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Episode 132 - Wisconsin Road Trip
115 Plays1 year ago
This week Brandon and Tony set out to Wisconsin for a bottle share. Along the way they stop at Phase Three Brewing Company in Lake Zurich IL and Mashtun Brewing in Lake Geneva, WI.
Beers on this episode:
New Glarus Brewing - Wisconsin Belgian
New Glarus Brewing - 30th Anniversary Quad
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Outro and music provided by @FluidMinds
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
Recommended
Transcript
Road Trip Tales: Wisconsin Adventure
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit about what we did up in Wisconsin after we left, uh, Mashdown? We made some bad decisions. This week, we take a road trip up to Wisconsin.
Episode Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
This is episode 132 of the Malting Hour.
00:00:13
Speaker
What's the haps on the hops, guys, 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, gotten to get a cab. The friends who 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.
Meet the Hosts
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to the Malting Hour. I am one of your hosts, Tony Willett, joined always with... Brandon Winningger. Brandon, happy Monday. Happy Monday indeed. Thank you everybody for being patient with us as our schedules are not very great. So we're recording this today when it should have been released. So happy Monday. One of the few times we did this. How you doing, Brandon? Good man, how are you?
00:01:05
Speaker
Pretty good. Like I was just saying, I think I developed a little cough, maybe. I don't know. I'm sneaking up, but I drank a lot of tea today, so I'm feeling pretty good. You've got what they call the Wisconsin hack.
Journey to Wisconsin: Bottle Share with Pat McKeown
00:01:16
Speaker
A classic Wisconsin hack, because that's where we were at this weekend. We drove up from Illinois up to Wisconsin for a fun bottle share with a friend of the show, Pat McKeown, which was awesome. And a few people that were on the episode two, was that the Bourbon-Connie blowout?
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, I believe so.
00:01:36
Speaker
and some people there. That was a lot of fun. But we decided while heading that way, heading up that way, we were going to make a
First Stop: Phase Three Brewing
00:01:47
Speaker
couple of stops. We ended up making two. And we'll go through the steps. Obviously right now we'll stop at the first stop. The first stop is a place that we've never, what a way to like, hey, we're gonna check in all these stops. The first stop is phase three in Lake Zurich. Brandon,
00:02:04
Speaker
I think we talked about this driving out there. Have you ever been to Lake Zurich before? No, I've never had a reason. Never had to be. Yeah, never had to be. It's a very.
00:02:13
Speaker
suburban town and where that facility is very industrial and very kind of weird. So now that you mentioned it though, now that I'm thinking back on it, there may have been a time, not that I was there to spend any time there, but it was either Lake Zurich or right near Lake Zurich. There was a time where there was a guy I knew that would work on my motorcycle. And at one time he literally came to the city to pick it up. I think he was near Lake Zurich. I don't know if he was in there, but kind of close by.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, no longer use him for motorcycle needs, but yeah, I think that would be the closest, but I've never spent any discernible amount of time there.
Phase Three Taproom Experience
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, that was my first time and it was my first time at phase three, not my first time having phase three beers or us having phase three beers, I think on the show. But you and I discussed plotting out spots and that was the first spot that I think you and I agreed on and we got a chance to go in there. And I will say this, it was weird because walking in, I really thought it was just like, I didn't,
00:03:20
Speaker
I didn't really, you know, think about, you know, is this the original spot or is this the newer spot? Because walking in, I'm like, wow, this is a really small taproom. Like, how do they get anybody in here ever? Because when you first walk in, it's basically like a tiny taproom.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, and it just kind of reminded me of, there's tons of people that I know that have sort of gone to phase three, especially out in Zurich. And I am remembering people talking about long lines and like bottle shares in the parking lot or something like that along those lines, just very, what to me would sound like, oh, it must not be that big of a place. So while you were shocked and I was like, oh man, it really is small here.
00:04:04
Speaker
I'm thinking like that was it. Yeah, and the only the only way that we actually knew hold on. I'm going to turn on the lamp that you've made me. There we go. The only reason why we knew that there was more to it was that I ordered whatever constant curvature curvature. I was going to say concentration curvature three, which came out back in 2020, which school they had that untapped because it was being poured over there and not in the main tap room. The other part of it walking in there was very funny because it got really quiet as soon as we walked in.
00:04:33
Speaker
And not only did it get quiet, but everybody turned and looked at us like it was like, what are you guys doing here? It's like they knew we were out of place. It's like, yeah, I felt like we walked into Cheers and they were expecting Norm and they got, you know, us two schlubs walking in with like, hey, hey, hey, dudes and dudettes. They got to have some beers.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's like they got Frazier and Niles. Yeah, it's like a Frazier and Niles, who was never on Cheers. But yeah, Frazier and Niles walked in. That is how it felt. But the staff itself was very cool. And we did call them out while we were looking at the menu. We were like, wow, got really quiet since we walked in. And that was kind of funny because everybody laughed.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, and it's kind of like you said, like the setup there is pretty nice. They do have beers that are in the back because, as Tony said, he ordered curvature that was being poured in the back when we walked in there and it was a very massive room.
