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After The Final Pour S5E10 - Phase Three - Bushell Of Apples
118 Plays4 years ago
This week Brandon and Tony drink the Phase Three and Affy Tapple collaboration "Bushell of Apples": A peanut, caramel and apple ale.
https://www.phasethreebrewing.com/
Thanks to Kevin and Deb Goggin for the theme song.
Outro music by Fluid Minds
Recommended
Transcript
Special Episode Introduction
00:00:30
Speaker
When life gives you an empty cup
00:00:45
Speaker
welcomes after the final pour, brought to you by The Malting Hour. I'm one of your hosts, Tony Golic, joined always with... Brandon Winninger. And that's it. Just us for this episode. It sounds like a special episode. It kind of gets played out. You can't really call it a special episode, whatever. Every episode is special to us. Yes. And to you, the listeners. It is special to you guys, right? Yep. Crickets? Of course it is. Anything? Nothing?
00:01:09
Speaker
All right, well, here we are in the full swing of fall here post Halloween. It is November 1st. And Brandon, what are we drinking today?
Beer Introduction: Afitapple by Phase 3 Brewing
00:01:22
Speaker
Today, we are drinking as you bring Aggie back into the fold.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, well, she needs a place to go. So we are drinking Afitapple by Phase 3 Brewing. Actually, no, actually, sorry. No, I think it's a bushel of apples by Phase 3 Brewing. It is their collaboration with Afitapple. Yes, it is.
00:01:41
Speaker
And they started this last year if I'm correct. Correct. They did. So last year was the first year I did not get my hands on any of it. This year they did a release on Osner. I purchased it on Osner and then a couple days later found it at Binnies and bought it at Binnies and still have not picked up my allocation from Osner.
00:02:05
Speaker
Because it's I got to go out to Lake Zurich and pick it up. Let me know when you want to go. I'll take a ride with you. I'm off Monday and Tuesday next week, so I might be going that way. Hey, maybe we got time on
Charitable Contribution Discussion
00:02:16
Speaker
Monday. We can take it today. Today's Monday. Yeah, we can go.
00:02:20
Speaker
Damn it, now you guys know this isn't recorded live. Yeah, I'm not thinking about it with you, maybe to face the race, you throw one. Yeah, this is the second time they're doing this, and I don't know if they did it the last time, but I was reading as we had to, oops, that's my phone vibrating, sorry, as we had, before we had technical difficulties with my audio,
00:02:42
Speaker
A dollar of every four pack goes to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which is super cool. But yeah, this is my second time having it this year, and I tried it once last year.
Tasting Notes on Afitapple
00:02:54
Speaker
Jeff's my neighbor, as you guys all know.
00:02:58
Speaker
His niece got a hold of some and last year when we were doing our beer tastings in the yard because of COVID, we had their table that was right next to my fence and little pouring individual cups everybody got and they poured it in individual glasses and we tried a whole bunch of beers during the fall. This was one of them. We'll say this. I like this year's, I don't know if they did something different,
00:03:23
Speaker
or maybe it's again, just my palette and my frame of mind or something. I like it better this year than I did last year. Last year I felt like I got too much, it was too sweet.
00:03:35
Speaker
So that's something that I heard resoundingly just watching kind of like comments coming in the beer groups on Facebook where people are saying that it's a lot less sweet than it had been last year. And again, I don't think I ever saw like kind of what they did or what they may have changed up. They may have done the exact same thing and just, you know,
00:03:56
Speaker
for whatever reason, it just came out a little like less sweet, but I haven't tried it yet. So I can't make a comment here
Brandon's Cider Brewing Process
00:04:02
Speaker
nor there. I will say, I was going to say the only thing I noticed right off the bat and I told you as I was pouring it is like I was just hitting the face with like a note of caramel.
00:04:11
Speaker
caramel, however you want to say it. But I got that right away. And I was like, Okay, all right. Yeah, I was not going to take a sip until we were about to record. But then when the audio issue happened, I took a sip, I changed my mind, I said, I'm gonna take a sip and now I'm in full swing. And before I say anything, Brandon, I want to know what your impressions are of this beer. Okay, just went in for a couple of sips.
