milkshake IPA series changes fruit all the time. So that's awesome to hear because then it's not like, you know, I liked what we had,
01:12:23
Speaker
The I believe it was blueberry and pomegranate milkshake IPA. And it was just really, really nice. It was not too much of anything. It was very good. But to hear that you guys. Yeah. OK, you know what? I'm out of here. But I'm really this this I keep forgetting the name, the cloud, the cloud hazy, not hazy, not the cloud cloud harvest harvest.
01:12:46
Speaker
I wanted to say something else, the, the balanced cloud. That's what we'll call it. The cloud harvest. Uh, it's cool to hear that there's different variations of it. Like you said, you focus on different hops around different times of the year. So I am really excited. We normally do Friday features, uh, each week. And I think it's, I mean, Brandon, I'm just going to say we're going to feature these beers in general. Uh,
01:13:06
Speaker
But I am I'm not going to drink it tonight. But what I will do since this when this episode comes out, it will be the past. I will talk about it on Instagram about what I thought about it because I am looking forward to it. But I I got to work tomorrow. You know, I got real work tomorrow.
01:13:24
Speaker
Those darn real jobs. Yeah, because you guys don't have real jobs. Your jobs, from what you guys have told me, you guys take it very seriously. There's a lot of love and passion. And in fact, on the website, you know, you talked about, Matt, you talked about when you got hired, you know, about how much culture plays such a big role. I mean, it's a section on the webpage culture, you know, the culture of what
01:13:49
Speaker
Uh, Ryan guys, uh, is all about, and that's awesome. You guys really, um, it's not just about the beer. Um, it's more than that. And I really appreciate that. I really like it. And, um, it shows in what we've had tonight and just having the conversation with you guys, uh, about the brewery and the beers and where you guys came from.
01:14:10
Speaker
and how this all came together. I'm really excited that you guys are now here in Chicago. I'm able to go to the store and get it. I'm looking forward to what you guys have more. One thing that my cousin, Kevin, when I told him you guys were gonna be on, specifically my name, I was like, you know, Chris and Matt. I had shown him a picture one time, I'm like, dude, you got, when I first bought Truth, I'm like, you gotta have this, he goes, oh yeah, I remember,
01:14:40
Speaker
He used to go on tour with bands. He would tour all the time. And he said, I said, you know, I showed him a picture of what you guys dropped off to us today. And he's like, that's awesome. Tell them that I don't know if either one of you will get this. Tell them that I enjoyed many of their beers at Northside Yacht Club. Oh, yeah, we get that. Boom. So the Yacht Club is the jam. If you're in the north side of Cincinnati and you're looking for authentic Cincinnati craft beer, good ownership, good food, great wings.
01:15:10
Speaker
Northside Yacht Club. Yeah he said that he uh that's where he fell in love with you guys and so he's he's he's totally stoked he sent me a picture last weekend that he picked up some truth uh to to be drinking uh so he does he's been on the show he does our when we do our after the final four episodes he composed the music for it and does of our does all of our homebrew artwork
01:15:29
Speaker
Um, but, um, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's what I had to say for you guys. I thank you so much. Uh, Brandon, do you have any, any more, uh, things you wanted to throw at them before we do the whole like, Hey, tell us all this. I just don't know if you had any more questions. I know I had a ton, but.
01:15:54
Speaker
That being said, like, you know, this brings on a lot of questions and a lot of other things I want to know, but it
01:16:00
Speaker
leaves us to doing a part two. So I will save those questions because I totally know that we can do a part two because there's just so much we could talk about. I mean, we promised you guys like 45 minutes and we've been on for about an hour and a half now. So definitely been having a good time chatting.
01:16:22
Speaker
So thank you guys again so much for, you know, agreeing to do this and letting us just pick your brains and do all this kind of stuff. So it's been awesome. Just kind of drink it through these beers with you. What we didn't ask, and one of the things I kept trying to ask is what were you guys drinking? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you go.
01:16:43
Speaker
Truth. Matt was drinking truth. Chris was drinking truth and Zango. Tony went through- I was like, what are they drinking? I'm going to drink the same stuff. I know Chris got up when you saw Zango crack, then he was like, there's my opportunity. I have a question for you guys. Working my way through bubbles, by the way, guys.
Brewing Techniques and Future Collaborations
01:17:02
Speaker
You definitely worked your way through the spectrum, the flavor spectrum of Ryan Geist in an hour and a half. It's a good starter guide.