00:05:33
Speaker
Um, when we, uh, when this episode's up, obviously, uh, I will be posting some of the pictures that I took, um, as well. So if you haven't been there, you kind of get an idea of just the sheer size. Um, it's not, it's not like, you know, if you picture like a large tap room, like,
00:05:52
Speaker
rev kedzie is is a massive tap you know for just being a taproom it's massive yeah but this is still like a really decent size and um it was kind of a relief i was like oh man i thought we were gonna be in these tables you know like up in the front which wouldn't have been bad but it was a whole it was whole separate vibe in the back i felt like
00:06:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, once we went down the hall, it was funny, because they kind of start to go, yeah, I go to the back room. And I was like, I don't know where that is. But we walked down the hall. And as soon as we walked in, it's giant, basically a giant barrel room with like a small pinball arcade to the left, not small, there's like six machines, kind of upset with myself, I didn't go play pinball while we were there. But
Exploring the Beers of Phase Three
00:06:34
Speaker
You know, we're only there for a couple of beers. Um, and it was, it was great because we, you, you found a barrel seat, like a two seats around a barrel, which was super cool. We got our beers and hung out there and took in the tunes and everything and kind of took in that whole experience in there. And it's, it's really awesome. I love, I loved it. I thought it was great.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I, when we were kind of off your comment, like, oh, when they were telling us where to go to walk in the back, the only thing I saw like when we're walking straight forward was a door that said employees only. And I'm like, I guess we got to go through that door. I was literally just about to just fall through that door. There we go. Nope.
00:07:15
Speaker
Uh, no, that was off to the right of that door. Uh, yeah. And it was like, it was, you know, a, a sweet broom. There's, there's, and like, because they're pouring beer back there, I think on busier days, probably, or maybe in the evenings, they have a bartender back there. I would assume that was because they do have a POS back there and everything like that. Um,
00:07:34
Speaker
But it was shockingly like we pulled in, it's in an industrial warehouse area, very attuned to microphone if you've been there and several other breweries. It was very unassuming. We didn't know what the building was from the outside, except Tony saw
00:07:53
Speaker
the bird in the window. And he's like, I'm pretty sure this is it. I did. I did see the bird. And then we saw a picnic table, like at the end of the building. And as we approached and there were some barrels, I'm like, I think we're in the right place.
00:08:07
Speaker
Based on the amount of cars that were there, there was a handful of cars, four or five maybe, but then the bar was pretty full and then there was a good amount of people in the back too, people playing some of the pinball machines and just a couple of people scattered around and sitting. If I didn't know, I probably would have driven right past it.
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, which is we almost did that. Had I not seen the I mean, maybe we would have noticed when it came to the benches, but yeah, not seeing the bird. I don't think we would have noticed so. But yeah, it's it's it's a cool spot. And so, yeah, I had curvature curvature curvature three from I want to say 2020 or 2019 somewhere around there. Very good. Brandon, you did two beers from them. Do you remember which ones you had? No.
00:09:01
Speaker
I probably should have said that ahead of time and be like, find out what those beers were. I will say this, uh, the curvature was great. It was, it was really, really good. Um, it was a good pour. I liked the glass that they came into. It was like this, like a small stemware for a five ounce pour and it made it look like there was a lot more in there. Like it wasn't like a big glass and they were just putting like a small pour into it. It was like, it made me feel like.
00:09:23
Speaker
I was drinking a good amount of it and also conserving how much I was drinking at a time because I did sip on it for a while. Very good. Great coconut flavor on it. Good barrel. It was really tasty. That was the second time I think I've had that. So I was really excited to see that on tap. And there were a couple other imperial stouts and, and, and barely stouts. And that was the thing that I noticed about them. There wasn't like this thing I noticed about phase three. A lot of it's like.
00:09:47
Speaker
double dry hopped, hazy, triple dry hopped, and then some fruited stuff and then some lagers and then the barrel age stouts and the taffy apple one. I was kind of bummed because I wanted, I did kind of want just like a straight up IPA. Like when we went up for the second beer, like I really just wanted a
00:10:09
Speaker
and IPA, but I was happy with what I got because I got their Polish-style pills, which was very refreshing and very tasty, and I want to find it again. Yeah, so I did know one of the beers I had, but I didn't know the name of the second one. I just wanted to confirm. So I had the Pixel Destiny. Yeah, that's a good one. And then the Double Pixel Daydream.
00:10:35
Speaker
Those are the first two that you had, right? Correct. The second one you had was a smoked lager. So was it Vienna lager? It was, yeah, but the P3 smoked Vienna style lager. There you go. Those are your three beers that you had.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, indeed. And it's funny because we've talked about smoked beers before. And I think both of us are very peculiar about smoked beers. And two years ago, maybe, I probably never would have sought it out. And if I would have sought on there, I would have been like, nah. But it's just so fucking interesting how the flavors work in there that when I did it, I'm like, this is
00:11:19
Speaker
When I had that one, I'm like, this one's fantastic. And then, pardon me, but getting into previous ones, as we started kind of exploring that style, it's just kind of shocking how well they're done and how well the smoke is present. And I've had some that are just way over smoked.
00:11:40
Speaker
But most of the breweries around here do it really well, like the smoked beer, the Roch beer style. I think we've got a really good representation here in the Chicagoland area. Yeah, I'd nail on the head there because I have had some like overly smoked beers and this beer in particular was really good. It was like a nice hint of smoke and you know there's a time and a place for like super smoky beers but
00:12:07
Speaker
when I'm trying
Overall Impressions of Phase Three
00:12:08
Speaker
to hang out and have, you know, a couple of beers, I don't want like, you know, like I'm drinking liquid smoke with every beer. I don't want that. And that did not have it. And like I said, that Bullish Pills was super delicious, crisp, clean, and the other two tasters that you had, I thought were really tasty as well.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think we made good choices for our first stop. Yeah, and they also had food there inside the facility, which we didn't get, but it did smell really good. It smelled like toasted hamburger buns throughout the entire place while we were there. That it did. That it did. Which is not a bad scent. That should be a candle. No. Toasted hamburger buns. Which is funny because that's the last thing you expect at a brewery.