00:04:41
Speaker
definitely getting caramel that's coming through like immensely. And I'm actually getting that like in the back I'm getting like this peanut note and it almost tastes like so it's an apple ale but it almost tastes like if this was an apple cider I would be like okay yeah this is totally an apple cider.
00:05:05
Speaker
But I think, you know, like it says on the can, it's an L with apple juice and natural flavor. So the apple juice really comes through. And for somebody who doesn't like beer or like the taste of beer, this I think would be a good compromise because you're getting sweet, you're getting, um,
00:05:27
Speaker
dare I say a little salty from the caramel and peanut? I don't know. I think it mellows out. That's probably mellowing out the sweetness, but this works really well together. I'm impressed. I like it. Yeah, last year I was kind of put off by it. Excuse me. I didn't really care for it last year. It was very- I don't know if you said that. Yeah, it was very sweet and the caramel was kind of, it kind of put me off a little bit, the taste of it. It just didn't, just something wasn't,
00:05:55
Speaker
working for me at that time. This time around, I think you're exactly right when you talk about the apple flavor, because it really does, it's apple juice that's in there. So it's kind of like, it's caramel apple juice that's carbonated. The caramel is still a bit rough for me. It might just be a type of flavor that I don't really like inside a beer like this, that may not, a stout, it's not bad.
00:06:25
Speaker
I will say this, I could and I will drink this entire beer. Last time I did not want to drink the entire beer. The one sample I had, I'm like, that's good. I don't need anything else. It's funny that we're having this because I just had the Bourbon County Carmilla again recently from 2020 and that has also held up very well. It's another caramel apple.
00:06:49
Speaker
beer. And that's a wheat wine. So that I mean, I haven't still have still have not tried it. Oh, baby. Plop days coming up. So here's what's interesting about this, though, is I'm wondering, like, you're talking about how you're not entirely sure about the caramel flavor and what
00:07:12
Speaker
strikes me about that is that's the only flavor that seemed it's not off-putting it's just it's a little dominating too much and when I was looking at recipes for my cider that I'm doing a lot of people were saying oh you know I want to put in brown sugar do this do that I was like reading you know threads and forums and stuff just kind of seeing like what other people have done
00:07:35
Speaker
And there was, it wasn't unanimous, but there was a lot of feedback from people saying like, the caramel puts, or the brown sugar, if you, like, cause I saw recipes where you basically make a caramel and then mix that in with the cider. And it was like, if you're doing that with brown sugar, it's just not a good mix. It takes away from the cider itself. So I'd been going back and forth, like if I'm actually gonna do brown sugar in my cider,
00:08:02
Speaker
But I think I have a solution that I'm going to do after fermentation. So we'll see. What's that solution? So my plan is I've got a bunch of those Saigon cinnamon sticks. I want to soak those in bourbon.
00:08:20
Speaker
I want to go big, like four sticks, four or five sticks in the bourbon. And I was thinking about mixing, you know, like a half a cup of brown sugar into the bourbon first, putting the sticks in there, letting it sit for like a day and then tossing that into the fermenter, you know, once fermentation is like completely done and letting that sit for a couple of days and then kegging.
00:08:48
Speaker
And then when I keg, my plan is to probably put two cinnamon sticks into the keg as well. Nice. Yeah, definitely. I might wait, I might try it first after it's carved. And if it seems like it needs it, then do it. If it doesn't, then golden. That's a good idea. I'd say that's a good approach. And also remember when you pour that brown sugar in there,
00:09:09
Speaker
you are gonna reactivate probably some fermentation. That's why I was gonna wait till primary fermentation is done. Smart. Yeah. And we were kind of talking about this too, like before we got into like talking about this beer, before we started recording was, so the cider I had been working on,
00:09:26
Speaker
I did five Camden tablets in there, crushed them up, threw them in there, and I waited 48 hours. And this, it was a Monday that I did it, opened it up, sprinkled in the yeast, mixed it in, closed it, and then let it sit for a day when I went in. I noticed it was like, it was going, but it wasn't going great. And then I realized I meant to put in yeast, yeast nutrient. So I went and grabbed some real quick.