01:17:13
Speaker
First of all, Brandon, we'll definitely do part two. And we were talking off air about potentially like some collaborations and some stuff in the summer where we'll do some events. Let's hook up around that time. If you guys have an opening in June or something, bring some friends in and chat. And then Tony, you mentioned double dry hop. This is a point of debate amongst our brewery and I want your input here. Double dry hop means twice the amount of hops
01:17:43
Speaker
or dry hopped two separate times. Twice the amount of hops during dry hopping or dry hopped twice separately post-term addiction. To me, it is two separate times. That's what I thought double dry hop was. At least when I make mine, which is funny, as you ask that question, this is the second time that this conference call has paused for me. You said, double dry hop doesn't mean twice the hop.
01:18:10
Speaker
It's twice a half. You know what it means. So, Double Dry Hop, the idea for me that Double Dry Hop, it is...
01:18:21
Speaker
is it happens twice, once, right at, for me, when I rack into the bucket and I'm about to pitch the yeast, boom, that's when I first throw my first batch of dry hops in, and about three days later, I throw in more dry hops. That's my double dry hop. That's what I had read up on a little bit, that most, some home brewers were doing the same and got the most out of it, and that's what I did, okay? So get off my back, Matt. Was that the right answer? I know, there is no wrong answer.
01:18:49
Speaker
Shields, log it in the official journal. Boom. Done. That's how I interpret it. What I think Matt's referencing is we, and I think we brought it up earlier, we talk about primary hopping, which is, I don't think it's a term we made up, but for us, that's that really early in fermentation try hop. Yeah.
01:19:11
Speaker
Uh, we talk about it, like we started using it on the production side because it was like, Oh, has cloud harvest been dry hopped yet? Like, wait, which one? The, the first one or the sec, right? Like, so we talk about primary hopping is that early biotransformation heavy dry hop.
01:19:28
Speaker
I was going to say that's what turbo baby man. The second one is the, the, the other, the other dry hop. And that comes honestly, that comes from, uh, on production. It was confusing because we also in our, in our early days did some things where we would like dry hop a beer traditionally, like towards the end of fermentation and then do it again to like really boost the aroma, but both were sort of the traditional method.
01:19:57
Speaker
as opposed to that early in fermentation. So I'm one of the people pushing for like double dry app is just confusing. Yeah, it is. It is because I feel like there are some people who do it at two separate times, but also
01:20:12
Speaker
just a shit ton of hops. And you run into that problem with some beers where you drink it and you're like, why does my chest burn from this beer? That's weird. But man, I can't wait to start using turbo hopping from now on. All yours, bro. Thank you. My next New England IPA that I do, Run the Juice 5, now with turbo hopping.
01:20:38
Speaker
done. Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us for the first time. We welcome you to Chicago. We look forward to drinking your beers regularly. We look forward to hanging out with you guys again and talking with you guys again, hopefully face to face as it seems like things are slowly creeping towards that being a real possibility this year, whether it be in smaller
01:21:01
Speaker
you know, circles of people, that's fine, but hey, at least it's happening. Where can, do you guys want people to find you individually or do they just go to the webpage? Because we like to throw it out there if people like to be followed on the old internets. We're at RonGuys across the board on most of the social media platforms. We have a beer finder on there. You can find it on the website, find all the great locations. We're in Chicago. But yeah, distribution's expanding. You can find it right now at
01:21:31
Speaker
Jewel, Marianos, Binny's, great neighborhood retailers. The cops rocked for us and had a huge display up and sold through that thing in like three days. Check them out and visit them, but I don't want to leave anyone out. Anyone that's carrying our beers is, we're appreciative of it. And we thank you guys for your time as well.
01:21:50
Speaker
Right on. Yeah. So everybody, if you live in Chicago or the Illinois area, you know, the people who live in Brussels, who listened to this podcast, number one, thank you. Not quite yet, but everybody else who's out there, you know, ask for Ryan Geist, get their beer in your local liquor store. Brandon, I love you, man. Love you too, buddy. Clark, glad you're not here. Chris, Matt, pleasure to meet you guys. Thank you so much. And everybody listening. Thank you, guys.
01:22:19
Speaker
Cheers. We'll see you next time. Next episode's 50. We made it! Cheers, guys. Thanks for having us, guys. Congrats on 50. You can't play this song. We're getting sued again. Well, Japanese ain't always seen you once. This is right. I had to play this song.
01:22:51
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.
01:23:06
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 Clarkowski 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.