00:12:58
Speaker
You know? Yeah, absolutely. I would expect, you know, it smells like malt or it smells like... Smells like they're brewing. Yeah, but no, it smelled like food. And that was nice.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was. It's a good spot. And, you know, I looked up Uber rides from the city to there, which is, it's not economical, but doesn't mean I won't go back. I did like it. I would like to go back and hang out there and have a few more, more beers and enjoy, maybe eat some food, enjoy the atmosphere. Cause it was cool. And I think they, we saw Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo as well.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, what we did, so that kind of goes to the point of like getting there, being economical. There is the new, well, new, but newer Elmhurst location, which is way easier for us to get to. Yeah, it's a bit closer to the city. So looking forward to trying that out as well. Well, there'll be another stop. Oh, and well, you can take the Metra out there and then it's- It's the way to really fly.
00:13:59
Speaker
Then it's like a 10 minute Uber ride. It's not terrible. No, actually it's kind of nice because then, you know, right on the Metro, you can have a beer too.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, just kind of looking at this, you would take the Metro to Barrington, roughly, and then go there. And while you're in Barrington, go check out Wild Onion or something over in Barrington. Yeah, you really could make like a day trip riding on the Metro going back and forth, or not going back and forth, but like heading out, you know, towards a destination at the end, and either hit up places on your way out there or heading back. Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, I was very happy with that, with that stop.
Roadside Snack Break: Casey's Stop
00:14:40
Speaker
And I'm glad we, we did it. Now that we jumped back into the car, heading onto our destination, we did stop at a Casey's because I was getting very hungry and not eating anything that day. I did grab a spicy chicken sandwich with pickles from Casey's, which I thought was pretty tasty. You gave it a four and a half out of 10. I did, which
00:15:00
Speaker
Doesn't sound good, but for like, you know, a gas station, spicy chicken sandwich, it was, it was solid. I put a little mayo on there too. I was hoping for their breakfast pizza slices, but we were way past, past it at that point. So I was not getting it. Brandon, what was our, well, you know what, before we get into the second stop, Brandon, what are you drinking
Wisconsin Brews: New Glarus Delights
00:15:17
Speaker
right now?
00:15:17
Speaker
Um, so currently I am drinking a beer that surprisingly is brewed in Wisconsin. Um, and I picked this, I picked this up. Um, last time I went to the same place we were going. Um, on my way back, I stopped and I grabbed some new glares and I got their, um, their 30th anniversary quadruple.
00:15:43
Speaker
And that was one of the beers that I got. And that is what I decided to crack open for this episode. It's my last one. How is it tasting? It's good.
00:15:56
Speaker
I don't want to say it's fallen off a little bit. It's a lot colder than the previous times I've had it. So I feel like that has something to do with it. As it's kind of warming up and I'm just slowly sipping on it, it's getting better, more of that dark candy kind of pulls through.
00:16:16
Speaker
I will go ahead and read what it says on the bottom of the can. It says, brewing for our Wisconsin friends since 1993 deserve celebration. This Belgian quad is a hearty combination of Czech, German, and American malted barley. Rich, luxurious raisin, vanilla, dried fruit, and dark chocolate. Notes pervade. Nugalarious estate in German.
00:16:37
Speaker
Diamant hops champion subtle notes. Sure, that sounds right. Belgian dark candy sugar pushes the original gravity to 24 degrees Play-Doh. Big words. Be warned, Dan's balance artistry conceals a 10.5% ADV. This is a
00:16:56
Speaker
voluminous we're ready to be savored tonight or lay down to celebrate a future occasion. Yes, and I do wish I would have saved one. Just had it somewhere and just kept it and see what happens but I'm kind of done saving beers all the time. I was gonna say like yeah you're kind of gonna reach a point where it's like you know what I'm not doing that anymore.
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I've got so much already saved and I started adding more to that mess. Maybe you should though. I mean, the fact that we went to a place, I brought a bunch of beer and still brought beer back. You know, a lot of, uh, there's a handful of Krampus that were there and I didn't know they were all there. I would have grabbed it and opened them up. That literally would have been like my night. Like, you know, for sure.
00:17:45
Speaker
But we'll get into that a little bit later. I cracked it. What do you rate that one, Brandon? How many anniversaries are you? Given this one, like four to five. Nice. I can go with that. Four to five, four and a half, roughly. It's good beer. Reckon tasty. I enjoy it.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, I ended up, you know, while up there in Wisconsin, always got to grab some nuclear spear. And I couldn't decide at first, because we were heading back and, you know, we stopped at a gas station, we're gonna grab some. And then you pointed out that in the cooler, there was Wisconsin, Belgium, red, and she said, excuse me, as soon as you said that, I was like, Oh, got to grab that. I'm pretty sure we've had this on
00:18:29
Speaker
episode before, but I'll read what it is. Wisconsin Bell is read from New Glares is a fruited beer, 4% ABV. This beer is brewed with whole mon-t-mer-ant, oh man, I can't pronounce that, cherries. Wisconsin farmed wheat and Belgian roasted barleys
00:18:48
Speaker
loggared in oak tanks and balance with holler to hops. We aged in our brewery one full year. Over a pound of Door County cherries in every bottle makes this beer uniquely Wisconsin. Expect this beer to be ruby red with a medium body that highly carbonated and intense with cherry flavor and bouquet. And I've said this before, this beer reminds me of cherry jelly ranchers and I really, really love it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I just did a quick search on our stuff. And this might be our problem for not listing. In our descriptions, we should list every mirror that we have in every description. I think the last time when you mentioned that, we started doing it since then. Yeah, we've gotten better at that. But from what I've searched, however, it has not been mentioned.