00:09:56
Speaker
I didn't measure, I kind of eyeballed it. Well, I was gonna put in like six teaspoons, but I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna shake a little around the top, shake a little around the top. And then I actually had a teaspoon measuring, a little teaspoon measurer that I had sanitized and I just kind of like dipped it in. And it was already fermented. There was a nice krausen going on the top. So I closed it, let it sit and I was like, all right, it'll do its thing. The Wednesday I went and checked on it.
00:10:24
Speaker
there was no activity. And I was like, oh God, I literally just destroyed this thing. And I was like, did I shake it up enough? And I literally took it and I just kind of rocked it back and forth. And within like five minutes, it was like, I was like, oh God. And I had to blow off tube on the ready just in case. And I was like, oh my God, it's like going. And since then it's been steadily just like,
00:10:52
Speaker
bubbling like crazy. It's still going now. And I've got the room like at around 70 degrees and it's like consistently just kind of going right now. So I'm like, I'm just going to let it go until they're done. Hell yeah, man. That's exciting. I'm looking forward to trying that once it's all ready. And I think you're, you know, the approach that you're taking to it instead of, you know, if anybody has gone back and listened to how we've done the very cheap and easy way to do, you know, a hard cider is some good, a hundred percent, you know, pure apple juice, Pichamese, call it a day.
00:11:20
Speaker
What Brandon's doing is, you know, there's a bit more steps to it. He got fresh press cider from known brewing and, you know, he's, he's going the full, the full Monty on this baby. Pretty exciting. Uh, so I'm looking, I'm looking forward to it, dude. Yeah. And since I'm only doing a small amount of brown sugar, like I'm only going to probably do a half cup cup mixed in with some, uh, Buffalo trace, I will.
00:11:45
Speaker
likely when I get into kegging, I might back sweeten it again a little more. The primary thing that I saw people doing was taking like, just getting the frozen concentrate, letting that thaw and just dumping that in while you're kegging. So I might do that just to kind of up the sweetness. And I've heard it makes it a little less dry.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, so when I picked a yeast, I can see the yeast that I picked. I picked a yeast because I primarily did not want it to be a dry cider. I didn't want it to be overly dry. I wanted it to be like sweet and juicy and drinkable. And especially, you know, my original plan was like, I want to go for some apple cider flavors.
00:12:31
Speaker
or apple, sorry, apple pie flavors. But I, you know, I didn't get to that point. But I ended up using Red Star Premier, Cรดte des Blancs yeast. Read a couple quick reviews on it. And it just, it said like, you know, it didn't, the only description that wasn't in there that wasn't all the other ones was a dry cider. And I was like, it did not say dry cider. So I'm like, I'm gonna try that one. So. Nice process of elimination on that. Yeah.
00:13:00
Speaker
Pretty much. Well, that sounds good, man. Yeah, I'm excited for that. And it'll be a nice other thing to get from you when I say, hey, can you fill up the flip top you gave me or those other bottles? I want some more of that Oktoberfest. You still have my growler, too. Damn right I do.
00:13:21
Speaker
Circling back to this beer, I would be interested in like kind of having this with, I mean, I like Apple, I like Affy Tapples enough, but I can never do like a whole one. Like I've always just like, just give me a piece of one. Like, I would be curious to have a little bit of an Affy Tappel with this, see how that rolls. I am also like, I can have some. My wife and daughter on the other hand, they love them, man. They look forward to this time of year. I'm just kind of like,
00:13:51
Speaker
They're good. Don't get me wrong, caramel and apple, great combination.
00:13:55
Speaker
But if we do it ourselves and get some apples and just dip it in caramel, I'm like, yeah, I'll have a slice of apple and dip it in caramel and then just eat half of the apple without the caramel, to be honest. But, you know, growing up here in Chicago, the Affy Chapel being a very popular thing in schools at one point, and, you know, you can buy them, at least for, I don't know, at least in my school. I went to a good old fashioned Catholic grade school. And I remember we had that too, I think.