00:19:39
Speaker
Strawberry rhubarb has been on here, and then we did like pair 21, and then we did a whole new Glarus episode, and we did include the Belgian Red. That's insane to me that on the whole new Glarus episode, we did not include the spear, because I love the spear. It's one of my favorite beers from New Glarus. I mean, I think we did a good representation with Spotted Cow, two women. They're Berliner Apfel and Serendipity. Wow, we haven't even done Moon Man. Nope. No, and I like that better than Spotted Cow.
00:20:07
Speaker
I do too. We didn't do their, God, what is it, Longhorn or something. I forget what their Octoberfest beer is. Yeah. And then there's that new Bach that we saw. Yeah, we should have got that and split it. But I'm impressed by our restraint. So I actually, I bought the Belgian Red as well.
00:20:29
Speaker
Uh, because that is a beer that my wife enjoys. I thought you bought the raspberry tart. Nope. I ended up switching. I was like, nope, I'm going to go with the mouth. Ah, nice. You searched about me knowing. Bought the same thing. Uh, because I know Becca likes, I could have gotten the raspberry tart too, and she would have been just as happy, but I liked the Belgian red.
00:20:47
Speaker
I did too. Like I said, it tastes like cherry Gyranchers in liquid form. It's so delicious. I mean, it's like such a well done beer. It may like that. Having beers like this from New Glares is what makes me sad that they're not closer. But also makes really makes me want to go back.
00:21:07
Speaker
and be there again. Yeah, we both said that that's what we want to do. And we also said that, you know, just going up and going to Wisconsin to grab some more nuclear spear is in our cards for the future. Yeah, I mean, in reality, Wisconsin is not that far. Not at all. It's about as close as some of the southwest suburbs from where we live.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, and we've gone farther for dumber things, so. Absolutely, absolutely. You want to move on to the next brewery, stop that? Sure. All right, Brandon, where do we stop next?
Second Stop: Mesh Tun Brewing
00:21:44
Speaker
So we actually, and shout out to Tony for finding this, noticed a small little brewery in another industrial area in Lake Geneva called Mesh Tun Brewing.
00:21:58
Speaker
And that was, hands down, an amazing find. Not just because of
00:22:07
Speaker
the beers that we had. But we met the owners, Ricardo and his wife, and chatted with them a little bit. And I, you know, told them, Hey, we have a podcast, we like to talk about beer. Can I come back and take some pictures? And then like, he just told us his story. And it was just, it was so cool. And they've only been open for five and a half months. But that place, like they had steady business coming in the entire time we were there.
00:22:35
Speaker
Absolutely. It was family friendly as well. And as soon as I walked in, I was like, it smells like pizza. It turns out it's grilled cheese, baby. Yeah. So they specialize in delicious beers and probably equally as delicious grilled cheese that we did not get, but Tony, I think was remiss when we left and did not get a grilled cheese. So mad.
00:22:55
Speaker
It smelled so good. The description sounded awesome. I definitely want to make the trip up there to Lake Geneva to go there again because it was just so tasty. I'm willing to take the trip to go and do the actual interview. Oh yeah, agreed. We got Ricardo's card and we do plan on reaching out to them in the near future to schedule something because it's a good listen. I think it'll be a good listen and it's a good story.
00:23:26
Speaker
I don't want to blow the story. People can go, he's such a nice dude, he will talk to you and tell you his story. And maybe you want to hear it firsthand.
00:23:39
Speaker
So do go there. So like, this is your, this is your motivation to go there and get the story. Otherwise just wait, you know, hopefully with the next couple of months when the weather gets nicer again, maybe we'll make the trip back out there and spend, spend a little time with them to chat with them. Cause I would love to do it in person if we could, like that would be a fun one to do in person. Yeah, I agree 100% mainly because I just want to drink more of their beers because we did have a, we had more, well,
00:24:08
Speaker
I had more than there than I did at phase three. And super impressed because they had an amber three porters and that was the other thing that they had. I was like, wow, it's crazy that they had it, but like three different porters and a fucking amber ale is awesome because not many breweries will keep a porter on tap all the time or let alone an amber. And I know you got the amber and I had one of the porters and
00:24:37
Speaker
It was just really good. We also got some samples from stuff that was in tanks that Ricardo grabbed for us, for us to try. We also learned a little trick, a couple tricks too, that hopefully you and I can implement into some of our beers soon. But I want to talk about the first beer that I had, which was Lake Days Mosaic.
Mesh Tun's Beer Highlights
00:25:00
Speaker
That one was really, really tasty. I got it because it was a hazy with mosaic and
00:25:07
Speaker
the description of it. It's no real description of it. It's a New England hazy, but it has mosaic and lotus hops for dry hop. And I have heard of lotus hops. I don't know of any beers that have it, but the aroma on it was like pineapple. And it was so good. Like, I feel like that beer was a fucking game changer for me of
00:25:34
Speaker
I love mosaic hops, but that dry hop or that lotus hop just really just elevated that. I'm watching a lot of cooking shows, just really elevated that beer and took it to the next level. But it did. It made the experience of like, smelling the beer and drinking the beer being two separate things, but they work together. So it was really exciting to like, being able to, to experience that in one beer.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And so I ended up getting the Independence All-American IPA because I saw the name and I was like, oh, that sounds cool, but I've never had an All-American IPA. But it was... Oh, no, no, no. So I got the dry hopped American IPA. I was going to say, you got the dry hopped version of it.
00:26:19
Speaker
So it's basically a west coast IPA, and then they just dry hop it a little bit extra to kind of increase the aroma, which it definitely did. I don't know if he, I don't remember if he told me what the hops were in there. And if he did, I apologize, but I mean, it was very reminiscent of like a traditional west coast IPA. It didn't give me the like the vibe of like Pliny or anything. It gave me more of like,
00:26:48
Speaker
you know, stone brewing, like, you know, their early stuff or like some of the other small breweries that I've been to out in California that just do, you know, it's like these big IPAs. And it was fantastic. I enjoyed it and I probably drank it faster than I should have, but it was just, it was a really well done IPA. And I think that, you know, coming to IPAs, like if I have a choice,
00:27:16
Speaker
You know, I've talked about like how I don't always seek out hazies, but if you have like, you know, choices of hazies or West Coast, I would probably choose a West Coast first because I'm more familiar with them and I kind of know what to get. And even when they're done wrong or not good, they're still usually palatable and I've had some bad hazies. So it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, I've been there as well.
00:27:44
Speaker
You said I liked the mix of what they had and feel like it was like a one note type of brewery because I ended up after the lake days, I ended up moving on to I wanted to try God, I wish I could have tried all the porters, but I did the lake beast lurking in the deep porter. And that is hands down like
00:28:07
Speaker
a perfect representation of a porter. It's very light drinking. It's dark, but you can still kind of see through it. There's a roasty chocolatey-ness to it without it coming off as like a stout. And it was refreshing. And then that's what I want from a porter. I want like a roasty light bodied and crisp, refreshing beer. And that's what this was. I was really excited. And had we not,
00:28:34
Speaker
I had plans to move on to the next event. I think I would have had at least one or two more beers. Oh, yeah, totally. What was your your second beer was which one? I did the Campfire Amber Ale. That's right, which is also very tasty. Again, another style that a lot of breweries which understandable don't always have on tap because there's not a huge market these days for, you know, amber ales, but
00:28:59
Speaker
I love amber ales and brown ales. They're my favorite. And what's interesting about their campfire amber ales, it's just their descriptors for it is it basically finishes drinking around the fall campfire. And we've talked plenty enough about beers. Absolutely.
00:29:17
Speaker
and but their description like this one has kind of a more of a profile description than the other ones and it says crystal malt gives aromas a fresh baked biscuit or toasted bread and nutty caramel to this comforting drink around the campfire brew and that's exactly what it was it was super super super clean super easy drinking um i loved the the
00:29:40
Speaker
like the breadiness and the nuttiness kind of complimented each other. There was this caramel sweetness that kind of lingered through there. But very, very easy to drink and very, very pleasant. I'm not upset that I got that at all. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, you should be because it was a really tasty beer and amber beers are underrated and very, very tasty.
Trip Summary: Highlights and Fun Times
00:30:03
Speaker
So I look forward to when we can go back there. I mean, they had like
00:30:07
Speaker
12 or so like 14 different grilled cheese. I could be wrong between 12 and 14 for sure or 10 and 14 for sure. And they all sounded good and they looked good. We were sitting at the bar watching them being cooked and they just, God, I want to have grilled cheese this week and I will. Good. I will.
00:30:28
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit about what we did up in Wisconsin after we left Washington? We made some bad decisions. No, we didn't. Jesus. We have our great friend of the show, Pat McHugh, invited us to his annual Beersgiving event. And this year he decided to do it at his family's lake house up in Wisconsin. That's about as far as I'm going to go. It's in the middle of nowhere. Don't worry about it, creeps.
00:30:58
Speaker
Uh, and there was, ooh, I'm trying to like 10 of us, baby. There's a lot of us. There was a good amount of us. Uh, Tony and I got there at about two 30. Um, and I brought, um, I don't know, like.
00:31:15
Speaker
over 12 beers, I think. Yes. And Tony brought his three liter of Wootz out that he's been holding on to for a while. Oh, yeah. We were looking to enjoy more on that later. And we walked in and I was like, shit, I don't even know if I need to bring my beer out, like I probably could have left everything in the car. There was so much. Yes.
00:31:40
Speaker
And there was so much the next morning too. So yeah, we were responsible. We stayed the night. Tony and I shared a bunk. That's kind of like a bunk, like you were lower than me.
00:31:54
Speaker
Uh, and yeah, so we, we got there. Everybody brought, um, you know, pretty much everybody brought beers. Uh, a bunch of people brought different foods, snack stuff, which, you know, we brought some snack stuff as well. Um, it was kind of funny cause we were at Casey's and Tony was getting his chicken sandwich. I was like, I'm going to buy pizza rolls. Cause that sounds fantastic.
00:32:18
Speaker
And it did sound fantastic, and it still sounds fantastic. But we got there, and we got into drinking. And I did a terrible job of checking into stuff. But luckily, we have friends that are not as terrible. And I'm kind of literally looking through the list right now of all of the things that people checked in while we were out there. Yeah, I did my best to try and check in stuff, but I did not check in everything.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a couple of things. And the notable ones that I enjoyed are people checked in. But there was a plethora of beers. And I feel like in a lot of beer shares, all the nerds of beers can kind of get behind this. It kind of turns into a barrel-aged bottle share. And there was a lot of that, barrel-aged beers or stouts.