00:14:22
Speaker
You can buy them. You just buy individual ones. There's Taffy Apple Day, as they called it. Yes. So it's not just a thing that I did. Great. Taffy Apple Day was awesome. Now
Nostalgia and Beer Review
00:14:35
Speaker
I think it's just outlawed because of peanuts. Absolutely. Somebody may have an allergy. And again, I'm not knocking people with allergies. Nope.
00:14:44
Speaker
Probably smart that they did that, but. Yeah. Well, you know, whatever. It is what it is. I didn't. Yeah. I wasn't allergic. So I didn't die. Exactly. Thank God. We're going to anaphylactic shock. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Yeah. Overall, I do like this year's version of the beer. It is six percent. So, you know, it's something that I think is a good beer to share with people. Like you said, for someone who might be off put by just
00:15:14
Speaker
straight up beer, someone who might be interested in something that's more on the apple side, this definitely makes more sense for them to try. And like I said, it's it's a good beer, like crack open and share with like, you know, another person or two other people. And you get to enjoy, you know, all the the flavors and ones like even now as I'm drinking it, I'm finding myself wanting more of the apple overall, you know, I really am enjoying the apple like, um,
00:15:41
Speaker
It kind of, shit. Who am I thinking of here? I'm losing it. I'll just forget it. But I was trying to think of some other Apple beers that I've had in the past that I really liked.
00:15:56
Speaker
And it escapes me, it escapes me. This beer is knocking my brain out of whack right now. But yeah, this is good. This is good, I would say overall, you know, I like that it comes out this time of year and I am happy to, if I see it on the shelf, I'll probably buy it once a year. No seek out, not something I'm gonna go crazy over. But yeah, it's cool. And you know, a dollar from each four pack, that's a good cause. Chicago Food Depository, that's awesome.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it like you kind of you were saying it's not a like, and I think this is what happened last year was a lot of people were just hoarding it like people were buying multiple packs of it because you know, face three is a very popular brewery. I don't knock that but it just was such an awesome concept and people were just like, I need it. I need it. I need it. Yeah. And excuse me. It was a special I mean, it was special this year too. But
00:16:51
Speaker
With it being, you know, first time special released, it was kind of like everybody was all over it, trying to get it and hoarding it. I remember that the day that Jeff's niece went, it was the day it was released and it was, there just so happened to be like two four packs left and she grabbed one.
00:17:10
Speaker
So, you know, I think that's how we ended up doing it. And now I'm remembering, by the way, I looked it up what I can't believe that I wasn't it was on the news on the tip of my tongue. I can't believe that I didn't say it. But Ryan Geist does their beers with apple juice. And that kind of that's what it reminded me of. I had to look it up.
00:17:31
Speaker
you're untapped or would you look up i looked up ryan geist actually like it came to me and i was like it's them right the bubbles and zango those two were awesome there's oh yeah using those um i just speaking of uh ryan geist uh clark sent me a text today and we are we have we officially have our first beer for the christmas episode and it's a ryan geist uh christmas sale
00:17:57
Speaker
Don't say it. I mean, I said what it was. I did just say it, but it's right. It's Christmas beer. Oh, sorry. It's it's is that what it's called? It's Christmas beer. Let me see. This is probably talking about it. It's fine. It's fine. I'm on their website now. It is called Dad.
00:18:18
Speaker
It's called dead their hoppy holiday ale. So that's cool. I won't read anything else about it. It sounds like it's right up our alley, though. So I'm pretty excited about that. I'm already getting excited. You know, I'm this year's flying by. And it's crazy that we're we already did a pumpkin beer show. And we're drinking fall beers. And we're here drinking the affy tapel beer that I feel like I just had, you know, recently.
00:18:41
Speaker
from last year. And I am excited because we're getting close to our Christmas beer episode. Yeah. I feel like every time, I mean, every time we do like a fall episode, I'm like, we just did this. Yeah. And I'm like, no, we didn't just do this. It's like, it's been a year. And then the cycle starts on over again. Yep. But speaking of the cycle, when we went out, we lost our recording here.