00:33:14
Speaker
But then like, there was a couple of like, I brought some IPAs and some other different stuff that kind of slipped in there and like we had those and those were fantastic. But yeah, a lot of big beers. Yeah, and like you said, some people did bring in like a handful of like, you know, a few palate cleansers, so to speak. Yeah, so anything notable that you drink,
00:33:40
Speaker
Yes, the most notable thing that I drank as I'm looking through my phone to pull it up was safe word mocha, which I'm sorry, barrel aged safe word mocha that comes from cerebral. Thank you. That was really good. That was my favorite one. I know that a couple other people chosen different.
00:34:08
Speaker
Not barely a beer, but an Imperial Stout that was, you know, inspired by like a Mexican hot cocoa. That seemed to be another, a lot of other people's favorite big beer for the night, but that one was really good. It reminded me of being back at GABF for the first time and having fellowship Azul.
00:34:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah, without like the heavy brownie batter, but the aroma was there. So that was my favorite. What about you, man? Was there a beer that stood out to you the most? I did enjoy that one. I enjoyed foreign exchanges into the wilderness.
00:34:44
Speaker
You were on your own on that one. Yeah. It wasn't like my favorite, but like, I didn't mind it. And here's when I liked it the best. It's when I had it the next day. That's why. I mean, it was breakfast time, which made more sense.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, and look, here's the thing with a lot of these beers too, like when you're doing these like all day drinking events, there's some fantastic beers that just get so lost to a palate being burnt out. Absolutely. I feel like that was one of them. And I do feel like it opened up a lot more like the next day because I poured a little of it, there was a little left and I was like,
00:35:24
Speaker
I have a rule, if it's a stout and it's above 10% and it sits out overnight, I'm like, it is fine the next day. I will totally drink some of it. And I did that with more than a few of those. Yeah, you actually had some of the double Brownie, double Bourbon County Brownie infused Bourbon County. That I did. It was very good. And there was the other one, I forget the name of it, the S'mores one. That's from Boulevard. Yes.
00:35:54
Speaker
That was also very tasty, which again, I was bummed because I didn't realize that the fireside Krampus was there just sitting there waiting for us to grab. That would have been a good side by side. I would have, you know what, I didn't grab any beers at all to open up except for the one that I brought. I let everybody else grab beers to open and that would have been one for sure had I seen it would have grabbed me like, let's try this one guys, it's really good.
00:36:18
Speaker
What was the other, there was another one that literally just popped in my head and then you were talking and then I lasted. Oh, it's one that I brought, but the Dreckers. Yes, that was really good. I was surprised at how much I liked that. Me too. I was 100% blown away. I was like, I was not expecting to like it to be honest. And I'm glad that we only opened one of them. So now I have three of them so we can have more.
00:36:46
Speaker
Good, because next time I come by, we're cracking one open.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was fantastic. I was really impressed with that. And a random side note, I was scrolling through, I've got untapped open up on my computer and my point of reference was going to Liz and seeing what she had checked into. It might notice that Miss Liz is currently as of 30 minutes ago at Mars Community Brewing. What the? And she has checked into the Pachki Stout. Oh man, we gotta get it again, baby. I know.
00:37:20
Speaker
I'm very jealous that she's doing that right now. And she's having it on draft. It was like, oh man. That's making me mad, madder than I ever have been before in my life. Well, that's awesome. Yeah, I was, I was, I was filing a lot of her check-ins as well to find out or just to make it easier. Yeah, there was, I mean, there was such a crazy mix of beers. You brought some hot butcher beers. Some people brought sour beers and IPAs, you know, to kind of like,
00:37:49
Speaker
palate cleanse as much as we were, we were having because all those big beers just after a while just these add up real fast. Yeah, I mean, like you, you can definitely get some flavor fatigue quicker than you want to. Drinking water always helps too. Yep. Agreed. Which I
00:38:10
Speaker
I did. Yeah, I think you won the award for most hydrated. More towards the end too. And I will also admit that I took like a 40 minute siesta. Like, yeah, it's pro move right there. And I did the literally I took my stuff up. I was making my bed because I was like,
00:38:31
Speaker
I do not want to be too fucked up to forget to do this. So I threw stuff on the bed and I was like, oh, my phone's dying. Let me plug that in real quick. And then I was, I looked at the time and it was like seven 20 or whatever. And I was like, this is normally the time we put the kid to bed who wasn't there. And I was like, I, um, usually end up falling asleep when he goes to bed.
00:38:52
Speaker
And I'm like, maybe that's why I'm so tired. So I was like, boom, I crashed out till like eight o'clock, came back down and rallied till like one, but also made the decision. Like I had like one or two more beers after that. And I was just like, I'm done. Like, um, I just physically, it wasn't that I was wasted because I wasn't. And it wasn't that I was like,
00:39:14
Speaker
that I couldn't drink anymore. Well, no, I think that's what it was. I wanted to drink more. I think my body was just telling me, like, no, dude, like you're full. You are full. You're done, dude. And that I was. So I bowed out, unfortunately. It was a good move. I continued to drink. I drank until about 2.30 and shut it down with Liz. Liz and I were the last ones there, so. Put it down.
00:39:38
Speaker
much much like in and by the way to hear some of these people or yeah to hear some of these people that we hung out with if you go all the way back to episode five bourbon county blowout part one uh some people were a part of that who we hung out with this weekend which was very cool um so there's some other there were some beers that we had that i was just like meh about um unfortunately one was from half acre
00:40:04
Speaker
It was the- Let's see, which one? Oh, you didn't like that one? It was just like, meh. Oh, I like that one. I like that one. I was very happy with it. But it was okay. And then I was kind of going back looking at other stuff. I'm sorry I have a shitty palette, Brandon. The barrel-aged Macadamics. Yeah, that was okay.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, that one was that one was all right. I wasn't saying that was bad, but I was like it was that one was like, okay, I'm trying to think of like anything else if there was anything that I had that I was just I don't think I don't really anything.
00:40:41
Speaker
Shout out to the beer we had from Sketchbook Brewing, the E-town Brown. Yeah, that was great. Yeah. I got to meet the gentleman who brewed that at Pat's wedding. So that was fantastic.
00:40:56
Speaker
Um, yeah. So Julie, who was at the party, did a really fantastic job of checking into almost everything. Oh, nice. Barely safe word. Did we talk about that? No, we didn't. Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah, that was the one that I loved. That was whatever. Oh, and the dude, the chocolate strawberry Yeti.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, that that surprised me. And I was told Jordan that I think it was Jordan I was talking to you about it. That's the last time I had that wasn't Jordan. The last time I had a yeti was the fucking gingerbread yeti that I did not like at GBF. Hmm. And I haven't had any sense in that one. That chocolate strawberry one was fantastic. So they did a really good job. It was really good. I really liked that one. I'm trying to think the only one. OK, so we did some infusions as well. Bourbon counties. Oh, that we did. And we cannot forget about that.
00:41:44
Speaker
The first one we did was a 2015 Burbank County, infected Burbank County. Stupid. With Reese's Puffs, if you follow us on Instagram and Facebook, you probably saw that. The only thing bad about that was that the Burbank County was off. It was infected, it was no good, but we've done, you know, we've done cereals before and that was good. I liked it though. I liked it. You weren't the only one. You were the only one. That was the only beer that I actually dumped.
00:42:08
Speaker
I couldn't do it. I did not like it. I couldn't lose it. You poured more. You were like, in your face, Tony. Look what I can do. And then the next one we did was these very strong, but like a year old coffee beans that were just insane. And I was saying- From Bora Bora. Yeah, I was saying you guys should have like fucking blended it up and crushed it up a little bit so we can impart more flavor, but we didn't. We let it sit for like 20 minutes and oh my God, the aroma and taste of the coffee in there was amazing. It was so good.
00:42:36
Speaker
That turned out way better than I would have expected. Absolutely. It was fantastic. Well, because then when Pat was like, oh, let's do coffee. And I was like, OK. In my head, I was thinking, is he going to brew a strong coffee? And then we're just going to do that? And he's like, no. We'll just do the beans. And then in my head, I was like, we're not grinding them. He's like, no. Do you have to? I was like, I'm not the best expert. Well, but for a French person, you normally do grind it. You firstly grind the coffee.
00:43:02
Speaker
I'm like, I'm not the fucking expert here. I was like, I'm just a resident drunk here at a party. Like, yeah, sure. Let's let's let's try it your way. And his way was not wrong. Not at all. What? Here's the thing, though, like, because they were older beans, I'm wondering that if we would have grounded ground them like if we would have gotten more off flavors and more bitterness.
00:43:25
Speaker
Then maybe that like green pepper type. Yeah, yeah. Maybe. Either way, it was good. Do you remember, I think the next one was the pumpkin spice. Oh yeah, pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice. So I was in charge of that one, which we found, we figured out like what are the ingredients for pumpkin spice. It was good. It was just very cinnamon heavy. It smelled more like pumpkin spice than it tasted like pumpkin spice. Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
Uh, then we did the Chinese five spice, which I was again, I finished it, but I was, I was, uh, in the, the, the lesser of the crowd where I did not like it. And most people, um, thought it was okay, which, you know, teach their own. Yeah. I took a, uh, a small little sip of it. It wasn't terrible, but I was like, man, I couldn't. It reminded me of Chinese barbecue pork sparrows.
00:44:19
Speaker
Which, and then I was like, oh man, we had some like good, you know, Chinese meat. I mean, that would be like the, like side by side that I would, that would have.
00:44:28
Speaker
taken that one, that one for me would have been like, oh, man, this is delicious. I really like this. Indeed. And the final one was that there were Bourbon County brownies that were baked, brownies baked with Bourbon County, that we took originally one, but then realized that two was better. And French pressed it, by the way, with the coffee beans as well.
00:44:50
Speaker
Right. That's right. That one was my favorite of the night. It was amazing. You can taste and smell the brownie and get a little bit of that coffee and it didn't cover up the Bourbon County. It might've been too much for some people, but I think overall that was for me the winner of the night for the French pressing of Bourbon counties.
00:45:07
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. And I had like a little bit the night of like that night, I tried a little bit and then the morning I tried it and it was like, there was still like a significant amount left. I was like, I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm like, holy shit, that was good. Yeah, I gave you props. We got up at nine in the morning and then you did like a couple of half tasters of some beers that were still sitting out. So way to go. No beer goes to waste. I mean, some of it did, but overall- A lot of it did.
00:45:35
Speaker
I mean, there were there was a couple other misses that I'm not really remembering, but like overall, it was a really nice like it was a fun time. It was a great time to try these beers and sample them and, you know, hang out with people and enjoy like that was a full like.