00:19:11
Speaker
You
Goose Island's Prop Day and Anticipation
00:19:12
Speaker
and I had talked about Prop Day. Goose Island's Prop Day was coming up. The lottery came and went. And Brandon, unfortunately, did not win, but Clark. Nor did my wife. Nor did his wife. I don't know if Clark's wife entered. My wife did not enter. Not interested. Sorry, we just spent a lot of money on four bottles of prop.
00:19:35
Speaker
Anyway, that's the problem. It's like, you don't have a choice of like, if you're going to do it, like they just instantly charge you. It's like, you're in. Which I honestly forgot all about. I think I remember when I signed up, which was like a week ago or two weeks ago. I remember Clark was like, make sure your credit card information is up to date. And I didn't even put it together that that's what it was. I was like, oh yeah, I should make sure that if I win, I can go ahead and do it.
00:20:00
Speaker
And then I got the receipt, I was like, oh, that's right. It's getting charged right away. Yeah, but that's okay. So we'll, you know, we do our plop day. Last year, we did plop day kind of some videos. I took pictures and stuff, and I don't think we ever post, we didn't post all of them, but our Instagram has some of those on there. Yeah, I was going through the videos the other day, too, actually.
00:20:22
Speaker
did not post all those videos probably best that we didn't didn't do the full video on that and that's okay uh but this year you know we're we're thinking we're trying to figure out what we're going to do um i i said i would be happy to share one of the props you know with you guys and i also have
00:20:39
Speaker
two more years of props sitting around. So, you know, a couple years later, and I know Clark Scott, I don't know what Clark has sitting around. Clark's got something sitting around. He's got, he's got a bunch of random crap, but I think we'll maybe curate a bit better plot day this year. And I think maybe we'll record at least the prop 2021 to talk about. Yeah. And not do maybe not so much French press.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think we'll just drink regular, you know, what we got and enjoy it. And maybe we'll record, maybe we won't save us money too. Absolutely. I mean, if we end up over at Goose Island to start the day and you know, they got a bottle of double barrel, I'm down to split it with you guys this time. You know, that was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I drank it really fast. That's how good it was. And when you drink an 18% beer that fast, you feel it very fast.
00:21:32
Speaker
It was a good day. It was a good day. Thank you, Ice Cube. Yeah, man, I think that's it. I don't have anything else on this beer. I think it's good. If I was walking down this, if someone was walking down the street, Brandon, they're like, Hey, man, what do you
Final Thoughts and Beer Rating
00:21:46
Speaker
think of that? Happy Temple beer or that happy temple collaboration with phase three? What would you give it out of five?
00:21:53
Speaker
3.75. Oh, 3.75. Fantastic. You know what? I'm there with you. I would be between if I could go between 3.5 and 3.75. That's right. I'd land. Yeah, I like it.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. I like it. Yeah. And like, again, kind of going back to this, the whole looking at a rating system, it's it's very much a beer that I can drink. But this is is as much as I like it. It's kind of like a one and done. Yeah, I do one. And then I'm like, all right, I'll move on to the next one. Like I can I can see you. I can come back to it a day or two later. Yeah, great. Right. But it's a one and done. I was just saying I could see you like cracking this open.
00:22:35
Speaker
sometimes soon of like, you know, oh, hey, want to split this if we're sitting around the fire or something or as your wife tried it and she's not trying. She has not known. Do you think she'll like it?
00:22:46
Speaker
I don't know, I'm curious to find out. So I've got two more cans that I'm saving for her. I was thinking about having Laura try, but I was like, I get a little bit left, but yeah, we'll see. This will get lost. I think this will get lost on my wife, my wife. My wife. Yeah, man. That's it. That's all I got. Yeah, this is awesome. Yeah, this is great. Amen. I love you. Love you too, man. Bye, Aggie.
00:23:17
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.
00:23:32
Speaker
On Untapped, B-Dub drinks beer. Tony can be found on Instagram and Untapped under Asafelp Chicago. On Twitter, TheAsafelpChicago. Clark can be found as Clarkhouseki on all three. Be sure to subscribe, like, and rate the show on your preferred podcast listening platform. Until next time, cheers from all of us at The Malting Hour.