00:45:48
Speaker
basically a 12-hour day of drinking for most of us. I mean, if we're talking, Mrs., I think we have to mention the three liters of Woodstove. Unfortunately, did not hold up. It was bad. It wasn't terrible, but it was not good. No, it tasted oxidized. Yeah, I was kind of bummed out by that. But you know what? The experience of opening that up was fun. And thank you for that gift, Brandon. I appreciate it.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, great. Kind of an oxidized beer. Well, it probably may not have been at the time, but true. And also, I'm glad that there was enough people around to like just try some of it because dude, if we would have done it like we had said it so many times in the past, I'll just mean you will open it like like
00:46:34
Speaker
Like either we would have been stupid and forced ourselves to drink it. I think you and I would have forced ourselves to drink at least half of it. Oh yeah. But I gave myself like a full pour and I drank it. Yeah, I did too. Actually, I think you poured it for me. So I had a nice full pour, but it was fine. Yeah.
00:46:53
Speaker
But it's not the Wootstout that we love. No, not at all. And when Wootstout comes out, I'm always excited to give it a try. Yeah, so definitely not a knock at Wootstout at all. It's a fantastic beer. It's just that the way that, I don't know if it was just the way it was stored originally, because I know you kept it, you had it refrigerated too. Ever since you gave it to me, it's been in a refrigerator.
00:47:16
Speaker
Yeah. So like there's no way that like there could have been like terrible. Um, and like it even when you took it out of the fridge, it sat in the car, which it was like 30 degrees outside. As I say, I was pretty cold outside.
00:47:30
Speaker
So the stops we made along the way, like when we got it, we pulled it out of the car. It was still like chilled. Yeah. Um, it didn't warm up enough to like, fuck it up. Yeah. It should have been, it should have been like, at like the perfect temperature, roughly that you want to drink that at. And it just, it fell short. Unfortunately. Oh, well, you know, and that's how it goes sometimes. And that's why everybody drink those beers fresh.
00:47:53
Speaker
Indeed. Indeed. Well, Brandon, I think we covered this entire trip pretty well. I had a great time. Thank you for bringing me along. And Pat, thanks for having me and Brandon up there. It was so much fun. It was nice to be a part of a tradition that, you know, some friends do. I was a little bit of the outsider, but it was great. Oh, you ended up making yourself right at home, so that's like... It wasn't hard. It's not hard for me to myself.
00:48:18
Speaker
And like, it's like, all of those people are super cool. And oh, yeah, it's not it's not saying it's not me. It's it's them. I mean, I love the fact that as soon as I walked there, you know, even like phobab, Jordan started talking to me right away and Jordan started talking to me right away, you know, then on Saturday. So that was cool.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, Jordan, all super cool people. It's nice to hang out with people like Liz. We know Liz all the way back to high school days. She joined us at the plays at Quiggly and stuff like that. So I've known... She was commenting that being friendly and knowing somebody
00:48:56
Speaker
she's known me and, you know, and I think partially you as well, like longer than she's known Pat, even though she went to school with Pat, she wasn't really friendly with him until like after high school, I think. Sometimes that happens. Yeah. So it was like, that's my world.
00:49:16
Speaker
And then like, you know, there's just like this whole like universal, like she was friends with, she became friends with Patty McGrath from the play. You know, and Patty was, you know, like we, we grew up with that, you know, Nick grew up, but like all, we did all this youth group stuff with Patty in high school, like, yeah. So it's just, it's, it's fun like hanging out with her and like retelling stories and just, you know, like enjoying being with like pleasant people like that.
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there was a heated discussion over sandwiches and hot dogs. It's a hot dog sandwich. You guys tell us in the comments. Let us know. Do you think a hot dog is a sandwich? Yeah. I've been out with pits for a while. That was funny. Oh, no. You brought it to the podcast, man. Way to go. I don't know if she listens, but we'll find out.
00:50:09
Speaker
Let her know. Yeah. It was great. Hopefully, we will get that invite again. But that's kind of like an extended version of usually what happens on like the taco trolley that we do. Hey, and you know what? I'm signing up this year, baby. Oh, you're signed up. Thank you so much. I can't wait to go. I'm looking forward to eating plenty of tacos.
00:50:34
Speaker
And then a pinata at the end. Well, that sounds like a great time to spend a warm June evening. Yeah, dude, it's it's usually always I don't think we've ever had like a terrible time. Like the weather is always pretty much cooperated for us. I think hey man with me there, who knows? I could ruin everything for everybody. Thanks. Can't wait to not be invited to anything ever.
00:51:01
Speaker
All right, everybody. Thank you for giving us last week off and giving us some time to post this today, even though, you know, it's still technically Monday, but, you know, we're still planning a fifth anniversary episode sometime soon, but there's a lot going on. So a multi-minute year after the final portal will be for you next week. And then, you know, we should be able to start swinging back into a normal schedule. We got some
00:51:24
Speaker
doing some stuff lined up. So we appreciate everybody listening. And you continue listening, even if you're listening to it at 1.5 times speed, because you don't want to sit through the entire hour. Aw. That's all right. Thanks, Pat. You're not used to hearing my voice the way it is when we hung out. But I get it. I don't want to hear me talk this long, either. Brandon, I love you, buddy. Love you, too, man. And we'll see you everybody next week. Thanks for listening. Bye.
00:51:54
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 individually on social media. Brandon can be found on Instagram as bmdub81, on Twitter, bdub81, and on Untapped as bdubdrinksbeer. Tony can be found on Instagram and Untapped under Ace of Hope Chicago. On Twitter, The Ace of Hope Chicago. Clark can be found as Clarkowski on all three.
00:52:22
Speaker
Dan can be found on Instagram as hip underscore underscore hops and hip hops on YouTube. 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.